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Electrostatic Generators
and Apparatus
The Societé Felix Meritis - Amsterdam, 1791 - This hand-tinted engraving (published 1801, after a 1791 sketch) shows Jan van Swinden lecturing in the Hall of Physics of the Felix Meritis Society. There is a two-plate electrostatic generator on the center table, while Leyden jars are on a table to the left. Our classifications for electrostatic generators and devices are:
The early years of electricity Electrical science began with the observation that rubbed amber attracts chaff, feathers, and other light objects. The oldest surviving account of this is from the fourth century BC, when Plato described "the wonderful attracting power of amber and of the heraclean stone [magnetite or lodestone]." By 1187, the English scholar Neckam spoke of a needle carried on board ship to show mariners their course when the Polestar was hidden -- the magnetic compass. The strongest lodestones available were a valuable part of a ship's inventory. They were used to magnetize the compass whenever it weakened. They were mounted with silver and iron -- silver because of their value, and iron to strengthen their magnetic power. Amber remained mysterious. By 1600, William Gilbert had discovered many more substances that attracted light objects when rubbed. He named them "electrics" after elektron, the Greek name for amber. In 1705, Francis Hauksbee created the first modern electrostatic generator and gave new vigor to the study of electricity. The eighteenth century was the golden youth of static electricity, though the nineteenth century was a vigorous middle age. In 1895 Roentgen discovered what we now call X-rays, and they took the world by storm. It soon became apparent that an electrostatic generator could power an X-ray tube to give exceptionally clear and penetrating results. This is done up to the present, with Van de Graaff electrostatic generators being used in medicine and industry when million-volt X-rays and above are needed. |
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