history of electrical physics

  • Thales of Miletus
    600 BCE

    Thales of Miletus

    In the field of electricity, he was the first to discover that when rubbing a piece of amber, it attracts lighter objects, he did not define the causes of this phenomenon, which is due to the distribution of charges, but he did know that electricity resided in the rubbed object.
    Thanks to this, the term electricity has been derived, coming from the word elektron, which in Greek means amber.
  • William Gilbert

    William Gilbert

    He discovered electricity as such using the principles of Thales of Miletus, applying the electric term from elektron to the forces exerted by some substances when rubbed, verified that many substances behaved like amber and classified them as electric bodies (insulating materials ) and anelectric (conductive materials).
  • Otto Von Guericke

    Otto Von Guericke

    He invented an electrostatic machine capable of producing an electric discharge, the machine was made up of a sphere of sulfur and it rotated with a crank, the machine induced a charge by placing a hand on it, he also invented the first air pump and demonstrated the existence of atmospheric pressure.
  • Francis Hauksbee

    Francis Hauksbee

    He perfected Otto Von Guericke's electrostatic generator by replacing his sulfur sphere with a glass one, he built this rotating glass sphere by extracting the air from inside with the air pump and placing a crank on the machine that allowed the sphere to rotate, Inside, he placed a small amount of mercury on the sphere, creating a vacuum in its environment, generating an electrostatic charge that when placing his hands on the outside of it, a bluish glow was generated where his hands were.
  • Stephen Gray

    Stephen Gray

    He demonstrated the conductivity of the bodies, thanks to an assembly that he developed in wood on which he suspended two coulombs of silk where he later placed a child and transmitted static energy to him that he generated with Hauksbee's electric generator, under the child he placed gold viruses. and the child as he passed his hands began to be attracted and jumped, showing that some materials are conductors and others are insulators and conductors.
  • Charles Francois de Cisternay Du Fay

    Charles Francois de Cisternay Du Fay

    He developed his studies motivated by studies by Stephen Gray, and observed the repulsion behavior of a gold sheet and an electrified glass bar, determining the existence of two charges, the vitria and the resinous charge, since he witnessed them by rubbing with a silk cloth the glass was positively charged and when rubbing the amber with skin it was negatively charged.
  • Pierter Van Musschenbroek

    Pierter Van Musschenbroek

    He developed his experiment with the principle that if electricity flowed like water it could be stored like liquids, giving way to his experiment called the Leyden jar, which consisted of a glass bottle filled with water and connected at one end to a cable. conductor, connected to Haukbee's electric generator and placed on an insulating material, one day by accident he took the bottle and touched the cap and a current passed to it, concluding that electricity could be conserved.
  • Benjamín Franklin

    Benjamín Franklin

    He explained that lightning was an electrical phenomenon and that it could be attracted to the earth and thus he built the lightning rod, he also determined the existence of positive and negative electrical fluids, giving an explanation to the Leyden jar.
  • Henry Cavendish

    Henry Cavendish

    He determined the existence of electric charge and the voltage experienced with torpedo fish, comparing it with the Leyden jar, and building an artificial fish with it, concluding that the torpedo fish transmits a low voltage, but a high charge while the Leyden jar had a high voltage, but a low charge.
  • Charles Augustin de Coulomb

    Charles Augustin de Coulomb

    He invented the torsion balance to measure the force of attraction or repulsion between two electric charges, and he created the function that unites this force with the distance and managed to establish the principle that is based on the interaction between electric charges where F=K (qq´)/d2.
    He also studied electrification by friction and polarization, and introduced the concept of magnetic moment.
  • Luigi Galvani

    Luigi Galvani

    His investigations were based on animal electricity and its effects on the nerves and muscles of animals, discovering that electricity causes effects on the physiological action in living beings, when perceiving that the legs of a frog contracted, when touching them with an object charged with electricity, these discoveries were captured in a book called animal electricity.
  • Alessandro Volta

    Alessandro Volta

    He had very different thoughts from those of Galvani and in search of new forms of electricity he built a battery retaking Cavendish's work on the torpedo fish, but this time building it with metal, this was called the volta battery in which he used materials such as copper, cellulose and acid, making electricity continuous.
  • Humphry Davy

    Humphry Davy

    He created a huge 4m*9m battery, the largest up to that moment, which he used to generate a spark by joining its two poles, thanks to this he began the age of electricity, leaving Davy's lamp as an artifact.
  • Hans Christian Oesterd

    Hans Christian Oesterd

    He discovered electromagnetism, showing that an electric current forms a magnetic force.
  • William Sturgeon

    William Sturgeon

    He created the first electromagnet with a horseshoe and a coil that wrapped it by circulating current with cables from a battery and showed that with the horseshoe weighing less than a piece of iron it could be lifted, creating a starting point for new inventions. of useful and controllable machines.
  • Joseph Henry

    Joseph Henry

    He invented the electromagnet at the same time as Sturgeon, he also worked on the theory of electromagnetic induction and later realized that Faraday had already done it, he also invented the telegraph but due to lack of resources Morse later patented it with his help, placing it in operation in 1839.
  • Georg Simon Ohm

    Georg Simon Ohm

    His studies focused on electric currents and demonstrate the relationship between the intensity of an electric current, its electromotive force and resistance, resulting in Ohm's law where V=I*R, therefore the unit of electrical resistance is the ohm.
  • Michael Faraday

    Michael Faraday

    He created the first electric motor and demonstrated a relationship between electricity, magnetism and movement, generating electrical energy through mechanical energy.
  • Samuel Finley Breese Morse

    Samuel Finley Breese Morse

    His main invention was the electromagnetic circuit to transmit information called the telegraph, as he also invented an alphabet where he represented the letters and numbers with a series of dots and dashes called Morse code on which the telegraph was based to transmit messages.
  • Charles Wheatstone

    Charles Wheatstone

    He developed different devices such as the kaleidophone and the stereoscope, as well as invented the first needle telegraph in addition to various contributions such as the measurement of electrical resistance with the bridge device called the Wheatstone bridge.
  • Heinrich Friederich Lenz

    Heinrich Friederich Lenz

    He formulated the law of the opposition of induced currents called Lenz's law, which says that the direction of the currents or induced electromotive force is such that it always opposes the cause that produces it, that is, the variation of the flow. , also determined a relationship between the conductivity and the temperature of bodies that was later developed in depth, called Joule's law.
  • James Prescott Joule

    James Prescott Joule

    He developed Joule's law that says that any conducting body covered by an electric current releases an amount of heat equivalent to the work done by the electric field, to transport the charges from one end of the conductor to the other: Q=0.24 R l2t , studied and experimentally demonstrated the mechanical equivalence of heat, also determined the numerical relationship between thermal and mechanical energies.
  • Heinrich Geissler

    Heinrich Geissler

    He invented a vacuum pump, which allowed air to be extracted thanks to the vacuum that, generated by the descent of the mercury column, Geissler aroused curiosity about the propagation of electricity in a vacuum, thanks to this he built a glass tube in whose ends had placed metal electrodes. He observed a series of very colorful luminous phenomena. I call this a Geissler tube, and it was neon tubes.
  • Willam Crookes

    Willam Crookes

    His studies revolved around electrical discharges in a vacuum tube, and discovering that cathode rays traveled in a straight line, casting shadows, heating objects located in their trajectory and deflected by magnetic fields, finally concluding that these were particles of negative electric charge.
  • Thomas Alva Edison

    Thomas Alva Edison

    He invented the incandescent lamp, determining a metallic conductor that when heated would reach incandescence without melting, staying in this state for as long as possible, arriving after so many studies at a carbonized bamboo filament bulb, which exceeded 40 hours of continuous operation. Two years later, he built the first power plant in New York.
  • Nikola Tesla

    Nikola Tesla

    He developed a practical system to generate and transmit alternating current, as well as the first three-phase induction motor, as well as high-frequency generators and the so-called Tesla coil developed in 1881, which is used in the field of radio communications. The magnetic induction unit, of the MKS system, receives this name in his honor (Tesla = Weber/m2).
  • James Clerk Maxwell

    James Clerk Maxwell

    His studies were based on the mathematical justification of physical concepts described up to that moment in a qualitative way, such as the laws of electromagnetic induction and force fields, enunciated by Michael Faraday, thanks to this, he introduced the concept of electromagnetic wave, which allows an adequate mathematical description of the interaction between electricity and magnetism through its equations that describe and quantify the fields of force.
  • Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

    Heinrich Rudolf Hertz

    His studies focused on the propagation of electromagnetic waves, on which radio and wireless telegraphy are based, which he discovered, as well as developing the electromagnetic theory of light, which was formulated by physicist James Clerk Maxwell. , which led to the discovery of the photoelectric effect, demonstrated that electricity can be transmitted in the form of electromagnetic waves, which propagate at the speed of light, having many of their properties and frequency unit the hertz (Hz).
  • Oliver Joseph Lodge

    Oliver Joseph Lodge

    He was the first person to transmit radio signals, and he determined that waves did not move on the ether as had been postulated up to now, he also worked on the theory of wireless telegraphy.
  • Guillermo Marconi

    Guillermo Marconi

    It transmitted radio waves using a Hertz spark generator on top of a rod, reaching a transmission distance of 2.5 km, the device for the transmission of radio waves was composed of an emitter, the Hertz spark generator and a receiver, thanks to this he established Marconi's law as well as the development of a system of wireless telegraphy or radiotelegraphy.
  • Jagdish Chandra Bose

    Jagdish Chandra Bose

    His research was based on electromagnetic waves using them to ring bells and explode a charge of gunpowder at a great distance, he transmitted wave signals at a distance of one mile, but for more non-commercial scientific purposes as Marconi did, along with this development a radio wave signal detector with semiconductor crystals.
  • Joseph John Thomson

    Joseph John Thomson

    He discovered the electron, isotopes and invented the mass spectrometer. He determined the relationship between the charge and mass of cathode rays, by measuring how much they deviate over a magnetic field and the amount of energy they carry. He found that the charge/mass ratio was more than a thousand times that of the hydrogen ion, suggesting that the particles are either very light or highly charged.
  • Ernest Rutherford

    Ernest Rutherford

    His studies were based on radioactive particles and he classified them into alpha (a) beta (b) and gamma (y). He determined that radioactivity was accompanied by a disintegration of the elements. Thanks to this, he created a new atomic model with which he proved the existence of the atomic nucleus in which all the positive charge and almost all the mass of the atom gather, explaining to this the flow of electricity.
  • Russell Ohl

    Russell Ohl

    He created the germanium transistor, as well as patenting the modern solar cell.
  • Hebert Mataré y Heinrich Welker

    Hebert Mataré y Heinrich Welker

    They create the first transistor, at the same time in the Bell Labs laboratories a transistor is also created.
  • Microchip

    Microchip

    After the invention of transitions, thanks to these microchips appear.
  • Karl Alexander Muller y Johannes Georg Bednorz

    Karl Alexander Muller y Johannes Georg Bednorz

    In an IBM research laboratory in Zurich with perovskite structures they discovered high-temperature superconductivity, the result being presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society in New York.