Electromagnets Hans Christian Oersted was the first scientist to study electromagnetism. He was a physics professor at the University of Copenhagen. In 1819 he discovered that a magnetic needle is deflected at right angles to a wire carrying an electric current, thus initiating the study of electromagnetism. This discovery, which showed a connection between electricity and magnetism, was followed up by the French scientist André Marie Ampère, who studied the forces between wires carrying electric …showed first 75 words of 606 total…

…showed last 75 words of 606 total…x-rays, and gamma rays. Light traditionally refers to the range of frequencies that can be seen by humans. The direction of the electric field in an electromagnetic wave is referred to as polarization. A wave whose electric field is oscillating in the vertical direction is said to be polarized in the vertical direction. The photons of such a wave would interact with matter differently than the photons of a wave polarized in the horizontal direction.