HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY

Thales of Miletus (About 600 BCE)

-A greek mathemathecian

-Static Electricity

William Gilbert’s Theory

William Gilbert (1600)

-English Scientist

-He describes ELECTRIFICATION in many substances.

-Coined the term “ELECTRICITY”

Latin word: Electricus means “Of amber” or

“To produce from amber by the friction”

Otto Von Guericke (1663)

-German experimenter

-Built the first electric generator which produced static electricity by applying friction in the machine

Stephen Gray (1729)

-British Chemist

-Distinguished between materials that were conductors and nonconductors

-discovered that electricity can flow

Ewald Georg von Kleist, Pieter Van Musschenbroek (1746)

-German inventor and a Dutch Physicist of University of Leyden

-Invented an electrical storage device called LEYDEN JAR (named after the city)

-Leyden Jar demonstrated that electricity could be stored for future use.
Benjamin Franklin’s Theory (1747)

Benjamin Franklin

-American Inventor and statesman

-Suggested the existence of an electrical fluid and surmised that an electric charge was made up of two
types of electric forces, an attractive force and a repulsive force which are named positive and negative

-In 1752, conducted his famous kite experiment.

Volta Electric’s Battery (1800)

Luigi Galvani (1786)

-Italian Anatomy professor

-Observed that a discharge of static electricity made a dead frog’s leg twitch

Alessandro Volta

-Italian physicist

-Expanded Galvani’s findings

-Built VOLATAIC PILE (An early type of electric cell or BATTERY)

Amperes- CURRENT IN A CURCUIT (1820)

Hans Christian Oersted

-Danish Physicist

-Discovered Magnetic field surrounds a current carrying wire by observing that electrical currents
affected needle on a compass.

Andre Marie Ampere (1822)

-A French mathematician

-Observed that a coil of wires acts like a magnet when electrical current pass through it
Dominique Francois Arago

-French Inventor

-Invented Electromagnet

Joseph Henry

-Demonstrated electromagnetic device that was capable of lifting over a thousand pounds.

OHMS- CURRENT CAUSING HEAT (1826)

George Simon Ohm

-German college teacher

-formulated a law showing the relationship between volts, amps and resistance

*HENRY AND OHM demonstrate that in a long electric line it was better to have relatively high voltage
and low current