2. -INTRODUCTION-
In the 13th-century a French schoolar boy called
Petrus Peregrinus who conducted experiments on
magnetism and wrote the first treatise describing
the properties of magnets.
Maricourt takes a lodestone which he had given a
round shape that approximates a
needle directed immediately
to the action of the lodestone.
3. -EARLY DISCOVERIES-
Peregrinus wrote a letter describing everything that
was known, at that time, about magnetite. It said that
he did this while standing guard outside the walls of
Lucera. While people were starving to death inside
the walls, Peter was outside writing one of the first
‘scientific’ reports and one that was to have a vast
impact on the world. However, significant progress
was made only with the experiments of William
Gilbert in 1600 in the understanding of magnestism.
It was Gilbert who first realized that the Earth was a
giant magnet.