Who Discovered Electricity?
Electricity is a type of energy that happens naturally and hence was not “created.” There are various myths about who found it. Some credit Benjamin Franklin with finding electricity, however, his research was limited to establishing the link between lightning and electricity.
The reality about how electricity was discovered is a little more complicated than a man flying a kite. It has a history of almost two thousand years.
The Ancient Greeks recognized that stroking fur against amber (fossilized tree resin) generated an attraction between the two – and that this attraction was static electricity. In the 1930s, academics and archaeologists unearthed jars with copper sheets inside, which they believe were old batteries used to provide light at ancient Roman locations. Similar devices have been discovered in Baghdad, indicating that ancient Persians may have utilized an early sort of battery.
Many electrical discoveries had been achieved by the 17th century, including the discovery of an early electrostatic generator, the distinction between positive and negative currents, and the classification of materials as conductors or insulators. The Latin word “electricus” was first used in 1600 by English physician William Gilbert to describe the power that some substances exert when brushed against one other. A few years later, another English scientist, Thomas Browne, authored many publications based on Gilbert’s findings, and he coined the term “electricity” to characterize his discoveries.
When Michael Faraday invented the electric dynamo (a rudimentary power generator) in 1831, he addressed the difficulty of generating an electric current in a continuous and practical manner. Faraday’s rudimentary innovation included moving a magnet within a coil of copper wire, which created a little electric current that travelled through the wire. This paved the way for Thomas Edison of the United States and Joseph Swan of the United Kingdom to create the incandescent filament light bulb in their respective nations in about 1878. Others had created light bulbs before, but the incandescent bulb was the first practical bulb that could illuminate for hours.
In September 1882, Swan and Edison formed a joint firm to build the first functional filament lamp, and Edison utilized his direct-current system (DC) to power the first New York electric street lighting. Nikola Tesla, a Serbian American engineer, inventor, and all-around electrical genius, was a key contribution to the advent of commercial electricity in the late 1800s and early 1900s. He cooperated with Edison and later had several groundbreaking electromagnetic advancements, as well as competing patents for the creation of the radio with Marconi. His work with alternating current (AC), AC motors, and the polyphase distribution system has made him famous.
Ben Franklin’s experiment with a kite, a key, and a storm took place in 1752. This merely demonstrated that lightning and small electric sparks were identical.
Alessandro Volta, an Italian physicist, discovered that certain chemical processes might produce electricity, and in 1800 he built the voltaic pile (an early electric battery) that produced a continuous electric current, making him the first person to do so. By connecting positively and negatively charged connections and forcing an electrical charge, or voltage, through them, Volta invented the first transmission of electricity.
Later, American inventor and businessman George Westinghouse bought and improved Tesla’s patented motor for generating alternating current, and the efforts of Westinghouse, Tesla, and others eventually persuaded American society that AC rather than DC was the future of electricity. Others who contributed to the development of electricity include Scottish innovator James Watt, French mathematician Andre Ampere, and German mathematician and scientist George Ohm. As a result, electricity was not discovered by a single person. While the notion of electricity had been known for thousands of years, when it came time to commercialize and scientifically develop it, multiple brilliant brains worked on it simultaneously.
