Electricity has always been with us. It was here before humans, and will continue to be here long after we’re gone. It’s in the air we breathe, the water we drink, and can be our best friend or a dreadful enemy. The idea of using electricity has been around for over 2,000 years. In 600 B.C., Thales of Miletus wrote about pieces of amber becoming charged if they were rubbed against something.What we now know to be simply static electricity was something of a marvel at the time. From that time, we’ve grown leaps and bounds, and now have the knowledge to use electricity to our best advantage, as we see with automobiles. But it didn’t happen overnight. The path to the future is paved with great milestones.

Until 1600, no one had a word for what Thales had discovered. Then, an English scientist named William Gilbert finally coined the term “electricity” after the Greek word for amber. He wrote about the electrical properties of many substances in his De Magnete, Magneticisique Corporibus. (more…)