William Gilbert

Physician and physicist, born in Colchester, Essex, SE England, UK. After a period at Cambridge, he was appointed physician to Elizabeth I. He established the magnetic nature of the Earth, and conjectured that terrestrial magnetism and electricity were two allied emanations of a single force. He was the first to use the terms electricity, electric force, and electric attraction. His book, De magnete (1600, On the Magnet) is the first major English book in science. The gilbert, unit of magnetomotive power, is named after him.

William Gilbert
Dr William Gilbert (Gilberd)
Born	1544 Colchester
Died	1603 London

William Gilbert (or Gilberd, as he wrote it - see below) was born May 24, 1544, Colchester, England and died November 30, 1603, in London, probably of the plague. Many people regard Gilbert as the father of Electrical Engineering or Father of Electricity.

His primary work was De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure (On the Magnet and Magnetic eyes, and on That Great Magnet the Earth) published in 1600. From his experiments, he concluded that the Earth was itself magnetic and that this was the reason compasses pointed north (previously, some believed that it was the pole star (Polaris) or a large magnetic island on the north pole that attracted the compass). amber is called elektron in Greek, so Gilbert decided to call its effect the electric force.

Gilbert strongly argued that electricity and magnetism were not the same thing. By keeping clarity, Gilbert's strong distinction advanced science for nearly 250 years.

Gilbert's magnetism was the invisible force that many other natural philosophers, such as Kepler, seized upon, incorrectly, as governing the motions that they observed. While not attributing magnetism to attraction among the stars, Gilbert pointed out the motion of the skies were due to earth's rotation, and not the rotation of the spheres, 20 years before Galileo, see external reference below.

A unit of magnetomotive force, also known as magnetic potential, was named the gilbert in his honor. Also, The Gilberd School in Colchester, named after Gilbert, would seem to confirm this. David Tilley, William Gilbert: forgotten genius, Physics World, November 2003;