Advances in Electricity, Magnetism, and Thermodynamics
In 1800, Alessandro Volta invented the electric battery and thus improved the way electric currents could also be studied. A year later, Thomas Young demonstrated the wave nature of light - which received strong experimental support from the work of Augustin-Jean Fresnel - and the principle of interference. In 1820, Hans Christian Ørsted found that a current-carrying conductor gives rise to a magnetic force surrounding it, and within a week after Ørsted's discovery reached France, André-Marie Ampère discovered that two parallel electric currents will exert forces on each other. 1821, Michael Faraday built an electricity-powered motor, while Georg Ohm stated his law of electrical resistance in 1826, expressing the relationship between voltage, current, and resistance in an electric circuit. A year later, botanist Robert Brown discovered Brownian motion: pollen grains in water undergoing movement resulting from their bombardment by the fast-moving atoms or molecules in the liquid. In 1831 Faraday (and independently Joseph Henry) discovered the reverse effect, the production of an electric potential or current through magnetism - known as electromagnetic induction; these two discoveries are the basis of the electric motor and the electric generator, respectively.
Read more about this topic: History Of Physics
Famous quotes containing the word advances:
“For dawn takes away a third part of your work, and advances a man on his journey, and advances him in his work.”
—Hesiod (c. 8th century B.C.)