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| William Gilbert |
William Gilbert is famous for his works on electricity and magnetism. In fact, Gilbert's book De magnete (in English called On the Magnet, Magnetick Bodies Also, and on the Great Magnet the Earth), published in 1600, is considered as a cornerstone works in this branch of engineering.
William Gilbert, or Gylberde,was born on the 24th of May 1544 at Colchester, where his father, Hierome Gilbert, became recorder. Educated at Colchester school, he entered St. John's College, Cambridge in 1558, and after taking the degrees of BA and MA, in due course, graduated MD in 1569, in which year he was elected a senior fellow of his college. He is also considered as the most distinguished man of science in England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
One of the most notable fact related to our ee hero is that the Gilbert (G) CGS unit of magnetomotive force, equal to 10/4pi = 0.795 775 ampere-turns was named after him.
For more of our Electrical Engineering Hero - William Gilbert, below are links relevant to him:
William Gibert Articles
During Gilbert’s lifetime Britain was a major seafaring nation, and sailors relied heavily upon the magnetic compass to help them navigate. Christopher Columbus thought that the Pole Star attracted the compass needle, others thought that magnetism was caused by mountains in the Arctic, and many believed that garlic actually interfered with the device. Intrigued by the mystery, Gilbert conducted experiments for about 17 years to clarify his understanding of the compass and the phenomenon of magnetism. Read more...
Gilbert's findings suggested that magnetism was the soul of the Earth, and that a perfectly spherical lodestone, when aligned with the Earth's poles, would spin on its axis, just as the Earth spins on its axis over a period of 24 hours. Gilbert was in fact debunking the traditional cosmologists' belief that the Earth was fixed at the centre of the universe, and he provided food for thought for Galileo, who eventually came up with the proposition that the Earth revolves around the Sun. Read more...
Gilbert did not, however, express an opinion as to whether this rotating Earth was at the center of the universe or in orbit around the Sun. Since the Copernican cosmology needed a new physics to support it, Copernicans such as Johannes Kepler and Galileo were very interested in Gilbert's magnetic researches. Galileo's efforts to make a truly powerful armed lodestone for his patrons probably date from his reading of Gilbert's book. Read more...
Gilbert was representative of the type of individual who fueled the European Renaissance: Overall, he was motivated by truth, and consequently he followed facts wherever they may lead -- as opposed to clinging to dogmatic and preconceived notions, religious or secular. Read more...
The Magnetic Poles are the points at which the Earth's lines of magnetic force enter and exit the Earth vertically (or straight up and down). At the North Magnetic Pole (NMP) the "dip" (angle towards the Earth) is 90°. The north point of a magnetic compass points to this pole. This definition was first put forth by Sir William Gilbert (1544-1603), a physician to Queen Elizabeth I. He compared the polarity of a magnet to the polarity of the Earth. Read more...
It is a matter of great regret for the historian of chemistry that Gilbert left nothing on that branch of science, to which he was deeply devoted, "attaining to great exactness therein." So at least says Thomas Fuller, who in his Worthies of England prophesied truly how he would be afterwards known: "Mahomet's tomb at Mecca", he says, "is said strangely to hang up, attracted by some invisible loadstone; but the memory of this doctor will never fall to the ground, which his incomparable book De magnete will support to eternity." Read more...
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