English physician, physicist and natural philosopher (1544-1603)
William Gilbert wrote the book that turned magnetism from parlor trick into science. De Magnete, published in 1600, was the first serious experimental study of magnetic force — and it made him the father of a field that wouldn't have a name for another two centuries.
Gilbert was an English physician and natural philosopher born around May 24, 1544, who built his reputation by rejecting the Aristotelian orthodoxy that still ruled universities. He favored experiment over scholastic argument, a stance that led him to magnetism. In 1600 he published De Magnete, the work that secured his legacy and established magnetic study as a discipline rooted in observation rather than speculation. A unit of magnetomotive force — magnetic potential — was later named the Gilbert in his honor, though it has since been replaced by the ampere-turn. He died on November 30, 1603…
Sourced, dated quotes from William Gilbert
Only on the superficies of the globes is plainly seen the host of souls and of animate existences, and their great and delightful diversity the Creator taketh pleasure
How far away from the earth are those remotest of stars: they are beyond the reach of eye, or man's devices, or man's thought. What an absurdity is this motion (of spheres).
William Gilbert of Colchester, Physician of London: On the Load Stone and Magnetic Bodies by William Gilbert, Edward Wright; J. Wiley & Sons (1893) public domain @GoogleBooks.
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