3. Hans Christian Ørsted (/ˈɜːrstɛd/;[2] Danish: [hæns kʰʁæstjæn
ˈɶɐ̯stɛð]; often rendered Oersted in English; 14 August 1777 – 9
March 1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist who
discovered that electric currents create magnetic fields, which
was the first connection found between electricity and
magnetism. Oersted's law and the oersted (Oe) are named after
him.
A leader of the Danish Golden Age, Ørsted was a close friend of
Hans Christian Andersen and the brother of politician and jurist
Anders Sandøe Ørsted, who served as Prime Minister of
Denmark from 1853 to 1854.
4. 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 a pharmacy.[3] 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.
5. 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.
In Germany Ørsted met Johann Wilhelm Ritter, a physicist who
believed there was a connection between electricity and magnetism.
This idea made sense to Ørsted as he subscribed to Kantian thought
regarding the unity of nature.[3][5] Ørsted's conversations with
Ritter drew him into the study of physics. He became a professor at
the University of Copenhagen in 1806 and continued research on
electric currents and acoustics. Under his guidance the university
developed a comprehensive physics and chemistry program and
established new laboratories.
6. 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 (1811).
Ørsted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name
the thought experiment. He used the Latin-German term
Gedankenexperiment circa 1812 and the German term
Gedankenversuch in 1820.
7. ELECTROMAGNETISM
On 21 April 1820, during a lecture, Ørsted noticed a compass needle
deflected from magnetic north when an electric current from a
battery was switched on and off, confirming a direct relationship
between electricity and magnetism.
His initial interpretation was that magnetic effects radiate from all
sides of a wire carrying an electric current, as do light and heat.
Three months later he began more intensive investigations and soon
thereafter published his findings, showing that an electric current
produces a circular magnetic field as it flows through a wire.[8] For
his discovery, the Royal Society of London awarded Ørsted
the Copley Medal in 1820 and the French Academy granted him
3,000 francs.
8. Ørsted's findings stirred much research into electrodynamics
throughout the scientific community, influencing French
physicist André-Marie Ampère's developments of a single
mathematical formula to represent the magnetic forces between
current-carrying conductors. Ørsted's work also represented a
major step toward a unified concept of energy.
9. LATER YEARS
Ørsted was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy
of Sciences in 1822 and a Foreign Honorary Member of
the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1849.
He founded Selskabet for Naturlærens Udbredelse (SNU), a society
to disseminate knowledge of the natural sciences, in 1824. He was
also the founder of predecessor organizations which eventually
became the Danish Meteorological Institute and the Danish Patent
and Trademark Office. In 1829, Ørsted founded Den Polytekniske
Læreanstalt ('College of Advanced Technology') which was later
renamed the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
10. In 1825, Ørsted made a significant contribution to chemistry by
producing aluminium for the first time. While an aluminium-iron
alloy had previously been developed by Humphry Davy, Ørsted was
the first to isolate the element via a reduction of aluminium
chloride.
Ørsted died in Copenhagen in 1851, aged 73, and was buried in
the Assistens Cemetery.
11. LEGACY
The centimetre-gram-second system (CGS) unit of magnetic
induction (oersted) is named for his contributions to the field of
electromagnetism.
Toponomy
The Ørsted Park in Copenhagen was named after Ørsted in 1879.
The streets H.C. Ørsteds Vej in Frederiksberg and H. C. Ørsteds Allé
in Galten are also named after him.
The buildings that are home to the Department of Chemistry and
the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at the University of
Copenhagen's North Campus are named the H.C. Ørsted Institute,
after him. A dormitory named H. C. Ørsted Kollegiet is located
in Odense.
The first Danish satellite, launched 1999, was named after Ørsted.
12. Monuments and memorials
Statue of Ørsted in Ørstedsparken, in Copenhagen.
A statue of Hans Christian Ørsted was installed in the Ørsted
Park in 1880. A commemorative plaque is located above the gate
on the building in Studiestræde where he lived and worked. The
100 danske kroner note issued from 1950 to 1970 carried an
engraving of Ørsted.
Awards and lectures
Two medals are awarded in Ørsted's name: the Oersted
Medal for notable contributions in the teaching of physics in
America, awarded by American Association of Physics Teachers,
along with the H. C. Ørsted Medal for Danish scientists, awarded
by the Danish Selskabet for Naturlærens Udbredelse (Society for
the Dissemination of Natural Science), founded by Ørsted.
The H.C. Ørsted Lectureship is awarded to two prominent
researchers annually.
