1600
Magnetic opus
Following nearly two decades of experimentation, English physician William Gilbert completes his opus on magnetism, De Magnete, Magneticisique Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies, and the Great Magnet of the Earth). The work includes the first use of the term electric, which was coined by Gilbert from the Greek word for amber (electron), the first major classification of electric and non-electric substances, and one of the earliest descriptions of the Earth as a magnetic entity.1629
Attraction and repulsion
Italian Jesuit philosopher Niccolò Cabeo publishes his observations on electrical attraction and repulsion in Philososphia Magnetica, noting that contact between two attracting materials may cause them to subsequently repel each other.
1635
Gellibrand's insights
English clergyman Henry Gellibrand ascertains that magnetic declination changes over time by comparing new measurements to those he obtained 12 years earlier, and publishes his findings.
1644
Descartes's take on magnetism
French philosopher René Descartes offers one of the first mechanical, rather than animistic, explanations of magnetism, which involves a complex interaction between effluvia, threads and ducts.
1646
Browne's take on electricity
In Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries into Very many received Tenets, and commonly presumed truths, English physician Sir Thomas Browne first uses the term electricity, which he defines as “a power to attract strawes or light bodies, and convert the needle freely placed.”
1660
Sulfur globe
German physicist Otto von Guericke invents a machine capable of generating static electricity by applying friction against a sulfur ball in a glass globe rotated on an iron shaft with a hand crank.1672
Electroluminescence
Noticing that the sulfur ball component of his electric generator could be made to glow by the electricity it produced, Otto von Guericke becomes the first observer of electroluminescence.
1675
Electricity in a vacuum
Robert Boyle, an avid British experimenter, publishes Experiments and Notes about the Mechanical Origine or Production of Electricity, in which he describes the transmission of electricity through a vacuum.
1692
Halley's spheres
Edmond Halley, an English mathematician and astronomer, suggests that the Earth consists of spheres within spheres, each of which slowly rotates with respect to the other spheres and is independently magnetized. Halley uses his view of the planet to explain why magnetic declination slowly changes over time.
1699
Halley's survey
Edmond Halley carries out the first magnetic declination survey and publishes a chart of his findings two years later.