ABSTRACT

The evolution of electricity and magnetism constitutes one of the most fascinating chapters in the history of our civilization. What started as a childlike curiosity in the beginning of the seventeenth century turned into a major scientific enterprise in the beginning of the nineteenth century, developed into a dominant theoretical breakthrough in the middle of the nineteenth century, and put into some curious applications at the turn of the twentieth century. By the middle of the twentieth century, in combination with the quantum theory, electromagnetism became the cornerstone-no, the signature-of what we have come to call civilization. We can safely claim that electromagnetism is at the very foundation of every single modern technology.