From where electricity came

ELECTRICITY

The science of electricity has its roots in observation, known in 600 BC that a rubbed piece of amber will attract a bit of straw.

Study of magnetism goes back to the observation that certain naturally occurring stones attract iron.

The two sciences were separate until 1820 when Hans Christian Oersted saw the connection between them…an electric current in a wire will affect a compass needle.

Around 600 BC Greeks found that by rubbing a hard fossilized resin (Amber) against a fur cloth, it would attract particles of straw. This strange effect remained a mystery for over 2000 years.

Around 1600, William Gilbert, a physician who lived in London at the time of Queen Elizabeth I and Shakespeare, studied magnetic phenomena and demonstrated that the Earth itself was a huge magnet, by means of his "terrella" experiment. He also studied the attraction produced when materials were rubbed, and named it the "electric" attraction. From that came the word "electricity" and all others derived from it.

  During the 1800s it became evident that electric charge had a natural unit, which could not be subdivided any further, and in 1891 Johnstone Stoney proposed to name it "electron."

 When J.J. Thomson invented the particle which carried that charge, the name "electron" was applied to it. He won the Nobel Prize in 1906 for his discovery.