# A Brief history of mangnetism

## TL;DR

This paper provides a semi-technical historical overview of magnetism, highlighting key contributions from ancient Greece to modern quantum theories, emphasizing the evolution of understanding through significant scientific milestones.

## Contribution

It offers a comprehensive synthesis of the historical development of magnetism, integrating classical, quantum, and modern perspectives in a single narrative.

## Key findings

- Historical progression of magnetism theories
- Quantum mechanics' role in understanding magnetism
- Introduction of quantum spin liquids as a modern topic

## Abstract

In this article an overview of the historical development of the key ideas in the field of magnetism is presented. The presentation is semi-technical in nature.Starting by noting down important contribution of Greeks, William Gilbert, Coulomb, Poisson, Oersted, Ampere, Faraday, Maxwell, and Pierre Curie, we review early 20th century investigations by Paul Langevin and Pierre Weiss. The Langevin theory of paramagnetism and the Weiss theory of ferromagnetism were partly successful and real understanding of magnetism came with the advent of quantum mechanics. Van Vleck was the pioneer in applying quantum mechanics to the problem of magnetism and we discuss his main contributions: (1) his detailed quantum statistical mechanical study of magnetism of real gases; (2) his pointing out the importance of the crystal fields or ligand fields in the magnetic behavior of iron group salts (the ligand field theory); and (3) his many contributions to the elucidation of exchange interactions in d electron metals. Next, the pioneering contributions (but lesser known) of Dorfman are discussed. Then, in chronological order, the key contributions of Pauli, Heisenberg, and Landau are presented. Finally, we discuss a modern topic of quantum spin liquids.