Our understanding of electromagnetism has transformed our world. Electric motors have many advantages over steam engines, and today we are swapping the diesel and petrol engines in our cars for electric motors. Generators have allowed us to benefit from many appliances that use electricity, and motors are not the only appliances that produce movement from the electricity supply.
200 years ago the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (p. 31) was conducting experiments with electricity. Most scientists at the time thought electricity and magnetism were not related, but a few scientists thought there was a connection. Ørsted noticed that when an electric current passed though a wire a compass needle deflected away from north. After further research, he showed that an electric current can produce a magnetic field, and a magnetic force. He published a leaflet on this in July 1820. You can read more about Ørsted here:
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