The law of universal gravitation states that any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Another key invention was Sir Charles Parsons’ steam turbine, from 1884, which provides the mechanical power for most of the world’s electric power.Ī 19th Century painting by Arthur Ackland Hunt entitled, ‘William Gilbert Demonstrates His Experiment on Electricity to Queen Elizabeth I and Her Court.’ In the late 1880s, George Westinghouse (US) set up a rival system using alternating current (AC), using an induction motor and transformer invented by Nikola Tesla (Serbia/US). In 1882, Thomas Edison (US) built the first large-scale electrical supply network, which provided 110 volts of direct current (DC) to 59 homes in Manhattan. In 1866, Werner von Siemens (Germany) invented an industrial generator that did not need external magnetic power. James Clerk Maxwell (England) linked electricity, magnetism and light in 1861-1862 in a series of mathematical equations. ![]() Joseph Henry (US) discovered induction at about the same time. Beginning in 1831, Michael Faraday (England) discovered electromagnetic induction, diamagnetism and electrolysis and invented the first current-generating electric generator, or dynamo. Hans Christian Ørsted (Denmark) noticed an interaction between electricity and magnetism in 1820, but it was French scientist André-Marie Ampère’s follow-up experiments that demonstrated the unity of electricity and magnetism. Alessandro Volta (Italy) invented the electric battery in 1800. Luigi Galvani (Italy) discovered the electrical basis of nerve impulses in 1786. Benjamin Franklin (US) discovered that lightning is a form of electricity in 1752. ![]() Henry Cavendish (England) measured conductivity of materials in 1747. The Leyden Jar, the first capacitor, was invented independently in 1745 in Germany and The Netherlands. ![]() Stephen Gray (England) discovered the conduction of electricity in 1729. Otto von Guericke (Germany) made the first static electricity generator in 1660. The English words ‘electric’ and ‘electricity’ were derived by Thomas Browne in 1646. Gilbert also coined the Latin term ‘electricus’ from the Greek word for amber, which he rubbed to produce static electricity. It was not until the careful research of William Gilbert (England) in 1600 that electricity became a subject of scientific study. One of the first to examine the phenomenon was Thales of Miletus (Ancient Greece), who studied static electricity in 600 BCE. For a chronological timeline of every discovery on two or more lists, go here.Įlectricity is the name for a set of physical phenomena associated with the presence and flow of electric charge. This list includes every discovery on three or more of the 17+ lists. I have also provided images of the scientists or their discoveries where available and where the narrative for one discovery mentions another discovery, I have placed it in boldface. Also, for some reason, history sometimes identifies the discoverer as the person who first hypothesized the correct answer to a question, while in other cases, the credit goes to the person who confirmed the hypothesis by experiments or observations. As with inventions, the discovery is often one link in a chain of scientific work that extends before and after the discovery in time, or is a collaboration (sometimes rivalry) among multiple discoverers. ![]() I have provided some information on the nature of the discovery and the identities of the discovers. You may notice there is some overlap with the Best Inventions lists – it appears that the line between ‘invention’ and ‘discovery’ is often a blurry one. The numbers in bold and underlined indicate the number of lists the scientific discovery was on. I collected more than 17 lists of the greatest or most important scientific discoveries of all time and combined them into one list – here are the results.
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