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Many inventions have taken several centuries to develop into their modern forms and modern inventions are rarely the product of a single inventor's efforts. Each of the inventions listed below were only one small step on the road to the ultimate goal. Electricity has fascinated human kind since our ancestors first witnessed lightning. In ancient Greece, Thales observed that an electric charge could be generated by rubbing amber, for which the Greek word is electron. |
| 1650 |
The German physicist Otto von Guericke experimented with generating electricity in 1650.
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| 1729 |
The English physicist Stephen Gray discovered electrical conductivity in 1729.
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| 1752 |
Benjamin Franklin proposes the notion of positive and negative charge, conserving a balance except when a deficit is brought about by some means. His famous kite experiments, identifying lightning as a form of electrical discharge, take place in 1752. |
| 1769 |
James Watt's first patent, in 1769, covered improvements on Newcomen's steam engine. The electrical unit, the watt, was named in his honor. Watt was the first person who coined the term horsepower.
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| 1800 |
Alessandro Volta invents an electric battery, the first source of DC current.
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| 1831 |
Michael Faraday experimentally characterizes magnetic induction. The most thorough of early electrical investigators, he formulates the quantitative laws of electolysis, the principles of electric motors and transformers, investigates diamagnetic materials, and posits a physical reality for the indirectly observed magnetic and electrical lines of force.
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| 1879 |
Thomas Alva Edison invented the lightbulb, and houses, shops, factories, schools, streets, ballparks -- every place you could think of, indoors and out -- could at last be easily illuminated after dark.
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| 1881 |
Louis Latimer and fellow inventor Joseph V. Nichols received a patent for their invention of the first incandescent light bulb with carbon filament. Prior to this breakthrough, filaments had been made from paper.
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| 1885 |
During his development of the braking and signaling systems, in the mid 1880s, George Westinghouse became quite interested in electricity. He began pursuing the technology of alternating current and he associated with those who were developing AC devices.
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| 1888 |
Heinrich Hertz discovers and measures the waves, radio waves, predicted earlier by Faraday and Maxwell.
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| 1888 |
Nikola Tesla invents the first practicable AC motor and polyphase power transmission system,. Westinghouse acquired exclusive rights to Nikola Tesla's patent for the polyphase system and lured Tesla to join the electric company and continue his work on the AC motor he had developed.
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| 1888 |
Oliver B. Shallenberger (1860 -1898), a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy, Shallenberger left the Navy in 1884 to join the Westinghouse company. In 1888 he invented an induction meter for measuring alternating current, a critical element in the Westinghouse AC system.
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| 1902 |
Although a flashlight is a relatively simple device, its invention did not occur until the late 19th century because it depended upon the earlier invention of the electric battery and electric light bulb. Conrad Hubert received a US patent in 1903, number 737,107 issued August 26, for a flashlight with an on/off switch in the now familiar cylindrical casing containing lamp and batteries.
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