- William Gilbert
Infobox Person
name = William Gilbert
caption = Dr William Gilbert
birth_date = May 24, 1544
birth_place =Colchester
death_date = November 30, 1603
death_place =London
occupation = physician, natural philosopherWilliam Gilbert, also known as Gilbard (Colchester,
England ,May 24 ,1544 –London ,England ,November 30 ,1603 ) was an English physician and a natural philosopher. He was an early Copernican, and passionately rejected both the prevailingAristotelian philosophy and the Scholastic method of university teaching. After gaining his MD from Cambridge in 1569, and a short spell as bursar ofSt John's College, Cambridge , he left for practice in London and in 1600 was elected President of theCollege of Physicians (not by that point granted a royal charter). From 1601 until his death in 1603, he was
Elizabeth I's own physician, and James VI and I renewed his appointment.Scientifically, Gilbert is known for his investigations of
magnetism andelectricity . Gilbert is credited as one of the originators of the term "electricity", and many regard him as the father ofelectrical engineering or father ofelectricity andmagnetism . [Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 2000, CD-ROM, version 2.5.]His primary work was "De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure" ("On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on the Great Magnet the Earth") published in 1600. In this work he describes many of his experiments with his model earth called the
terrella . From his experiments, he concluded that the Earth was itselfmagnetic and that this was the reasoncompass es pointed north (previously, some believed that it was the pole star (Polaris ) or a large magnetic island on the north pole that attracted the compass). He was the first to argue, correctly, that the center of the Earth was iron, and he considered an important, and related, property of magnets is that they can be cut, each forming a new magnet with north and south poles. So the earth being one giant magnet posed no problems.The English word "electricity" was first used in 1646 by
Sir Thomas Browne , derived from Gilbert's 1600New Latin "electricus", meaning "like amber". The term was in use since the 1200s, but Gilbert was the first to use it to mean "like amber in its attractive properties". He recognized that friction with these objects removed a so-calledeffluvium , which would cause the attraction effect in returning to the object, though he did not realize that this substance (electric charge ) was universal to all materials.Cite journal
doi = 10.1080/00033796700203316
volume = 23
issue = 4pages = 261
author = Niels H. de V. Heathcote
title = The early meaning of "electricity": Some "Pseudodoxia Epidemica" - I
journal = Annals of Science
accessdate = 2007-07-16
year = 1967
month = December]In his book, he also studied
static electricity usingamber ; amber is called "elektron" in Greek, so Gilbert decided to call its effect the "electric force". He invented the first electricalmeasuring instrument , theelectroscope , in the form of a pivoted needle he called the "versorium". [cite book
last = Gilbert
first = William
authorlink =
coauthors = P. Fleury Mottelay
title = On the Lodestone and Magnetic Bodies
publisher = John Wiley & Sons
date = 1893
location = New York
pages = p.79
url = http://books.google.com/books?id=UcoEAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA79
doi =
id =
isbn = a translation of William Gilbert (1600) "Die Magnete", London]Like others of his day, he believed that "crystal" (
quartz ) was an especially hard form ofwater , formed from compressedice :Gilbert argued that electricity and magnetism were not the same thing. For evidence, he (incorrectly) pointed out that, while electrical attraction disappeared with heat, magnetic attraction did not (although it is proven that magnetism does in fact become damaged and weakened with heat). It took
James Clerk Maxwell to show that both effects were aspects of a single force: electromagnetism. Even then, Maxwell simply surmised this in his "A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism " after much analysis. By keeping clarity, Gilbert's strong distinction advanced science for nearly 250 years.Gilbert's
magnetism was the invisible force that many other natural philosophers, such as Kepler, seized upon, incorrectly, as governing the motions that they observed. While not attributing magnetism to attraction among the stars, Gilbert pointed out the motion of the skies were due to earth's rotation, and not the rotation of the spheres, 20 years beforeGalileo (see external reference below).A unit of
magnetomotive force , also known asmagnetic potential , was named thegilbert in his honor.Gilbert died on
November 30 ,1603 . His cause of death is thought to have been thebubonic plague . [ [http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/gilbert.html William Gilbert brief biography at National High Magnetic Field Laboratory] ] [ [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/gilbert_william.shtml William Gilbert brief biography at bbc.co.uk] ]Whilst today he is generally referred to as "William Gilbert", he also went under the name of "William Gilberd". The latter was used in his and his father's epitaph, the records of the town of Colchester, the Biographical Memoir in "De Magnete", and the name of The
Gilberd School in Colchester, named after Gilbert.Further reading
*Gilbert, William. (1600), "De Magnete" (About the Magnet). Translated 1893 from Latin to English by Paul Fleury Mottelay, Dover Books, paperback.
*Leary, Warren E. (2000), "Celebrating the Book That Ushered In thee Age of Sciences", The New York Times, June 13, 2000.
*Pumfrey, Stephen & Tilley, David. (2003). "William Gilbert: forgotten genius", "Physics World ", November;
*Pumfrey, Stephen. (2002). "Latitude & the Magnetic Earth", Icon Books, paperback.
* Cite journal
last = Shipley
first = Brian C
title = Gilbert, Translated: Silvanus P. Thompson, the Gilbert Club, and the Tercentenary Edition of De Magnete
journal = Canadian Journal o"'69 f History
year = 2003
month = August
url = http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3686/is_200308/ai_n9252195External links
* [http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/gilbert.html The Galileo Project] — biography of William Gilbert.
* [http://www.antiquebooks.net/readpage.html#gilbert On the Magnet] — Translation of De Magnete by Silvanus Thompson for the Gilbert Club, London 1900. Full text, free to read and search. Go to page 9 and read Gilbert saying the earth revolves leading to the motion of the skies.
* [http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/demagint.htm The Great Magnet, the Earth] — website hosted by NASA — "Commemorating the 400th anniversary of "De Magnete" by William Gilbert of Colchester".
* [http://www.wbabin.net/science/ricker6.pdf William Gilbert Founder Of Terrestrial Magnetism]
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