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History of electricity
explainthatstuff ^ | 12/3/21 | Chris Woodford

Posted on 01/20/2024 10:47:23 AM PST by DallasBiff

If the future's electric, why isn't the past? Think a little bit about that simple-sounding question and you'll understand what science is all about and why it matters so much to humankind. Consider this: the ancient Greeks knew some basic things about electricity over 2500 years ago, yet they didn't have electric cookers or fridges, computers or vacuum cleaners. How come?

Electricity is just the same as it was back then: it works in exactly the same way. What's changed is that we understand how it works now and we've figured out effective ways to use it for our own ends. In other words, science (how we understand the world) has gradually helped us to produce effective technology (how we harness scientific ideas for human benefit). The steadily advancing science of electricity has led to all kinds of electrical technologies that we can no longer live without. It's been an incredible achievement, but where and how did it begin? Let's take a closer look!

(Excerpt) Read more at explainthatstuff.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Chit/Chat; Society
KEYWORDS: electricity; ev; georgewestinghouse; godsgravesglyphs; ice; nicolatesla; thomasalvaedison
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Franklin, Edison, and Tesla, were all pioneers in electricity, but I don't get the modern lefts fetish with electric vehicles and they don't work well as an internal combustion engine.

Also does the left know that the most efficent source of electricity, is from fossil fuels, especially coal.

1 posted on 01/20/2024 10:47:23 AM PST by DallasBiff
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To: DallasBiff

We can rag on the Greeks all we want, but at least they didn’t waste their time and money on EVs


2 posted on 01/20/2024 10:51:23 AM PST by ComputerGuy (Heavily-medicated for your protection)
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To: DallasBiff

Yes. They know but won’t admit it.


3 posted on 01/20/2024 10:52:53 AM PST by Bloody Sam Roberts (The Truth is like a lion. You don't need to defend it. Let it loose and it will defend itself.)
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To: DallasBiff

The left thinks the source of electricity is the electrical outlet in the wall.

The left does not understand that the electricity has to be generated in a power plant, and transmitted over electrical lines to reach that outlet.

The left does not understand that a source of energy , such as coal,, is needed to run the power plant that generates the electricity.


4 posted on 01/20/2024 10:54:36 AM PST by Dilbert San Diego
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To: DallasBiff
The article is woefully incomplete. There was no mention of the amazing breakthrough made by noted the electrical engineer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.


5 posted on 01/20/2024 11:05:06 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

If electricity had just been discovered, the left would want to ban it.


6 posted on 01/20/2024 11:06:32 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal the 16th Amendment)
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To: DallasBiff

electricity was always here we were too stupid to find it


7 posted on 01/20/2024 11:06:57 AM PST by butlerweave
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To: Dilbert San Diego

it’s Shocking how much liberal democrats don’t know about electricity. they believe the Current rhetoric of the greenies while chanting “Ohms”. I have little capacitance for this type of impedance in my life.


8 posted on 01/20/2024 11:08:25 AM PST by Qwapisking ("IF the Second goes first the First goes second" L.Star )
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To: DallasBiff
Franklin, Edison, and Tesla, were all pioneers in electricity

You left out the most important pioneer of them all. The ancient Greeks didn't have a James Maxwell to help them along.

9 posted on 01/20/2024 11:12:08 AM PST by Right_Wing_Madman
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To: DallasBiff

Did that author really just state the electrons are “particles of electricity”?


10 posted on 01/20/2024 11:16:13 AM PST by eclecticEel ("The petty man forsakes what lies within his power and longs for what lies with Heaven." - Xunzi)
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To: unixfox

“The left would want to ban it”

If there was no electricity, there would be no left to want to ban it. They would have starved or froze to death before becoming the left.


11 posted on 01/20/2024 11:18:19 AM PST by mikey_hates_everything
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To: Qwapisking

> I have little capacitance for this type of impedance in my life. <

Watt are you talking about? Do you get a Charge out making confusing comments? You must be Wired differently than the rest of us.
🙂


12 posted on 01/20/2024 11:21:47 AM PST by Leaning Right (The steal is real.)
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To: DallasBiff

Interesting and just in case anyone is interested in this..... Just this morning, I went through some electrical calculations on something that I’ve been wondering about.

Small generators such as ones made by Generac are sold as backup/standby units. However for where I live, natural gas prices have stayed fairly stable while electricity costs have gone way up. What I was wondering was whether a generator using natural gas should be considered as more than just standby... and whether it might be as economical as buying grid electricity.

What I found was that the annual cost of natural gas to generate my own power isn’t all that much different than what I pay for electricity. This of course is just a comparison of natural gas to electricity and doesn’t take into consideration the capital/installation/maintenance costs of owning one’s own generator....regardless, as it turns out, the numbers were fairly close.


13 posted on 01/20/2024 11:26:00 AM PST by hecticskeptic (Q. What’s the difference between a conspiracy theory and the truth? A. About 6 months....)
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To: DallasBiff

“most efficent source of electricity, is from fossil fuels, especially coal.”

No the most efficient source of electricity is nuclear bar none.

By every metric power can be measured by. Those being capacity factor no power source comes close to the 90+% capacity factor of nukes.

Longevity of plant life same same 80 year lifetime is now the norm with 100 being in the permitting stages.

EROI namely how much energy was used to mine the resources needed to make the plant AND mine the fuel for it. Nuclear is an order of magnitude higher that any other source on the planet.

One sugar cube sized fuel pellet has the energy of one metric tonne of coal or 150 gallons of oil and that’s with using only 4% of the fuel pellet as fuel in a LWR reactor 96% of that pellet is still fuel when it’s removed for waste storage. This should be a crime against humanity to throw away that much energy thank Jimmy Fing Carter for this travesty.

The spent fuel of a lifetime electricity consumption of the average American if powered solely by once through nuclear power would fit inside a 12 oz coke can. With reprocessing only 4% of that volume would be needed.

The binding energy curve is a marshmallow test for a species you either master it or go extinct. Fossil fuels will run out especially cheap as in under $200 bbl oil in 50 years at most. Coal is too dirty to burn open air and the scrubbers needed to clean it up are more expensive then the plant they are attached too. Natural gas has 80 years or so at present consumption rates but double the rates to replace the loss of cheap oil and halve the time.

Nuclear power is the only long-term solution to a high energy society fast reactors with full reprocessing gives billions of years of energy at the 500 quad billion BTU level which a society of 10 billion humans all demanding a somewhat middle class existence would use at least 500 quads of not a 1000.

Even with nuclear power there is not enough other resources on this planet to have 8 billion at American energy and resource consumption levels. The root problem is over population and it’s racist to even talk about solutions for that very real issue.


14 posted on 01/20/2024 11:44:12 AM PST by GenXPolymath
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To: DallasBiff

bump


15 posted on 01/20/2024 11:51:53 AM PST by Az Joe (Live free or die)
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To: DallasBiff

Electricity, or Ethereal Fire, Considered
T. Gale, 1802

http://www.henrylivingston.com/theman/atlocustgrove/medical/electricity/cover.htm

Once you’ve captured your electricity with your lightning rod, this book tells you how to store it and use it to cure all your medical problems. Very responsible. Suggests working your way up in voltage slowly and not to zap electricity INTO your eye, but just wave your hand and waft it gently into your eye.

This book was bought by 5th great uncle a couple years before he died. Very popular in those days. I scanned the whole thing in and transcribed it.


16 posted on 01/20/2024 11:53:59 AM PST by mairdie (Trump - Nessun Dorma, from Puccini's Turandot - Luciano Pavarotti https://youtu.be/MigUKGKr-nQ)
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To: Dilbert San Diego

“The left does not understand that a source of energy , such as coal,, is needed to run the power plant that generates the electricity.”

You are wrong the left understands very well. They are not stupid lefties are the PhD at MIT and Caltech they know exactly what and how a modern civilization runs on. The right as a coping mechanism assigns stupidity or incompetence to what is intentional malice. The left is not dumb at all they have some of the highest educated and competent people they are evil and people struggle to accept evil when it’s starting them in the face. The left is using energy as a means of Marxist revolution and control they have a plan and none of it is stupidity. Accept that the left is a evil totalitarian movement and push back with force accordingly. Crippling the American energy industry is not stupidity at all it’s part of the tearing down of the capitalist system to the rule over the Marxist really fascist system being replaced as we speak. The USA is already more fascist than any point in its history and not a single rifle has been picked up to do crap about it. Don’t fall for the normalcy bias of seeing evil as incompetence see it for what it really is.


17 posted on 01/20/2024 11:55:39 AM PST by GenXPolymath
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To: DallasBiff

Bookmark


18 posted on 01/20/2024 11:59:18 AM PST by aquila48 (Do not let them make you "care" ! Guilting you is how they control you. )
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To: DallasBiff
I thought the reason the ancients didn't have electricity is because back then atoms were basically solid balls. There were no protons, neutrons and electrons.

It was only later that these atoms evolved in order to give us electricity.

19 posted on 01/20/2024 12:17:50 PM PST by who_would_fardels_bear (What is left around which to circle the wagons?)
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To: who_would_fardels_bear

Atoms evolved???


20 posted on 01/20/2024 12:18:30 PM PST by Reily (!!)
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