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The document discusses the history of electricity, including early experiments by Greeks and Benjamin Franklin proving lightning was caused by electricity, Luigi Galvani's discovery that frog muscles contained electricity, Alessandro Volta's invention of the battery, and Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison's inventions of the light bulb and generator which helped introduce electric lighting.

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Chue Sandi Woon Sett
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19 views1 page

Document

The document discusses the history of electricity, including early experiments by Greeks and Benjamin Franklin proving lightning was caused by electricity, Luigi Galvani's discovery that frog muscles contained electricity, Alessandro Volta's invention of the battery, and Joseph Swan and Thomas Edison's inventions of the light bulb and generator which helped introduce electric lighting.

Uploaded by

Chue Sandi Woon Sett
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
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The History of Electricity

As we all know, electricity exits in nature. Lightning is simply a flow of electrons between the clouds
and the ground. When you touch something and get a shock, that is really electricity moving through
you. Scientists have long known that it exits, and have discovered how to produce it on a large scale;
however, they find it difficult to explain exactly what electricity is. Around 600 BC, the Greeks first
experiments led to many new developments in the use of electricity. One of the most famous early
pioneers of electricity was Benjamin Franklin who was an American writer, publisher and scientist.
He proved that lightening and the spark from amber were both caused by electricity. Franklin
attached a piece of metal kite which he flew during a thunderstorm, while holding the end of the
kite string by an iron key. When lightening flashed, a tiny spark jumped from the key to his wrist. The
experiment proved that there was electricity in lightning, but it was extremely dangerous because
Franklin could have easily died.

In 1786, another pioneer called Luigi Galvani, an Italian doctor, found that when the leg of a dead
frog was touched by a metal knife, the leg was moved. Galvani thought that the muscles of the frog
was touched by a metal knife, the leg moved. Galvani thought that the muscles of the frog must
contain electricity. However, in 1792, another Italian, Alessandro Volta, disagreed. He realized that
the main factors in Galvani’s discovery were the two different metals: the steel knife and the tin
plate on which the frog was lying. Volta showed that when water comes between two different
metals, electricity is created. This led him to invent the first electric battery, the Voltaic Pile, which
he made from thin sheets of copper and zinc separated by a wet metal plate. This was a new
discovery which showed that electricity could travel from one place to another by wire and in doing
so he made an important contribution to the science of electricity. This unit of electrical potential,
the volt is named after Volta.

Perhaps the single most important discovery in electricity was made in 1878 by Joseph Swan, a
British scientist, when he invented the first light bulb. This was almost a year before Thomas Edison,
the man we associate with electricity, made a similar discovery. The reason that Edison is well
known is perhaps because he invented the generator. This allowed a city street, one in New York, to
be lit for the first time in history by electric lights. Then , other scientists discovered a cheaper and
more efficient way of generating electricity. Thus, it is AC (Alternating Current) that is used in our
homes today and not DC (Direct Current), as Edison wanted.

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