Electronics Timeline: Abbreviated

600 B.C.

Thales of Miletus writes about amber becoming charged by rubbing - he was describing what we now call static electricity.

 

1600

English scientist, William Gilbert first coined the term "electricity" from the Greek word for amber. Gilbert wrote about the electrification of many substances in his "De magnete, magneticisique corporibus". He also first used the terms electric force, magnetic pole, and electric attraction.

 

1660

Otto von Guericke invented a machine that produced static electricity.

 

1675

Robert Boyle discovered that electric force could be transmitted through a vacuum and observed attraction and repulsion.

 

1729

Stephen Gray's discovery of the conduction of electricity.

 

1733

Charles Francois du Fay discovered that electricity comes in two forms which he called resinous(-)and vitreous(+). Benjamin Franklin and Ebenezer Kinnersley later renamed the two forms as positive and negative.

 

1745

Georg Von Kleist discovered that electricity was controllable. Dutch physicist, Pieter van Musschenbroek invented the "Leyden Jar" the first electrical capacitor. Leyden jars store static electricity.

 

1747

Benjamin Franklin experiments with static charges in the air and theorized about the existence of an electrical fluid that could be composed of particles. William Watson discharged a Leyden jar through a circuit, that began the comprehension of current and circuit. Henry Cavendish started measuring the conductivity of different materials.

1800

First electric battery invented by Alessandro Volta. Volta proved that electricity could travel over wires.

 

1820

Relationship of electricity and magnetism confirmed by Hans Christian Oersted who observed that electrical currents effected the needle on a compass and Marie Ampere, who discovered that a coil of wires acted like a magnet when a current is passed thorough it.

D. F. Arago invented the electromagnet.

 

1821

First electric motor invented by Michael Faraday.

 

1826

Ohms Law written by Georg Simon Ohm states that "conduction law that relates potential, current, and circuit resistance"

 

1831

Principles of electromagnetism induction, generation and transmission discovered by Michael Faraday.

 

1839

First fuel cell invented by Sir William Robert Grove, a Welsh judge, inventor and physicist.

 

1841

J. P. Joule's law of electrical heating published.

 

1873

James Clerk Maxwell wrote equations that described the electromagnetic field, and predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves traveling with the speed of light.

 

1888

Rotating field AC alternator invented by Nikola Tesla.

 

1897

Electron discovered by J. J. Thomson.

Ernest R. Rutherford measured the distribution of an electric charge within the atom.

 

1947

The transistor is invented.