The National MagLab is funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida.
These demonstrations about laws and tools associated with electricity and magnetism allow you to adjust variables at and to visualize invisible forces — which makes them almost better than the real thing.
Seeing is believing. In these animations, we show you what electricity and magnetism might look like if they weren't invisible.
Learn about electricity and magnetism — and have some fun while you're at it!
How do Maglev trains work? What are comets made of? How do bugs walk on water? This section demonstrates these and other concepts related to magnetism, electricity and other areas of science.
Whether you prefer your science short & sweet or long & detailed, we spell it out for you here in easy-to-understand language.
Read fun science stories told in comic strip style.
There is beauty and art in science. Gaze on these stories of discoveries that could be featured on museum walls instead of scientific journals.
Explore these surprising, unconventional and sometimes downright strange stories about high magnetic field research.
These special science graphics explain science stories in digestible steps and include optional detours for readers wanting more background to customize your reading journey.
Get to know these pioneers who went down in history for their groundbreaking work, including scientists behind common terms such as Amp, Celsius, Kelvin, hertz and tesla.
From the world's first compass to the magnetic force microscope and beyond, explore a variety of instruments, tools and machines throughout history.
Our timeline takes you through the highlights of electricity and magnetism and across the centuries.
Take a field trip to these high magnetic field landmarks around the globe.
The legendary Faraday forges on with his prolific research and the telegraph reaches a milestone when a message is sent between Washington, DC, and Baltimore, MD.
1840
English physicist James Prescott Joule publishes a paper, On the Production of Heat by Voltaic Electricity, in which he describes the amount of heat generated by an electric current (Joule’s law).
1841
Inventor Frederick de Moleyns of England is granted the first patent for an incandescent lamp.
1843
English physicist Charles Wheatstone popularizes an instrument for comparing resistances that came to be known as the Wheatstone bridge, although it was invented by Samuel Christie
1844
The first official electric telegraph line, constructed with funds appropriated by Congress, is completed in the United States and the initial message is sent by its inventor, Samuel Morse.
1845
German physicist Gustav Kirchhoff introduces his laws of electric circuits, which have since been named in his honor.
British chemist Michael Faraday observes that the plane of polarization of light traveling through glass is affected by magnetic lines of force, a clear indication that magnetism and light are related. The phenomenon produced experimentally by Faraday is referred to as the Faraday effect or Faraday rotation.
Michael Faraday discovers a previously unrecognized form of magnetism in bismuth, glass and a number of other materials that he dubs diamagnetism.
Physicist and mathematician Franz Neumann of Germany publishes his deductions of the mathematical laws for induction of electric currents.
1846
Michael Faraday suggests in a short essay that light could be an electromagnetic phenomenon.
German physicist Wilhelm Weber attempts to unify the analysis and experimental results of André-Marie Ampère, Michael Faraday and others in his development of an electromagnetic theory that involves forces between charged particles in motion. Though his theory is later discounted, Weber’s work would precede many other advances in the field of electromagnetic theory.
1847
Wilhelm Weber puts forward the idea that diamagnetism is simply an example of Faraday’s law impinging upon molecular circuits and suggests that diamagnetism exists in paramagnetic and ferromagnetic substances, but is masked due to the comparative strength of the permanent molecular currents the possess.
Hermann von Helmholtz, a German physicist and physician, reads his paper On the Conservation of Force to the Physical Society of Berlin, providing one of the earliest and clearest accounts of the principle of the conservation of energy that governs electrostatic, magnetic, chemical and all other forms of energy.
