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Electricity and Magnetism

Electricity and magnetism are two extensively exciting topics in the world of physics. The two revolve around great names in history such as William Gilbert, Stephen Gray, and Benjamin Franklin, whose contributions have highly been appraised in the world of physics. The two topics relate in various ways best proved via theories and clarified by experiments. Each of the aforementioned individuals made formidable discoveries that gave way to some of the most used elements of physics.

William Gilbert, nicknamed as the father of electricity and magnetism, was the accredited founder of the term electricity. He coined the term from the Greek word amber, which from his time gained a worldwide recognition. His passion for electricity started with his interest in magnets, which led him to research and explain how the magnetic compass worked. William believed and recorded that electricity had an attraction that disappeared in the form of heat. Stephen Gray was another icon in the world of electricity with his crucial discovery. Gray was an active researcher who was determined to find out how various objects, including the human body, could be electrified and retain electricity. Thus, he discovered that insulation was a crucial aspect when it came to retaining electricity. In addition, he unraveled that electricity could pass through a fluid such as water. As such, this explains the huge loss of charge from electrified bodies whilst under humid environments. Atop that, he also determined that close objects from the source of electricity could be electrified while those at a distant could not. He also discovered that the earth was an element in his experiments that could conduct electricity away from electrified bodies.

The famous kite experiment executed by Benjamin Franklin indeed was dangerous, but its results had a tremendous discovery concerning electricity. Benjamin worked on the experiment guided by a hypothesis that electricity sourced from lightening was transferable. His kite had a silk string and an iron key that was in a jar. Once the kite was flying high, it collected negative charges that were conducted to the key. Using this experience, he figured out that lightning charges could be arrested using rods attached to houses and conducted to the ground without causing harm.

Electrification of an object happens when negative charges are conducted into it. In turn, when the electrified object touches another, there is an attraction of charges. The electrified object has more negative charges than positive ones. When another object touches the electrified body, there is a massive transfer of negative electric charges because of the attraction by the positive charges. Indeed, all objects have both positive and negative charges, but upon electrification, the negative charges end up being in excess.

Triboelectric effect is an electrification that occurs via the contact between two bodies made up of certain materials. In this effect, electrification is bound not to occur when the bodies are made of the same material. Triboelectric series refers to a list of materials arranged according to their polarity of charges. The further the materials are from each other in the list the more the charges transferred between them. This was well elaborated via an experiment using a rod, cloth and pith balls. The procedure followed started by rubbing the rod with the piece of cloth. In turn, this created static electricity by conducting negative charges to the rod. Once the rod was placed near the pith balls, there was the attraction between the two. This occurred because they were made from different materials, and a lot of negative charges moved from the rod to the pith balls. When the rod was placed near a second pith ball, the same reaction occurred. However, on placing the pith balls near each other, they repelled because they contained the same amount of negative charges. On charging a separate pith ball and placing it near another one, the two attracted since the second ball attracted the negative charges from the first one.