From Magnetism to Electrodynamics

The systematic study of magnetism and electricity begins with William Gilbert, physician to Queen Elizabeth I, who published De Magnete in 1600. Gilbert showed experimentally that the Earth itself behaves as a giant magnet, explaining why compass needles point roughly north-south, and he distinguished true magnetic attraction from the different phenomenon of rubbed amber attracting light objects, from which the Greek word elektron later gave English its term "electricity." His insistence on experiment over speculation made De Magnete one of the first genuinely modern scientific treatises.