Electricity has become something we rely on to live our lives, but it was by no means an overnight discovery. Over the last two hundred years it has developed from a scientific phenomenon to part of everyday life. One of the first applications of electricity was the first incandescent light bulb in around 1870.
Although electricity obviously brought along some new dangers with it, it eliminated some of the old ones. For example, the gas lighting that was generally used in factories and homes before electricity used naked flames.
The Joule heating effect that can be found in light bulbs is also present in electric heating. Electric heating has been thought of as wasteful in the past because in order to create that heat energy, heat has already been used in the power stations
A few countries, including Denmark have introduced new laws restricting the use of electric heating in new buildings as it is having an adverse affect on climate change. However as the global temperature rises the demand for Air conditioning goes up, and so climate change is getting worse with a snowball effect.
Another area that depends on electricity to function is telecommunication. The electric telegraph was in fact one of the first ways in which electricity was used successfully.
In the 1860s, electricity had made global communication possible with the first intercontinental telegraph systems (this was of course before the telephone) and then the first transatlantic ones. Since then, satellite communication and optical fibre have taken a share of the communications market, but electricity is sure to remain a vital part of the process.
Electromagnetism is most visibly apparent in the electric motor which of course provides an efficient and clean power motive. A motor that stays in one place, like a winch can easily be powered by a stationary power supply, but a moving motor like an electric car or scooter must carry its power supply along with it in the form of a battery, or it can gain electrical charge from sliding contact like with a pantograph.
The transistor is undoubtedly one of the most important breakthrough inventions of the 1900s. All modern electrical circuits use one to direct the right amount of electricity flow to the right application. Several billion tiny transistors can fit into only a few centimetres.
Although electricity obviously brought along some new dangers with it, it eliminated some of the old ones. For example, the gas lighting that was generally used in factories and homes before electricity used naked flames.
The Joule heating effect that can be found in light bulbs is also present in electric heating. Electric heating has been thought of as wasteful in the past because in order to create that heat energy, heat has already been used in the power stations
A few countries, including Denmark have introduced new laws restricting the use of electric heating in new buildings as it is having an adverse affect on climate change. However as the global temperature rises the demand for Air conditioning goes up, and so climate change is getting worse with a snowball effect.
Another area that depends on electricity to function is telecommunication. The electric telegraph was in fact one of the first ways in which electricity was used successfully.
In the 1860s, electricity had made global communication possible with the first intercontinental telegraph systems (this was of course before the telephone) and then the first transatlantic ones. Since then, satellite communication and optical fibre have taken a share of the communications market, but electricity is sure to remain a vital part of the process.
Electromagnetism is most visibly apparent in the electric motor which of course provides an efficient and clean power motive. A motor that stays in one place, like a winch can easily be powered by a stationary power supply, but a moving motor like an electric car or scooter must carry its power supply along with it in the form of a battery, or it can gain electrical charge from sliding contact like with a pantograph.
The transistor is undoubtedly one of the most important breakthrough inventions of the 1900s. All modern electrical circuits use one to direct the right amount of electricity flow to the right application. Several billion tiny transistors can fit into only a few centimetres.
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