One spring day in 1820, during a lecture, the Danish physicist Hans Christian Ørsted allowed a current from a battery to pass through a platinum wire that lay across a compass – and the compass needle moved! Ørsted had thereby demonstrated the link between electricity and magnetism, which is what now allows us to turn on a light, talk on the phone or take a drive in an electric car.

Hans Christian Ørsted is one of Denmark’s greatest natural scientists, and this comic book is being published to mark the 200th anniversary of his discovery of electromagnetism. But Ørsted was also one of the leading cultural figures of the Danish Golden Age, and lived in a dramatic time for Denmark. This is the story of his life.

Ørsted. He electrified the world is an 80 page graphic novel written and drawn by Ingo Milton and Sussi Bech in cooperation with Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen from the Danish National Space Institute. The best-selling Danish comic book of 2020, now sold in nearly 6.000 copies.