Electricity invention is the most outstanding achievement of the human race. Through the unfolding of the second industrial revolution, it began unleashing its mighty power of inventions. Electricity has become an essential technology core to underpin numerous inventions. Starting from light bulbs to smartphones, we use many of them daily. Furthermore, many inventions like automobiles are being reinvented by changing the mechanical technology core with electrical technologies. Besides, electricity invention became the core technology of the information age, unfolding the 3rd industrial revolution. Electrical technologies will drive the intelligent machine age in the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. Such a remarkable contribution raises an obvious question: who did invent electricity? No surprise: electricity invention is not the act of a sole inventor. Many creative minds contributed over a century to electricity invention, making it a suitable technology core to support many other inventions.
Electricity is a type of energy that originates from the flow of charged particles, like electrons. Before electricity invention, human beings likely discovered its presence upon observing lightning in the sky. They became very curious with the flashing of light, thundering and sudden deaths of people during that occurrence. Before Benjamin Franklin’s kite experimentation in 1752, knowledge about electricity was limited to static charge. During a thunderstorm, he took a life-threatening risk in flying a kite with a metal key attached to the string’s end. Upon getting a shock from touching the key, he proved that electricity flowed from the storm’s cloud to the kite, giving him a shock. Since then, many scientists have studied electricity, strengthening our understanding and inventing means for practical purposes. However, despite Franklin’s remarkable contributions, evidence indicates that before him, English scientist William Gilbert, followed by Thomas Browne, investigated electricity in the 17th century.
Electricity in the ancient age:
Since ancient times, the presence of static electric charges has been known to human beings. Notably, Thales of Miletus’s observation of static electricity around 600 BCE is pretty important. Furthermore, archeological evidence indicates the presence of experimentation with electricity in ancient times. The discovery of a clay pot containing copper plate, tin alloy, and an iron rod, in 1936, suggests that the first batteries may have been invented over 2,000 years ago. Perhaps, they used the clay pot assembly to generate an electric current by filling the pot with an acid solution. There is no further evidence about its use. Nevertheless, it reveals that people might have worked with electricity far before Franklin.
Formation of Electrical science:
Soon after Luigi Galvani demonstrated bio-electromagnetics in 1791, Alessandro Volta made a battery, in 1800, from alternating layers of zinc and copper. The unification of electric and magnetic phenomena, by Hans Christian Ørsted and André-Marie Ampère in 1819–1820, led to the discovery of electromagnetism. Furthermore, with famous Ohm’s law, Georg Ohm mathematically analyzed the electrical circuit in 1827. During the early 1860s, James Clerk Maxwell gave birth to electromagnetic waves through theoretical work.
Invention and entrepreneurship for leveraging electricity invention:
The progress of electric science during the first half of the 19th century was followed by the formation of electrical engineering during the latter half. Inventors and entrepreneurs leveraged these two important developments to generate ideas of practical tools. With engineering, they implemented them in an effective and efficient manner.
The work of entrepreneurial mission out of creativity started turning the scientific knowledge about electricity into essential tools powering modern life. Some of these notable individuals who contributed to this mission are Alexander Graham Bell, Ottó Bláthy, Thomas Edison, Galileo Ferraris, Oliver Heaviside, Ányos Jedlik, William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin, Charles Algernon Parsons, Werner von Siemens, Joseph Swan, Reginald Fessenden, Nikola Tesla, and George Westinghouse. This era offers numerous examples of feeding the scientific knowledge about electricity and the urgency of Getting jobs done better to the creative process in producing inventive ideas. As opposed to just curiosity of knowing and experimenting with inventive ideas, this era also marks the profit-making competition out of inventive ideas by leveraging electrical science. In retrospect, Passion for Perfection, winning traits, and knowledge of electricity created a huge flow of inventive ideas.
Furthermore, the invention of the vacuum tube diode, in 1904, by John Ambrose Fleming, gave birth to electronics. The addition of one or more grids in the tube led to controlling the flow of electronics. These devices became key components of electronic circuits, for amplifying, filtering and mixing signals. They became crucial in developing radio, television, radar, sound recording and reproduction, long-distance telephone networks, analog and early digital computers, and many more.
Building blocks of electricity invention:
Electricity invention comprises of discovery and study of ten building blocks: (i) electric charge, (ii) current, (iii) electric field, (iv) electric potential, (v) electromagnets, (vi) electrochemistry, (vii) electric circuits, (viii) electric power, (ix) electronics and (x) electromagnetic wave.
Charge, current, and electrical field and potential:
Any substance consists of tiny charged particles. These participles having the same type of charge repel one other. There are two types of charged particles: electrons and protons. They have opposite charges. Hence, electrons repel one another while they show attractive behavior to protons. If we remove or add electrons to molecules, they become charged objects. We call them ions. The flow of charged particles like electrons or ions creates the current. The credit of discovery of charges and current goes to Benjamin Franklin.
A charged body, whether an electron, proton, or ion, creates an influencing area in the space surrounding them. Michael Faraday termed it an electric field in which a charged body experiences a force. This characteristic infused the ideas of the electric field and potential.
Electromagnetic, electrochemistry, and electric circuits:
In 1820, while preparing for a lecture, Hans Christian Ørsted witnessed the current in a wire disturbing the needle of a magnetic compass. It formed the basis of interaction between electricity and magnetics, giving birth to electromagnetism. Mr. Ørsted’s observation indicated that a magnetic field gets created due to a wire carrying an electric current. This precious observation led to the invention of the electric motor by Michael Faraday in 1821.
The ability of chemical reactions to produce charged particles, and conversely, the ability of the follow of charged particles to drive chemical reaction forms electrochemistry. This knowledge was the basis of Alessandro Volta’s electrical battery invention in 1799.
Electrical power, electronics, and electromagnetic waves:
In 1827, Georg Simon Ohm’s experimentation established the relation among electric current, resistance, and potential difference in an electric circuit. It underpins the design and analysis of electric circuits. Subsequently, it opened the door to measure electrical power, the rate at which electric energy is transferred, by an electric circuit.
Another building block is electronics—developing the capability of manipulating the flow of electrons carrying information. Some components are vacuum tubes, transistors, diodes, optoelectronics, sensors, and integrated circuits.
The work of Faraday and Ampère showed us the presence of Electromagnetic waves. They formed due to time-varying magnetic and electric fields. In 1864, James Clerk Maxwell formed a theoretical foundation, as a set of equations, describing the interrelationship between electric field, magnetic field, electric charge, and electric current. In theory, he also proved that electromagnetic waves would travel at the speed of light—giving birth to the basis of radio or wireless communication.
Examples of inventions and reinventions out of electricity invention:
Early notable inventions from the electricity invention are light bulbs, the telephone, the radio, electrical power generators, and motors. These inventions and the entrepreneurial mission of diffusing them in society led to the 2nd industrial revolution. For example, electric motors started showing better alternatives than steam engines in factories. The invention of Radio and Telephone led to the beginning of reinventing means of broadcasting and exchanging information. Similarly, centralized production of electrical energy out of generators and its sharing through transmission and distribution networks led to new energy infrastructure in the society. The diffusion of the light bulb brought a new dimension to life.
Electricity invention began from intuitive observation and curiosity of knowing naturally occurring phenomena like lightning. Subsequently, it led to experimentation and theorization of learning as a set of rules and equations. Hence, it formed the electrical science base during the first half of the 19th century.
Once the science base took a shape, the scope of inventing practical tools emerged. Besides, the opportunity of profiting from them also showed up. They formed an intense urgency in generating inventive ideas and rolling out them as a commercial venture. As a result, the formation of electrical science led to engineering, invention, and Innovation for offering better means in getting jobs done better. Consequentially, society started experiencing a new flow of Wealth, employment, firms, and industries. This is a great example, indeed, of producing knowledge and feeding it, along with urgency, to the creative process for producing ideas and converting them into wealth.
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