Han's student days were at a time when Europe was in a new intellectual ferment following the revolutions in America and in France, Germany and Italy were rising from divisive nationalisms and a strong wave of intellectual awareness was sweeping the Continent.

The new century opened with Oersted beginning his professional career in charge of an apothecary shop in Copenhagen and as lecturer at the university. He was stirred by the announcement of Volta's discovery of chemical electricity and he immediately applied the voltaic pile to experiments with acids and alkalis. The following year he devoted to the customary ``Wanderjahr,'' traveling in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, meeting the philosophers Schelling, Fichte, and Tieck. He also met Count Rumford (born Benjamin Thompson in Woburn, Mass.) who was then serving the Elector of Bavaria, and the physicist Ritter; these were Oersted's main contacts in science.

From Go ^ ttingen (1801) where he stayed for 10 days, he wrote, ``The first question asked everywhere is about galvanism. As everybody is curious to see the battery of glass tubes I have invented, I have had quite a small one made here of four glass tubes (in Copenhagen I used 30) and intend to carry it with me.'' Oersted joined Ritter at Jena and stayed with him for 3 weeks, continuing their correspondence after he left. With Ritter he was exposed to the fantastic profusion of ideas that stormed through his host's fertile but disorganized mind. Oersted remodeled Ritter's notes into an essay in French which was submitted to the Institut de France for its annual prize of 3000 francs. The sound discoveries of this quixotic genius were so diluted by those of fantasy that the prize was never awarded to him. In May, 1803, Ritter, in another flight of fancy, wrote to Oersted a letter that contained a remarkable prophecy. He related events on earth to periodic celestial phenomena and indicated that the years of maximum inclination of the ecliptic coincided with the years of important electrical discoveries. Thus, 1745 corresponded to the invention of the ``Leiden'' jar by Kleist, 1764 that of the electrophorus by Wilcke, 1782 produced the condenser of Volta, and 1801 the voltaic pile. Ritter proceeded, ``You now emerge into a new epoch in which late in the year 1819 or 1820, you will have to reckon. This we might well witness.'' Ritter died in 1810 and Oersted not only lived to see the event occur but was the author of it.