William Gilbert (1544-1603)
the founder of the modern sciences of electricity and magnetism, in his famous book "De Magnete" (1600), he was the first to describe the earth's magnetic field and to assume the relationship between electricity and magnetism
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Otto van Guericke (1602-1686)
invented the first electrical machine to produce static electricity
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Pieter van Musschenbroek (1692-1761)
invented the Leyden jar, a device that stored electric charge - a capacitor according to the modern terminology
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Charles-François de Du Fay (1698-1739)
discovered two types of static electricity, and that like charges repel each other whilst unlike charges attract - this was the 'two-fluid theory' of electricity
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Jean-Antoine Nollet (1700-1770)
constructed one of the first electrometers and developed a theory of electrical attraction and repulsion that supposed the existence of a continuous flow of electrical matter between charged bodies
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Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
a printer, author, philanthropist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, and scientist studied electricity, who invented many electricity terms (e.g. negative and positive electrical charges)
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Sir William Watson (1715-1787)
best known for his work on electricity, he proposed a theory that electrical ether was not created or destroyed, only transferred - charge conservation
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Henry Cavendish (1731-1810)
English physicist and chemist who conducted experiments in diverse fields including electricity
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Jesse Ramsden (1735-1800)
English designer and manufacturer of mathematical and astronomical instruments, made electrostatic machines
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Luigi Galvani (1737-1798)
Italian physician and physicist, developed theory of "animal electricity", began scientific approach to electricity and electrochemistry
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Horace Bénédict de Saussure (1740-1799)
developed probably the first electrometer, a device for measuring electric potential by means of attraction or repulsion of charged bodies
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Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799)
an experimental physicist, an astronomer, a mathematician, a practicing critic both of art and literature, discovered in 1777 the basic principle of modern xerographic copying - the images that he reproduced are still called "Lichtenberg figures"
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Martinus Van Marum (1750-1837)
known for his electrostatic machines and the discovery of ozone produced by electrical sparks in air.
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