A Physics Discovery Bruce Lee

I think the discovery of the electricity was of great importance. It is usually said that
Benjamin Franklin was the one who found electricity, but there were many others who had
discovered electricity before Franklin. For example, there was Francis Hauksbee, who created
a generator that created sparks of electricity by turning the handle. Also, William Gilbert and
Thomas Browne are known as the first scientists to use the term electricity. Franklin had his
famous kite and key experiment. He flew a kite during a thunderstorm and the lightning
struck the kite, sending down electricity along the line and giving him a shock through the
metal key attached to the end of the line. Franklin also thought up of electricity having a
positive and a negative charge.
Before Benjamin Franklin “discovered” electricity, scientists tested with electricity in the
form of static electricity. By rubbing specific materials together, they could create a spark.
This was the principle of Hauksbee’s machine. Even before this, people believed lightning
and electricity to be from god. It was something that was magical and terrifying in ancient
times. As discoveries were made along time and Franklin proved that lightning was
electricity, many other scientists built upon his work, starting to understand more about how
electricity works. Henry Cavendish, Humphry Davy, Oersted, Faraday, Joseph Henry, Volta,
Tesla, and many more scientists made further discoveries of the properties of electricity, and
some with electromagnetism. Cavendish had made discoveries of capacitance and electric
potential, which were later solidified by Ohm and Coulomb. Faraday is famous for merging
electricity and magnetism together with electricity induction. If the flux of a magnetic field
through a loop of wire changes, a current is induced in the coil/ solenoid and creates a new
magnetic field in order to maintain the same amount of flux as before. Ampere and Ohm have
created the Ampere’s Law and Ohm’s Law respectively. Ampere’s Law is what we use as the
right-hand rule, figuring out the magnetic field around a flowing current. The formula of
Ohm’s Law is V=IR, which means that current multiplied by the resistance of the wire or
other parts is the voltage, or potential difference, in a electric circuit. And of course, there is
Thomas Edison who created the light bulb, and Nikola Tesla, who created many of what
Edison stole from him and the alternating current system that we use today. Then, later on,
there were scientists like Maxwell and Hertz, who converted Faraday’s physical ideas into
mathematical formulas and researched about the wave properties of electricity respectively.
The contributions of theses brilliant minds and scientists led to the technological development
of the current society.
I think young people in my age (16 – 17) should all know about and understand the discovery
of electricity because it is one of the most basic things used in everyday life. Thanks to all the
experiments and research by scientific geniuses, we are now able to use electricity for
granted. If people could not harness the power of electricity, the society would still be in the
Dark Ages, with no light source other than natural light and fires. We would not have been
able to turn on light at night; we could not have even imagined having information
technology such as the Internet, smartphones, and computers. People have become
completely dependent on electricity that without it, it would be very difficult to live normally.
Since it is such a huge, indispensable part of our lives, people should understand and know
about its discovery and beginnings. We should learn about how electricity has been one of the
most terrifying natural phenomena to now being a part of everyday life. Like in the form of
lightning, electricity could be a very destructive force: it can cause fires and kill someone if it
hits a person directly. Harnessing such a power is quite a breakthrough that has changed the
daily lives of humans and it should be known to everyone. By understanding electricity,
people in the future will be able to further advance in technology that uses electricity. More
electronic devices would be created in a way that is more convenient and efficient for us
humans to use. The advancement of technology can bring batteries with much longer
lifespans, holographic electronic tools, devices that emit less heat energy. As stated in the 2 nd
law of thermodynamics, all energy eventually becomes heat energy, which cannot be used
again, known as entropy. By developing electricity technology, humans will be able to reduce
energy wasted into heat energy, making more efficient gadgets and devices. So, in the future,
electricity technology will not only continue to provide the basic necessities of our lives,
being beneficial to humankind in general, but also beneficial in a physical sense, decreasing
the rate of energy becoming entropy (unusable and unrecyclable). These are the reasons why
the discovery of electricity should be taught to everyone, and especially students should be
aware of the gift of electricity that they are gifted with.