Abstract
Edwin Hall’s experiment, performed almost exactly one hundred years ago, had an elegant simplicity to it. A current from a carbon-zinc battery was passed through a strip of gold foil (2 cm. × 9 cm.) fixed firmly on a glass plate by means of brass clamps. The plate bearing the gold leaf was placed between the poles of an electromagnet is such a way that the lines of magnetic force passed perpendicularly through the horizontal plane of the foil. Opposite edges at the mid-point of the gold foil strip were tapped to a high-resistance galvanometer in order to detect any influence of the strong magnetic field on the current flowing through the gold foil. The results indicated the existence of an electromotive force at right angles to the direction of the primary current and perpendicular to the magnetic field. It was this transverse potential, produced by the action of an external magnetic field on a permanent current, which became known as “the Hall effect.”
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References
E. H. Hall, On a New Action of the Magnet on Electric Current, Amer. J. Math. 2:287 (1879). The account of Hall’s experiment given above is from this paper, p. 290.
E. H. Hall, On the New Action of Magnetism on a permanent Electric Current, Amer. J. Sci. ser. 3, 20:161 (1880).
idem, Phil. Mag. ser. 5, 10:301 (1880).
The original version of Hall’s thesis does not appear to have survived at Hopkins. The first Ph.D. in physics at Hopkins was awarded in 1879 to William White Jacques (1855–1932) for a thesis published as “distribution of Heat in the Spectra of Various Sources of Radiation,” John Wilson & Son, University Press, Cambridge (1879); see also, Proc. Amer. Acad. Arts and Scis. 14: 142 (1879).
The Nation, Dec. 25, 1879, p. 44.
John David Miller, “Henry Augustus Rowland and his Electromagnetic Researches,” Ph.D. thesis, Oregon State University (1970). See also the following articles by Miller, based upon his thesis: Rowland and the Nature of Electric Currents, Isis 63: 5 (1972).
Rowland’s Magnetic Analogy to Ohm’s Law, Isis 66:230 (1975); and Rowland’s Physics, Physics Today 29:39 (July, 1976).
Robert Rosenberg is making a study of electrical engineering at Hopkins and its relationship to the Physics Department. His knowledge of the newly accessioned Presidential Papers in the Archives of the Milton S. Eisenhower Library at Johns Hopkins was valuable to me on a number of points.
The fullest and best account of Hall’s life remains P. W. Bridgman’s obituary notice, Edwin Herbert Hall 1855–1938, in “Nat. Acad. Biogr. Mem.,” vol. XXI (1939-40).
Miller, Thesis (1970), pp. 189-190. See also, Hugh Hawkins, “Pioneer: A History of The Johns Hopkins University,” Cornell University Press, Ithaca (1960), pp. 45-46.
Miller, Thesis (1970), p. 282.
Quoted by Bridgman (ref. 8), pp. 74-75.
The best indications of these sentiments are the occasional addresses of the individuals involved. For Gilman see D. C. Gilman, “University Problems in the United States,” New York (1898), for Rowland see the nontechnical papers in. “The Physical Papers of Henry Augustus Rowland,” The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore (1902). No such collection exists for Remsen, but see 0. Hannaway, The German Model of Chemical Education in America: Ira Remsen at Johns Hopkins (1876–1913), Ambix 23: 145 (1976).
The following account of Rowland’s education as a physicist is based largely on Miller, Thesis (1970), pp. 6-75.
See, for instance, Rowland’s famous address before the AAAS in 1883, A plea for pure science, Proc. AAAS 32:105 (1883). The significance of this address is discussed in Daniel J. Kevles, “The Physicists: the History of a Scientific Community in Modern America,” Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York (1977), pp. 43-44.
Michael Faraday, “Experimental Researches in Electricity,” 3 vols., London, (1839–1855).
J. Clerk Maxwell, “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,” 2 vols., Oxford (1873).
H. A. Rowland, On Magnetic permeability, and the maximum of magnetism of iron, steel, and nickel, Phil. Mag. ser. 4, 46:140 (1873); and idem, On the magnetic permeability and maximum of magnetism of nickel and cobalt, Phil. Mag. ser. 4, 48:321 (1874).
Rowland’s trip to Europe is discussed in Miller, Thesis (1970), pp. 90-102.
Quoted in Miller, Thesis (1970), p. 97.
The “Berlin” experiment itself is described in H. A. Rowland, On the Magnetic Effect of Electric Convection, Amer. J. Sci. and Arts 15:30 (1878). The context and subsequent history of the experiment is fully discussed in Miller, Thesis (1970), pp. 114-182, and also in the same author’s article in Isis 63:6 (1972).
Miller, Thesis (1970), pp. 183-205. For testimony on the instrumentation at Hopkins, see ibid., pp. 293-295.
This information can be gleaned from the class lists published in the University Circulars. See The Johns Hopkins University Circulars December 1879 — September 1882 (1882).
Hall, Amer. J. Math. 2:287 (1879). The passage from Maxwell is to be found in “A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,” vol. 2 (1873), pp. 144-145.
E. Edlund, Unipolar Induction, Phil. Mag., ser. 5, 6:289 (1878).
All three experimental procedures are described in Hall, Amer. J. Math. 2:287 (1879). More detail concerning the second unsuccessful procedure using the gilded disc is given in Hall, Phil. Mag. ser. 5, 10:301 (1880), where no mention is made of the silver wire experiment. The fact that the silver wire was drawn through a triangular die is a detail provided by Miller, Thesis (1970), p. 253, who obtained it from Hall’s laboratory notebook of the period which survives in the Houghton Library at Harvard University.
Miller has also drawn attention to the relationship of Hall’s experiments to the “Berlin” experiment of Rowland. See esp. his article in Isis 63:19 (1972). He overlooks, however, the important clue provided by the second unsuccessful experimental procedure described by Hall.
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Hannaway, O. (1980). E. H. Hall and Physics at Hopkins: The Background to Discovery. In: Chien, C.L., Westgate, C.R. (eds) The Hall Effect and Its Applications. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-1367-1_20
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