Hans Christian Ørsted

About Hans Christian Ørsted

Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist whose foundational discovery propelled modern physics and technology. Ranked #383 in historical importance by MIT's Pantheon project, his primary contribution was establishing the fundamental link between electricity and magnetism in 1820. This demonstration—that an electric current creates a magnetic field—is a cornerstone of electromagnetism and directly paved the way for practical applications like electric motors and generators.

Despite this profound historical impact, Ørsted currently experiences significant underattention on the modern internet. His 2025 annualized Wikipedia view count stands at 102K, placing him in an Attention Gap of -4x relative to his historical standing. For context, this is substantially less attention than his contemporary, James Clerk Maxwell (#881 importance), who garners 534K views, or even Robert Hooke (#703 importance), who receives 341K views, despite both being ranked lower in long-term global influence.

While the overall interest shows a year-over-year decline of -20.2% in 2025, there is a slight positive trend in recent activity, with a +15% momentum observed between Q1 and Q3 of this year, suggesting his name is seeing brief spikes in contemporary relevance.