Like other great inventions, the discovery of electricity took thousands of years, as it was difficult to develop the right theory to explain the phenomenon. Physicists have combined magnetism with electricity, trying to figure out how these forces can attract objects, cause numbness in body parts and even cause fires.
There were three main facts of the electrical forces that led scientists to invent electricity:
- electric fish
- static electricity
- magnetism.
Ancient Egyptian doctors knew about the electrical discharges that were generated by the Nile catfish. They even tried to use powdered catfish as a medicine. Plato and Aristotle in the 300s BC mentioned electric rays that stun people with electricity. Their successor, Theophrastus, knew that electric stingrays could stun people without even touching them directly through wet hemp nets or their tridents.
Pliny the Elder moves forward in the study of the rays and notes new information related to the conductivity of electricity by various substances. Thus, he noticed that metal and water conduct electricity better than anything else. He also drew attention to several healing properties when eating stingray stingrays. Roman doctors such as Scriconius Largus, Dioscurides and Galen have started using rays to treat chronic headaches, gout, and even hemorrhoids. Galen believed that the electricity of the slope was somehow related to the properties of magnetite. It is worth noting that the Incas also knew about electric eels.
About 1000 AD Ibn Sina also found out that electric strikes of stingrays can cure chronic headaches. In the 1100s Ibn Rushd in Spain wrote about rays and how they can cause numbness in the hands of fishermen, even without touching the net. Ibn Rushd concluded that this power has such an effect only on some objects, while others could easily pass it through themselves. Abd al-Latif, who worked in Egypt around 1200 A.D., said that an electric catfish in the Nile could do the same thing as rays, but with much more power.
Other scientists have begun to study static electricity. Greek scientist Thales knew around 630 B.C. that if you rub amber o wool and then touch it, you can get an electric shock.
The word "electricity" itself probably comes from the Phoenician language from the word "luminous light" or "sunbeam", which the Greeks used to designate amber (Dr. ἤλεκτρον: electron). Theophrastus in the 300s B.C. knew another special stone - tourmaline, which attracts small objects, such as pieces of ash or fur if warmed up. In the 100s A.D. in Rome Seneca made some remarks about lightning and the phenomenon of St. Elmo's lights. William Gilbert in 1600 learned that glass can get a static charge, as well as amber. As Europe colonized, it became richer and richer, and education developed. In 1660, Otto von Gericke created a rotating machine for the production of static electricity.
In the third direction, scientists worked with magnets and magnetite. Thales knew that magnesium could magnetize iron rods. The Indian surgeon Sushrut used magnetite for surgical removal of iron fragments around 500 BC. Around 450 BC, Empedocles, who worked in Sicily, believed that perhaps invisible particles somehow pulled iron to a magnet like a river. He compared it to how invisible light particles penetrated our eyes so we could see. The philosopher Epicurus followed the idea of the Empedocles. Meanwhile, in China, scientists did not sit idle either. In the 300s A.D., they also worked with magnets using a newly invented sewing needle. They developed a way to make artificial magnets, and around 100 BC they invented the magnetic compass.
In 1088 AD, Shen Guo in China wrote about the magnetic compass and its ability to find the north. By the 1100s, Chinese ships were equipped with compasses. Around 1100 A.D., Islamic astronomers also adopted the technology of making Chinese compasses, although in Europe by that time it was already normal when they were mentioned by Alexander Nekem in 1190. In 1269, soon after the establishment of the University of Naples, when Europe became even more developed, Peter Peregrin in southern Italy wrote the first European study on magnets. Uliyam Gilbert in 1600 understood that compasses work because the Earth itself is a magnet.
Approximately in 1700, these three directions of researches began to unite as scientists have seen their interrelation.
In 1729, Stephen Grey shows that electricity can be transmitted between things by connecting them. In 1734, Charles François Dufet realized that electricity could attract and repel. In 1745, a bank was created in Leiden by scientist Peter van Muschenbroek and his apprentice Kuneus to store electricity and discharge it immediately, thus becoming the world's first condenser. Benjamin Franklin begins his experiments with batteries (as he calls them), which can store electricity, gradually discharging them. He also began his experiment with electric eels and so on. In 1819, Hans Christian Ersted realized that electric current could affect the compass hand. The invention of the electromagnet in 1826 began the era of electrical technology, such as the telegraph or electric motor, capable of saving us a lot of time and inventing other machines. What can we say about the invention of the telephone, transistor or computer?