Hans Christian Ørsted

About Hans Christian Ørsted

Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851) was a Danish physicist and chemist whose foundational work cemented his place as a major figure in the history of science, earning him a Historical Popularity Index (HPI) rank of #383. His most profound contribution came in 1820 when he experimentally demonstrated the relationship between electricity and magnetism by observing that an electric current could deflect a compass needle. This discovery was pivotal, as it provided the first concrete evidence of electromagnetism, bridging what were previously considered separate forces and directly paving the way for major technological advances like the electric motor and telegraph.

Despite this historical weight, Ørsted currently experiences a significant internet attention gap. With only 100K annualized Wikipedia views in 2025, he is under-attended by a factor of approximately -4x relative to his historical importance. To put this in perspective, his contemporary Enrico Fermi, another significant physicist but ranked lower by HPI (#653), garnered over five times his viewership at 530K views last year. Furthermore, Ørsted's digital presence appears to be contracting, showing a notable 21.6% year-over-year decline in attention and a -10% drop in momentum between Q1 and Q3 of 2025.

This recent decline is noteworthy given that the foundational science he established is central to modern physics and technology. His discovery is a crucial predecessor to the later work of figures like James Clerk Maxwell, whose unified theory of electromagnetism followed directly from this initial realization.