Ask any fifth or sixth grader in America about who was Ben Franklin and you probably will get the same answer. You will get an answer something like this.”The guy who flew the kite in the storm and discovered electricity.” While this isn’t entirely true, it’s also not far from the facts. While he didn’t discover electricity and he didn’t actually have a kite with a key that was struck by lighting, due to the fact he would have been severely electrocuted. He did find a way to collect electricity and without this think of where we would be. I’m fascinated by this whole process of thinking and this led me to the interest in my topic. Without Ben Franklin we wouldn’t we be where we are today, or we would be a lot farther behind. So I looked at the newest topic of discussion that had to due with electricity. That’s where it hit me; electric motors are the new thing in today society. We see people all over switching to electric motors for vehicles. Also the new thing to do is to go green to save the environment, and electric motors are one way. After researching for only a few days I quickly discovered something very interesting. Electric motors are not as new as we think. In fact they have been around for over a hundred years!
Part 2)
The first findings of the electrical motor can’t be credited to one person. Actually, this discovery took a very large amount of brain power and people to bring electric motors to where there are today. The first discovery that started the whole concept that there could be a motor that runs on electricity was credited to be founded by Han Ørsted. Hans Ørsted was a Danish physicist who noticed when he took out the battery for his compass that the needle stopped pointing north. Hans figured out that the electricity produces a circular magnetic field. In 1821 Michael Faraday, from the United Kingdom, took Han’s knowledge and developed an experiment. Faraday used a dish mercury and put a magnet in the middle of the dish. He then had a free moving wire that could touch the mercury hang from above the magnet. The wire was connected to a battery which would form a circuit. A circuit is an electrical device that provides a path for electrical current to flow. When the circuit was formed this caused the wire to circle around the magnet. This was the first experiment or demonstration of an electric motor. Seven years later after Faradays experiment another famous inventor built off the findings of Faraday. Ányos Jedlik of Hungary built the first direct current motor. He used the three main component parts which are found in direct current motors: stator, rotor and commutator. Many years later in 188s Nikolas Tesla discovered that a rotating magnetic field is a magnetic field that changes direction at a constant rate. This led him to creating the first alternating current motor, the second type of electric motors.
The crux of all the history was founded on the internet. I found that to be the easiest and fastest way to find the facts that are set in stone. For the other information about the types of motors and how they work came from three different sources: the internet, Mike Gutekunst a physicist and a few book sources. While this is a newer topic in the aspects I am looking at I also had to make sure I understand the history and the older findings of the electric motors.
