Electricity: From Benjamin Franklin to Nikola Tesla
What are the first few things you do each morning Do you turn off a digital alarm clock and then turn on bathroom lights Maybe you check the weather on a a smartphone or get juice from the fridge These things all involve electricity Electricity makes it possible for people to efficiently light heat or cool their homes Refrigerators or use electricity to keep foods fresh Lights fans ovens and more use electric power And computers cell phones and other devices run on electricity on Electricity is a type of energy People first discovered electricity Pe could be harnessed to do work in Energy Electric
the mid-1800s Since then scientists and inventors completely changed how people live Electricity is all around us today thanks to the energy grid The energy grid is a large complex electrical system It is considered one of the world’s most impressive feats of engineering Its power lines web the nation Electricity lit our way out of the past And today’s innovators are creating electronic technologies and devices that will shape our future The invention of the light bulb led to the development of the world’s electrical infrastructure
1 Chapter The First Sparks The first discoveries relating to electricity date back to 600 BCE Around this time ancient Greek philosopher and astronomer Thales recorded a strange finding He rubbed fossilized tree resin called amber with cloth After doing so the surface of the amber attracted certain lightweight materials These included feathers hair and straw Thales hypothesized the amber was a kind of magnet But he was incorrect Thales had actually witnessed static electricity This is the same charge created when you rub a balloon on your hair to make the strands stand on end But it would take centuries for scientists to recognize and name static electricity In the 1600s English physician William Gilbert did more experiments with amber He too rubbed amber and found the friction seemed to magnetize the material But Gilbert also noticed that rubbed amber sometimes gave off a spark Magnets did not give off sparks So Gilbert determined amber contained a different invisible force He called this force
Gilbert demonstrates electricity experiments for Great Britain’s Queen Elizabeth I electricus This is a Latin word meaning of amber Scientists experimented with electricity into the next century
