Michael Faraday’s knowledge of mathematics was limited to elementary algebra, but he was a brilliant experimenter, able to draw conclusions from his laboratory work and to communicate them to colleagues and the general public. He began his career as a laboratory assistant to the renowned chemist Humphry Davy. In early years, he focused on chemistry, […]
Georg Simon Ohm and the basis for circuit theory
Georg Simon Ohm (1789-1854) was an educator, mathematician and theoretician, but above all he was an experimenter. Ohm’s law, relating electrical force, current and resistance in a circuit, was based on empirical data – careful experiments, measurements and records that he kept. Ohm’s thoroughness was consistent with that of his colleagues and the time in […]
William Sturgeon and his galvanometer
William Sturgeon (1783-1850) is an unfamiliar name in most households, but his experiments and the instruments that he built were central in the annals of electrical engineering. He was an educator as well, with an incisive writing style that engaged the interest of fellow scientists and laypersons. An important year in his life and in […]
André-Marie Ampère and his law
Like many electrical researchers and theoreticians of his time, André-Marie Ampère endured a measure of tragedy and misfortune, in part because of the excesses of the French Revolution. But personal setbacks did not impede the great energy that he brought to his work. In early life, young André-Marie’s benevolent father was a formative, defining influence. […]
Hans Christian Ørsted and magnetic field strength
Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) was for most of his life deeply immersed in the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, whose major work, The Critique of Pure Reason, published when young Hans was four years old. The heavy volume was much discussed by European thinkers and in later years it heavily influenced Ørsted’s view of reality. A central […]
The galvanic cell and Luigi Galvani
As a youth in Bolagna, Italy, Luigi Galvani had contemplated a religious vocation, but his parents steered him into the study of medicine. He acquired degrees from the University of Bolagna in medicine and philosophy. Back then in the 1700s, medical education was based on the teachings of Hippocrates, Galen and Avicenna, but Galvani took […]
Pierre-Simon Laplace and the Laplace transform
Characteristic of his time, Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827) published a comprehensive review of the scientific work done by his predecessors with an overlay of his new mathematical interpretation. Titled Celestial Mechanics, the five-volume work replaced the old-style geometric methodology with Laplace’s unique style of calculus, suggesting a broad range of new subject matter – everything from stability […]
Charles-Augustin de Coulomb and the units of charge
In the early eighteenth century and before, England had long been the scene for most of the important research and theorizing about the nature of electricity and magnetism. The focus shifted to France in the late eighteenth century. Scientists increasingly appreciated that scrupulous observation and exact measurement could provide a more realistic basis for understanding the physical […]
The first EE
Who was the first electrical engineer? Thomas Edison, James Clerk Maxwell, William Gilbert? None of the above. Miletus, near Turkey’s west coast, today lies in ruins but it was the birthplace, in 624 BC, of the pre-Socratic philosopher Thales. He broke with the prevailing notion that supernatural forces underlay all worldly phenomena. His declaration that […]
Father of electricity, William Gilbert
William Gilbert, a practicing physician who attended Queen Elizabeth I throughout the last difficult years of her reign, was most noted in his time as a keen astronomical observer. But by far his most enduring accomplishment was a six-volume work compiling all knowledge of electricity and magnetism. Titled On The Magnet, it published in 1600, […]