From spark to chip
13 steps · 1663 – 1971
Three and a half centuries from rubbing a ball of sulphur to packing thousands of transistors onto a grain of silicon: how electricity stopped being a parlour curiosity and ended up thinking.
▶ Play on the globe- 11663 (Guericke) / 1705 (Hauksbee) · Magdeburg, Germany / London (Hauksbee) · Invention or technique
Friction electrostatic generator
Otto von Guericke spins a ball of sulphur and rubs it by hand: it sparks and attracts feathers. It is the first machine that makes electricity at will, though nobody yet knows what it is.
🌍 View on the globe - 21745-1746 · Leiden, Netherlands / Kammin, Pomerania · Invention or technique
Leyden jar
In Leiden they find that charge can be stored in a bottle with water and metal foil. The discharge knocks down whoever touches it: electricity can now be stored.
🌍 View on the globe - 31752-1753 · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States · Invention or technique
Lightning rod
Franklin suspects lightning is the same spark writ large, and proves it. His lightning rod is the first practical use of electricity… to steer it away.
🌍 View on the globe - 41800 · Como (University of Pavia), Lombardy, Italy · Invention or technique
Voltaic pile
Volta stacks zinc and copper discs with brine-soaked card and gets, for the first time, a steady current. Without the battery none of what follows would exist.
🌍 View on the globe - 51820 · Copenhagen, Denmark · Discovery
Ørsted's effect: electric current deflects a compass
During a lecture, Ørsted sees a current-carrying wire deflect a compass. Electricity and magnetism turn out to be the same thing.
🌍 View on the globe - 61831 · London (Royal Institution), England, United Kingdom · Invention or technique
Electromagnetic induction
Faraday goes the other way: a moving magnet generates current. From here come the dynamo, the generator and the whole power grid.
🌍 View on the globe - 71861-1865 · King's College, London, England, United Kingdom · Discovery
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell gathers it all into four equations and predicts electromagnetic waves travelling at the speed of light: light itself is one of them. Radio is just around the corner.
🌍 View on the globe - 81879 · Menlo Park, New Jersey, United States · Invention or technique
Practical incandescent light bulb
Edison and Swan get a filament that glows for hours in a vacuum. Electricity enters homes, and with it the need for power stations and wires.
🌍 View on the globe - 91897 · Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, England, United Kingdom · Discovery
The electron
Thomson shows that cathode rays are particles a thousand times lighter than an atom: the electron. At last we know what flows through the wires.
🌍 View on the globe - 101904–1906 · London, England · Invention or technique
Vacuum tube (Fleming diode, De Forest triode)
The vacuum tube controls the flow of electrons: the diode lets it through one way and the triode amplifies it. Electronics is born: radio, television and the first computers.
🌍 View on the globe - 111947 · Bell Labs, Murray Hill, New Jersey, United States · Discovery
The transistor effect
At Bell Labs, a germanium crystal does what the tube did without heat, without vacuum and in miniature. It is the most manufactured invention in history.
🌍 View on the globe - 121958 · Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas, United States · Invention or technique
Integrated circuit (Kilby)
Kilby, and soon Noyce, make several components at once on a single piece of semiconductor. Transistors no longer need soldering one by one.
🌍 View on the globe - 131971 · Intel, Santa Clara, California, United States · Invention or technique
Microprocessor (Intel 4004)
The Intel 4004 fits a whole computer, 2,300 transistors, onto a chip the size of a fingernail. From Guericke's spark to the brain of every device you use.
🌍 View on the globe