THE DEBUT OF HANS CHRISTIAN OERSTED - THE BASIS FOR THE DISCOVERY OF ELECTRO-MAGNETISM

ØRSTED, HANS CHRISTIAN.

Videnskaben om Naturens Almindelige Love. Første Bind (alt som udkom). (The Science of the General Laws of Nature. First volume [all that was published]).

Kjøbenhavn (Copenhagen), Fr. Brummer, 1809.

Cont. hcalf. Richly gilt spine with gilt lettering. Corners bumped. XXX,378 pp. and 11 engraved plates with many figs. Title-page and the first few leaves with a brownspot in inner margin. A few brownspots, but internally clean.

Scarce first edition of Hans Christian Oersted's first printed book (The Science of the General Laws of Nature).

Oersted is universally known for his discovery of the Electro-Magnetism in 1820. In this his first printed book, Oersted proposes at least three theses that he were to follow for the rest of his life, and which he made the foundation for his discovery of Electro-Magnetism: the crucial role that experiments and thereby empiricism play in the perception of nature; the fact that each individual phenomenon in nature in accordance with the philosophy of nature must be understood as a whole; and that the laws of nature are the same everywhere, in the smallest and in the greatest parts of the universe. The sort of philosophy of nature that Oersted studies and develops is by him comprehended as a product of human striving towards with its reason to "include and penetrate the entire nature, and to explain it in its full context" (from "Science of the General Laws of Nature" - own translation), which is why this philosophy is also the science of the general laws of nature (that are the same everywhere). It thus not only includes the science of movement, but also that of electricity, magnetism, light, warmth, and chemical connections, such as they all follow directly from ordinary forces of nature, and Oested's discovery in 1820 of the connection between magnetism and electricity must be seen in this connection.

Both H.C. Andersen and Søren Kierkegaard admit to having been influenced by the writings of Oersted. "He was an enthusiastic follower of the "Naturphilosophie" school in Germany, whose main object was the unification of physical forces, thus producing a monistic theory of the universe. It was to further this purpose that Oersted sought in actual phenomena the electro-magnetic identity of which he had already convinced himself on metaphysical grounds" (Percy H. Muir in Printing and The Mind of Man).

Order-nr.: 53678