History of electrical engineering

This article details the history of electrical engineering.

Thales of Miletus, an ancient Greek philosopher, writing at around 600 B.C.E., described a form of static electricity, noting that rubbing fur on various substances, such as amber, would cause a particular attraction between the two. He noted that the amber buttons could attract light objects such as hair and that if they rubbed the amber for long enough they could even get a spark to jump.

At around 450 B.C.E. Democritus, a later Greek philosopher, developed an atomic theory that was remarkably similar to our modern atomic theory. His mentor, Leucippus, is credited with this same theory. The hypothesis of Leucippus and Democritus held everything to be composed of atoms. But these atoms, called "atomos", were indivisible, and indestructible. He presciently stated that between atoms lies empty space, and that atoms are constantly in motion. He was incorrect only in stating that atoms come in different sizes and shapes. Each object had its own shaped and sized atom.

An object found in Iraq in 1938, dated to about 250 B.C.E. and called the Baghdad Battery, resembles a galvanic cell and is believed by some to have been used for electroplating in Mesopotamia, although this has not yet been proven.

Electricity would remain little more than an intellectual curiosity for millennia. In 1600, the English scientist, William Gilbert extended the study of Cardano on electricity and magnetism, distinguishing the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. He coined the New Latin word electricus ("of amber" or "like amber", from ήλεκτρον [elektron], the Greek word for "amber") to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed. This association gave rise to the English words "electric" and "electricity", which made their first appearance in print in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica of 1646.

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