In 1820 Oersted observed the deflection of a small magnet placed close to a wire carrying a steady current. This fundamental discovery unleashed a series of researches which led to the unification of the electric and magnetic phenomena. The goal of this paper is to contribute to show the importance of Oersted's experiment. It is made a short historical contextualization of this experiment. It is described a modern reproduction of the procedures and observations of Oersted utilizing low cost materials.
electrodynamics; electromagnetism; Oersted's experiment
