1. Electricity travels at the speed of light - more than 186,000 miles per second !!!
2. Thomas Edison didn’t invent the first light bulb – but he did invent one that stayed lit for more than a few seconds.
3. Electricity is by no means a purely human invention, and may be observed in several forms in nature, a prominent manifestation of which is lightning.
4. Thomas Edison invented more than 2,000 new products, including almost everything needed for us to use electricity in our homes: switches, fuses, sockets and meters.
5. Benjamin Franklin didn’t discover electricity – but he did prove that lightning is a form of electrical energy.
6. Electricity always tries to find the easiest path to the ground.
7. A bolt of lightning can measure up to three million (3,000,000) volts – and it lasts less than one second!
8. Electricity can be made from wind, water, the sun and even animal manure.
9. In the late-1800s, Nikola Tesla pioneered the generation, transmission, and use of alternating current (AC) electricity, which can be transmitted over much greater distances than direct current. Tesla's inventions used electricity to bring indoor lighting to our homes and to power industrial machines.
10. Before electricity generation began over 100 years ago, houses were lit with kerosene lamps, food was cooled in iceboxes, and rooms were warmed by wood-burning or coal-burning stoves.
11. A battery produces electricity using two different metals in a chemical solution. A chemical reaction between the metals and the chemicals frees more electrons in one metal than in the other.
12. A spark of static electricity can measure up to three thousand (3,000) volts.
13. In 1791 Luigi Galvani published his discovery of bioelectricity, demonstrating that electricity was the medium by which nerve cells passed signals to the muscles.
14. The energy produced by the atom-splitting of one kilogram of uranium is equivalent to the burning of 1.3 million kilograms of coal or 1.35 million litres of oil.
15. An Electric eel can produce an electric shock of up to 650 volts at one ampere.
16. The Brooklyn Bridge was the first bridge to be lit using electricity.
17. One power plant can produce enough electricity for 180,000 homes.
18. In 1882 water was used to electrify two paper mills and a house on the Fox River. This was the first application of hydro electric energy.
19. Electricity travels in closed loops, or circuits. It must have a complete path before the electrons can move. If a circuit is open, the electrons cannot flow.
20. A generator is a device that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy. The process is based on the relationship between magnetism and electricity.
