Direction Of The Magnetic Field
The direction of the magnetic field at a point, the direction of the arrowheads on the magnetic field lines, which is the direction that the “north pole” of the compass needle points, can be found from the current by the right-hand rule. If the right hand is wrapped around the wire so the thumb points in the direction of the current , the fingers will curl around the wire in the direction of the magnetic field.
Who Was Hans Christian Oersted
Hans Christian Oersted was born in 1777. He was the elder son of a Danish pharmacist, and from an early age, he had planned to follow his fathers profession of pharmacy. But he became captivated;by electrical studies in 1800, shortly after Voltas announcement of the battery.
The young Hans Oersted excelled as a student in languages, mathematics, and science. He was home-schooled, but he passed the entrance examinations and enrolled in the University of Copenhagen in 1794 at the young age of 17. He received degrees in both pharmacology and in Kantian philosophy, of all things. And he was, for a short time thereafter, a manager of a pharmacy. But eventually he turned his attention full time to science; that was his real love.
Learn more about the invention of the battery.
Oersteds Beginnings In The Study Of Electricity
While still in his 20s, Oersted secured visits to many of the famous laboratories in Europe, and he was able to learn the types;of research that was going on there. He also was able to gain entrance to these laboratories and gain respect because he himself invented an improved compact battery, a battery that was quite powerful, but small and portable.
He returned to Denmark in 1804, and turned to public lecturing, where he did scientific demonstrations for the public on electrical phenomena. He was so successful and popular that he was given a professorship almost by demand at the University of Copenhagen;in 1806 because he was so good at bringing science to the public.
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Oersteds Chemistry And The Isolation Of Aluminum
Although a professor of physics, Oersted, with his pharmacological background, was drawn to chemistry.
At first he rejected Antoine Lavoisiers concept of using the chemical elements as a means of rationalizing and understanding chemistry. Oersted wanted something more in harmony with the everything should be governed by a single law of nature ideas of Friedrich Schelling.
He also sought to anchor chemistry in the ideas of philosopher Immanuel Kant, whose work he had studied enthusiastically for his doctoral thesis. Kant believed matter could be divided infinitely and that all matter was constructed from two fundamental, opposing forces, which were in equilibrium with one another.
For a time this led the young Professor Oersted to promote the fanciful theories of the Hungarian chemist Jakob Joseph Winterl, who believed all of chemistry could be understood by the opposing forces of two substances Andronia and Thelycke . Winterl believed these substances were more fundamental than the elements.
Materialen zu einer Chemie des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, 1803
However, Andronia and Thelycke turned out not to exist.
After abandoning his adherence to Winterls ideas, Oersted made a number of important contributions to chemistry.
In 1819, he discovered piperine, the chemical compound responsible for the strong, sharp flavor of black pepper.
His most significant contribution was the first ever isolation of the element aluminum. In 1825 he reported:
Professor Oersted The Educator

After he returned from his travels, the Danish government funded Oersted to continue his research work. In 1806, age 29, he became a professor of physics at the University of Copenhagen. He was an excellent lecturer and students flocked to his classes. Sometimes he lectured for as many as five hours a day a very heavy load. In addition to lecturing he established physics and chemistry laboratories for research and teaching.
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Hans Christian Oersted : Pioneer Of Electromagnetism
Hans Christian Oersted , was a Danish physicist and chemist who lived from August 14, 1777 March 9, 1851. He is well known for discovering that an electric current can create a magnetic field.
Hans Christian Oersted Image Courtesy of Wikipedia.org;
Oersted was born in Rudkøbing. His interest in the field of science was developed while he worked in his fathers pharmacy. Although he only received his education at home, he excelled academically when he went to the University of Copenhagen with his brother, Anders Sandøe Ørsted. During his stay at the university, he was awarded for his works in physics and aesthetics.
Thanks to a scholarship grant, Oersted was able to travel for three years across Europe. When he was in Germany, he got to know physicist Johann Wilhelm Ritter who believed in the connection between electric currents and magnets. This idea made sense to Oersted because his dissertation, The Architectonics of Natural Metaphysics, was based on the works of Immanuel Kant. Kant believed in the unity of nature and the relationships between natural phenomena.
The meeting between Oersted and Ritter sparked the formers interest in;pursuing the study of physics even further. He continued his research on electric currents and acoustics while he was a professor at the University of Copenhagen back in 1806. His works prompted the University to develop a comprehensive program for the study of physics and chemistry including the development of new laboratories.
How Did Hans Christian Oersted Contribute To Science
In the early 1800s, electricity was still a fledgling science. It was known that an electric field could be produced, but it wasnt well understood. Scientists, including Oersted, were still investigating the link between electricity and the heat and glow that were produced when an electric current was sent through a wire.
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The Unit Oersted And Their Derivation In Physics
The actually better known unit Tesla does not serve – as often erroneously assumed – the measurement of a magnetic field, but the magnetic flux density . In a vacuum, a magnetic flux density of one Tesla corresponds to a magnetic field of 10,000 Oersteds. Thus, a magnetic field from an oersted would be pretty weak.
As a measure or unit for the magnetic field strength Oersted is defined in the cgs system. This system consists of the physical base units gram , centimeter , second , candela, mol, and kelvin and ampere . This system is rarely used today:
The reason is the generally accepted SI system. In this, the base unit is not grams and centimeters but kilograms and meters . The magnetic field strength is measured in the SI system not with Oersted, but in A / m. Unfortunately; an oersted in the SI system cannot be converted smoothly. By definition, a magnetic flux density of 0.1 mT corresponds to a magnetic field of one oersted .
The unit Tesla, however, is a SI unit. It is used to give the magnetic field H, which is calculated from the magnetic flux density B and the magnetic permeability in vacuum:
measure A / m comes about through this permeability constant:
An oersted is therefore 79.577 A / m or
In literature, sometimes the unit Tesla is the measure of the strength of a magnetic field. However, this is not true, since Tesla or Gauss describe the magnetic flux density. The magnetic field is given by the unit Oersted, or amperes per meter.
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Charles Francois Du Fay
superintendent of the gardens of the King of France, discovered that rubbing two different objects together produced two types of electric charge. He adhered to the view that matter contained two types of fluid, normally in exact balance; when two bodies were rubbed together, however, this balance was disturbed, and each body acquired an excess of one or the other type of fluid.
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He Found The First Polytechnic Of Denmark
In 1824, Oersted found the Society for the Dissemination of Natural Science, an organization dedicated to making science accessible to the public. The society still remains active and presents the H. C. Oersted Medal for scientific achievement. In 1829, Oersted also founded the College of Advanced Technology in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was Denmarks first polytechnic. Today known as the Technical University of Denmark, it is ranked among Europes leading engineering institutions.
Vector Form Of The Law
The above rules can be generalized to give the modern vector form of Ørsted’s law
The line integral of the magnetic field B
Ørsted’s law only holds for steady currents, which don’t change with time. Therefore, it only holds for DC electric circuits, with no capacitors or inductors. It can be seen that it fails for time varying currents by considering the case of a circuit consisting of a battery charging a capacitor through a resistor. It can be verified experimentally that the current in this circuit creates a magnetic field, yet any closed curve encircling the conductor can be spanned by a surface passing between the capacitor plates, through which no current passes, from which the equation would give zero magnetic field. Ørsted’s law was modified by Maxwell to cover the case of time-varying currents by adding a new source term called displacement current, giving the AmpereMaxwell equation.
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Oersted Was The First Chemist To Isolate Aluminum
Aluminum is one of the most plentiful elements on earth. However, it is always combined with other elements. Many chemist thought that aluminum existed and there were numerous attempts to uncover it. However, it was Hans Oersted who became the first person to isolate aluminum in 1825. He reacted aluminum chloride with potassium amalgam . He then heated the resulting mixture under reduced pressure. This caused the mercury to boil away leaving behind an impure sample of aluminum metal. The isolation of aluminum is regarded as the most significant contribution of Oersted to chemistry.
Early Life And Studies

Ørsted was born in Rudkøbing in 1777. As a young boy he developed an interest in science while working for his father, who owned the local pharmacy. He and his brother Anders received most of their early education through self-study at home, going to Copenhagen in 1793 to take entrance exams for the University of Copenhagen, where both brothers excelled academically. By 1796, Ørsted had been awarded honors for his papers in both aesthetics and physics. He earned his doctorate in 1799 for a dissertation based on the works of Kant entitled The Architectonics of Natural Metaphysics.
In 1800, Alessandro Volta reported his invention of the voltaic pile, which inspired Ørsted to investigate the nature of electricity and to conduct his first electrical experiments. In 1801, Ørsted received a travel scholarship and public grant which enabled him to spend three years traveling across Europe. He toured science headquarters throughout the continent, including in Berlin and Paris.
Ørsted welcomed William Christopher Zeise to his family home in autumn 1806. He granted Zeise a position as his lecturing assistant and took the young chemist under his tutelage. In 1812, Ørsted again visited Germany and France after publishing Videnskaben om Naturens Almindelige Love and Første Indledning til den Almindelige Naturlære .
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Common Questions About Hans Christian Oersted
Q: What did Hans Christian Oersted study?
Hans Christian Oersted received degrees in both pharmacology and in Kantian philosophy.
Q: How did Oersted manage to visit famous laboratories in his youth?
Oersted was able to gain entrance to many famous European laboratories because he himself invented an improved compact battery, a battery that is quite powerful, but very small and portable.
Q: How did Oersted discover that electricity created a magnetic field?
While performing demonstrations in electricity and magnetism in front of his classroom, Oersted hooked up a coil of wire to a battery and passed a current through that coil of wire. He observed that a compass needle next to the coil twitched whenever he did this. Further experiments led to the discovery that electricity flowing in a curve creates a magnetic field.
His Discovery Of Electromagnetism Paved The Way For Numerous Inventions
Oersteds discovery of electromagnetism unleashed a series of discoveries that eventually laid the foundation for our modern technology-enabled world. Soon after Oersteds discovery, French physicist Andre-Marie Ampere developed a single mathematical formula to represent the magnetic forces that exist between current-carrying conductors. Then, over 40 years later, Scottish scientist James Clerk Maxwell modified this equation so that it would also apply to situations in which the current is not constant. In this form it became one of his four famous equations establishing that light is an electromagnetic wave. Electromagnetism is the basis for numerous devices including electric motor, microphone, electric generator, loudspeaker and transformers.
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A Younger Hans Christian Oersted Painted In The 19th Century Cosmolearning Physics
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A Younger Hans Christian Oersted Painted In The 19th Century Cosmolearning Physics
A younger hans christian oersted, painted in the 19th century. hans christian Ørsted was a physicist and chemist who is most widely known for observing that electric currents induce magnetic fields, an important aspect of electromagnetism. A younger hans christian oersted, painted in the 19th century. hans christian Ørsted was a physicist and chemist who is most widely known for observing that electric currents induce magnetic fields, an important aspect of. Hans christian oersted was born in 1777. he was the elder son of a danish pharmacist, and from an early age, he had planned to follow his fathers profession of pharmacy. but he became captivated by electrical studies in 1800, shortly after voltas announcement of the battery. the young hans oersted excelled as a student in languages. Displaying all 4 images. filter by: sort by:. Computational physics; condensed matter physics continuum mechanics electromagnetism electric circuits electrostatics magnetism em radiation experimental physics general physics history of physics albert einstein galileo galilei hans christian oersted isaac newton nikola tesla (84.
Hans Christian Oersted | Electromagnetism Fundamentals | Physics Concepts
Oersted Was The First To Establish A Connection Between Electricity And Magnetism
In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the voltaic pile, the first electrical battery. The following year, Oersted began to investigate the nature of electricity and to conduct his first electrical experiments. In 1820, while performing classroom demonstrations for his university students, Oersted passed electric current through a wire which caused a movement in the needle of a magnetic compass placed nearby. This clearly established a relationship between magnetism and electricity making Oersted the first to identify the force of electromagnetism. His discovery was published in , in a pamphlet titled Experiments on the Effect of a Current of Electricity on the Magnetic Needle. Through further experimentation, Oersted also found that electric current produces a circular magnetic effect around it.
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The Key Role Of Oersted’s And Ampre’s 1820 Electromagnetic Experiments In The Construction Of The Concept Of Electric Current
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Major Contributions Of Hans Christian Oersted
Hans Christian Oersted was a Danish scientist who is most famous for establishing a definitive relation between electricity and magnetism. Oersteds discovery of electromagnetism proved to be hugely influential leading to much later work in the field and providing the basis for numerous technological inventions. Apart from his contributions to physics, Oersted also did some ground-breaking work in chemistry. His most significant achievements in chemistry is being the first person to isolate the element aluminum and the chemical compound piperine. Know more about the achievements of Hans Christian Oersted through his 7 major contributions.
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He Was The First To Isolate The Chemical Compound Piperine
Hans Oersted had a pharmacological background and he also performed experiments in chemistry. In 1819, a year before he discovered electromagnetism, Oersted became the first person to discover the chemical compound Piperine. Piperine is a naturally occurring organic compound that is responsible for the pungency of black pepper and long pepper. Oersted isolated Piperine from the fruits of Piper nigrum, the source plant of both black and white pepper.
He Was The First Modern Thinker To Name The Thought Experiment

A thought experiment is the act of reasoning through to the practical outcome of a hypothesis when physical proof is unavailable or unattainable. It involves asking the question what if and then reasoning out the answer through a series of logical steps. Thought experiments were famously used by Albert Einstein to help him arrive at his theory of relativity. Hans Oersted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name the thought experiment. Moreover, in c. 1812, he used the Latin-German term Gedankenexperiment; and in 1820, he used the German term Gedankenversuch to describe a thought experiment.
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