Oersted

Oersted, Hans Christian and Anders Sandoe, two brothers, born in 1777 and 1778 respectively, and educated at the university of Copenhagen. The elder distinguished himself as a physicist, and in 1819 propounded the identity of electricity, magnetism, and galvanism, a discovery for which he received the Copley medal of the Royal Society and an award from the French Institute. He next engaged in experiments as to the compressibility of water, and a year or two later discovered the metal aluminium. His skill in popularising science led to the publication of his lectures in a volume entitled The Soul in Nature. He died in 1851. The younger Oersted adopted the legal profession, which he afterwards combined with politics, becoming in 1853 Prime Minister of Denmark. His reactionary tendencies led to his impeachment, and, though acquitted, he took no further part in public affairs, but died in retirement in 1860.