Electricity the basic need of now a day’s life, We can say that electricity is our need as like we need food, so how to define electricity, It is comparatively easy to describe what electricity can do than to give a simple and direct answer to the question: What exactly electricity can do? Electricity has become such a universal medium for transmission and utilization of energy that almost every one is familiar with its innumerable uses right from the earliest childhood. Electric energy is variously utilized for lightning, transportation, communication, for operating Electric furnaces, elevators and for driving various kinds of machines tools etc. It can be easily stored and concentrated to produce extremely high temperatures as in welding and electric furnaces, arc lights and spark plugs etc.
Going back to the question regarding the nature of electricity, it may be noted that ancient Greeks were the first to observe that when amber(it is yellow gum that hardens into hard stone-like material) is rubbed against a piece of silk cloth, it attracts light objects like small pieces of paper etc. The agency that endowed this attracting property to amber was given the name of electricity by Gilbert (William Gilbert (1544-1603), noted British Physician and experimenter, was the first to investigate electric and magnetic phenomena.) The name electricity is derived from the word ‘electron’ which is the Greek name of amber.
Explaining the few observed phenomena about electricity, Benjamin Franklin advanced, (1706-1790), was that called One Fluid Theory of electricity. According to this theory, electricity was assumed to be a sort of an invisible and intangible fluid which was associated with matter in different degrees. The normal state of matter (in which it exhibited no electrical properties) was associated with certain definite amount of this fluid. Any disturbance of this assumed normal distribution of fluid was supposed to result in the body being either positively or negatively charged corresponding to an excess or deficit of this normal amount of fluid. This theory was successful in explaining the production of positive and negative electricity when two bodies are rubbed together. Because, according to this theory, rubbing of two bodies together led to an unequal redistribution of their fluids whose total sum was supposed to remain constant. One body which got more of this fluid became positively charged and the other which got less became negatively charged.
