Ányos Jedlik
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.031130
On this date in 1800, physicist Ányos Jedlik was born in Szímö, Kingdom of Hungary (now Zemné, Slovakia). Educated as Benedictine priest and was a professor of physics and later a dean and rector at the Budapest University of Sciences for 40 years. In 1828 he built the world’s first electric motor, which is still working today in an exhibit in the Museum of Applied Arts in Budapest. However, he did not speak about the device for nearly 30 years, as a result the dynamo is widely associated with Werner von Siemens. He also was the first professor to lecture students in Hungarian, not Latin, and created much of the Hungarian vocabulary of physics.
Date in History: 11 January 1800
