Lecture 2
A Crude History of Electricity
600 BC: Ancient
Greeks rub amber on cat fur to produce static charge
Circa 0 AD: Persians in present-day
(probably medical) purposes
1720’s: Stephen Gray shows that static
charges can be ‘conducted’
from
point to point
1750’s: Benjamin Franklin’s One Fluid Theory
of Electricity unifies
scientific
approaches to electricity and forms the foundation of
modern
electrical theory
1800’s: Alessandro Volta makes his Voltaic
Pile using zinc and copper
disks
submersed in an electrolytic solution (acid), thus re-inventing
the
battery, 1800 years after the Persians
1820’s: Hans Oerstad
discovers electromagnetism with his famous “compass
and
current-carrying wire” experiments
Andre-Marie
Ampere defines electric current and electromagnetism,
invents
the ammeter
Georg Ohm deleivers his theory of
electricity, including what later
became
Ohm’s Law
1830’s: Michael Faraday enters the game and
things get intense