English Doctor & Electricity

Most of the terms used in electricity come from the scientists who worked with the phenomena. They either invented, created, discovered, or otherwise "found" what was subsequently named after them.

William Gilbert's Contribution

In 1600, English physician William Gilbert studied electricity and magnetism. He separated the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber, and he is the one who invented the word electricity from the New Latin word electricus, meaning from amber or amber-like. He used the word to refer to the property of attracting small objects after being rubbed, what we know as static electricity. In 1646, this derivation of the English words electric and electricity was published in Thomas Browne's Pseudodoxia Epidemica.

Bringing Meaning to Madness

History isn't dry dates and names. History is the story of the contribution of individual men and women to our world.