History of the Motor

     The history of the motor really started when the fundamentals of electromagnetic induction was introduced. Oersted, Gauss, and Faraday are three scientists in the early 1800's who came up with these basic principles. Hans Oersted was responsible for making the connection that magnetism and electricity are closely related. In one of his experiments, he found that the magnetized needle of a compass was deflected when he started or stopped an electric current from a voltaic pile, also known as the early battery. This was the catalyst for much research to come on electricity and magnetism.

     Next was Carl Friedrich Gauss. His major contribution to electromagnetism was that he invented an early form of the magnetometer, a device measuring the direction and strength of a magnetic field. He also developed a consistent system of magnetic units. With the help of Wilhelm Weber, he built one of the first electromagnetic telegraphs. In addition, his laws describing magnetic and electric fluxes influenced James Clerk Maxwell with his famous equations and electromagnetic theory. Maxwell's later equations describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and altered by each other and by charges and currents.

     Finally, a major contributor to the fundamentals of electromagnetic induction was Michael Faraday. In 1831, Faraday discovered electromagnetic induction, which is the idea behind the electric transformer and generator, or our motor. This was crucial in enabling electricity to be transformed from being a non-productive mystery, to a powerful new technology. He built two devices that produced what he called electromagnetic rotation, which is circular motion from the circular magnetic force around a wire. It was after this that he began his experiments that led to the discovery of electromagnetic induction, the basis of modern electromagnetic technology. Really,  Faraday set out to confirm or prove wrong a lot of the speculations made by Oersted. His experiment's purpose was to see whether or not a current-carrying wire produced a circular magnetic field around it. The two devices mentioned above were when he took a dish of mercury and placed a fixed magnet in the middle. Above this he put a free moving wire, long enough to dip in the mercury. When he connected the battery to form a circuit, the current-carrying wire circled around the magnet. The second devise was this in reverse, with a fixed wire and dangling magnet, where again the free part circled. These were the first electric motors. 

     After these fundamentals were laid out, the expansion on the motor began. Ten years after Faraday's first motor, Joseph Henry improved on it. He constructed a simple device whose moving part was a straight electromagnetic rocking on a horizontal axis. This automatically reversed its polarity by its motion as pairs of wires projecting from the ends made connections with two electrochemical cells. Two vertical permanent magnets attracted and repelled the ends of the electromagnet, making it move back and forth at around 75 cycles per minute. 

     Finally, William Sturgeon invented the commutator. He is credited with the making of the first rotary electric motor. Sturgeon used horseshoe electromagnets to build rotating and stationary magnetic fields. This DC motor was the first to produce a continuous rotary motion, using all essentials of a modern-day DC motor.