The history of electricity dates back to ancient Greece, where rubbing fur on amber was found to cause an attraction between the two. William Gilbert made the connection between the attraction of oppositely charged objects and magnetism. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the idea behind the lightning experiment and the invention of the lightning rod. Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta played roles in the development of the first battery. Michael Faraday discovered that an electric current could be induced in a copper wire by a moving magnetic field, leading to the invention of the dynamo and electric motor. Thomas Edison and Nicola Tesla developed different methods of generating and transmitting electricity, with alternating current being adopted for household use.
While it is possible to trace the history of the harnessing of electricity and identify the people responsible for various discoveries along the way, it is difficult to name the person who first discovered electricity. Very early in human history, people would have witnessed lightning, an obvious natural manifestation, but would not have been able to explain it. The known history of electricity dates back to at least 620-550 BC, when, in ancient Greece, rubbing fur on amber was found to cause an attraction between the two. This discovery is attributed to the philosopher Thales of Miletus. It was many centuries before anyone was able to connect this phenomenon with lightning, and another century before electric currents were put to practical use.
The first experiments
By the 17th century, many discoveries related to electricity had been made, such as the invention of the first electrostatic generator, the differentiation between positive and negative charges, and the classification of materials as conductors or insulators. In the year 17, the English physician William Gilbert first made the connection between the attraction of oppositely charged objects and magnetism. He coined the term electric, from the Greek elektron – which means amber – to identify the force that some substances exert when they rub against each other.
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin is perhaps the name most associated with electricity. In 1750, he attempted to prove that lightning was caused by electricity by describing an experiment in which an electrical conductor would be used to extract energy from a thundercloud. It appears that before he was able to do this, a French experimenter named Thomas-Francois Dalibard, who had read Fraklin’s writings on the subject, successfully obtained an electrical discharge from a thundercloud using a 40-meter metal pole at May 12.2. Franklin is credited with conducting a similar experiment in June of that year, in which he flew a kite with a metal key attached to it into a suitable cloud. The precise historical details are unclear, but he may have later retrieved the key and discharged the electricity from it.
While it’s unclear exactly when, how, or even if Franklin actually performed his lightning experiment, he’s rightly credited with the idea behind it. Confirming the relationship between lighting and electricity, he invented the lightning rod, a metal pole that safely conducts electricity away from a building during a thunderstorm. Franklin observed and documented other electrical phenomena, but it was left to others to determine the true nature of electricity and harness its power.
Galvani, Volta and the invention of the battery
Italian scientists Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta both played roles in the development of the first battery in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. In 18 Galvani discovered what he called “animal electricity” when he discovered that a frog’s leg contracted when connected to two different metals. Volta later showed that the “animal” part was unnecessary and that pairs of different metals, such as zinc and copper, could produce a current when immersed in an electrolyte, such as salt water. This device is known as a galvanic cell.
Volta went on to create a “voltaic pole” made up of alternating layers of copper and zinc separated by paper soaked in salt water. This generated a higher current and is credited as the first battery. These devices work because zinc has a greater tendency to lose electrons than copper, so when connected by an electrolyte, electrons will flow from one to another, forming a galvanic cell. A series of galvanic cells connected together, as in a voltaic pile, constitutes a battery.
It has been theorized that an artifact discovered in Iraq, and thought to date between AD 224 and 640, may have been a type of battery. It consisted of a small earthenware vessel containing a copper tube surrounding an iron rod. When filled with an electrolyte, such as grape juice, it can produce an electric current. Most scientists, however, think that the jars were used to store scrolls and that their ability to generate a current is purely coincidental.
Michael Faraday
In 1831, English scientist Michael Faraday discovered that an electric current could be induced in a copper wire by a moving magnetic field. This led to two crucial inventions: the dynamo and the electric motor. A dynamo generates an electric current by the relative motion of copper wire coils and magnets and is the primary method used today to generate electricity for domestic and industrial use. The electric motor uses the same principle: a current flowing in a magnetic field produces movement.
Thomas Edison e Nicola Tesla
Following the 1860s invention of the electric light bulb by British physicist Joseph Swan, American inventor Thomas Edison had the idea, in the late 1800s, to wire electricity to every home to provide lighting. Edison planned to use direct current (DC) produced by generators then available. This, however, would have meant placing the generators at frequent intervals, as much power was lost to wire resistance.
Nicola Tesla, a Serbian-born engineer and inventor who worked with Edison for a time, developed a new type of generator that produced a current that changed direction many times per second, known as alternating current (AC). This had the advantage that the voltage and current could be varied using a transformer. Power loss could be minimized by transmitting electricity at low current and high voltage, then reducing the voltage and increasing the current for household use. Despite fierce opposition from Edison, alternating current was adopted, and this is the type of current that is used in homes today.
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