We use electricity for almost everything we do every day of our lives. To keep ourselves and our homes comfortable, for appliances, wireless transmitters, data centers, factories built with huge power demands… The use of electricity helps our lives stay functional while on the other hand, more and more we become addicted. So, who were the scientists who turned electricity from a scientific curiosity into an indispensable tool for modern life, and how did the electricity discovery develop? In which year was the electricity that we use in all areas of our lives discovered and through what stages did it come to our day? We will give you the answer who discovered electricity?
Electricity Discovery
Before looking for an answer to the question of who the electricity discovered, it is necessary and important to know that electricity is a form of energy and is found in nature, therefore it was discovered not invented.
Many different historical sources point to Benjamin Franklin as an answer to the question of who discovered electricity. Although this information is not wrong, it is incomplete. Benjamin Franklin revealed the connection between electricity and lightning with his experiments, but it is not correct to call it exactly electrical energy.
The first understanding of electricity began in BC. In the 600s, the Greeks created a strong attraction force by rubbing feathered fabrics on amber, that is, when they found static electricity and created the first electric sparks. Observations about static electricity were not studied scientifically until the 1600s. Electricity as a term was coined by William Gilbert, an English scientist, as early as 1600 AD and is defined as the force produced by the friction of certain materials against each other. A few years later, British scientist Thomas Browne used the word electricity in his book. Many electrical discoveries were made in the 17th century, including the distinction between positive and negative currents and the classification of materials as conductors or insulators, and the invention of an early electrostatic generator.
Who First Discovered Electricity?
You can be curious about who invented electricity and in which year? Benjamin Franklin, who became interested in electricity invention in the mid-1740s at a time when not much was known about the subject, spent almost a decade doing electrical experiments. On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning and small electric sparks are the same thing by performing his experiment with a kite, key and storm in Philadelphia. Therefore, it can be said that the discovery of electricity emerged through Benjamin Franklin’s experiment. Italian physicist Alessandro Volta proved with his discovery that some chemical reactions can produce electricity. In 1800, the physicist connecting the positively and negatively charged connectors obtained the first electric current by driving the voltage through them with an electrical charge.
History of Electricity
You can guess how important the owner of the name ‘farad’, which formerly defined a unit of electric charge and later a unit of electrical capacitance, was for the history of electricity. Michael Faraday consistently and practically solved the problem of generating electric current in 1831 by discovering electromagnetic induction, the principle behind the electrical transformer and generator. The electric dynamo he created using a magnet moved in a coil of copper wire, creating a small electric current flowing through the wire, made electricity suitable for use in technology. This invention paved the way for the American Thomas Edison and the British scientist Joseph Swan to invent the incandescent light bulb in 1878.
When was Electricity First Used?
So who is the real father of electricity? While searching for an answer to the question of when electricity was first used, Thomas Edison will undoubtedly be the first name you will come across before the dates. But did Edison really invent the electric light bulb? Yes, Edison patented his light bulb in 1879, but this was an improved version of a design that British inventor Joseph Swan had patented 10 years ago. Edison and Swan, who formed a joint company to produce the first practical filament lamp, worked on light bulb designs that had been in use since the early 1800s. The bulb that Swan developed glowed for only 13 and a half hours due to the poor quality of the vacuum in the bulb, but Edison, using a better vacuum pump, made a filament that lasted up to 1,200 hours after testing thousands of materials. In September 1882, Edison’s direct current system was used for the first time to illuminate New York electric street lamps.
One of the two key players on the road to electricity use along with Thomas Edison, Serbian-American scientist Nikola Tesla made an important contribution to the birth of commercial electricity. Tesla developed the alternating current system by working on new electric motors and generators in 1887. The electrical energy was converted into mechanical energy much more successfully than direct current, thanks to the three-phase alternating current induction motor developed by Tesla. An inventor and electrical wizard as well as an engineer, Tesla had many revolutionary developments in electromagnetism and is best known for his work on AC motors and the poly phase distribution system, as well as on alternating current.
In the following period, American inventor and industrialist George Westinghouse, who bought and developed Tesla’s patented engine, pioneered the use of alternating current instead of direct current in electricity transmission in the USA.
Scottish inventor James Watt is one of the names working to bring electricity to the current state. It was named after him, the watt, widely used unit of power for both electricity and mechanics.
Andre-Marie Ampere, one of the first to discover electromagnetism, was the first person to formulate electromagnetism and electromagnetic fields, and the unit of electric current was named Ampere.
German physicist and mathematician Georg Simon Ohm is known for Ohm’s Law. With this law, the connection between the resistance and the resistance revealed that the current flowing through a wire is directly proportional to the area it passes and inversely proportional to its length.
As a result, it is not possible to answer the question of who discovered electricity with a single name. Many great minds have worked on the concept of electricity as the term has been known for thousands of years.
We tried to explain when was electricity first invented.
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