The Discovery of Electromagnetism Made in 1820 by J. C. Oersted

La découverte de l’Électromagnétisme faite en 1820 par J. C. Oersted
Copenhagen, 1920.

On July 21, 1920, one hundred years had passed since the publication of Oersted’s famous memoir describing the experiments that first established the connection between electrical and magnetic phenomena. The Jubilee Committee in Copenhagen issued, for this notable date, three volumes of Oersted’s works, his correspondence with various scholars, and, finally, a small booklet with a facsimile of Oersted’s original Latin memoir and translations of this memoir into French, German, English, Italian, and Danish. The Latin memoir, “Experimenta circa effectum conflictus electrici in acum magneticam,” written with extraordinary concision, attracted the most intense attention of physicists throughout the civilized world; this explains the almost simultaneous translation of the memoir into the principal European languages. The discovery of the fundamental fact of electrodynamics placed Oersted, alongside Galvani, among the founders of the modern doctrine of electricity, and Denmark is justly proud of this name alongside the names of Tycho de Brahe and Rømer.

The facsimiles in the reviewed edition are executed impeccably and will be duly appreciated by lovers of the history of physics. The book is adorned with an image of the medal in memory of Oersted, awarded in recognition of scientific work.

O. Vavilov.