History Of Electricity

Electricity, as we all know is an extremely diverse and flexible energy form. It has been adapted over the last 200 or so years to the point where we can now use it for pretty much anything. One of the first applications of electrical power that was publicly available was LED lighting when the first incandescent light bulb was invented in the 1870s.

The electric overhaul of society obviously brought many fresh new dangers with it, but it eliminated some of the old ones, like the naked flames of gas lighting that was commonly used in homes and factories then.

The Joule heating effect that can be found in light bulbs is also present in electric heating. Electric heating has been thought of as wasteful in the past because in order to create that heat energy, heat has already been used in the power stations

Denmark (among a few other countries) has issued a new law restricting electric heating use in new buildings, if allowed at all. As well as heating, electricity provides a hugely beneficial source of refrigeration. As temperatures get hotter, the demand for air conditioning gets higher, increasing the amount of energy used, and so climate change is increasing in a snowball effect.

Another area that depends on electricity to function is telecommunication. The electric telegraph was in fact one of the first ways in which electricity was used successfully.

In the 1860s, electricity had made global communication possible with the first intercontinental telegraph systems (this was of course before the telephone) and then the first transatlantic ones. Since then, satellite communication and optical fibre have taken a share of the communications market, but electricity is sure to remain a vital part of the process.

Electromagnetism is most visibly apparent in the electric motor which of course provides an efficient and clean power motive. A motor that stays in one place, like a winch can easily be powered by a stationary power supply, but a moving motor like an electric car or scooter must carry its power supply along with it in the form of a battery, or it can gain electrical charge from sliding contact like with a pantograph.

The transistor is undoubtedly one of the most important breakthrough inventions of the 1900s. All modern electrical circuits use one to direct the right amount of electricity flow to the right application. Several billion tiny transistors can fit into only a few centimetres.