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Ørsted was born inRudkøbing in 1777. As a young boy he developed an interest in science while working for his father, who was a pharmacist in thetown's pharmacy.[6] He and his brotherAnders received most of their early education through self-study at home, going to Copenhagen in 1793 to take entrance exams for theUniversity of Copenhagen, where both brothers excelled academically. By 1796, Ørsted had been awarded honors for his papers in bothaesthetics andphysics. He earned his doctorate in 1799 for a dissertation based on the works ofKant entitledThe Architectonics of Natural Metaphysics.
In 1800,Alessandro Volta reported his invention of thevoltaic pile, which inspired Ørsted to investigate the nature of electricity and to conduct his first electrical experiments. In 1801, Ørsted received a travelscholarship 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.[7]
In Germany, Ørsted metJohann Wilhelm Ritter, a physicist who believed there was a connection betweenelectricity andmagnetism. This idea made sense to Ørsted as he subscribed toKantian thought regarding theunity of nature.[6][8][page needed] Ørsted's conversations with Ritter drew him into the study of physics. He became a professor at theUniversity 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.[citation needed]
Ørsted welcomedWilliam 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 publishingVidenskaben om Naturens Almindelige Love andFørste Indledning til den Almindelige Naturlære (1811).
Ørsted was the first modern thinker to explicitly describe and name thethought experiment. He used the Latin-German termGedankenexperiment circa 1812 and the German termGedankenversuch in 1820.[9]
In 1819 Ørsted was the first to extractpiperine and subsequently name it. He extracted it fromPiper nigrum, the plant from which both white and black pepper comes from.[10]
Ørsted designed a new type ofpiezometer to measure the compressibility of liquids in 1822.[11]
A compass needle with a wire, showing the effect Ørsted discovered
In 1820, Ørsted published his discovery that acompass needle was deflected from magnetic north by a nearby electric current, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.[12]: 274 The often reported story that Ørsted made this discovery incidentally during a lecture is a myth. He had, in fact, been looking for a connection between electricity and magnetism since 1818, but was quite confused[how?] by the results he was obtaining.[13][12]: 273
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.[3][13] For his discovery, theRoyal Society of London awarded Ørsted theCopley Medal in 1820 and the French Academy granted him 3,000francs.
Ørsted's findings stirred much research into electrodynamics throughout the scientific community, influencing French physicistAndré-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.
The Ørsted effect brought about a communications revolution due to its application to theelectric telegraph. The possibility of such a telegraph was suggested almost immediately by mathematicianPierre-Simon Laplace and Ampère presented a paper based on Laplace's idea the same year as Ørsted's discovery.[12]: 302–303 However, it was almost two decades before it became a commercial reality.
In 1824, Ørsted made a significant contribution tochemistry by being the first person to successfully producealuminium in its metallic state, albeit in a less-than-pure form.[18][19] In 1808,Humphry Davy had predicted the existence of the metal which he gave the name ofalumium. However his attempts to isolate it using electrolysis processes were unsuccessful; the closest he came was an aluminium-iron alloy.[20] Ørsted succeeded in isolating the metallic form by reactingaluminium chloride withpotassiumamalgam (an alloy of potassium andmercury) and then boiling away the mercury, which left small "chunks" of metal that he described as appearing similar totin.[18][note 2] He presented his results and a sample of the metal at meetings of the Danish Academy of Sciences in early 1825, but otherwise appears to have considered his discovery to be of limited importance.[21] This ambivalence, coupled with the limited audience for the Danish Academy's journal in which the results had been published, meant that the discovery went mostly unnoticed by the wider scientific community at the time.[21][22] Busy with other work, in 1827 Ørsted gave his friend, the German chemistFriedrich Wöhler, permission to take over the research.[21] Wöhler was able to produce approximately 30 grams (1.1 oz) of aluminium powder soon thereafter, using a process of his own design, before finally, in 1845, isolating a quantity of solid metal sufficient for him to describe some of its physical properties.[19]
The company Danish Oil and Natural Gas (DONG), was renamedØrsted to signal its transition fromfossil fuels to becoming one the world's leading developers and operators ofoffshore windfarms.
Astatue of Hans Christian Ørsted was installed in the Ørsted Park in 1880. A commemorative plaque is located above the gate on the building inStudiestræde where he lived and worked.
Ørsted's likeness has appeared twice onDanish banknotes; for the first time on 500kroner notes issued in 1875, and for the second time on 100kroner notes issued between 1962 and 1974.[23]
Two medals are awarded in Ørsted's name: theH. C. Ørsted Medal for Danish scientists, awarded by the Danish Society for the Dissemination of Natural Science (SNU), as founded by Ørsted, and theOersted Medal for notable contributions in the teaching of physics in America, awarded byAmerican Association of Physics Teachers.
The Technical University of Denmark hosts the H. C. Ørsted Lecture series for prominent and engaging researchers from around the world.[24]
Ørsted was a published poet, as well as scientist. His poetry seriesLuftskibet ("The Airship") was inspired by the balloon flights of fellow physicist and stage magicianÉtienne-Gaspard Robert.[25]
In 1850, shortly before his death, he submitted for publication a two-volume collection of philosophical articles in German under the titleDer Geist in der Natur ("The Soul in Nature"). It was translated into English and published in one volume in 1852, the year after his death.
Ørsted, H. C. (1807)."Betragtninger over Chemiens Historie" [Considerations on the History of Chemistry].Det Skandinaviske Litteraturselskabs Skrifter (in Danish).2. København: Andreas Seidelin:1–54.OCLC872505637.
Harding, M. C., ed. (1920).Correspondance de H. C. Örsted avec divers savants [The Correspondence of H. C. Örsted with Various Scholars]. Copenhaugue: H. Aschehoug & Co.OCLC11070734.
A significant number of Ørsted's papers were made available in English for the first time in a compilation published in 1998:[26]
Ørsted, H. C. (1998). Jelved, K.; Jackson, A. D.; Knudsen, O. (eds.).Selected Scientific Works of Hans Christian Ørsted. Princeton University Press.ISBN978-0-69104-334-0.JSTORj.ctt7zvhx2.OCLC36393437.
^abJacobsen, A. S.; Knudsen, O. (14 April 2021)."H.C. Ørsted".Den Store Danske (in Danish). Gyldendal. Retrieved12 April 2023.
^"Inspiration fra Europa – planer i København" [Inspiration from Europe – Plans in Copenhagen] (in Danish). Niels Bohr Institutet, Københavns Universitet. 27 February 2023. Retrieved12 April 2023.
^Brain, R. M.; Cohen, R. S.; Knudsen, O., eds. (2007).Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science: Ideas, Disciplines, Practices. Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science. Vol. 241. Dordrecht: Springer.doi:10.1007/978-1-4020-2987-5.ISBN978-1-40202-979-0.OCLC181067920.
^Witt-Hansen, J. (1976). "H.C. Ørsted, Immanuel Kant, and the Thought Experiment".Danish Yearbook of Philosophy.13 (1):48–65.doi:10.1163/24689300-01301004.ISSN0070-2749.
^"Chapter O"(PDF).Members of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 1780–2012. American Academy of Arts and Sciences. p. 401. Archived fromthe original(PDF) on 20 December 2016. Retrieved8 September 2016.
^"History of DTU". Kongens Lyngby: Danmarks Tekniske Universitet. Archived fromthe original on 2 September 2009. Retrieved14 August 2009.
^Fontani, M.; Costa, M.; Orna, M. V. (2015).The Lost Elements: The Periodic Table's Shadow Side. Oxford University Press. p. 30.ISBN978-0-19938-334-4.OCLC873238266.
^Caneva, K. L. (1999). "Book Review: Hans Christian Ørsted, 'Selected Scientific Works of Hans Christian Ørsted', Edited and translated by Karen Jelved, Andrew D. Jackson, and Ole Knudsen ...".Isis.90 (4):819–820.doi:10.1086/384554.
Hansen, H. M.; Rasmussen, S. V. (1944). "Ørsted, Hans Christian, 1777–1851, Fysiker". In Bricka, C. F.; Engelstoft, P.; Dahl, S. (eds.).Dansk biografisk Leksikon(PDF) (in Danish). Vol. XXVI. København: J. H. Schultz Forlag. pp. 575–586.OCLC2697123.
Stauffer, R. C. (1957). "Speculation and Experiment in the Background of Oersted's Discovery of Electromagnetism".Isis.48 (1):33–50.doi:10.1086/348537.JSTOR226900.S2CID120063434.
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