History of Electronics Dates back to 1745 with Invention of the Layden Jar followed by identification of electron in 1897 and then invention of the vacuum tube.
Here I will briefly describe history of electronics from 1745-2021 and inventions made by popular scientists during this period and uses and importance of these inventions.
Here is Brief History of Electronics from 1745-2021, Greatest Engineers, Scientists, Physicists and Inventors along with details of their Contribution to Electronics and Importance of their Discoveries, Inventions and Works in Field of Electronics.
Ewald Georg von Kleist and Pieter van Musschenbroek discovered the Layden Jar in 1745. It was the first electrical capacitor– a storage mechanism for an electrical charge. The first ones were a glass jar filled with water-two wires suspended in the water. Muschenbrock got such a shock out of the first jar he experimented with that he nearly died.
Benjamin Flew kites to demonstrate that lightning is a form of Static Electricity (ESD). He would run a wire to the kite and produce sparks at the ground, or charge a Leyden jar. This led Franklin to invent the lightning rod.
Franklin also made several electrostatic generators with rotating glass balls to experiment with.
These experiments led him to formulate the single fluid (imponderable fluid) theory of electricity. Previous theories had held there were two electrical fluids and two magnetic fluids. Franklin theorized just one imponderable electrical fluid (a fluid under conservation) in the universe.
The difference in electrical charges was explained by an excess (+) or defect (–) of the single electrical fluid. This is where the positive and negative symbols come from in Electric Circuit.
Invented the torsion balance in 1785. The torsion balance is a simple device – a horizontal cross-bar is mounted on a stretched wire. A ball is then mounted on each end of the cross bar. Given a positive or negative charge, those balls will then attract or repel other objects that carry charges. The balls responding to these charges will try to twist the wire holding the cross bar.
The wire resists twisting, and how much twisting occurs tells you how much force the attraction or repulsion exerted. Coulomb showed electrical attraction and repulsion follow an inverse square law. The unit of charge (Coulomb) is named after him.
Announced the results of his experiments investigating Galvani’s claims about the source of electricity in the frog leg experiment. He undertook to prove that he could produce electricity without the frog. He took the same bimetallic arcs (many of them) and dipped them in glasses of brine.
This was Volta’s Couronne des Tasses- his first battery.
The voltaic pile was an improved configuration for a battery. With it he showed that the bimetallic arcs were the source of electricity. The unit of voltage is named after him.
Gave a formalized understanding of the relationships between electricity and magnetism using algebra. The unit for current (ampere) is named after him.
In the year 1820 in Denmark demonstrated a relationship between electricity and magnetism by showing that an electrical wire carrying current will deflect a magnetic needle.
The CGS unit for magnetic field strength (Oersted) is named after him.
He wanted to measure the motive force of electrical currents. He found that some conductors worked better than others and quantified the differences.
He waited quite some time to announce “Ohm’s Law” because his theory was not accepted by his peers. The unit for resistance (Ohms) is named after him.
In 1820s Faraday postulated that an electrical current moving through a wire creates “fields of force” surrounding the wire. He believed that as these “fields of force” when established and collapsed could move a magnet. This led to a number of experiments with electricity as a motive (moving) force.
In 1821, Faraday built the first electric motor – a device for transforming an electrical current into rotary motion.
In 1831, Faraday made the first transformer – a device for inducing an electrical current in a wire not connected to an electrical source, also known as Faraday’s Ring. It was powered by a voltaic pile and used a manually operated key to interrupt the current.
The unit of capacitance (farad) is named after him.
Gauss is known as one of the greatest mathematicians of all time. At very early age he overturned the theories and methods of 18th-century mathematics. Beginning in 1830, Gauss worked closely with Weber. They organized a worldwide system of stations for systematic observations of terrestrial magnetism.
The most important result of their work in electromagnetism was the development, by others, of telegraphy. Weber, a German physicist, also established a system of absolute electrical units.
His work on the ratio between the electrodynamics and electrostatic units was crucial to Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory of light.
He was a professor in a small school in Albany, New York. He worked to improve electromagnets and was the first to superimpose coils of wire wrapped on an iron core. It is said that he insulated the wire for one of his magnets using a silk dress belonging to his wife.
In 1830 he observed electromagnetic induction, a year before Faraday. He was roundly criticized for not publishing his discovery, losing the distinction for American science. Henry did obtain priority for the discovery of self induction, however.
He received an appointment at New Jersey College (later Princeton University) and in 1846 became the first director of the Smithsonian Institution.
Born in the old university city of Tartu, Estonia (then in Russia), He was a professor at the University of St. Petersburg. He carried out many experiments following the lead of Faraday.
He is memorialized by the law which bears his name – the electrodynamics action of an induced current equally opposes the mechanical inducing action- which was later recognized to be an expression of the conservation of energy.
He brought a practical system of telegraphy to the fore front using electromagnets, and invented the code named after him in 1844.
Although in 1837 the development of an electric telegraph system making use of a deflecting magnetic needle had already been developed by Sir W. F. Cooke and Sir Charles Wheatstone, who installed the first railway telegraph system in England, Morse overcame both electrical design flaws and information flow restrictions to enable the telegraph to become a viable system of communication.
He was a German physicist. He announced the laws which allow calculation of the current, voltage, and resistance of electrical networks in 1845 when he was only 21. In further studies he demonstrated that current flows through a conductor at the speed of light. Read: What is a Resistor
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