1724-1802

German scholar who produced the first detailed treatise on electricity and magnetism based on the principle of action-at-a-distance. Aepinus' research on the thermoelectric properties of tourmaline led him to consider the similarities between electric and magnetic effects. This insight was developed with great originality in his masterwork Tentamen theoriae electricitatis et magnetismi (1759). The Tentamen provided a model for applying mathematics to electric and magnetic phenomena and remained influential until the mid-nineteenth century.