Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Timeline of electromagnetism and classical optics
Summary
Timeline of electromagnetism and classical optics lists, within the history of electromagnetism, the associated theories, technology, and events.
28th century BC – Ancient Egyptian texts describe electric fish. They refer to them as the "Thunderer of the Nile", and described them as the "protectors" of all other fish.
6th century BC – Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus observes that rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber, would cause an attraction between the two, which is now known to be caused by static electricity. He noted that rubbing the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair and that if the amber was rubbed sufficiently a spark would jump.
424 BC Aristophanes' "lens" is a glass globe filled with water.(Seneca says that it can be used to read letters no matter how small or dim)
4th century BC Mo Di first mentions the camera obscura, a pin-hole camera.
3rd century BC Euclid is the first to write about reflection and refraction and notes that light travels in straight lines
3rd century BC – The Baghdad Battery is dated from this period. It resembles a galvanic cell and is believed by some to have been used for electroplating, although there is no common consensus on the purpose of these devices nor whether they were, indeed, even electrical in nature.
1st century AD – Pliny in his Natural History records the story of a shepherd Magnes who discovered the magnetic properties of some iron stones, "it is said, made this discovery, when, upon taking his herds to pasture, he found that the nails of his shoes and the iron ferrel of his staff adhered to the ground."
130 AD. – Claudius Ptolemy (in his work Optics) wrote about the properties of light including: reflection, refraction, and color and tabulated angles of refraction for several media
8th century AD – Electric fish are reported by Arabic naturalists and physicians.
1021 – Ibn al-Haytham (Alhazen) writes the Book of Optics, studying vision.
1088 – Shen Kuo first recognizes magnetic declination.
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.