Discovering Electricity

How the story began

Once a sharp and inquisitive child, while struggling to remain awake with his studies one night, had asked – in Mahabharat, the teacher of Pandavas was Dronacharya. Did he used to teach duing night time also ? Back then, there was no electricity. How did he lit the lights ?

Well, a point indeed to a child !
If we take Mahabharat’s timeline at roughly 2500 BC, that is story of 4700 years before. We have seen in TV serial that the mode of night illumination in those times were – burning torch in palaces or burning oil lamps at homes. If we bring time another 2500 years ahead, say at around 1 AD, illuminating method remains the same – oil burning torch at palaces, oil burning lamps at homes. At the most, a candle. We may remember some classic period movies like Cleopetra or Ben Hur on this.

The wonder of getting electric light at the press of a switch had arrived merely 125 years ago, during 1880- 90s. It took almost 1900 years from the torch burning days of Cleopetra to the era of electric lamps. From then on and in another span 125 years, electricity has stormed it’s footprint in hundreds of bastions of humam usage.
Our today’s story is the wonderful tale of this 2000 years.

 

Pyramid at Giza, Egypt 2600 BC

 

Earliest written script, 3200 BC (Sumerian Civilisation),

 

Remains of a lost city. Mohenjo daro, now in Pakistan, It was a flourishing city in around 2700 BC

 

What and Where is Electricity

As our old text says, Earth has all his materials enshrined in 5 elements – Pancha Bhoot. The Soil, the Water, the Fire, the Air and the Sky. Everything that is available on earth is in one of the 5 forms. In soil we have so many minerals, in elements or compounds, in water we have so many salts and gases, in fire thete is energy, in air there are gasses and heat, in sky there is wave. All these we can comprehend through our 5 sensory organs – by seeing, by listening, by smelling, by tasting or by feeling.

But Electricity is something beyond these. It is already there, hidden in existing things (metal, non-metal, liquid etc). But it can not be seen or caught. One cannot store it physically. But it is aalways there, hidden in an intangible form. If one caan decipher the trick, it can be drawn out from the hiding for a moment, one can use it for that moment.. In next moment, it will disappear.
So, to know that it is hidden there, to know the trick to bring it out and to know the trick to use it instantly for human benefit is the story behind electricity that human had mastered over long years.
We will be telling that wonderful story now.

 

Experiences of Early Civilisation

The time line was around 2700 BC.
In Egypt, the pyramids are being built.
In Asian territory, in western part, Sumer culture in Mesopotemia (Iraq) had invented first writing script.
In further east in Asian landmass, Mahenjodaro and Harappan civilisations are busy making new townships.

Early record of human, experiencing effects of Electricity was found in around that period. People in Egyptian civilisation had found a stunning, numb sensation of shock when they came to contact with some fish in river Nile. They have recorded their such experiences out of curiosity of exploring a natural phenomena..They tried to use this tremour sensation to cure ailments like headache or body pain. Those fishes later came to be known as Electric Eel or Electric Ray.
In history of mankind, that is the first record on subject of electricity.

 

Experiences and Experiments from Classical Antiquity

Thales (628 BC -548 BC) was a natural philosopher during Greek antiquity., He was born in today’s Turkey which was then under Greek rule. Tha was a period prior to Pythagoras or Socrates. He is considered as Father Of Science. He is the first person to tried to explain natural phenomena not as God’s miracle but by careful observation, experimentation and rational deduction. All later natural philosophers had held him as the progenitor of scientific deductions. Based on such observations, he could correctly predict of a solar eclipse of that time.

During the similar time line, Indian sub-continent was blessed with the arrival of two great men – Lord Mahavira (b. 599 BC) and Lord Buddha (b. 564 BC). They both will introduce 2 separate paths of conducting human life and thinking, centered around non-violence and love. Both these paths would morph into 2 major religions of the world – Jainism and Buddhism. They would enjoy a vast number of followers – in India, in whole of Asia and Indian Ocean islands. These religions would be alternative to pre-existing religion of Hinduism, based on Upanishads, Vedas, multiple Gods and fire sacrifice rituals.

 

Thales, Turkey, Greek Civilisation, 628 BC – 548 BC

Lord Mahavira, India, 599 BC

Lord Buddha, India. 564 BC

 

From early days, sailors for navigation of their boats during long voyages, used a suspended stone to find the ‘direction’ of voyage The stone is called Lodestone. (Old English, Journey = Lode). That stone was naturally available in regions of Turkey where Thales lived. The stone will be later known as Magnet, from the place where it came from – Magneta.

Thales experienced on attraction properties of Loadstone on iron nails.
It was also known to people that when Amber is rubbed, it attracts light objects like feather or straw.
Thales has experimented on this phenomena also.
He derived that these two phenomena are different in nature. One is happening after friction, the other is happening without friction.

Though Thales could not explain the reasons behind these phenomena, today we know that they are out of Static Electricity (friction) and Magnetism (non-friction)

Thus started the journey of knowledge towards electricity. This seed one day will sprout to a sapling and over time line of history will become an ever-expanding canopy of a huge, ever-alive tree. This tree got nurtured by hundreds of wise men over centuries who had been adding their own bit of nourishment. They were experimentalists, scientists, mathematicians, inventors, engineers, technologists and so on. But all of them were linked with a same thread. They were searching some truth of nature, some part of it. They were all ‘natural philosophers’

Gradually, these small peebles of knowledge got amassed to a big volume of mountain. Then, something useful for mankind has come out of it. All new things like electricity, semi conductors, nuclear power and innumerable others are the outcome of such human findings.. And once a new thing is discovered, human had continued his search efforts for a newer one. Onward movement on civilisation thus goes on.

(To be continued to Renaissance period)

About the author

Amitabh Moitro

Amitabh Moitro, age 67 years, had worked in a nationalised bank for long years. He has since retired and lives in Goa

 

Madhab Kumar Pal

Madhab Kumar Pal (67 yrs) is an Electrical Engineer. After spending his entire working life with SAIL at it’s various units, he is now spending his retired life at Kolkata. He regularly writes for various magazines.