It is sometimes hard to imagine there was a time without electricity. Although it is only relatively recently that people started enjoying the benefits in their homes. The oldest reference is an Egyptian text from 2750 BC speaking of the ‘Thunders of the Nile’. However these were actually electric fish. So that writer was not the father of electricity. You see, the search for rational explanations for natural phenomena had not begun.
Why Thales May Have Been the Father of Electricity
Thales of Miletus, 624 to 546 BC was a philosopher interested in Metaphysics (the nature of being and the world). He also studied Ethics (separating right and wrong), Astronomy, and Mathematics. His parents were wealthy Phoenician aristocrats that laid on great mentors for him.
Thales’ greatest legacy was breaking with mythology and using gods to rationalize things. Instead, the man who was perhaps the father of electricity sought rational explanation through theories and hypotheses. Some say he was the father of science too, although he was more interested in what we call engineering.
Thales of Miletus was a ‘hylozoist’, in other words he believed that matter was alive. He became interested in how magnetic materials pull and push iron. He thought this was because these ‘lodestones’ were alive and contained energy. Nowadays we understand how magnetic fields move some objects. We use this knowledge to generate electric power and rotate an electric motor.
So Was Thales the Father of Electricity or Not?
Most fathers of modern electrical engineering created things, like Thomas Edison and his incandescent light bulb. Others like Michael Faraday observed electricity in nature, and explained it.
Thales of Miletus may be the father of electricity because there are no records of someone earlier doing this. “The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself,” he said. We awarded him the medal.
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Preview Image: Theater of Miletus
