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By
Mary Bellis
The accredited father of the science of
electricity and magnetism was the English
scientist, William Gilbert, who was a
physician and man of learning at the court of Elizabeth. Prior to him, all
that was known of electricity and magnetism was what the ancients knew, that
the lodestone possessed magnetic properties and that amber and jet, when
rubbed, would attract bits of paper or other substances of small specific
gravity. William Gilbert's great treatise De magnete, magneticisique corporibus"
or "On the Magnet", printed in
Latin in 1600, containing the fruits of his researches and experiments for
many years, indeed provided the basis for a new science.
 William Gilbert first coined the term "electricity" from the Greek
word for amber. Gilbert wrote about the electrification of many
substances in his "De magnete, magneticisique corporibus". He
also the first person to use the terms electric force, magnetic pole, and electric
attraction. William Gilbert was a pioneer of the experimental method and the
first to explain the magnetic
compass.
According to Dr. David P. Stern of NASA: "William
Gilbert was fascinated by magnets. Britain was a major seafaring nation in 1588
when the Spanish Armada was defeated, opening the
way to British settlement of America. British ships depended on the magnetic
compass, yet no one understood why it worked. Did
the pole star attract it (as Columbus once speculated), or was there a
magnetic mountain at the pole, which ships should would never approach, because
the sailors thought its pull would yank out all their iron nails and fittings? Did
the smell of garlic interfere with the action of the compass, which is why
helmsmen were forbidden to eat it near a ship's compass? For
nearly 20 years William Gilbert conducted ingenious experiments (among
others, making sure that garlic had no effect on compasses) to understand magnetism. Until
then, scientific experiments were not in fashion: instead, books relied on quotes of
ancient authorities that was where the myth about garlic started."
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