History of Electronics

Electricity was first discovered by these people

• Egyptians

• Aztecs

• Babylonians

• Greeks

Answer explanation

The ancient Greeks were the first ones to dabble with the powers of electricity over 2,600 years ago! They found that when rubbing fossilised tree resin, otherwise known as amber, against animal fur, it would attract dried pieces of grass. In other words, they had stumbled upon static electricity.

This was the first voltage source

• Battery

• Capacitor

• Leyden Jar

• Diode

Answer explanation

The Leyden jar was used to conduct many early experiments in electricity, and its discovery was of fundamental importance in the study of electrostatics. It was the first means of accumulating and preserving electric charge in large quantities that could be discharged at the experimenter's will.

How did the first electrical experimenters measure electrical current?

• Shocking themselves

• Size of the spark

• Smell

• Sound

Answer explanation

Several ancient writers, such as Pliny the Elder and Scribonius Largus, attested to the numbing effect of electric shocks delivered by electric catfish and electric rays, and knew that such shocks could travel along conducting objects.^[3] Patients with ailments such as gout or headache were directed to touch electric fish in the hope that the powerful jolt might cure them.

He cooked a turkey with electricity

• Benjamin Franklin

• Heinrich Hertz

• Nikola Tesla

• Georg Simon Ohm

Answer explanation

Benjamin Franklin used his knowledge of electricity to cook a turkey in a unique and entertaining way. He told fellow scientist, Peter Collinson, of a dream he had to host the world's first electric barbeque. He practiced for months on turkeys and chickens by electrocuting them with Leyden jars.

He invented the battery

• Nikola Tesla

• Thomas Edison

• Alexander Graham Bell

• Alessandro Volta

Answer explanation

In 1800, Volta invented the first true battery, storing and releasing a charge through a chemical reaction instead of physically, which came to be known as the voltaic pile. The voltaic pile consisted of pairs of copper and zinc discs piled on top of each other, separated by a layer of cloth or cardboard soaked in brine (i.e., the electrolyte)

He wrote a book about the relationship between voltage, current and resistance

• Thomas Edison

• Ben Franklin

• James Watts

• Georg Ohm

Answer explanation

Ohm's law first appeared in the famous book Die galvanische Kette, mathematisch bearbeitet (The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically) (1827) in which he gave his complete theory of electricity.

He discovered electromagnetic radiation 

• Philo Fransworth

• Alex Bell

• Ben Franklin

• Heinrich Hertz

Answer explanation

Hertz used a simple homemade experimental apparatus, involving an induction coil and a Leyden jar (the original capacitor) to create electromagnetic waves and a spark gap between two brass spheres to detect them.

The first device to convert sound into electromagnetic waves

• Telephone

• Radio

• Phonograph

• Generator

Answer explanation

The needle was connected by wire to the battery, and the battery was connected by wire to a receiver. When Bell spoke into the open end of the drumlike device, his voice made the paper and needle vibrate. The vibrations were then converted into an electric current which traveled along the wire to the receiver.

He discovered that carbonized bamboo made a good filament

• Alexander Bell

• Charles Babbage

• Thomas Edison

• Steve Jobs

Answer explanation

One of Edison’s workers, William H. Moore, sent bamboo from a grove growing near the Iwashimizu Hachiman Shrine in Kyoto in 1880. The species, Phyllostachys bambusoides, is native to China and Japan, Edison discovered that carbonized bamboo made excellent lamp filaments..

This was the first long distance electrical communication device

• Telegraph

• Telephone

• Television

• Radio

Answer explanation

A telegraph is a communication system that sends information by making and breaking an electrical connection. It is most associated with sending electrical current pulses along a wire with Morse code encoding.