Timeline of Electromagnetism and Classical Optics

TIMELINE OF ELECTROMAGNETISM AND CLASSICAL OPTICS
• 1801 — Johann Ritter discovered ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

• 1820 — Hans Christian Oersted, Danish physicist and chemist, united the separate sciences of
electricity and magnetism. He develops an experiment in which he notices a compass needle is
deflected from magnetic north when an electric current from the battery he was using was
switched on and off, convincing him that magnetic fields radiate from all sides of a live wire just
as light and heat do, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism. He
also observed that the movement of the compass-needle to one side or the other depends
upon the direction of the current. Following intensive investigations, he published his findings,
proving that a changing electric current produces a magnetic field as it flows through a wire.
The oersted unit of magnetic induction is named for his contributions.
• 1820 — André-Marie Ampère, professor of mathematics at the École Polytechnique, a short
time after learning of Ørsted's discovery that a magnetic needle is acted on by a voltaic current,
conducted experiments and published a paper in Annales de Chimie et de Physique attempting
to give a combined theory of electricity and magnetism. He showed that a coil of wire carrying
a current behaves like an ordinary magnet and suggested that electromagnetism might be used
in telegraphy. He mathematically developed Ampère's law describing the magnetic force
between two electric currents. His mathematical theory explains known electromagnetic
phenomena and predicts new ones. His laws of electrodynamics include the facts that parallel
conductors currying current in the same direction attract and those carrying currents in the
opposite directions repel one another. One of the first to develop electrical measuring
techniques, he built an instrument utilizing a free-moving needle to measure the flow of
electricity, contributing to the development of the galvanometer. In 1821, he proposed a
telegraphy system utilizing one wire per "galvanometer" to indicate each letter, and reported
experimenting successfully with such a system. However, in 1824, Peter Barlow reported its
maximum distance was only 200 feet, and so was impractical. In 1826 he published the Memoir
on the Mathematical Theory of Electrodynamic Phenomena, Uniquely Deduced from
Experience containing a mathematical derivation of the electrodynamic force law. Following
Faraday's discovery of electromagnetic induction in 1831, Ampère agreed that Faraday
deserved full credit for the discovery.
• 1821 — André-Marie Ampère announced his Theory of electrodynamics, predicting the force
that one current exerts upon another.
• 1826 — Georg Simon Ohm stated his Ohm's law of electrical resistance in the journals of
Schweigger and Poggendorff, and also published in his landmark pamphlet Die galvanische
Kette mathematisch bearbeitet in 1827. The unit ohm (Ω) of electrical resistance has been
named in his honor.
• 1831 — Michael Faraday began experiments leading to his discovery of the Law of
electromagnetic induction, though the discovery may have been anticipated by the work of
Francesco Zantedeschi. His breakthrough came when he wrapped two insulated coils of wire
around a massive iron ring, bolted to a chair, and found that upon passing a current through
one coil, a momentary electric current was induced in the other coil. He then found that if he
moved a magnet through a loop of wire, or vice versa, an electric current also flowed in the
wire. He then used this principle to construct the electric dynamo, the first electric power
generator. He proposed that electromagnetic forces extended into the empty space around the
conductor, but did not complete that work. Faraday's concept of lines of flux emanating from
charged bodies and magnets provided a way to visualize electric and magnetic fields. That
mental model was crucial to the successful development of electromechanical devices which
were to dominate the 19th century. His demonstrations that a changing magnetic field
produces an electric field, mathematically modeled by Faraday's law of induction, would
subsequently become one of Maxwell's equations. These consequently evolved into the
generalization of field theory.
• 1845 — Michael Faraday discovered that light propagation in a material can be influenced by
external magnetic fields (Faraday effect)
• 1855 — James Clerk Maxwell submitted On Faraday's Lines of Force for publication containing
a mathematical statement of Ampère's circuital law relating the curl of a magnetic field to the
electrical current at a point.
• 1861 — the first transcontinental telegraph system spans North America by connecting an
existing network in the eastern United States to a small network in California by a link between
Omaha and Carson City via Salt Lake City. The slower Pony Express system ceased operation a
month later.
• 1864 — James Clerk Maxwell published his papers on a dynamical theory of the
electromagnetic field
• 1865 — James Clerk Maxwell published his landmark paper A Dynamical Theory of the
Electromagnetic Field, in which Maxwell's equations demonstrated that electric and magnetic
forces are two complementary aspects of electromagnetism. He showed that the associated
complementary electric and magnetic fields of electromagnetism travel through space, in the
form of waves, at a constant velocity of 3.0 × 108 m/s. He also proposes that light is a form of
electromagnetic radiation and that waves of oscillating electric and magnetic fields travel
through empty space at a speed that could be predicted from simple electrical experiments.
Using available data, he obtains a velocity of 310,740,000 m/s and states "This velocity is so
nearly that of light, that it seems we have strong reason to conclude that light itself (including
radiant heat, and other radiations if any) is an electromagnetic disturbance in the form of
waves propagated through the electromagnetic field according to electromagnetic laws."
• 1873 — J. C. Maxwell published A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism which states that
light is an electromagnetic phenomenon.
• 1887 — Heinrich Hertz invented a device for the production and reception of electromagnetic
(EM) radio waves. His receiver consists of a coil with a spark gap.
• 1888 — Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the existence of electromagnetic waves by building an
apparatus that produced and detected UHF radio waves (or microwaves in the UHF region). He
also found that radio waves could be transmitted through different types of materials and were
reflected by others, the key to radar. His experiments explain reflection, refraction,
polarization, interference, and velocity of electromagnetic waves.
• 1895 — Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen discovers X-rays

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TIMELINE OF ELECTROMAGNETISM AND CLASSICAL OPTICS

• 1801 — Johann Ritter discovered ultraviolet radiation from the Sun.

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