Editing William Gilbert (physicist)

{{Short description|English physician and natural philosopher}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Use British English|date=July 2012}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name        = William Gilbert
| image       = William Gilbert 45626i.jpg
| caption     = William Gilbert
| birth_date  = 24 May 1544
| birth_place = [[Colchester]], [[Kingdom of England|England]]
| death_date  = {{death date and age|1603|11|30|1544|5|24|df=y}}
| death_place = [[London]], England
| education   = [[St John's College, Cambridge]] ([[Doctor of Medicine|MD]], 1569)
| nationality = English
| field       = Physician
| known_for   = Studies of magnetism, ''[[De Magnete]]''
}}
'''William Gilbert''' ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɡ|ɪ|l|b|ər|t}}; 24 May 1544? – 30 November 1603),<ref>"Gilbert, William (1544?–1603)", Stephen Pumfrey, ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'', https://doi.org/10.1093/ref:odnb/10705</ref> also known as '''Gilberd''',<ref>While today he is generally referred to as William Gilbert, he also went under the name of William Gilberd. The latter was used in both his and his father's [[epitaph]]s and in the records of the town of Colchester. {{harv|Gilbert|1893|p=ix}}</ref> was an English physician, physicist and [[natural philosophy|natural philosopher]]. He passionately rejected both the prevailing [[Aristotelian philosophy]] and the [[Scholasticism|Scholastic]] method of university teaching.  He is remembered today largely for his book ''[[De Magnete]]'' (1600).

A unit of [[magnetomotive force]], also known as [[magnetic scalar potential|magnetic potential]], was named the ''[[Gilbert (unit)|Gilbert]]'' in his honour; it has now been superseded by the [[Ampere-turn]].

== Life and work ==
[[File:Tymperleys, 15th Century house in Colchester - geograph.org.uk - 189178.jpg|thumb|upright=1.25|right|Timperleys, the 15th-century home of the Gilbert family in Colchester.]]
[[File:Willian Gilberd, M.D., demonstrating his experiments to queen Elizabeth A. Auckland Hunt.jpg|thumb|
William Gilbert M.D. demonstrating his experiments before Queen Elizabeth I (painting by A. Auckland Hunt).
|300x300px]]

Gilbert was born in Colchester to Jerome Gilberd, a borough [[Recorder (judge)|recorder]]. He was educated at [[St John's College, Cambridge]].<ref>{{acad|id=GLBT558W|name=Gilbert, William}}</ref> After gaining his [[Doctor of Medicine|MD]] from Cambridge in 1569, and a short spell as bursar of St John's College, he left to practice medicine in London, and he travelled on the continent. In 1573, he was elected a Fellow of the [[Royal College of Physicians]]. In 1600, he was elected President of the college.<ref name=Mottelay>Mottelay, P. Fleury (1893). "Biographical memoir". In {{harvnb|Gilbert|1893|pp=ix–xxvii}}</ref> He was [[Elizabeth I of England|Elizabeth I]]'s own physician from 1601 until her death in 1603, and [[James I of England|James VI and I]] renewed his appointment.<ref name=Pumfrey>{{cite book |last=Pumfrey |first=Stephen |year=2002 |title=Latitude & the Magnetic Earth |publisher=Icon Books |isbn=1-84046-486-0}}</ref>{{rp|30}}

His primary scientific work – much inspired by earlier works of [[Robert Norman]]<ref>{{cite journal |last=Zilsel |first=Edgar |title=The Origin of William Gilbert's Scientific Method |journal=Journal of the History of Ideas |volume=2 |issue=1 |pages=1–32 |year=1941 |jstor=2707279 |url=http://philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/MaterialHS11/PSWissRev/Zilsel1941.pdf |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140714194058/http://philoscience.unibe.ch/documents/MaterialHS11/PSWissRev/Zilsel1941.pdf |archive-date=14 July 2014 |doi=10.2307/2707279 }}</ref><ref>Roller, Duane H D (1959) ''The De Magnete of William Gilbert'', Amsterdam.</ref> – was ''[[De Magnete|De Magnete, Magneticisque Corporibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure]]'' (''On the Magnet and Magnetic Bodies, and on the Great Magnet the Earth'') published in 1600. In this work, he describes many of his experiments with his model Earth called the [[terrella]]. From these experiments, he concluded that [[Earth's magnetic field|Earth]] was itself [[magnetic]], and that this was the reason why [[compass]]es point north (previously, some people believed that it was the pole-star [[Polaris]], or a large magnetic island on the north pole that attracted the compass). He was the first person to argue that the center of Earth was iron, and he considered an important and related property of magnets, being that they can be cut, each forming a new magnet with north and south poles.

In [[De Magnete#Book 6, Chapter III: Of the Daily Magnetic Rotation of the Globes|Book 6, Chapter 3]], he argues in support of diurnal rotation though he does not talk about heliocentrism, stating that it is an absurdity to think that the immense [[celestial spheres]] (doubting even that they exist) rotate daily, as opposed to the diurnal rotation of the much-smaller Earth. He also posits that the "fixed" stars are at remote variable distances rather than fixed to an imaginary sphere. He states that, situated "in thinnest aether, or in the most subtle fifth essence, or in vacuity&nbsp;– how shall the stars keep their places in the mighty swirl of these enormous spheres composed of a substance of which no one knows aught?"

The English word "electricity" was first used in 1646 by [[Thomas Browne|Sir Thomas Browne]], derived from Gilbert's 1600 [[Neo-Latin]] ''electricus'', meaning "like [[amber]]". The term had been in use since the 13th century, but Gilbert was the first to use it to mean "like amber in its attractive properties". He recognized that friction with these objects removed a so-called "effluvium", which would cause the attraction effect in returning to the object, though he did not realize that this substance ([[electric charge]]) was universal to all materials.<ref name="Heathcote">{{cite journal |last=Heathcote |first=Niels H. de V. |doi=10.1080/00033796700203316 |volume=23 |issue=4 |page=261 |title=The early meaning of ''electricity'': Some ''Pseudodoxia Epidemica'' – I |journal=[[Annals of Science]] |date=1967}}</ref>

{{blockquote|The electric effluvia differ much from air, and as air is the earth's effluvium, so electric bodies have their own distinctive effluvia; and each peculiar effluvium has its own individual power of leading to union, its own movement to its origin, to its fount, and to the body emitting the effluvium.|{{harvnb|Gilbert|1600}}<ref>{{harvnb|Gilbert|1893|p=92}}</ref>}}

In his book, he also studied [[static electricity]] using [[amber]]; amber is called ''elektron'' in Greek, so Gilbert decided to call its effect the ''electric force''.  He invented the first electrical [[measuring instrument]], the [[electroscope]], in the form of a pivoted needle he called the ''[[versorium]]''.<ref>{{harvnb|Gilbert|1893|p=79}}</ref>

Like other people of his day, he believed that crystal (clear [[quartz]]) was an especially hard form of water, formed from compressed ice:

{{blockquote|Lucid gems are made of water; just as Crystal, which has been concreted from clear water, not always by a very great cold, as some used to judge, and by very hard frost, but sometimes by a less severe one, the nature of the soil fashioning it, the humour or juices being shut up in definite cavities, in the way in which spars are produced in mines.|''[[De Magnete]]'', English translation by [[Silvanus Phillips Thompson]], 1900}}

Gilbert argued that electricity and magnetism were not the same thing. For evidence, he (incorrectly) pointed out that, while electrical attraction disappeared with heat, magnetic attraction did not (although it is proven that magnetism does in fact become damaged and weakened with heat). [[Hans Christian Ørsted]] and [[James Clerk Maxwell]] showed that both effects were aspects of a single force: electromagnetism. Maxwell surmised this in his ''[[A Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism]]'' after much analysis.

Gilbert's [[magnetism]] was the invisible force that many other natural philosophers seized upon, incorrectly, as governing the motions that they observed.  While not attributing magnetism to attraction among the stars, Gilbert pointed out the motion of the skies was due to Earth's rotation, and not the rotation of the spheres, 20 years before [[Galileo]] (but 57 years after [[Copernicus]], who stated it openly in his work ''[[De revolutionibus orbium coelestium]]'', which was published in 1543) (see external reference below). Gilbert made the first attempt to map the surface markings on the moon in the 1590s. His chart, made without the use of a telescope, showed outlines of dark and light patches on the moon's face. Contrary to most of his contemporaries, Gilbert believed that the light spots on the moon were water, and the dark spots were land.<ref>Bochenski, Leslie (April 1996) [http://uias.astro.illinois.edu/s-m/sm-apr-96.html "A Short History of Lunar Cartography"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100803073221/http://uias.astro.illinois.edu/s-m/sm-apr-96.html |date=3 August 2010 }}. University of Illinois Astronomical Society</ref>

[[File:Demundo.png|thumb|right|Diagram of the universe appearing on p202 of ''De Mundo'']]
Besides Gilbert's ''De Magnete'', there appeared at Amsterdam in 1651 a quarto volume of 316 pages entitled ''De Mundo Nostro Sublunari Philosophia Nova'' (New Philosophy about our Sublunary World), edited – some say by his brother William Gilbert Junior, and others say, by the eminent English scholar and critic John Gruter – from two manuscripts found in the library of Sir [[William Boswell]]. According to [[John Davy (chemist)|John Davy]], "this work of Gilbert's, which is so little known, is a very remarkable one both in style and matter; and there is a vigor and energy of expression belonging to it very suitable to its originality. Possessed of a more minute and practical knowledge of natural philosophy than [[Francis Bacon|Bacon]], his opposition to the philosophy of [[Scholasticism|the schools]] was more searching and particular, and at the same time probably little less efficient." In the opinion of [[John Robison (physicist)|Prof. John Robison]], ''De Mundo'' consists of an attempt to establish a new system of natural philosophy upon the ruins of the Aristotelian doctrine.<ref name=Mottelay/>

[[William Whewell]] says in his ''History of the Inductive Sciences'' (1859):<ref>Whewell, William (1859) ''History of the Inductive Sciences''. D. Appleton.  [https://books.google.com/books?id=vdQyAQAAMAAJ& Vol. 1]. p. 394</ref>

<blockquote>
Gilbert, in his work, ''De Magnete'' printed in 1600 has only some vague notions that the magnetic virtue of the earth in some way determines the direction of the earth's axis, the rate of its diurnal rotation, and that of the revolution of the moon about it.<ref>Gilbert, William ''De Magnete'', Book 6, Ch. 6,7</ref> Gilbert died in 1603, and in his posthumous work (''De Mundo nostro Sublunari Philosophia nova'', 1631) we have already a more distinct statement of the attraction of one body by another.<ref>Gilbert, William ''De Mundo'', Book 2, Ch. 19</ref> "The force which emanates from the moon reaches to the earth, and, in like manner, the magnetic virtue of the earth pervades the region of the moon: both correspond and conspire by the joint action of both, according to a proportion and conformity of motions, but the earth has more effect in consequence of its superior mass; the earth attracts and repels, the moon, and the moon within certain limits, the earth; not so as to make the bodies come together, as magnetic bodies do, but so that they may go on in a continuous course." Though this phraseology is capable of representing a good deal of the truth, it does not appear to have been connected... with any very definite notions of mechanical action in detail.<ref>{{harvnb|Gilbert|1893|p=346}}</ref>
</blockquote>

Gilbert died on 30 November 1603 in London.  His cause of death is thought to have been the [[bubonic plague]].<ref>[http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/gilbert.html William Gilbert] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070426151912/http://www.magnet.fsu.edu/education/tutorials/pioneers/gilbert.html |date=26 April 2007 }}. National High Magnetic Field Laboratory</ref><ref>[https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/gilbert_william.shtml William Gilbert (1544–1603)]. BBC</ref>

Gilbert was buried in his home town, in Holy Trinity Church, Colchester. His marble wall monument can still be seen in this Saxon church, now [[deconsecrated]] and used as a café and market.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Ross|first1=David|title=Colchester, Holy Trinity Church {{!}} Historic Essex Guide|url=http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/essex/churches/colchester-holy-trinity.htm|website=Britain Express|access-date=29 October 2016}}</ref>

== Commentary on Gilbert ==
[[Francis Bacon]] never accepted [[Copernican heliocentrism]], and was critical of Gilbert's philosophical work in support of the diurnal motion of Earth. Bacon's criticism includes the following two statements. The first was repeated in three of his works, namely [[The works of Francis Bacon#Advancement of Learning .28Partition of Sciences.29|''In the Advancement of Learning'']] (1605), ''[[Novum Organum]]'' (1620), and [[The works of Francis Bacon#Advancement of Learning .28Partition of Sciences.29|''De Augmentis'']] (1623). The more severe second statement is from ''History of Heavy and Light Bodies'' published after Bacon's death.<ref>[[Park Benjamin, Jr.|Park Benjamin]], [https://archive.org/details/ahistoryelectri01benjgoog ''A History of Electricity''] J. Wiley & Sons (1898) p.327-8</ref>

<blockquote>
The Alchemists have made a philosophy out of a few experiments of the furnace and Gilbert our countryman hath made a philosophy out of observations of the lodestone.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
[Gilbert] has himself become a magnet; that is, he has ascribed too many things to that force and built a ship out of a shell. 
</blockquote>

[[Thomas Thomson (chemist)|Thomas Thomson]] writes in his ''History of the Royal Society'' (1812):<ref>Thomson, Thomas (1812) [https://books.google.com/books?id=nqjjR4Qt9IgC& ''History of the Royal Society: from its Institution to the End of the Eighteenth Century'']. R. Baldwin. p. 461</ref>
<blockquote>
The magnetic laws were first generalized and explained by Dr. Gilbert, whose book on magnetism published in 1600, is one of the finest examples of inductive philosophy that has ever been presented to the world. It is the more remarkable, because it preceded the ''Novum Organum'' of Bacon, in which the inductive method of philosophizing was first explained.
</blockquote>

[[William Whewell]] writes in his ''History of the Inductive Sciences'' (1837/1859):<ref>Whewell, William (1859) ''History of the Inductive Sciences from the Earliest to the Present Time''. D. Appleton, [https://books.google.com/books?id=GNUyAQAAMAAJ& Vol. 2], p. 217</ref>

<blockquote>
Gilbert... repeatedly asserts the paramount value of experiments. He himself, no doubt, acted up to his own precepts; for his work contains all the fundamental facts of the science [of magnetism], so fully examined, indeed, that even at this day we have little to add to them.
</blockquote>

Historian [[Henry Hallam]] wrote of Gilbert in his ''Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries'' (1848):<ref>Hallam, Henry (1854) ''Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the 15th, 16th, and 17th Centuries''. [https://books.google.com/books?id=GuATAAAAYAAJ& Vol.2]. Little, Brown, and Company. pp. 232–3</ref>
<blockquote>
The year 1600 was the first in which England produced a remarkable work in physical science; but this was one sufficient to raise a lasting reputation to its author. Gilbert, a physician, in his Latin treatise on the magnet, not only collected all the knowledge which others had possessed on that subject, but became at once the father of experimental philosophy in this island, and by a singular felicity and acuteness of genius, the founder of theories which have been revived after the lapse of ages, and are almost universally received into the creed of the science. The magnetism of the earth itself, his own original hypothesis, ''nova illa nostra et inaudita de tellure sententia'' [our new and unprecedented view of the planet]... was by no means one of those vague conjectures that are sometimes unduly applauded... He relied on the analogy of terrestrial phenomena to those exhibited by what he calls a ''[[terrella]]'', or artificial spherical magnet.  ...Gilbert was also one of our earliest Copernicans, at least as to the rotation of the earth; and with his usual sagacity inferred, before the invention of the telescope, that there are a multitude of fixed stars beyond the reach of our vision.
</blockquote>

Walter William Bryant of the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, wrote in his book [[wikiquote:Kepler|''Kepler'']] (1920):
<blockquote>
When Gilbert of Colchester, in his “New Philosophy,” founded on his researches in magnetism, was dealing with tides, he did not suggest that the moon attracted the water, but that “subterranean spirits and humors, rising in sympathy with the moon, cause the sea also to rise and flow to the shores and up rivers”. It appears that an idea, presented in some such way as this, was more readily received than a plain statement. This so-called philosophical method was, in fact, very generally applied, and [[Johannes Kepler|Kepler]], who shared Galileo’s admiration for Gilbert’s work, adopted it in his own attempt to extend the idea of magnetic attraction to the planets.<ref>Bryant, Walter William (1920) {{ws | [[s: Kepler|''Kepler'']]}}. The Macmillan Company. {{ws | [[s: Kepler/Chapter 5#35|p. 35]]}}</ref>
</blockquote>

==Bibliography==
[[File:Gilbert-1.jpg|alt=1893 copy of "William Gilbert of Colchester, physician of London, On the loadstone and magnetic bodies"|thumb|1893 copy of ''On the loadstone and magnetic bodies'']]
*{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=William |title=De Magnete, Magnetisque Corporoibus, et de Magno Magnete Tellure: Physiologia noua, Plurimis & Argumentis, & Experimentis Demonstrata |language=la |publisher=Peter Short |location=London |date=1600}}
**{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=William |author-mask=1 |translator-last=Mottelay |translator-first=P. Fleury |year=1893 |url=https://archive.org/details/williamgilbertof00gilbrich |title=On the Loadstone and Magnetic Bodies, and on That Great Magnet the Earth: A New Physiology, Demonstrated with Many Arguments and Experiments |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |location=New York}}
**{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=William |author-mask=1 |translator-last=Thompson |translator-first=Silvanus Phillips |year=1900 |url=https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/On_the_Magnet |title=On the Magnet, Magnetic Bodies Also, and on the Great Magnet the Earth: A new Physiology, Demonstrated by Many Arguments & Experiments  |publisher=Chiswick Press |location=London |ref=none}}
*{{cite book |last=Gilbert |first=William |title=De Mundo Nostro Sublunari Philosophia Nova |language=la |publisher=Apud Ludovicum Elzevirium |location=Amsterdam |date=1651 |others=(Published posthumously.|ref=none)}}

==See also==
*[[History of geomagnetism]]
*[[List of geophysicists]]
*[[Scientific revolution]]

== References ==
{{Reflist|30em}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Boyer |first1=Carl B. |title=William Gilbert on the Rainbow |journal=American Journal of Physics |date=October 1952 |volume=20 |issue=7 |pages=416–421 |doi=10.1119/1.1933270|bibcode=1952AmJPh..20..416B }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Chapman |first1=Sydney |title=William Gilbert and the Science of his Time |journal=Nature |date=29 July 1944 |volume=154 |issue=3900 |pages=132–136 |doi=10.1038/154132a0|bibcode=1944Natur.154..132C |doi-access=free }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Carter |first1=Richard B. |title=Gilbert and Descartes: The science of conserving the human body |journal= Zeitschrift für allgemeine Wissenschaftstheorie |date=1982 |volume=13 |issue=2 |pages=224–233|jstor=25170621 |doi=10.1007/bf01801557|pmid=11636296 |s2cid=21597894 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Hesse |first1=Mary B. |title=Gilbert and the historians (I) |journal=The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science |date=May 1960 |volume=11 |issue=41 |pages=1–10|jstor=685815 |doi=10.1093/bjps/xi.41.1}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Hesse |first1=Mary B. |title=Gilbert and the historians (II) |journal=The British Journal for the Philosophy of Science |date=August 1960 |volume=11 |issue=42 |pages=130–142|jstor=685585 |doi=10.1093/bjps/xi.42.130}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Jarrell |first1=Richard A. |title=The Latest Date of Composition of Gilbert's De mundo |journal=Isis |date=March 1972 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=94–95 |doi=10.1086/350844|s2cid=144926718 }}
*{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Kelly |first1=Suzanne | title=Gilbert, William |encyclopedia=Complete Dictionary of Scientific Biography |volume=5 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons | date=2008 |pages=396–401 | others=Gale Virtual Reference Library |url=http://link.galegroup.com/apps/doc/CX2830901643/GVRL?sid=GVRL&xid=dc83678c |access-date = 6 November 2018}}
*{{cite book |last1=Kay |first1=Charles D. | title=William Gilbert's Renaissance Philosophy of the Magnet  | date=1981 | others=University of Pittsburgh |url=https://www.academia.edu/4147807|access-date = 10 February 2021}}
*{{cite journal |last1=Langdon-Brown |first1=Walter |title=William Gilbert: His Place in the Medical World |journal=Nature |date=29 July 1944 |volume=154 |issue=3900 |pages=136–139 |doi=10.1038/154136a0|bibcode=1944Natur.154..136L |s2cid=4120294 |doi-access=free }}
* {{cite news |last=Leary |first=Warren E. |title=Celebrating the Book That Ushered In the Age of Science |newspaper=The New York Times |date=13 June 2000 |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2000/06/13/science/celebrating-the-book-that-ushered-in-the-age-of-science.html |access-date=27 March 2009 }}
*{{cite journal|last1=Mills|first1=A.|title=William Gilbert and 'Magnetization by Percussion'|journal=Notes and Records of the Royal Society|date=1 June 2011|volume=65|issue=4|pages=411–416|doi=10.1098/rsnr.2011.0014|doi-access=free}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Pumfrey |first1=Stephen |first2=David |last2=Tilley |date=November 2003 |title=William Gilbert: Forgotten Genius |journal=[[Physics World]] |volume=16 |issue=11 |pages=15–16 |doi=10.1088/2058-7058/16/11/24 }}
*{{cite encyclopedia |last1=Pumfrey |first1=Stephen |title=Gilbert, William 1544–1603|editor-last1=Hessenbruch |editor-first1=Arne |encyclopedia=Reader's guide to the history of science |date=2000 |publisher=Fitzroy Dearborn |isbn=9781884964299|pages=302–304}}
* {{Cite journal |last=Shipley |first=Brian C. |title=Gilbert, Translated: Silvanus P. Thompson, the Gilbert Club, and the Tercentenary Edition of De Magnete |journal=Canadian Journal of History |volume=28|number=2 |pages=259–279 |date=August 2003 |doi=10.3138/cjh.38.2.259 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Smith |first1=Michael |title=William Gilbert (1544–1603): Physician and Founder of Electricity |journal=Journal of Medical Biography |date=22 June 2016 |volume=5 |issue=3 |pages=137–145 |doi=10.1177/096777209700500303|pmid=11619454 |s2cid=31303087 }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Stern |first1=David P. |title=A millennium of geomagnetism |journal=Reviews of Geophysics |date=2002 |volume=40 |issue=3 |pages=1007 |doi=10.1029/2000RG000097|bibcode=2002RvGeo..40.1007S |doi-access=free }}
*{{cite journal |last1=Ugaglia |first1=Monica |title=The Science of Magnetism Before Gilbert Leonardo Garzoni's Treatise on the Loadstone |journal=Annals of Science |date=19 February 2007 |volume=63 |issue=1 |pages=59–84 |doi=10.1080/00033790500405185|s2cid=143292503 }}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{commons category|William Gilbert}}
{{wikiquote|William Gilbert (astronomer)|William Gilbert}}
{{wikisource author}}
* [http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/gilbert.html The Galileo Project] — biography of William Gilbert.
* [http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/demagint.htm The Great Magnet, the Earth] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140828221732/http://www-spof.gsfc.nasa.gov/earthmag/demagint.htm |date=28 August 2014 }} — website hosted by NASA — ''Commemorating the 400th anniversary of "De Magnete" by William Gilbert of Colchester''.
* [http://hos.ou.edu/galleries//16thCentury/Gilbert/ Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150515103353/http://hos.ou.edu/galleries//16thCentury/Gilbert/ |date=15 May 2015 }} High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of William Gilbert in .jpg and .tiff format.
* {{Gutenberg author | id=Gilbert,+William }}
* {{Internet Archive author |sname=William Gilbert |birth=1544 |death=1603 |sopt=t }}
* [http://www.antiquebooks.net/readpage.html#gilbert On the Magnet] — Translation of ''De Magnete'' by Silvanus Thompson for the Gilbert Club, London 1900.  Full text, free to read and search. Go to page 9 and read Gilbert saying the Earth revolves leading to the motion of the skies.
* [https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/31999 The Natural Philosophy of William Gilbert and His Predecessors]
*[http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.rbc/english.01021.1 ''De Magnete''] From the [https://www.loc.gov/rr/rarebook/coll/eng.html English Printing Collection] in the Rare Book and Special Collection Division at the [[Library of Congress]]
* [http://histoires-de-sciences.over-blog.fr/2018/03/william-gibert-the-first-electrician.html William Gilbert, the first electrician.]
{{Presidents of the Royal College of Physicians}}
{{Scientists whose names are used as non SI units}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gilbert, William}}
[[Category:16th-century English astronomers]]
[[Category:16th-century English medical doctors]]
[[Category:16th-century English writers]]
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[[Category:Magneticians]]
[[Category:People associated with electricity]]
[[Category:English physicists]]
[[Category:1540s births]]
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[[Category:People of the Elizabethan era]]
[[Category:16th-century writers in Latin]]
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