Episode 1 of 1
Observation of Compass Needle Deflection
- When
- April 1820
- Where
- Unresolved occurrence locality
In April 1820, Ørsted observed that an electrical current in a wire caused a nearby compass needle to move, confirming a direct relationship between electricity and magnetism.
Ørsted had been looking for a connection between electricity and magnetism since 1818. In April 1820, he observed that an electrical current in a wire caused a nearby compass needle to move. He published his discovery that a compass needle was deflected from magnetic north by a nearby electric current.
Sources
- Electromagnetism Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-28
- Hans Christian Ørsted Wikipedia, revision of 2026-08-29
Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.