MACHINES GENERATING ELECTRICITY BY FRICTION
Otto Von Guericke was mayor of the city of Magdeburg as well as a philosopher. About 1650 he made a machine consisting of a ball of sulphur mounted on a shaft which could be rotated. Electricity was generated when the hand was pressed against the globe as it rotated. He also discovered that electricity could be conducted away from the globe by a chain and would appear at the other end of the chain. Von Guericke also invented the vacuum air pump. In 1709, Francis Hawksbee, an Englishman, made a similar machine, using a hollow glass globe which could be exhausted. The exhausted globe when rotated at high speed and rubbed by hand would produce a glowing light. This “electric light” as it was called, created great excitement when it was shown before the Royal Society, a gathering of scientists, in London.
Otto Von Guericke’s Electric Machine, 1650.
A ball of sulphur was rotated, electricity being generated when it rubbed against the hand.
Stephen Gray, twenty years later, showed the Royal Society that electricity could be conducted about a thousand feet by a hemp thread, supported by silk threads. If metal supports were used, this could not be done. Charles du Fay, a Frenchman, repeated Gray’s experiments, and showed in 1733 that the substances which were insulators, and which Gilbert had discovered, would become electrified if rubbed. Those substances which Gilbert could not electrify were conductors of electricity.