Hans Christian Ørsted (August 14, 1777 in Rudkøbing – March 9, 1851 in Copenhagen) was a Danishphysicist and chemist, influenced by the thinking of Immanuel Kant. In 1820 he discovered the relationship between electricity and magnetism in a very simple experiment. He demonstrated that a wire carrying a current was able to deflect a magnetized compass needle. Ørsted did not suggest any satisfactory explanation of the phenomenon, nor did he try to represent the phenomenon in a mathematical framework.
Ørsted was not the first person to discover that electricity and magnetism are related. He was preceded in this discovery by 18 years by Gian Domenico Romagnosi, an Italian legal scholar. An account of Romagnosi's discovery was published in 1802 in an Italian newspaper, but it was overlooked by the scientific community.
In 1825 he made a significant contribution to chemistry by producing aluminium for the first time.
HansChristian Ørsted was the son of Søren Christian Ørsted and Karen Hermandsen.
Hans with his brother, Anders Sandøe Ørsted (1778-1860), later professor of jurisprudence and politician, received privately and by self-study an education which enabled them to travel in 1793 to Copenhagen and there, the next year, pass the university entrance examination, to which they had submitted themselves.
HansChristianOersted on a former 100 Danish Kroner banknote.
HansChristian Andersen was born at Odense on the Danish island of Funen (Fyn) on April 2, 1805, to poor parents.
HansChristian was born two months after their marriage.
HansChristian attended briefly local charity schools, but was for much of his time in the care of his Paternal grandmother, a mildly eccentric women with pretensions to gentility.
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