Technological Advancements of the 19th Century essays

Technological Advancements of the 19th Century essays During the nineteenth century, many advances in technology took place. Most of these came as a result of people beginning to understand electricity. (Even though electricity had been studied and recorded for many centuries, it was only as of the nineteenth century that it had been experimented with to make life easier.) New discoveries were being announced almost daily. Around 600 B.C.E, a Greek philosopher and mathematician discovered that when he rubbed amber, it became electrically charged and small objects would be attracted to it and stick to it. Many hundreds of years later, in 1729, Benjamin Franklin walked out into a rainstorm with a kite and proved to the world that lightning is electricity. After many years of experimenting with electricity and learning how to utilize its power, technology to make life much easier began to be developed in the nineteenth century. A few of these inventions included the electric clock, the telephone, the microphone, and the first practical lights. Since the understanding of electricity was becoming widespread during the nineteenth century, people such as Thomas Edison began experimenting with electricity to make daily life easier. Probably the most important electrical invention is the light bulb and practical electric lighting. When a light bulb is hooked up to a power supply, the current of electricity heats the atoms that make up the filament, a thin metal wire to transfer electricity. When these atoms are heated to a high enough temperature, the atoms emit light. After Edison invented the light bulb, he and Joseph Swan began investigating a way to create practical lighting that could be used in everyday life for the average person. In 1880, this dream was realized, and today hundreds of electric lights in various shapes and sizes are used in our homes for anything from room lighting to lights for the computers or digital LCD clocks. Another major invention that uses elect...