History of Electricity

HISTORY OF ELECTRICITY

Depite what you have learned, Benjamin Franklin did not "invent" electricity. In fact, electricity did not begin when Benjamin Franklin at when he flew his kite during a thunderstorm or when light bulbs were installed in houses all around the world.
The truth is that electricity has always been around because it naturally exists in the world. Lightning, for instance, is simply a flow of electrons between the ground and the clouds. When you touch something and get a shock, that is really static electricity moving toward you.
Hence, electrical equipment like motors, light bulbs, and batteries aren't needed for electricity to exist. They are just creative inventions designed to harness and use electricity.
The first discoveries of electricity were made back in ancient Greece. Greek philosophers discovered that when amber is rubbed against cloth, lightweight objects will stick to it. This is the basis of static electricity.
Over the centuries, there have been many discoveries made about electricity. We've all heard of famous people like Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison, but there have been many other inventors throughout history that were each a part in the development of electricity.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705[1]] – April 17, 1790) was one of theFounding Fathers of the United States. A notedpolymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer,political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat. As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity. He invented thelightning rod, bifocals, the Franklin stove, a carriage odometer, and the glass 'armonica'.[2] He formed both the first public lending library in America and the first fire department in Pennsylvania.[3]

Luigi Aloisio Galvani (Latin: Aloysius Galvani) (September 9, 1737 – December 4, 1798) was an Italian physician and physicist who had also studied medicine and had practiced to be a doctor, lived and died in Bologna. In 1771, he discovered that the muscles of dead frogs legs twitched when struck by a spark.[1] This was one of the first forays into the study of bioelectricity, a field that still today studies the electrical patterns and signals of the nervous system.

Michael Faraday, FRS (22 September 1791 – 25 August 1867) was an English scientist who contributed to the fields of electromagnetism andelectrochemistry. His main discoveries include that of electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism andelectrolysis.

Thomas Alva Edison (February 11, 1847 – October 18, 1931) was an American inventor andbusinessman. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including thephonograph, the motion picture camera, and a long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Dubbed "The Wizard of Menlo Park" (now Edison, New Jersey) by a newspaper reporter, he was one of the firstinventors to apply the principles of mass productionand large-scale teamwork to the process of invention, and because of that, he is often credited with the creation of the first industrial research laboratory.[1]

Sir Joseph Wilson Swan (31 October 1828 – 27 May 1914) was a British physicist and chemist born in Bishopwearmouth, Sunderland, in 1828 and is most famous for the invention of the incandescent light bulb before its independent invention by the American Thomas Edison.[1]
Swan's first demonstration of the light bulb was at a lecture in Newcastle upon Tyne on 18 December 1878, but he did not receive a patent until 27 November 1880 (patent No. 4933) after improvement to the original lamp. His house (inGateshead, England) was the first in the world to be lit by a lightbulb, and the world's first electric-light illumination in a public building was for a lecture by Swan in 1880. In 1881 the Savoy Theatre in the City of Westminster, London was lit by Swan incandescent lightbulbs, the first theatre and the first public building in the world to be lit entirely byelectricity.[2]

James Watt, FRS, FRSE (19 January 1736 – 25 August 1819)[1] was a Scottish inventor andmechanical engineer whose improvements to theNewcomen steam engine were fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.
While working as an instrument maker at theUniversity of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and re-heating thecylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.

André-Marie Ampère (20 January 1775 – 10 June 1836) was a French physicist and mathematicianwho is generally regarded as one of the main founders of the science of classical electromagnetism, which he referred to as "electrodynamics". The SI unit of measurement ofelectric current, the ampere, is named after him

Georg Simon Ohm (16 March 1789 – 6 July 1854) was a Bavarian (German) physicist andmathematician. As a high school teacher, Ohm began his research with the new electrochemical cell, invented by Italian scientist Alessandro Volta. Using equipment of his own creation, Ohm found that there is a direct proportionality between the potential difference (voltage) applied across a conductor and the resultant electric current. This relationship is known as Ohm's law.

Albert Einstein thought that Newtonian mechanics was no longer enough to reconcile the laws of classical mechanics with the laws of the electromagnetic field. This led to the development of his special theory of relativity. He realized, however, that the principle of relativity could also be extended togravitational fields, and with his subsequent theory of gravitation in 1916, he published a paper on the general theory of relativity. He continued to deal with problems of statistical mechanics and quantum theory, which led to his explanations of particle theory and the motion of molecules. He also investigated the thermal properties of light which laid the foundation of thephoton theory of light. In 1917, Einstein applied the general theory of relativity to model the structure of the universe as a whole.[6]

George Westinghouse, Jr (October 6, 1846 – March 12, 1914) was an American entrepreneur andengineer who invented the railway air brake and was a pioneer of the electrical industry. Westinghouse was one of Thomas Edison's main rivals in the early implementation of the American electricity system. Westinghouse's system, which used alternating current based on the extensive research by Nikola Tesla, ultimately prevailed over Edison's insistence on direct current. In 1911, he received the AIEE'sEdison Medal "For meritorious achievement in connection with the development of the alternating current system."[1]