National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1900 1909
Albert Einstein publishes his special theory of relativity and his theory on the quantum nature of light, which he identified as both a particle and a wave. With ever new appliances, electricity begins to transform everyday life.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1870 1879
The telephone and first practical incandescent light bulb are invented while the word "electron" enters the scientific lexicon.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1850 1869
The Industrial Revolution is in full force, Gramme invents his dynamo and James Clerk Maxwell formulates his series of equations on electrodynamics.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1960 1979
Computers evolve into PCs, researchers discover one new subatomic particle after another and the space age gives our psyches and science a new context.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1940 1959
Defense-related research leads to the computer, the world enters the atomic age and TV conquers America.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1930 1939
New tools such as special microscopes and the cyclotron take research to higher levels, while average citizens enjoy novel amenities such as the FM radio.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1840 1849
The legendary Faraday forges on with his prolific research and the telegraph reaches a milestone when a message is sent between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 600 Bc 1599
Find out how humans discovered the magnetic lodestone as well as the attracting properties of amber. Advanced societies, in particular the Chinese and the Europeans, exploited the properties of magnets in compasses, a tool that makes...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1910 1929
Scientists' understanding of the structure of the atom and of its component particles grows, the phone and radio become common, and the modern television is born.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1890 1899
Scientists discover and probe x-rays and radioactivity, while inventors compete to build the first radio.
Florida State University
Florida State University: Magnet Lab: Timeline of Electricity and Magnetism: 1750 1774
With his famous kite experiment and other forays into science, Benjamin Franklin advances knowledge of electricity, inspiring his English friend Joseph Priestley to do the same.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Rheostat
After discovering the nature of electrical resistance, scientists devised instruments like this one to measure and control it. (Java tutorial)
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Leyden Jars 1745
Because they could store significant amounts of charge, Leyden jars allowed scientists to experiment with electricity in a way never before possible.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Schweigger Multiplier 1820
Spurred by Hans Christian Orsted's discovery of a relationship between electricity and magnetism, German chemist Julian Schweigger immediately began tinkering and soon came up with a very early galvanometer known as the Schweigger...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Joseph John Thomson
Joseph John Thomson, better known as J. J. Thomson, was a British physicist who first theorized and offered experimental evidence that the atom was a divisible entity rather than the basic unit of matter, as was widely believed at the...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Michael Faraday
A self-educated man with a brilliant mind, Michael Faraday was born in a hardscrabble neighborhood in London. Through the combination of insatiable curiosity and a powerful will to succeed, he transcended his austere beginnings to...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Galvanometer
This tutorial illustrates how a galvanometer, an instrument that detects and measures small amounts of current in an electrical circuit, works. (Java tutorial)
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Tesla Coil 1891
By the late 1800s, electricity had long been discovered and was no longer considered a novelty. The science of how to store, enhance, or transmit electrical current was just beginning to evolve, and eccentric scientist Nikola Tesla...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: William Crookes
English scientist William Crookes was very innovative in his investigations with vacuum tubes and designed a variety of different types to be used in his experimental work. Crookes tubes are glass vacuum chambers that contain a positive...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: James Joule
James Prescott Joule experimented with engines, electricity and heat throughout his life. Joule's findings resulted in his development of the mechanical theory of heat and Joule's law, which quantitatively describes the rate at which...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Heinrich Friedrich Emil Lenz
At the turn of the 19th century, scientists were beginning to gain a rudimentary understanding of electricity and magnetism, but they knew almost nothing about the relationship between the two. Baltic German physicist Heinrich Lenz took...
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Leyden Jar
These devices, though quite humble, represented a tremendous breakthrough in the history of electricity; they were the first capacitors, and as such were able to store electric charge. (Java tutorial)
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Lodestone 600 Bc
The history of electricity and magnetism starts with this special mineral possessing amazing, and still mysterious, properties.
National High Magnetic Field Laboratory
Magnet Academy: Peter Debye
Peter Debye carried out pioneering studies of molecular dipole moments, formulated theories of magnetic cooling and of electrolytic dissociation, and developed an X-ray diffraction technique for use with powdered, rather than...