History of the Study of Magnetism
Because magnetic fields were not discovered until recently, the history of how they were discovered is quite interesting, and informative.
1.1 The Detection of Magnetic Fields
We begin by giving an empirical history of the development of electromagnetic theory. As stated, people had long known that magnetic fields existed, but the only known source of these fields were permanent magnets, and no link was made to electricity. In the early 1800's, Hans Christian Oersted began to make the connection between electricity and magnetism. Oersted did most of his…
