15 Best Facts about Electricity

‘Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky ‘(ca. 1816). He proved that lightning was a form of electricity. Image by Benjamin West (Philadelphia Museum of Arts). Wikimedia Commons.

15 Best Facts about Electricity

 I’m hardly exaggerating this when I state that a life without electricity is barely imaginable for many of us. Electricity is deeply integrated into our daily lives, facilitating numerous tasks and making many things a whole lot easier. Need a hot sausage, just throw it in the microwave, press a button, and wait for a minute or two. A hot shower in the morning? Some extra warmth in the house during winter? From such simple yet essential uses of electricity, humanity relies on the same for complex tasks in factories, operating machines, hospitals, and pretty much anywhere else you can imagine. Yet how many of us stop to think just how it all works, or what the history of what we simply know as electricity is? Check out these 15 best facts about the one energy form we can all hardly do without today.

1. Man’s first contact with electricity was electric fish

The history of humans and the idea of electricity has been long, and contested, but one point seems agreeable to many. This is human’s initial contact with electricity. In ancient Egypt, as far back as 1270 BC, the electric fish, ‘Malapterurus electricus’, was known to the Egyptians as the ‘Thunderer of the Nile.’  Ancient records indicate the use of an electric marine ray, a torpedo as an electrotherapy for epilepsy by Egyptians. Aristotle and Plato also mention the torpedoes, while Plutarch mentioned that when electric fish came to the shore, people experienced shock when they poured water on them.

2. Electricity technically does not travel at the speed of light

It’s a generalized misconception that it does. Electricity, unlike light, does not travel in a vacuum. It needs a conductor, which means that the ‘actual’ speed of electricity is the estimated speed of the electrons connected to an electrical field. This, depending on the conductor rounds up to about 90% of the speed of light, which is roughly 270,000 km per second.

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3. Iceland has the largest annual electricity consumption level in the world

A street in Iceland by Bjarki Sigursveinsson. Wikimedia Commons.

While countries such as Norway and Qatar are massive consumers of electricity, Iceland comes up top in the usage of electricity per capita. A plausible reason could be the significantly cold temperatures prevalent all year, which necessitates businesses and homes to use heating systems to a great extent. It is however able to cost-effectively supply a quarter of its electricity from its geothermal activities.

4. The world’s biggest light bulb is 14 feet tall

Now that’s a big bulb. Weighing eight tons, it is also the heaviest. It is made of Corning Pyrex glass and is 13 feet and 8 inches tall. This bulb is located on the Thomas Edison Memorial Tower in New Jersey. Thomas Edison was the scientist credited for inventing incandescent bulbs. The bulb was put in in 1938, in memory of his significant contribution to the field of electricity. It glows beautifully every night, lighting up the surrounding area in Menlo Park.

5. Humans have electricity in their body

That’s right. The nerve cells in our bodies use electric signals to transmit information throughout the body. These electric impulses are caused by the changes in their membranes which enable charged molecules to flow in and out of the cell. Electricity also helps our hearts to beat, and sometimes artificial electricity is used to revive a patient’s heartbeat in certain cases. Another interesting fact is that electric shock is caused by the water present in our bodies. The human body is made up of roughly 60% water, which makes them capable of conducting electricity. This then results in an electric shock.

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6. Electricity plays a part in your heartbeat

Image by Mirko Sajkov-Pixabay.

Ever wondered just how the heart keeps thumping in your chest every other minute without failure? How much energy does it take to keep beating? Electricity plays a huge role in all that. On the right side of your heart is the Sinus node, which generates electrical energy, which then moves through conduction pathways, causing your heart muscles to contract. These movements are responsible for the heartbeat. An electrocardiogram (ECG) machine is used in hospitals to monitor the heartbeat. The first person to demonstrate its use was Augustus D. Waller in 1887 using a mercury capillary electrometer and a toy train.

7. The brain can power a light bulb

AI-generated image of a brain & bulb. Photo by Alexandra Koch-Pixabay.

The same explanation applies here. Our brain transmits signals through electric nervous impulses. Neurons in the body contain ion particles that move in and out of the cell membrane. They generate power from the resulting charge created, and their movement causes an electrical wavelength. The brain has billions of neurons. All of them combined, power generated could light a low-wattage light bulb.

Read more on: 15 Mind-Blowing facts about the brain; Unlocking the mysteries of our most vital organ.

8. A regular Taser can produce up to 50,000 volts of power

Tasers are common devices in the modern day, and the basic concept is that they’re designed to release electric shock and temporarily incapacitate a living being. An average one produces about 50,000 volts of power, and that’s sufficient to momentarily shut down nerve impulses, causing involuntary muscle contractions and impairing the motor skills of the victim.

9. Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning was a form of electricity

Image by Joe-Pixabay.

Franklin did not invent electricity as some have wrongly quoted. Rather, he experimented on a stormy night in 1972, which entailed flying a kite to test whether lightning was in fact, electricity. He discovered that this was the case. Lightning is a common occurrence, especially in stormy weather. Without getting too technical, it’s formed by static charges generated by storm clouds, hence it’s a form of static electricity. The energy released by a lightning bolt can heat the air to an enormous 30,000 degrees Celsius according to United Kingdom’s Met Office.

10. Electric cars were first produced in 1832

Many may assume that electric cars are a recent invention but actually, these electric-powered vehicles were around in the 1800s. The first crude make was developed by Robert Anderson in 1832. It was only in the 1870s, however, that it hit the road as ‘driveable’. Thomas Parker built electric trams in 1859, and American inventor, William Morrison, built the first electric carriage in the United States in 1887. It was powered by 24 batteries. Now, their work has been greatly improved and electric vehicles are a common sight.

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11. Electric eels can produce up to a 600-volt shock

A high voltage electric eel at the Ripley’s Aquarium of Canada by Shankar S. Wikimedia Commons.

Electric eels are an interesting type of fish with 6,000 specialized cells known as electrolytes. The cells can produce an electrical charge of up to 600-volt which acts as a shock when hunting prey or escaping a predator. They store power and only discharge it when the need arises. Electric eels are native to the Amazon and Orinoco basins of South America.

12. Light bulbs only use about 10% of electricity to supply light

Image by Pexels-Pixabay.

Conventional light bulbs, that is, use less than 90% of the electricity used to power them to produce light. The rest goes to heat, resulting in a significant waste of electricity. LED lightbulbs on the other hand use 80% less electricity, which is about five times less energy. They also last longer and cost less, making them preferable compared to conventional lightbulbs.

13. Several inventors paved way for Thomas Edison

It’s conceivable that we’ve mostly heard of Thomas Edison who is credited for inventing the lightbulb. However, four other notable people had been figuring lightbulbs out way before he did, laying a foundation for the further development of the bulb. Italian inventor, Alessandro Volta, was the first, by designing a voltaic pile which was the first practical method to create an electric current. This paved way for the development of incandescent lighting. Then came Humphrey Davy, who created the first arc lamp using voltaic piles. In 1840, Warren De La Rue developed a light bulb with coiled platinum, and later Joseph Swan used carbonized paper filaments to make a light bulb.

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14. A bird sitting on one power line will not get electrocuted

Image by Imagii-Pixabay.

Should a human being touch a power line, they’ll easily get electrocuted. Not for birds. This is because electricity needs a conductor to flow. For humans, the water in our bodies acts as one. For birds though, placing their feet on one power line won’t result in electrocution. It is only when a bird touches two different power lines simultaneously that this happens. It is only in doing so that an electric circuit is completed by the bird, enabling the movement of electrons through its body as a path.

15. Coal is the largest energy producer of electricity

Essentially, electricity can be termed a secondary source of energy, generated from primary sources of energy such as coal, water, and wind. Coal is the largest worldwide energy source in electricity production. When coal burns, it heats water, which then produces steam. The steam turns the turbines, which are attached to generators. It is the generators that convert the energy from the spinning turbines into electricity. Wind and water are renewable sources, while coal is not. Use of renewable sources of energy is usually encouraged to ensure sustainability.

Indeed, we’ve come a long way in figuring out how to tap into electricity and make it work for us. From the light bulb inventions to the manufacture of electric cars,  electricity has become essential in running most of man’s affairs worldwide.  It’s barely debatable that we can hardly imagine our lives without it.

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