history of electricity

Question 1

Thales of Miletus

Answer 1

• Greek philosopher
• circa 600BC
• rubbed amber and fur, the first known experiment of electrostatics
• the Greek word for amber is elektron

Question 2

William Gilbert

Answer 2

• 17th century
• determined that the force of attraction occured from the removal of a fluid of the two rubbed objects and therefore changing the atmosphere around it

Question 3

Benjamin Franklin

Answer 3

• 1752 performed kite experiment proving that light was electrical in nature
• proposed that electricity had positive and negative elements to it and that it flowed from positive to negative

Question 4

Charles Augustin de Coulomb

Answer 4

• 30 years after Franklin, conducted experiments to describe the variables affecting the forces.
• his work resulted in Coulomb’s law which states that like charges repel and opposite charges attract, with a force proportional to the square distance between them.

☆from coulomb’s discovery until the end of the 19th century, nothing had been able to explain the source of these positive and negative charges, that is until 1897 and the scientific discovery of the electron.