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German scientist Otto von Guericke invented a device that creates static electricity. This is the first ever electric generator. 1705: English scientist Francis Hauksbee made a glass ball that glowed when spun and rubbed with the hand 1720: English scientist Stephen Gray made the distinction between insulators and conductors 1745
Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia until 1600, when the English scientist William Gilbert wrote De Magnete, in which he made a careful study of electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. [5]
Hauksbee continued to experiment with electricity, making numerous observations and developing machines to generate and demonstrate various electrical phenomena. In 1709 he published Physico-Mechanical Experiments on Various Subjects which summarized much of his scientific work. Stephen Gray discovered the importance of insulators and ...
Streetcars created enormous demand for early electricity. This Siemens Tram from 1884 required 500 V direct current, which was typical. Much of early electricity was direct current, which could not easily be increased or decreased in voltage either for long-distance transmission or for sharing a common line to be used with multiple types of electric devices.
Alessandro Giuseppe Antonio Anastasio Volta (UK: / ˈ v ɒ l t ə /, US: / ˈ v oʊ l t ə /; Italian: [alesˈsandro ˈvɔlta]; 18 February 1745 – 5 March 1827) was an Italian physicist and chemist who was a pioneer of electricity and power, [1] [2] [3] and is credited as the inventor of the electric battery and the discoverer of methane.
In 1800, Volta invented the first true battery, storing and releasing a charge through a chemical reaction instead of physically, which came to be known as the voltaic pile. The voltaic pile consisted of pairs of copper and zinc discs piled on top of each other, separated by a layer of cloth or cardboard soaked in brine (i.e., the electrolyte ).
The war of the currents was a series of events surrounding the introduction of competing electric power transmission systems in the late 1880s and early 1890s. It grew out of two lighting systems developed in the late 1870s and early 1880s; arc lamp street lighting running on high-voltage alternating current (AC), and large-scale low-voltage direct current (DC) indoor incandescent lighting ...
History of electricity can refer to: See Electricity § History for an overview; History of electromagnetic theory; History of electrical engineering;