science in 1820 --3/25/2026
Today's selection-- from Science Year by Year by DK. Scientific breakthroughs in 1820:
''The experimental investigation by which ampere established the law of the mechanical action between electric currents is one of the most brilliant achievements in science.”
-James Clerk Maxwell, British theoretical physicist, from A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, 1873
"Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851) revealed the link between electricity and magnetism. At a public lecture in Copenhagen, he astonished the audience by showing a compass needle move as he brought it near a wire conducting electricity. Influenced by Ørsted's discovery, French physicist Andre-Marie Ampère created a theory of electromagnetism. This showed that electric currents flowing in opposite directions create magnetic fields that cause the wires to be attracted, while currents flowing the same way lead to the wires being repelled. British physicist John Herapath [1790-1868) explained how temperature and pressure in gas are created by moving molecules, an early version of the kinetic theory of gases.
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| Portrait of Hans Christian Ørsted by Christian Albrecht Jensen (1842) |
"In Paris. French naturalist Georges Cuvier ridiculed the ideas of fellow naturalist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, who argued that species have transformed, or evolved, through time. This idea is now an accepted part of the theory of evolution.
"Also in Paris, chemists Pierre Joseph Pelletier [ 1788-1842) and Joseph Bienaimé Caventou [1795-1877) worked on isolating medically active ingredients from plants. In 1820, they isolated quinine from cinchona bark, which later became important in treating malaria."
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