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Using Electricity to Make Light Electricity wasn't discovered all at once. There are a lot of types of electricity. Lightning and static electricity are two forms that people knew about then. During a thunderstorm, the sky lights up from the electricity. When there is static electricity, you see a spark of light. Scientists thought electricity would be a safe and cheap way to light up homes, so they began to do experiments to find ways to use and store electricity. The Battery
Electric Current An English scientist named Michael Faraday was the first to realize that passing a magnet through copper wiring could make an electric current. Both the electric generator and the electric motor are based on this principal. A generator uses mechanical energy to move a magnet back and forth through a wire coil to make electricity. A motor uses that electricity to move parts of a machine like the wheels of a car or hands on a clock. Thomas Edison and the Light Bulb In 1879 Thomas Edison was working on a light bulb that would
last a long time. He had trouble finding a strong enough material to be
used in the filament. A filament is the small wire inside the light bulb
that makes electricity. Edison tried He thought up the first electric power plant and it was able to bring electricity to peoples' homes. Edison's Pearl Street Power Station started working on September 4, 1882 in New York City. About 85 customers in Manhattan received power. His customers paid a lot of money for electricity. It cost them $5.00 per kilowatt-hour. Today's electricity costs a little over 8 cents per kilowatt-hour. This shows how expensive electricity was when it was first brought into people's homes. A Better Way A few years later AC power (alternating current) was
invented. Power plants could now send electricity much farther than they
ever could before. In 1895 George Westinghouse and his workers opened a
big power plant at Niagra Falls that used AC power. Edison's DC (direct
current) plant could only send electricity within one square mile of the power
station. The Niagara Falls plant was able to deliver electricity over 200
miles. People were very happy with all the new I would hate to think of what the world would be like without Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Edison. The world would not be a very exciting place. We wouldn't have CD's or CD players, TV's, lights, or computers. We would have to wash our clothes by hand and dry them on a line - scary to think about. I am very happy that these two men gave us electricity. |
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A lot of people think Ben Franklin discovered electricity with
a kite in 1752.
In 1800 Italian scientist, Alessandro Volta, soaked pieces of
paper in salt water, placed zinc and copper on opposite sides of the paper and
watched the chemical reaction make an electric current. By putting many
electric cells together, Alessandro was able to create a battery. Now
there was a safe and dependable source of electricity. This made it easy for
scientists to study electricity.
using cotton thread that had been
soaked in carbon. The filament did not burn, but it started to glow. The
new light was battery powered and expensive to use. Edison started looking
for a cheaper type of energy.
inventions, but some people
were afraid of electricity and were scared to have it in their homes. In
1920 only about 2 percent of all the energy in the U.S. was used to make
electricity. By 1996, 35 percent of all energy was used to make
electricity. That shows how important electricity is to our country today.
