Out of all natural

phenomena, lightning has

amused man the most.
If you were to go back
in time and tell someone
that somewhere in the
near future, we humans
would be able to tame
this giant daunting
power till we became
the masters of it, you’d
be ridiculed.

Look at a torch, for

example, it has a
battery and emits
light. Millions of such
lights illuminate the
very device that
you’re viewing this
comic on, what do
they all have in
common? That’s
right, they operate
on electricity

The only question is, how did we get here?

Illustration by Kunj Verma

Script by Aaryan Manchanda
It all began when a curious mind like that
of Humphry Davy put together what was to
become a revolution in the world of science

Davy put together a masterpiece

of physics and chemistry.

4 meters wide
and twice as
long, stacks of
paper soaked in
sulfuric acid
with metal coins
in between. It
was in fact, the
biggest battery
the world had
ever seen.

Directly above that

room was the cellar of
Mayfair. There, Dr.
Davy had set up two
carbon electrodes,
powered by the
Illustration by Kunj Verma
Script by Aaryan Manchanda
chamber below
As a hall full of
enthusiasts sat with
utter curiosity, Davy
brought the
electrodes together
and the world saw a
spark. It was the first
attempt at
domesticating
something seen as only
a miracle of nature.
But yet again, there
was more to come.

Francis Hauksbee, in 1719,

developed the Hauksbee generator,
and this was really intriguing since
now, the world could not only feel
but also see static charge. It was an
improvised version of Otto von
Guericke's electrostatic
machine.The generator consisted of
a hollow glass globe, and the air
inside the globe was evacuated,
creating a vacuum.

Thus, when the globe was

Illustration by Kunj Verma
Script by Aaryan Manchanda
spun, and a human hand
made contact with it,
static current caused a
blue glow to appear inside
the sphere. This was the
first time humans had
learnt how to visualize
static current.
 The globe had a
little bit of
mercury in it, and
thus the glow
produced by the
use of static
electricity inspired
the designs and
functioning of many
of the neon lighting
mechanisms we see
Soon after, scientists began to wonder if
today. they could store this energy since it was,
indeed like water, as it flowed like a fluid.
One such experiment was to store
water in a jar and submerge an
electrode into it, and then, supplying
the electrode with electricity from the
Hauksbee generator.

However, it was noticed that when

placed on an insulator, the jar didn’t
store any current at all however, if it
was held in the hands of the person
conducting the experiment, it stored
huge masses of current. This, came to
be known as the Leyden jar, named
after the place it was invented.

When the jar was kept on an insulated material, the

negative charges inside of it were very weakly drawn
and hence negligible. However, when help in the
observer’s hand, positive charges from the ground
were brought near the jar and the negative charges
were hence attracted towards them and amplified in
quantity due to their tendency to neutralize each
other. However since there was glass as an insulator
in between, they could not neutralize each other and
Illustration by Kunj Verma
ended upScript
drawing more
by Aaryan charge into the jar which
Manchanda
could be contained for not minutes not days but even
months at time
 Until the 19th century, humans only
knew one way to generate light, by
burning things. There were certain
proposals to use carbon electrodes for
light, but the dazzling white light they
produced was just too bright to be used
indoors. At this moment, anyone with a
viable idea for indoor lighting using
electricity was guaranteed fame.
For light to be used indoors, the light
needed to be subdivided into much
smaller dividends that produced a gentle
light.

The train of thought

here was to use a
That was, of course,
filament, that is, a till Englishman
conductor with a
very high resistance Joseph Swan
that dissipates partnered up with
energy in the form of
heat and light and Thomas A Edison to
glows white hot
develop a new form
while also having a
high melting point so of light source, the
incandescent bulb.
it doesn’t become
liquid.

While Edison is renowned as the sole

creator of the light bulb, Swan has become
a mere footnote in history

Thomas Alva Joseph

Edison Swan

Illustration by Kunj Verma

Script by Aaryan Manchanda
 The modern LED or the Light
Emitting Diode consists of a
diode that is a semi conducting
filament. When electricity is
passed through the filament, it
radiates light energy due to
electroluminescence. The
transparent coating you see
over the filament acts as an
insulator and as a diffusing
dome.

The modern battery

uses a Lithium-
Polymer compound
that generates
electricity through
internal chemical
reactions.

Isn’t it interesting how the

culmination of years of
scientific progress and
development resulted in
inventions that are taken for
Illustration by Kunj Verma
Script by Aaryan Manchanda granted today!