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.

He was also the first to use the terms electric force, electric attraction, and magnetic pole. The next milestone didn’t take 2,200 years. In 1660, Otto von Guericke invented a machine that produced static electricity, and in 1675, Robert Boyle discovered that electric force could be transmitted through vacuum to observe attraction and repulsion.

In 1745, Georg Von Kleist discovered that electricity was controllable, and the revolution quietly began. What most people know of electricity being harnessed happened in 1747. Benjamin Franklin held his experiments and found that electrical fluid existed, and then in 1752 he invented the first lightning rod and proved that the glowing bolts were made of pure electricity. In 1800, the first electric battery was invented by Alessandro Volta, who proved that electricity could travel through wires.

Electricity was coming a long way in a short time. Now that it could be harnessed, the real advancements could begin. In 1816, the first energy utility was founding in the U.S., and 5 short years later, the first electric motor was constructed by Michael Faraday. The entire world was pitching in to help with the effort, and by 1837, the first industrial electrical motors were up and running.

An electric motor uses electrical energy to produce mechanical energy. Today, we find electric motors in household appliances such as fans, air conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines, vacuum cleaners, and many more items we take for granted daily. One of the biggest advances in electrical motors was their introduction into the automobile.

An electric car is a type of alternative-fuel car that utilizes electricity instead of combustible fuel to operate. And believe it or not, electric cars predate the Otto cycle, upon which Diesel and Benz (both combustible fuel engines) based the automobile. In the early 1800s, Robert Anderson invented the first electric carriage. In the USA, electric cars like the Studebaker were outselling gas-powered cars, but due to limitations, electric cars couldn’t exceed 32mph, and the world was thirsty for speed. In today’s world, electric cars are once again popular.

With their new technology, such as Tesla Motors’ electric motor which uses Lithium-ion batteries for an extended charge, electric cars can reach over 100mph. The future of the electric car is wide open, and scientists and engineers are working hard to make them faster, more reliable, and all-around more popular.

Tags: battery power, electric motor, Electricity, georg von kleist, michael faraday, tesla motors, william gilbert

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 5th, 2008 at 9:23 am and is filed under Consumer, Electricity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.