The Spirit Of Electricity
...of the existence of electrical charge. The understanding of electricity has led to the invention of motors, generators, telephones, radio and television, X-ray devices, computers and nuclear energy systems. Electricity is a necessity to modern civilization.
From Day One
Legend has it that the word magnet comes from Magnesia a type of rock found in Asia Minor. These rocks were natural and formed from an iron ore now known as Magnetite. The rocks were believed to have great powers, which ranged from curing many ailments to attracting lovers.
Around 376 B.C. Haung Ti a Chinese general had his attention drawn to the fact that a piece of Magnetite, when suspended from a thread, would align itself with the direction of the Earth's North and South. He quickly employed this knowledge with his soldiers to help them find their way over the long distances they travelled. The compass was born.
In the seventh century B.C. Thales a Greek philosopher and mathematician noticed that by rubbing the stone amber on cloth it would attract light objects and hence he believed that the amber became magnetic. Even so he was troubled by the fact that his rubbed amber could not pick up metals and yet Magnetite would attract iron without having to be rubbed.
Unfortunately as far as we know he did not attempt to gain an
answer to this problem. We now realise that Thales had not been
able to separate the difference between Static electricity on the
Amber and Magnetism in the Magnetite.
By the year 1600, the compass was in common use but it was William Gilbert the Physician to Queen Elizabeth l who returned to Thales's perplexing problem of amber acting like a magnet. He derived the word Electrica' to refer to substances that acted like amber. The word Electrica' comes from the Latin for amber, Electrum', which in turn was derived from the Greek word for amber, Electra'....
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