Sturgeon's motor

Sturgeon's motor can be considered to be the forerunner of today's motors. He demonstrated it in 1832 when he was appointed to the lecturing staff of the Adelaide Gallery of Practical Science in London. The motor employs two horse-shoe shaped electromagnets; current is continuously passed through one which is kept stationary, while current alternately reverses direction in the other electromagnet as it rotates. As the drawing shows, the attractive and repulsive forces between the two magnets are both used to produce continuous motion.