2. Greeks
• Over 2,000 years ago, the Greeks discovered
that amber rubbed with fur attracts light
objects, such as dust or feathers. Two rubbed
amber rods were found to repel each other.
3. Otto Von Guerike
• Made a large ball of sulfur which he could
rotate with one hand and rub with the other.
Apart from being able to attract small pieces
of paper, it (rather unexpectedly) produced a
crackle and minute sparks in the process of
rubbing.
4. Benjamín Franklin
• saw the connection between the tiny electric
sparks from a sulfur ball and the huge sparks
of lightning – they were both flows of electric
"fluid." He proved his point in his famous
experiment where the moist cord from a kite
flying in a thundercloud conveyed the
electrical charge in the thundercloud to earth.
5. Louis Galvani
• The Italian Galvani made another
important, though accidental, discovery
toward the end of the 18th century. He found
that wires of brass and iron in contact with the
leg of a recently killed frog made its muscles
contract, as they contracted when the store of
electricity from a Leyden jar was passed
through the leg. Galvani thought that the leg
had, in some mysterious way, produced
electricity on its own.
6. Alessandro Volta
• He showed that the muscular contraction of the
frog's leg observed by Galvani had nothing to do
with the frog itself, but was caused by the brass
and iron wires in contact with the salty moisture
in the legs. In fact, they made a primitive form of
electric cell. Volta made his own electric cell from
plates of copper and zinc in a solution of salt. He
went on to construct a more useful battery (or
pile as it was called) by joining a number of cells
together.
