The National MagLab is funded by the National Science Foundation and the State of Florida.
These demonstrations about laws and tools associated with electricity and magnetism allow you to adjust variables at and to visualize invisible forces — which makes them almost better than the real thing.
Seeing is believing. In these animations, we show you what electricity and magnetism might look like if they weren't invisible.
Learn about electricity and magnetism — and have some fun while you're at it!
How do Maglev trains work? What are comets made of? How do bugs walk on water? This section demonstrates these and other concepts related to magnetism, electricity and other areas of science.
Whether you prefer your science short & sweet or long & detailed, we spell it out for you here in easy-to-understand language.
Read fun science stories told in comic strip style.
There is beauty and art in science. Gaze on these stories of discoveries that could be featured on museum walls instead of scientific journals.
Explore these surprising, unconventional and sometimes downright strange stories about high magnetic field research.
These special science graphics explain science stories in digestible steps and include optional detours for readers wanting more background to customize your reading journey.
Get to know these pioneers who went down in history for their groundbreaking work, including scientists behind common terms such as Amp, Celsius, Kelvin, hertz and tesla.
From the world's first compass to the magnetic force microscope and beyond, explore a variety of instruments, tools and machines throughout history.
Our timeline takes you through the highlights of electricity and magnetism and across the centuries.
Take a field trip to these high magnetic field landmarks around the globe.
Aided by tools such as static electricity machines and leyden jars, scientists continue their experiments into the fundamentals of magnetism and electricity.
1706
English physicist Sir Isaac Newton publishes Opticks, his collection of papers relating to light, color and optics. In it he outlines his corpuscular theory of light that holds that light is made up of particles, not waves, as other scientists had suggested.
Francis Hauksbee of London invents an electrostatic generator composed of a glass sphere turned by a crank that produces an electric charge through friction. This is a significant improvement over the more primitive version produced by Otto von Guericke several decades earlier.
1708
English scientist William Wall notes a similarity between thunder and lightning and the cracking sounds and sparks produced by electrified objects. His observations are published in Philosophical Transactions.
1709
Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects. Containing an Account of Several Surprizing Phenomena Touching Light and Electricity is published by Francis Hauksbee and becomes an important early work in the areas of electricity and electroluminescence.
1716
English mathematician and astronomer Edmond Halley correctly speculates that the atmospheric phenomenon of aurorae is related to the effects of the magnetic field of the Earth.
1722
Through close observation of the needle of a compass, London instrument maker George Graham discovers the diurnal variation of magnetic declination.
1729
Chemist Stephen Gray of London demonstrates the conductivity of electricity and determines that it is the surface of an object that holds its charge.
1733
French chemist Charles-François de Cisternay du Fay speculates that there are two different types of electricity, which he refers to as resinous (-) and vitreous (+), notes the repulsion of like charges and the attraction of unlike charges, and determines that string is more conductive when wet.
1742
Thomas Le Sueur and Francis Jacquier publish an edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia and include a note to the text that demonstrates an inverse-cube law of the force between two magnets.
1745
The Leyden jar, the first practical device for storing electric charge, is invented independently by German cleric E. Georg von Kleist and Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek.
Jean-Antoine Nollet, a French clergyman and physicist, theorizes that electrical matter continuously flows between two charged objects.
English physicist Gowin Knight develops a method of producing artificial magnets that retain their magnetization for extended periods of time. The new magnets are used in the Knight compass, which becomes very popular among mariners and scientists.
1746
In a demonstration of electricity for King Louis XV, Jean-Antoine Nollet discharges a Leyden jar so that the current passes through a line of 180 Royal Guards. He would later carry out a similar feat involving a chain of Carthusian monks that extended more than a kilometer.
British scientist William Watson develops the concept of the conservation of electrical charge, in which there exists a single electrical fluid that is not created or destroyed, but only transferred from one object to another. Soon after, Benjamin Franklin more fully develops the theory of conservation.
Johann Heinrich Winckler, a professor at the University of Leipzig, tries to use electricity to communicate telegraphically across long distances.
1747
English physicist and chemist Henry Cavendish begins measuring the conductivity of various substances by comparing the shocks he receives when he discharges Leyden jars through them.
1748
William Watson, Henry Cavendish and other colleagues attempt to measure the velocity of electricity as it traveled through a circuit more than 12,000 feet long and mistakenly conclude that it is instantaneous.
Jean-Antoine Nollet builds an early electroscope, an electrometer comprised of a suspended pith ball that moves in response to the electrostatic attraction and repulsion of a charged body.
