Electricity and Electrification of Factories and Homes

Abstract

This chapter starts with the discovery of static electricity (electric charge), electric current, and the relationships between electric charges, electric currents, and magnetic fields. Starting around 1830 are the first practical applications, including dynamos, motors, arc lamps, telegraphs arc lamps, incandescent lights, transformers, and the AC/DC transition, electrochemistry and electric furnaces for high-temperature hear are discussed, in roughly chronological order, followed by a section on trams and street railways and a section on household electrification and appliances. Three important historical applications of electricity, telegraphy, electric light, and radio TV, are mentioned only briefly in this chapter, because they are discussed at much greater length in the next three chapters, viz. Chap. 14 (Communications), Chap. 15 (Light), and Chap. 16 (Radio and TV). The field we now call “Electronics,” based on semiconductors, is reserved for Chap. 18 (The transistor transition).