What Is Electricity?

By Author: Dave Sabri
Total Articles: 29
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1) Electricity results from the presence and flow of electrical charge.

2) It comes from the conversion of natural energy sources, such as natural gas, oil, nuclear power and coal.

3) Like all forms of energy, the energy from electricity can neither be created nor destroyed: it is simply transferred or converted from or to other forms, such as heat, light and power.

4) Electricity generation began just over 100 years ago.

5) The word electricity is rooted New Latin electricus, "amber-like", the classical Latin electrum, and in the Greek word elektron, meaning amber.

6) Even the Ancient Egyptians were aware of electricity, but its power wasn't really understood until the 18th century.

7) In 1872 Benjamin Franklin conducted an experiment in Philadelphia in which he, reputedly, attached a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite string and flown it in a stormy sky. He observed a succession of sparks from the key to the back of his hand, showing that lightening was electrical in nature. From this incident, the first principals of electricity were developed.

8) The invention of the ...
... light bulb, by Thomas Edison in the late 19th century helped change everyone's lives; today lighting is one of the biggest uses of domestic energy in the UK.

9) Nikola Tesla pioneered the use of alternating current (AC) electricity, rather than direct current (DC) electricity, which can be transmitted over much greater distances. It is as a result of this man that we are able to have electricity in our homes.

10) The Department of Transport and Industry reported that, in 2001, the UK consumed electricity equivalent to over 240 million tonnes of oil, more than it had in the last thirty years!

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