Elektromagnetism 1 (Oersted’s Law)

Laras Ati . Physics Majors, Mathematics and Natural Science Faculty . Semarang State University

Abstract

Oersted and others were searching for the connection between electricity and
magnetism in the early years of the nineteenth century should not be taken to mean that there
was general agreement among scientist that the two phenomena were related. In 1802 the
Frenchman Ampere claimed that he would demonstrate that electricity and magnetism resulted
from two different fluids acting independently of each other. Electricity, magnetism, and
galvanism now also belong to chemistry, as it appears that the very same fundamental forces
which produce electrical, magnetic and galvanic effects, produce chemical effects in another
form.

Keywords : Electric, magnetism, Oersted’s law.

INTRODUCTION

Contemporary historians of science do not all agree that the discovery of

electromagnetism by Hans Christian Oersted in 1820 was directly tied to Friedrich Schelling's
system of romantic nature philosophy, nor is it clear how one could establish this assertion
beyond doubt. What is clear is that Oersted was attracted to certain fundamental tenets of
German idealistic thought and, as we shall see, a direct personal link between Schelling and
Oersted can be demonstrated. In fact, it was reported later in the nineteenth century that a few
years before his death Oersted himself credited Schelling with the stimulus necessary to the
discovery of electromagnetism.(1)

One thing is sure: Oersted's approach to nature made him far more appreciative of the
categories employed by the members of the Romantic School than were, say, the French
scientists of the Académie des Sciences. Oersted's achievement, therefore, demonstrates that,
in Robert Stauffer's words, "the intellectual environment can influence the evolution of science
along with the basic influence of the internal logic of scientific ideas, and the influence of social
political, technological, and economic factors."(2) The reader may not have anticipated that
thoughts as abstruse and apparently "unscientific" as Schelling's could constitute an intellectual
environment that might contribute to the uncovering of so fundamental a scientific discovery
as electromagnetism.
Hans Christian Oersted

Hans Christian Oersted was born in the south central part of Denmark in 1777. He and
his younger brother Anders entered the University of Copenhagen in 1793, Hans concentrating
on medicine, physics, and astronomy while Anders took up law. The brothers did not confine
their attention to these fields, for, as was common in a university education in those days, they
dabbled in a wide variety of disciplinary studies. In 1797 Hans earned first prize for an essay on
"Limits of Poetry and Prose." In the same year the elder Oersted brother completed a degree in
pharmacy with high honors, and two years later he was awarded the degree Doctor of
Philosophy with a dissertation entitled "On the Form of an Elementary Metaphysics of External
Nature."(3)

Oersted's dissertation was heavily influenced by the thought of the German philosopher
Immanuel Kant; in fact, in 1798 he served on an editorial staff of a journal largely given over to
Kant. In particular it was Kant' a claim, as enunciated in his Metaphysical Foundations of
Natural Science of 1786, that "a rational doctrine of nature deserves the name of natural
science only when the natural laws at its foundation are cognized a priori, and are not mere
laws of experience" that stayed with Oersted throughout his life.(4)

Indeed, it has been suggested that Oersted's bid in 1803 to acquire a university chair in physics
at Copenhagen was rejected because his philosophical interests were so strong.(5)

The period just prior to 1803 was filled largely with travel. Oersted did spend the year
1800 lecturing at the university and running an apothecary shop, but in 1801 he set off on the
customary Wanderjahr. He visited Germany first, meeting with the philosophers Fichte and
Schlegel in Berlin, and then Schelling and the nature philosopher J.W. Rltter in Jena. While in
Jena he discovered an obscure Latin work by a Hungarian named Jakob Joseph Winterl in which
it was claimed that all forces of nature ultimately have the same source,(6) a message not
unlike that he heard from Schelling.

From Germany it was on to Paris and then to the Netherlands. In France he missed the
philosophical spirit that accompanied German science, but he delighted to meet the French
scientific luminaries Cuvier ant Bertholet.

Back in Copenhagen in 1803, Oersted failed in his first bid to land the position in physics
at the university. He set up private lectures for which an admission was charged. Perhaps
because of the large audiences these lectures drew, the university eventually offered him the
position he had sought earlier. Although he was not made a full professor until 1817, he was a
member of the faculty at Copenhagen from 1806 until he died in 1851, having first lectured in
the university in 1800. In November of 1850 Denmark celebrated the jubilee of Oersted's
association with the University of Copenhagen by declaring a national holiday, a fitting tribute
to a citizen who had by then become one of the country's most famous discoverers.

Oersted's Understanding of Science

As the nineteenth century opened Oersted, like virtually everyone connected with
science, was caught up with Alessandro Volta's invention of the galvanic battery. Initial
discoveries in electricity beginning in the seventeenth century were made in conjunction with
static charges produced in insulated bodies. In 1800 Volta, building on a chance discovery by his
countryman Luigi Galvani of "animal electricity," showed that a continuous flow of electricity
could be produced. The invention of electric current opened up a new field of research, the
observed phenomena of which were grouped originally under the name of galvanism.

As manager of the Lion Pharmacy in the year of Volta's discovery, Oersted managed to
perform several galvanic experiments and even developed a new form of Volta's apparatus.
During his trip to Germany the following year Oersted was often asked to duplicate his
experiment with the new battery, thus reinforcing his already pronounced interest in electrical
phenomena.

When later in the same year two Englishmen demonstrated that the passage of an
electrical current through water caused water to decompose into hydrogen ant oxygen gas, a
connection between electrical "force" and chemical affinity appeared to be established. To one
of the Germans Oersted visited during his Wanderjahr, the decomposition of water by galvanic
current not only meant that electric force and chemical affinity were identical, but that,
contrary to the new chemistry of the French, water was an element rather than a compound.
Johann Ritter demanded to know how the two alleged gaseous components of water could
travel invisibly through solutions and appear at opposite poles? Hydrogen and oxygen, he
claimed, both resulted from water having been acted upon differently by electrical force; i.e.,
water + electrical force could yield hydrogen or oxygen, depending on the manner of action.

Ritter had come to Jena to study medicine, and had been introduced to the members of
the Romantic School by Johann Herder. While at Jena he attended Schelling's lectures, and
despite differences with Schelling, retained the mark of the latter's influence throughout his
life. In particular, Ritter insisted that there was a unity in the forces of nature, and pointed to
the identity of electrical force and chemical affinity as living proof of this basic teaching from
Schelling's nature philosophy.(7)

It was Ritter who was responsible for initiating Oersted's interest in experimental work
on the relationship between electricity and magnetism. To a nature philosopher a relation was
to be expected; specifically, electrical and magnetic forces were to be viewed as different
expressions of one primary force of nature. Nature's unity demanded that the common ground
resting at the foundation of these two external manifestations of the Urkraft, or primary force,
would guarantee that electrical and magnetic force court be related.

That these two forces hat something to do with each other was suspected long before
Schelling and his Naturphilosophie. Electrostatic and magnetic attraction and repulsion do,
after all, act with similar effects. Seamen had noted that the magnetic needle of a compass was
affected when ships were struck by lightning. Benjamin Franklin, the most famous theoretician
of electricity of the eighteenth century, had magnetized needles by discharging them through a
battery of Leyden Jars.(8)

In 1776 and 1777 the Bavarian Academy of Sciences had even offered a prize for thebest
essay on the question: Is there a physical analogy between electrical and magnetic force? In
1805, Just after Oersted's contact with Ritter in Jena, experiments involving the earth's
magnetic properties were carried out. Hachette and Desormes attempted to determine
whether swinging an electric pile within the interior of the earth produced any detectable
effect. Finally, Oersted himself proposed in 1808 that a prize be offered for an answer to the
question: What is the relation between electricity and magnetism? There is no record,
however, that anything came of it.

That Oersted and others were searching for the connection between electricity and
magnetism in the early years of the nineteenth century should not be taken to mean that there
was general agreement among scientist that the two phenomena were related. In 1802 the
Frenchman Ampere claimed that he would demonstrate that electricity and magnetism
resulted from two different fluids acting independently of each other. And Thomas Young in
England wrote some five years later that "there is no reason to imagine any immediate
connection between magnetism and electricity."(9)

Between 1807 and 1812 Oersted's interests were directed toward chemistry,
culminating in 1812 with the publication of his Considerations of the Physical Laws of Chemistry
Deduced from the New Phenomena.(10) Oersted's purpose in this work "was to bring the
principles of nature philosophy into chemistry and show how they could clarify the problems
which chemistry faced in 1813."(11)

While the specific details of Oersted's discussion of chemistry will not be analyzed here,
two observations about the book are pertinent, both having to do with the particular principles
of nature philosophy that were evident in Oersted's treatment.

One of Oersted's concerns was to uncover the higher principles of understanding under
which the laws of chemistry stood. Both Kant and Schelling, as we have already seen, thought
that it was necessary to discover a priori principles under which empirical generalizations could
stand before the empirical generalizations could become laws of nature. Oersted agreed with
Kane and Schelling that this preliminary philosophical task was prerequisite, and he was
concerned to "attempt to perfect the chemical theory of nature through the reduction of all
chemical actions to the primary forces (Urkräfte) from which they originate. We will then be in
a position to derive all chemical properties from these primary forces and their laws. ...
Chemistry will then become a theory of force."(12)

The unity of nature, which guaranteed that such primary principles existed, also was
responsible for Oersted's conviction that manifestations of the primary forces of nature (static
electricity, galvanism, magnetism, chemical affinity) were interrelated. Electricity, magnetism,
and galvanism now also belong to chemistry, as it appears that the very same fundamental
forces which produce electrical, magnetic and galvanic effects, produce chemical effects in
another form.(13)

Secondly, Oersted sought in chemistry the polarity Schelling had claimed was inherent
in all of nature. Recognizing that oxidation was a reaction of fundamental importance in
chemistry, Oersted assigned it the role of one of two fundamental polar forces in nature. The
other, opposite force was combustibility. Every body contained some of both of these forces. If
a body possessed more force of combustion than of combustibility, then it burned in oxygen;
but if it contained more force of combustibility, then other bodies burned in it. Before we leave
Oersted's Considerations, we ought to note that Oersted did treat magnetism briefly here in
1812. He concluded that the differences between electrical, galvanic, and magnetic action were
more of degree than of kind, and suggested that one might be able to uncover an empirically
observable connection between galvanic and magnetic force.

The Discovery of Electromagnetism in 1820

We may assume that in the years immediately following publication of Oersted's work
on chemistry the Danish scientist continued to pursue his investigations into the elusive forces
of electricity, magnetism, and chemical affinity. Interest in electrical phenomena continued to
grow rapidly after Volta's discovery in 1820. Between 1800 and 1820, for example, there were
at least 68 books, pamphlets, ant notices published in nine countries that were concerned with
voltaic electrical experiments.(14)

Oersted's devotion to experimentation in these and subsequent years clearly

differentiates him from his intellectual mentor Schelling. Although Schelling defended empirical
knowledge(15) one also frequently encountered his unmistakable subjugation of empirical
investigation to speculative physics. In Oersted the emphasis was inverted. In spite of Ritter's
capacity for flights of imagination, Oersted may well have reinforced his appreciation of the
importance of empirical research through his contact with Ritter at Jena.(16)
 The actual discovery of electromagnetism was made during a lecture demonstration
that Oersted was conducting for advanced students during the spring of 1820. It is perhaps the
only case known in the history of science when a major scientific discovery was mate in front of
a classroom of students. Precise details of the discovery are not available. All that we have are
three accounts by Oersted himself and scattered remarks of students, none of which agrees at
every point with the others. Oersted, for example, speaks in his account from 1821 as if he
were deliberately testing the effect of an electric current on a magnetic needle, but a student
account asserts that the experiment concerned the heating of some platinum wire by means of
an electric current, and that a compass needle happened by chance to be underneath the
conducting wire. Another unexplained aspect of the story is Oersted's delay in pursuing the
discovery for three months after the lecture. What follows is the earliest account Oersted
composed. Since for a long time I had regarded the forces which manifest themselves in
electricity as the general forces of nature, I had to derive the magnetic effects from them also.
As proof that I accepted this consequence completely, I can cite the following passage from my
Recherches sur l'identité des forces chimiques et électriques, printed at Paris, 1813. "It must be
tested whether electricity in its most latent state has any action on the magnet as such." I
wrote this during a journey, so that I could not easily undertake the experiments; not to
mention that the way to make them was not at all clear to me at that time, all my attention
being applied to the development of a system of chemistry. I still remember that, somewhat
inconsistently, I expected the predicted effect particularly from the discharge of a large electric
battery and moreover only hoped for a weak magnetic effect. Therefore I did not pursue with
proper zeal the thoughts I had conceived; I was brought back to them through my lectures on
electricity, galvanism, and magnetism in the spring of 1820. The auditors were mostly men
already considerably advanced in science; so these lectures and the preparatory reflections led
me on to deeper investigations than those which are admissible in ordinary lectures. Thus my
former conviction of the identity of electrical and magnetic forces developed with newclarity,
and I resolved to test my opinion by experiment. The preparations for this were made on a day
in which I had to give a lecture the same evening. I there showed Canton's experiment on the
influence of chemical effects on the magnetic state of iron. I called attention to the variations of
the magnetic needle during a thunderstorm, and at the same time I set forth the conjecture
that an electric discharge could act on a magnetic needle placed outside the galvanic circuit. I
then resolved to make the experiment. Since I expected the greatest effect from a discharge
associated with incandescence, I inserted in the circuit a very fine platinum wire above the
place where the needle was located. The effect was certainly unmistakable, but still it seemed
to me so confused that I postponed further investigation to a time when I hoped to have more
leisure. At the beginning of July these experiments were resumed and continued without
interruption until I arrived at the results which have been published.(17)
What is it that Oersted had discovered? Through persistent ant repeated efforts subsequent to
the classroom experience Oersted clarified the precise nature of the effect a wire conducting
electricity had on a magnetic compass. He found that a wire carrying an electric current
affected a magnetic needle located below the wire by causing it to swerve to a position
perpendicular to the wire. (Fig. 1)

Oersted's first inclination was to characterize the force affecting the needle as an attraction of
some sort. But he found that moving the wire to the left or right, all the while keeping the wire
parallel to the needle's original position, did not affect the nature of the deflection. Hence the
force could not be an attraction between one pole and the wire, for in that event the attracted
pole should follow the wire. (Fig. 2)

The needle did swing in the opposite direction in two situations: 1) when the wire was
positioned beneath the needle, or 2) when the current was reversed in the wire. From these
and other manipulations of the apparatus Oersted announced his conclusion regarding the
force:

It is sufficiently evident from the preceding facts that the electric conflict is not confined to the
conductor, but dispersed pretty widely in the circumjacent space. From the preceding facts we
may likewise collect that this conflict performs circles; for without this condition it seems
impossible that the one part of the uniting wire, when placed below the magnetic pole, should
drive it towards the east, and when placed above it towards the west; for it is the nature of a
circle that the motions in opposite parts should have an opposite direction.(18)

The interaction between electricity and magnetism, referred to by Oersted as a "conflict" was
unlike any Newtonian force before uncovered. It acted in circles around the conducting wire!
The now familiar right-hand rule specifies the relationship between the direction of current and
that of the magnetic lines of force: Grasp the conductor with the right hand so that the thumb
points in the direction in which the current flows; the fingers encircle the wire in the direction
of the lines of force. (Fig 3)

Oersted's discovery opened up undreamed of possibilities for research. Once this

fundamental relationship was known, new theoretical advances and startling developments in
electromagnetic technology began to be realized quickly. Electromagnetism is the foundation
stone on which are built inventions such as the electromagnet ant the galvanometer. Shortly
after Oersted's announcement the principle of electromagnetic induction was formulated by
Michael Faraday in England, and this led to the development of the generator and ultimately
the electric motor. Later in the century further theoretical discoveries identified light with the
propagation of electromagnetic waves, revealing how yet another of the "imponderables" of
the eighteenth century was related to the others, a fitting sequel to Oersted's strong belief in
the unity of nature.

Ironically, Oersted's discovery had been predicted, and by none other than his old friend
Ritter at Jena. In May of 1803 Ritter wrote to Oersted that events on earth could be related to
the periodic occurrence of the maximum inclination of the ecliptic. Ritter suggested that when
the ecliptic was inclined to its extreme, major discoveries in electricity had and would continue
to take place. In 1745 the Leyden Jar had been invented by Kleist; in 1764 Wilcke had come up
with the electrophorus; 1782 had produced the condenser; and 1801 was but one year after
the discovery of the voltaic pile. He concluded: "You now emerge into a new epoch in which
late in the year 1819 or 1820, you will have to reckon. This we might well witness."(19)
Although Ritter died in 1810, Oersted not only witnessed the predicted advance, but was
himself the perpetrator of it.

METHODS

In Oersted experiment the methods are used :

1. Connect the current to straight wire with vertical direction.

2. With compass , look the orientation of magnetic field around the current(the direction
and strong/weak the magnetic field), if the compass distance with the current wire 4
cm, 7 cm, 10 cm.
3. Do the second experiment with some current variations : 1A, 2A, and 3A.
4. Do the second and third experiment if the wire have a circle shape.
5. Do the second and third experiment for solenoid with some winding.

RESULT AND SOLUTION

First experiment who use straigt wire indicate that the compass deviate if around the
current wire. The deviation is influenced by the compass distance to the spool and the electric
current in the spool. In distance variations 4cm ,7 cm and 10 cm ,if they are compared, the
deviation more big if the distance is more little. While in the experiment with current
variations,that is 1A, 2A, and 3A, known that the big deviation happen in the electric current
3A. This is correct with equation :
So, its can conclude that the value of magnetic field comparable with electric current value and
inversed with the distance of spool.

The second experiment use a circle wire who given electric current. The variations who
use are distance and electric current value. In the distance variation ,known that bigger
compass deviation looked at 4cm than 7cm or 10cm and in the electric current value
variations, the deviation more big when the electric current is 3A than with 2A and 1A. It is
𝜇0 𝐼
correct with equation : B= 2a

And the last experiment use solenoid. . The variations who use are distance and electric
current value. In the distance variation ,known that bigger compass deviation looked at 4cm
than 7cm or 10cm and in the electric current value variations, the deviation more big when the
1
electric current is 3A than with 2A and 1A. It is correct with equation : B= 𝑎.

CONCLUSION

Based on Oersted’s law, in this electromagnetism 1 experiment known that magnetic

field value comparable with electric current value and inversed with the distance of spool.

REFERENCE

http://users.clas.ufl.edu/fgregory/oersted.htm. Acces at June 7, 2016 6:27 A.m. (Florida

University)

Tippler, Paul A. 2001. Physics for Sains and Engineering 2. Jakarta : Erlangga.

Giacolli, Douglas C. 2001. Physics 5 edition. Jakarta : Erlangga.