TIMELINE ELECTRICITY

By Alessandro Giacobbi
  • 600 BCE

    THALES OF MILETUS (Ancient Greece)

    THALES OF MILETUS (Ancient Greece)
    He noticed that a piece of ambra, if it rubbed with fur, can attract some straw. He named ambra "electron".

  • WILLIAM GILBERT (London)

    WILLIAM GILBERT (London)
    He noticed that other objects have in common with ambra the same electrical properties. He called them "electrics".

  • THOMAS BROWNE (Norwich)

    THOMAS BROWNE (Norwich)
    He named "electricity" the property of electric objects.

  • CHARLES DU FAY (Paris)

    CHARLES DU FAY (Paris)
    He divided electrics in two groups: a pair of object from the same group repel, on the other hand two objects from different group attract themselves.

  • BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Philadelphia)

    BENJAMIN FRANKLIN (Philadelphia)
    1) He assembled electrical devices able to de-electrify by producing sparks.
    2) Electric fluid theory: an object with an excess of electrical fluid (a substance that is common to all things) is positively charged and an object with a lack of this fluid is negatively charged.

  • LIGHTNING ROD

    LIGHTNING ROD

  • ELECTROLYSIS

    ELECTROLYSIS

  • OHM'S LAW

    OHM'S LAW

  • MAXWELL'S EQUATION

    MAXWELL'S EQUATION

  • LIGHT BULB

    LIGHT BULB

  • J. J. THOMSON (Cambridge)

    J. J. THOMSON (Cambridge)
    He discovered that electrical fluid is made up of small particles called, by George Stoney, "electrons".
    In the end, it was discovered that electrons flow in the opposite direction to what Franklin supposed. Therefore an object positively charged lacks electrons but conventionally we still use franklin's vocabulary.