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.
Scientists' understanding of the structure of the atom and of its component particles grows, the phone and radio become common, and the modern television is born.
1911
German physicist Heike Kamerlingh Onnes discovers that some materials exhibit almost no electrical resistance when they are cooled to extremely low temperatures, a phenomenon referred to as superconductivity.
Under the direction of Ernest Rutherford, Hans Geiger and Ernest Marsden carry out numerous experiments on the scattering of alpha rays, leading Rutherford to posit a new model of the atom.
1912
High-pressure mercury lamps are invented, but do not become commercially available until more than 20 years later.
While still a student at Columbia University, Edwin Armstrong invents the regenerative circuit, which enables amplification of a signal many times by the same vacuum tube.
German physicist Max von Laue proves that x-rays are electromagnetic in nature.
1915
Thanks to American inventor Lee De Forest's audion, telephone signals are able to be carried across country, making possible the first transcontinental phone call between San Francisco and New York.
1919
German physicist Heinrich Barkhausen discovers that a ferromagnetic material to which an increasing magnetic field is gradually applied is magnetized in small steps rather than on a continuous basis. Known as the Barkhausen effect, this phenomenon provided clear support for the theory of ferromagnetic domains.
American inventor Edwin Armstrong invents the superheterodyne circuit, providing the broadcasting industry a greatly improved way to receive, convert and amplify weak, high-frequency electromagnetic waves.
Quench-hardened steel magnets are introduced commercially.
English electrophysiologist Edgar Adrian demonstrates that nerve cells generate voltages that trigger muscle contractions.
1920
The first radio broadcasting station in the world, station KDKA in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is launched by the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company.
1922
Neon tube lighting becomes available commercially and is especially popular for advertising purposes.
German physicists Otto Stern and Walther Gerlach demonstrate through the use of a molecular beam that the spatial orientation of atomic particles in a magnetic field is restricted (a concept termed space quantization).
1923
Russian inventor Vladimir Zworykin files a patent for the iconoscope, the first completely electronic means of scanning a picture for television.
1924
As part of his doctoral dissertation, German physicist Ernst Ising introduces a model, now known as the Ising model, to explain the behavior of ferromagnetic materials.
1925
While graduate students in the Netherlands, George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit postulate that in addition to their orbital motions, electrons spin about their axes.
1928
British physicist Paul Dirac accurately predicts that there exists an antiparticle to the electron that has the same mass as the electron but the opposite electric charge and magnetic moment.
1929
American engineers Herman Affel and Lloyd Espenschied apply for a patent for coaxial cable, a transmission line for high-frequency signals that is characterized by low radiation loss and interference.
Japanese geophysicist Motonori Matuyama studies the reversal of magnetic fields in rock strata and reasons that the Earth must occasionally undergo reversals of its polarity.
