the.com/electricity
the universe's middleman, charging your phone and your nerves with the same trick.
means The physical phenomenon of charged particles in motion or at rest, which powers everything from lightning to your devices and the signals inside your own body.
from From the Greek 'elektron,' meaning amber — the fossilized tree resin that, when rubbed with fur, crackles and pulls bits of straw toward it. Ancient observers noticed this static attraction long before they understood it. In the early 1600s the English scientist William Gilbert coined the Latin 'electricus' ('like amber') to describe that pull, and from there 'electricity' was born — a word that still carries amber's name into every wall socket.
- speed
- signal travels near light speed, electrons crawl
- body voltage
- your neurons fire on tiny electrical pulses
- lightning heat
- a bolt is hotter than the sun's surface
- first grid
- Edison's 1882 station lit just 59 customers
- sharks
- detect prey by sensing faint electric fields
three mile island — nuclear plant meltdown near harrisburg, pennsylvania on march 28, 1979 that generated 50% of us electricity but caused massive blackout fears
itaipu dam — brazil-paraguay hydroelectric dam completed 1984; supplies ~20% of brazil's electricity, world's second-largest by capacity
northeast blackout of 2003 — power outage affecting 55 million people across northeastern us and canada on august 14, 2003; largest blackout in north american history