The Importance of Electromagnetism

Faraday found that these were actually circular forces. And so what Faraday did was having realized that somehow electric force was circular in nature. The question was, how do you realize that? Now he's convinced himself of the reality of those forces around an electric wire and by implication, there's also circular forces around magnetism. But then getting a bit tired of having to chase this wire around by himself, he had the idea that if you put the wire in the center of the mercury it would take continuously about the magnet - which is precisely what he did.