a single fluid that existed in all matter and explained the effects of electricity by a shortage or excess of this fluid. The word fluid, used by natural philosophers, was the primitive description of a force of nature that future experimenters would gradually shed light upon.
Luigi Galvani (1737-1798), an Italian anatomist and physician discovered that when the lower legs of a dissected frog were in proximity to an electrical source, such as a Leyden jar, the frog’s muscles twitched into what he described as a “convulsive state.” Galvani had uncovered an interesting phenomenon. Whereas a spark could touch a muscle and cause it to contract, Galvani demonstrated that the muscle would contract merely by being in the proximity of an electric source. Up to this point, an electric current was only demonstrated in an instantaneous fashion. Once an electric spark transferred its current, there was no more; no further current flowed. He also demonstrated that by drawing a spark from an electrical machine at a distance from a muscle, and simultaneously touching metal to the frog’s sciatic nerve, the leg muscles twitched as if in a cramp. Further, he showed that touching a muscle with two different metals caused the muscle to twitch and the twitching would continue multiple times. Clearly, these muscles were being effected by electricity, but in this case the electricity would manifest itself not as one instantaneous jolt and then no more, but rather in a continuous fashion. How could this be? Galvani concluded that it was the muscle itself that generated the electric current responsible for this continuous twitching, and therefore even an animal utilized electricity as part of their physiological processes. He named this “animal electricity,” and thought that this was a different force then the natural electricity of lightening or the static electricity produced within the Leyden jar.
These experiments demonstrated the electrical nature of nerve muscle function and opened up the study of neurophysiology.
Electrical forces in animal tissue? Did electrical energy permeate living as well as inanimate objects? Was electricity a universal force explaining life itself?
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827), from Como, Italy was a student of languages and had a broad liberal arts education. Electricity became his hobby and he developed the battery in 1793. Rather then accept Galvani’s notion of the muscle source for the continuous electricity, he suspected that the two dissimilar strips of metal were really the electrical generating medium. Following this hunch, he discovered that electricity was produced when two different metal strips were placed within a salt solution that had no connection with animal tissue. This simple act would produce electricity that continued as long as the chemical reaction continued. The electricity was then drawn off continuously through a wire. For the first time electricity was produced by chemical means. This was a far more powerful force then could be obtained by electrostatic machines and resulted in enhanced research efforts.
The volt now describes the unit of electrostatic potential.
It was shortly after Volta’s discovery that William Nicholson working together with Anthony Carlisle (1768-1840), both from England, passed an electric current through water and discovered that they could break down the water into their component parts: hydrogen and oxygen. For the first time an electric current brought about a chemical reaction. They named the process hydrolysis---taking apart by electricity.
Attractive or repulsive forces diminish as the electric charges are separated. Joseph Priestly (1733-1804) of England, who emigrated to America and became a friend of Benjamin Franklin, determined that as the distance between two charged bodies of equal sign are increased by a factor, the repellant force is reduced by the square of that factor. This means that if two negatively charged pieces of metal are very close there is a strong force repelling them apart, but if they were moved, for example, two inches apart, the repelling force would be reduced by two squared---two times two or four times. Although this assumption was correct, no one demonstrated this fact experimentally. Priestly, a chemist, is better known for his discovery of oxygen.
As a result of the work by scientists mentioned above as well as many others, by the last quarter of the 18th century certain principles about electric phenomenon were established:
There are two signs of electrical charge.
Charges of the same kinds repel each other.
Charges of the opposite kinds attract each other.
Electricity was considered a kind of fluid, although there was controversy as to whether there were two types of fluid that could be added or taken away from different materials, or a single fluid that could be transferred in part or whole from one material to the next.
There are conductors of electricity through which an electric charge can freely move.
There were insulators through which no charge could move.
Electricity is stable and unchanging
When Thales of Miletos polished amber with cat fur, and the amber was able to pick up bits of straw or feathers, there was no natural philosophic explanation for this finding. As mentioned before, what Thales had uncovered was static electricity, but this terminology would not enter the scientific lexicon for many centuries.
Petrus Peregrinus (1220-?) a French physician, performed the first serious study of magnetism in 1269. Working with a magnetic stone known as lodestone he described the polarity of magnets. He found that the magnetic north pole of one magnet would be attracted to the magnetic south pole of another. He also demonstrated that north poles repulsed north poles and south poles repulsed south poles. In short, the concept of the attraction of opposite poles and the repulsion of like poles was attributed to Peregrinus
William Gilbert (1544-1603) was born in Colchester, England to a family of some wealth. He went to St. John’s College, Cambridge, and over a nine-year period obtained a BA, MA, and M.D. He set up medical practice in London, and held a number of offices in the Royal College of Physicians including president. He became physician to Queen Elizabeth.
As was typical of the scientists of the times, he held many interests, and Gilbert furthered the study of magnetism when he proposed that the entire earth was a large magnet with a north and south pole. His book, De Magnete, published in 1600, became the standard upon which all work in magnetism was measured. It remains one of the classics of natural philosophic literature.
In addition, he advanced the work of Thales of Miletos, and Theophrastus when he discovered that more materials could be “electrified” when rubbed with a cloth. He called these materials “electricians” and he proposed the word “electricity,” from the Latin word, electrum, for amber. He also theorized that electricity was due to the existence of a fluid surrounding an electrified body and the act of electrification was due to the passage of this fluid into the electrician. He also suggested that this fluid transfer was made possible when the friction of rubbing created the heat necessary to promote this passage.
Although both the rubbed amber and magnetism were attractive forces, Gilbert was the first scientist to explain the difference between magnetism and the amber effect---static electricity. The term static would not enter the physicists vocabulary for two hundred more years or until electric currents were identified as moving charges of electricity.
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