History of Electricity

Todays world has become addicted to the use of electronic gadgets. Our daily routine
chores from ironing our clothes for office to watching TV for recreation are dependant on
the availability of Electricity. Try imagining a world without electricityobviously we
cant. But the fact remains there that the man was not gifted with electricity since his
birth. Lets see how this blessing came in to being.
Ancient Times
Ancient men i.e. Egyptians, Greeks and Romans, knew only the existence of electric
shock in electric fish called Eel. They believed that the fish had a power to cure gout and
headache with the help of its electric shock. In 15th century Arabs were a step ahead of
them for having a proper Arabic word for the electric ray i.e. Raad.
Electricus Period
Thales of Miletus in ancient Greece discovered that rubbing Amber with Cats fur could
create electric charge and it could attract some light objects such as feathers. He
perceived that the attraction was due to magnetic effect on amber, which was later on
proved wrong by William Gilbert in 1600. He differentiated electric charge form
magnetic charge and used the Latin word Electricus for it, which means amber or amber
like. This was the word, which later on became Electricity.
Benjamin Franklins kite brings the Light
After 1600, many hits and trials made by many people such as Otto von Guericke
(experimented on electricity generation) and Thomas Browne, led to the discovery of
electrical conductivity by Stephen Gray in 1729. Benjamin Franklin made the major
contribution towards the discovery of electricity when, in 1752, he discovered the flow of
electric charges from a region of higher gradient to a region of lower gradient. His
experiment in this regard is quite famous. He tied a metal key with a dampened kite
string and flew the kite in storm threatened sky. He experienced some shocks or jolts in
his hand and stated that the lightning is electrical in nature.
Volt + Ohm + Faraday = Bulb
Then in 1800 Alssendro Volta invented electrical battery for producing DC current. He
made his battery by piling zinc and copper plates over one another. Now the man could
rely on a better electric source than electrostatic charged objects.
Then came the Ohms law as the greatest discovery in this regard. In 1827, George Simon
Ohm stated that the current flowing through a piece of wire is directly proportional to the
cross sectional area of the wire and is inversely proportional to the length of that piece of
wire. This law is still considered as the base of modern days physics.
In 1831 Michael Faraday gave the quantitative laws for electrolysis, transformers, electric
motors etc. It was in 1879 that the father of electricity Thomas Alva Edison invented
lightning bulb and illuminated the whole world.
Todays Wonders
After that the quest for more and more rose beyond the expectations of that days man.
Many machines were invented which worked by using the electric power. Many great
men such as Nikola Tesla, Thomas Edison, Heinrich Hertz, Ott Blthy, Elihu Thomson,
nyos Jedlik, Sir Charles Parsons, George Westinghouse, Ernst Werner von Siemens,
Alexander Graham Bell, and Lord Kelvin, kept discovering more and more interesting
facts about electricity. Their search reached the atomic and subatomic level, giving rise to
many miracles such as discovery of photons, quarks, alpha, beta and gamma rays and

many more. The search of those men created wonders for todays man and yet its not
over.