ATMOSPHERIC ELECTRICITY

Electricity plays such an important part in modern life that in order to get it, men have been burning millions of tons of coal. Coal is burned instead of its being mainly used as a source of valuable chemical substances which it contains. Therefore, finding new sources of electric energy is a most important problem that scientists and engineers try to solve.

Hundreds of millions of volts are required for a lightning spark about one and a half kilometre long. However, this does not represent very much energy because of the intervals between single thunderstorms. As for the power spent in producing lightning flashes all over the world, it is only about 1/10,000 of the power got by mankind from the sun, both in the form of light and that of heat. Thus, the source in question may interest only the scientists of the future.

Atmospheric electricity is the earliest manifestation of electricity known to man. However, nobody understood that phenomenon and its properties until Benjamin Franklin made his kite experiment. On studying the Leyden jar (for long years the only known condenser), Franklin began thinking that lightning was a strong spark of electricity. He began experimenting in order to draw electricity from the clouds to the earth. The story about his famous kite is known all over the world.

On a stormy day Franklin and his son went into the country taking with them some necessary things such as: a kite with a long string, a key and so on. The key was connected to the lower end of the string. "If lightning is the same as electricity," Franklin thought, "then some of its sparks must come down the kite string to the key." Soon the kite was flying high among the clouds where lightning flashed. However, the kite having been raised, some time passed before there was any proof of its being electrified. Then the rain fell and wetted the string. The wet string conducted the electricity from the clouds down the string to the key. Franklin and his son both saw electric sparks which grew bigger and stronger. Thus, it was proved that lightning is a discharge of electricity like that got from the batteries of Leyden jars.

Trying to develop a method of protecting buildings during thunderstorms, Franklin continued studying that problem and invented the lightning conductor. He wrote necessary instructions for the installation of his invention, the principle of his lightning conductor being in use until now. Thus, protecting buildings from strokes of lightning was the first discovery in the field of electricity employed for the good of mankind.

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MAGNETISM

In studying the electric current, the following relation between magnetism and the electric current can be observed; on the one hand magnetism is produced by the current and on the other hand the current is produced from magnetism.

Magnetism is mentioned in the oldest writings of man. Romans, for example, knew that an object looking like a small dark stone had the property of attracting iron. However, nobody knew who discovered magnetism or where and when the discovery was made. Of course, people could not help repeating the stories that they had heard from their fathers who, in their turn, heard them from their own fathers and so on.

One story tells us of a man called Magnus whose iron staff was pulled to a stone and held there. He had great difficulty in pulling his staff away. Magnus carried the stone away with him in order to demonstrate its attracting ability among his friends. This unfamiliar substance was called Magnus after its discoverer, this name having come down to us as "Magnet".

According to another story, a great mountain by the sea possessed so much magnetism that all passing ships were destroyed because all their iron parts fell out. They were pulled out because of the magnetic force of that mountain.

The earliest practical application of magnetism was connected with the use of a simple compass consisting of one small magnet pointing north and south.

A great step forward in the scientific study of magnetism was made by Gilbert, the well-known English physicist (1540–1603). He carried out various important experiments on electricity and magnetism and wrote a book where he put together all that was known about magnetism. He proved that the earth itself was a great magnet.

Reference must be made here to Galileo, the famous Italian astronomer, physicist and mathematician. He took great interest in Gilbert's achievements and also studied the properties of magnetic materials. He experimented with them trying to increase their attracting power.

At present, even a schoolboy is quite familiar with the fact that in magnetic materials, such as iron and steel, the molecules themselves are minute magnets, each of them having a north pole and a south pole.

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Date: 2015-12-24; view: 1509