ELECTRONICS? the branch of physics and technology concerned with the design of circuits using transistors and microchips, and with the behavior and movement of electrons in a semiconductor, conductor, vacuum, or gas. Electronics is the study of electricity (the flow of electrons) and how to use that to build things like computers. It uses circuits that are made with parts called components and connecting wires to do useful things Many people can name several simple electronic components, such as transistors, fuses, circuit breakers, batteries, motors, transformers, LEDs and bulbs, but as the number of components starts to increase, it often helps to think in terms of smaller systems or blocks, which can be connected together to do something useful. A television set, for example, has as its input a broadcast signal received from an antenna, or for cable television, a cable. Signal processing circuits inside the television set use the brightness, color, and sound information contained in the received signal to control the television set's output devices. The display output device may be a cathode ray tube (CRT) or a plasma or liquid crystal display screen. The audio output device might be a magnetically driven audio speaker. The display output devices convert the signal processing circuits' brightness and color information into the visible image displayed on a screen. The audio output device converts the processed sound information into sounds that can be heard by listeners.
1745 – Discovery of the Layden Jar Ewald Georg von Kleist and Pieter van Musschenbroek discovered the Layden Jar in 1745. It was the first electrical capacitor – a storage mechanism for an electrical charge . The first ones were a glass jar filled with water-two wires suspended in the water. Muschenbrock got such a shock out of the first jar he experimented with that he nearly died. Later, the water was replaced with metal foils wrapped so that there was insulation between the layers of foil-the two wires are attached to the ends of the sheets of foil.
Ben Franklin (1706-1790) Flew kites to demonstrate that lightning is a form of Static Electricity (ESD). He would run a wire to the kite and produce sparks at the ground, This led Franklin to invent the lightning rod.
Franklin also made several electrostatic generators with rotating glass balls to experiment with. These experiments led him to formulate the single fluid ( imponderable fluid ) theory of electricity . Previous theories had held there were two electrical fluids and two magnetic fluids. Franklin theorized just one imponderable electrical fluid ( a fluid under conservation ) in the universe.
Charles Augustus Coulomb (1736-1806) Invented the torsion balance in 1785. The torsion balance is a simple device – a horizontal cross-bar is mounted on a stretched wire. A ball is then mounted on each end of the cross bar. Given a positive or negative charge, those balls will then attract or repel other objects that carry charges. The balls responding to these charges will try to twist the wire holding the cross bar. The wire resists twisting, and how much twisting occurs tells you how much force the attraction or repulsion exerted. Coulomb showed electrical attraction and repulsion follow an inverse square law. The unit of charge ( Coulomb ) is named after him.
Alessandro Volta (1745-1827 ) Announced the results of his experiments investigating Galvani’s claims about the source of electricity in the frog leg experiment. He undertook to prove that he could produce electricity without the frog. He took the same bimetallic arcs ( many of them ) and dipped them in glasses of brine. This was Volta’s Couronne des Tasses - his first battery . The voltaic pile was an improved configuration for a battery. With it he showed that the bimetallic arcs were the source of electricity. The unit of voltage is named after him.
André Marie Ampère (1775-1836 ) Gave a formalized understanding of the relationships between electricity and magnetism using algebra. The unit for current ( ampere ) is named after him . George Simon Ohm (1789-1854 ) He wanted to measure the motive force of electrical currents. He found that some conductors worked better than others and quantified the differences. He waited quite some time to announce “ Ohm’s Law ” because his theory was not accepted by his peers. The unit for resistance ( Ohms ) is named after him. Ohm's Law is a formula used to calculate the relationship between voltage, current and resistance in an electrical circuit.
The resistor, as we know it today, was invented by German physicist Georg Simon Ohm in the 1820s . He published his findings on the relationship between current, voltage, and resistance in a paper called "The Galvanic Circuit Investigated Mathematically" in 1827.
Michael Faraday (1791-1867) – Great Contribution to History of Electronics 1820s Faraday postulated that an electrical current moving through a wire creates “ fields of force ” surrounding the wire. He believed that as these “ fields of force ” when established and collapsed could move a magnet. This led to a number of experiments with electricity as a motive ( moving ) force. In 1821, Faraday built the first electric motor – a device for transforming an electrical current into rotary motion. In 1831, Faraday made the first transformer – a device for inducing an electrical current in a wire not connected to an electrical source, also known as Faraday’s Ring . It was powered by a voltaic pile and used a manually operated key to interrupt the current. The unit of capacitance ( farad ) is named after him.
Joseph Henry (1797-1878) He was a professor in a small school in Albany, New York. He worked to improve electromagnets and was the first to superimpose coils of wire wrapped on an iron core. It is said that he insulated the wire for one of his magnets using a silk dress belonging to his wife. In 1830 he observed electromagnetic induction, a year before Faraday. He was roundly criticized for not publishing his discovery, losing the distinction for American science. Henry did obtain priority for the discovery of self induction, however. He received an appointment at New Jersey College ( later Princeton University ) and in 1846 became the first director of the Smithsonian Institution. Gustav Robert Kirchhoff (1824-1887 ) He was a German physicist. He announced the laws which allow calculation of the current , voltage , and resistance of electrical networks in 1845 when he was only 21. In further studies he demonstrated that current flows through a conductor at the speed of light.
James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) He wrote a mathematical treatise formalizing the theory of fields in 1856: On Faraday’s Lines of Force. Most researchers at the time did not believe in Faraday’s lines of force, but James Clerk Maxwell did Between 1864 and 1873 Maxwell showed that 20 simple mathematical equations could express the behavior of electric and magnetic fields and their interrelated nature. In the year 1873 Maxwell published Electricity and Magnetism, demonstrating four partial differential equations that completely described electrical phenomena. Maxwell also calculated that the speed of propagation of an electromagnetic field is approximately that of the speed of light. Hermann Lud -wig Ferdinand von Helmholtz (1821-1894 ) He was an all round universal scientist and researcher. He was one of the 19th centuries greatest scientists. In 1870, after analyzing all the prevalent theories of electrodynamics, he lent his support to Maxwell’s theory which was little known on the European continent.
Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931) – One of the Greatest Scientist and Inventor in History of Electronics In 1878, Edison began work on an electric lamp and sought a material that could be electrically heated to incandescence in a vacuum. At first he used platinum wire in glass bulbs at 10 volts. He connected these bulbs in series to utilize a higher supply voltage; however, he realized that independent lamp control would be necessary for home and office use. He then developed a three-wire system with a supply of 220 volts DC. Each lamp operated at 110 volts, and the higher voltage required a resistance vastly greater than that of platinum. Edison conducted an extensive search for a filament material to replace platinum until, on Oct. 21, 1879, he demonstrated a lamp containing a carbonized cotton thread that glowed for 40 hours. 1882 Edison installed the first large central power station on Pearl Street in New York City in 1882; its steam-driven generators of 900 horsepower provided enough power for 7,200 lamps. He consistently fought the use of alternating current AC, and continued to market direct current DC systems. This eventually destroyed this arm of his marketing empire due to inadequate technology. During his experiments on the incandescent bulb, Edison noted a flow of electricity from a hot filament across a vacuum to a metal wire. This effect, known as thermionic emission, or the Edison effect
Sir William Crookes (1832-1919) Investigated electrical discharges through highly evacuated “ Crookes tubes ” in the year 1878. These studies laid the foundation for J. J. Thomson’s research in the late 1890s concerning discharge-tube phenomena and the electron. He also discovered the element Thallium and made the radiometer. Joseph Wilson Swan (1828-1914 ) Joseph Swan demonstrated his electric lamp in Britain in February 1879. The filament used carbon and had a partial vacuum and preceded Edison’s demonstration by six months.
Heinrich Rudolph Hertz (1857-1894) He was the first person to demonstrate the existence of radio waves. His inspiration came from Helmholtz and Maxwell. Hertz demonstrated in 1887 that the velocity of radio waves ( also called Hertzian waves ) was equal to that of light. The unit of frequency ( Hertz ) is named after him. Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) – Great Contribution to History of Electronics He devised the polyphase alternating-current systems that form the modern electrical power industry. In 1884, Tesla emigrated to the United States. He worked briefly for Thomas Edison, who as the advocate of direct current became Tesla’s unsuccessful rival in electric power development. In 1888, Tesla showed how a magnetic field could be made to rotate if two coils at right angles were supplied with alternating currents 90 degrees out of phase with each other at 60 hertz. George Westinghouse bought rights to the patents on this motor and made it the basis for the Westinghouse power system at Niagara Falls. Tesla’s other inventions included the Tesla coil, a kind of transformer, and he did research on high-voltage electricity and wireless communication . In 1905, he demonstrated a wireless remote control boat,
Guglielmo Marconi (1874-1937) – Father of Wireless in History of Electronics Known as the “ father of wireless “, He was an Italian national who expanded on the experiments that Hertz did, and believed that telegraphic messages could be transmitted without wires. In 1897, Marconi formed his wireless telegraph company, and in December 1901 he did the first trans Atlantic radio transmission in Morse code . When Marconi died all the radio transmitters in the world were silent for two minutes. Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen (1845-1923) Discovered X rays, for which he received the first Nobel Prize for physics in 1901. He observed that barium platinocyanide crystals across the room fluoresced whenever he turned on a Crooke’s, or cathode-ray discharge tube, even when the tube was shielded by thin metal sheets. Roentgen correctly hypothesized that a previously unknown form of radiation of very short wavelength was involved, and that these X rays ( a term he coined ) caused the crystals to glow. He later demonstrated the metallurgical and medical use of X rays which later brought a revolution in medical science. The unit of radiation exposure ( rad ) is named after him.
Sir John Ambrose Fleming (1849-1945 ) He made the first diode tube, the Fleming valve in the year 1905. The device had three leads, two for the heater/cathode and the other for the plate.
Jack St. Clair Kilby (1923-2005) Developed the integrated circuit while at Texas instruments. While conducting research into miniaturization he built the first true integrated circuit, a phase-shift oscillator with individually wired parts. Kilby received a patent in 1959.
Seymour Cray (1925-1996 ) Also known as “ The Father of the Supercomputer “, along with George Amdahl, defined the supercomputer industry in the year 1976.
Electricity Electricity is both a basic part of nature and one of the most widely used forms of energy. The electricity that we use is a secondary energy source because it is produced by converting primary sources of energy such as coal, natural gas, nuclear energy, solar energy, and wind energy, into electrical power. Electric power where electric current is used to energise equipment; Electronics which deals with electrical circuits that involve active electrical components such as vacuum tubes , transistors , diodes and integrated circuits , and associated passive interconnection technologies.
600 BC A Greek named Thales discovered that amber, when rubbed with silk, attracted feathers and other light objects. This is static electricity. The Greek word for amber is ' ëelectron ', which is where words such as 'electricity' and 'electron' come from. 1600 William Gilbert, who was a scientist and physician to Queen Elizabeth I, invented the term 'electricity'. He was the first person to recognise that there was a connection between magnetism and electricity, and the first to describe the Earth's magnetic field. 1700s In the 1700s, machines to produce static electricity were first introduced. At first, they were just for fun and nicknamed ' parlour trick machines'. Over the century, they developed and advanced. 1705 Francis Hauksbee invented neon light. He created electrical effects by placing mercury into a glass globe, pumping out the air and spinning it. When he did this in the dark and then rubbed it with his bare hand, it glowed. He had invented neon light, without even knowing it. 1752 Benjamin Franklin, a famous U.S. politician, proved that lightning is a form of electricity by flying a kite with a metal tip into a thunderstorm.
1780 An Italian man named Luigi Galvani discovered that when he touched a dead frog's leg with a knife, it twitched violently. Later, Alessandro Volta showed that this was because electricity is created when moisture (from the frog) comes into contact with two different types of metal (the steel knife and a tin plate), then electricity is created. 1800 Pile Volta created the very first simple battery using pure silver and zinc discs, placed between muslin which was dampened with a salt solution. This was developed from Galvani's experiment with the frog's legs. During the same year, Sir Humphry Davy discovered electrolysis. When he passed an electrical current through some substances, they'd begin to decompose. This became known as electrolysis. Davy's experiments later led to the discovery of a range of elements, including calcium, magnesium, strontium, and barium. 1820 Magnetic fields caused by electricity were discovered. Hans Christian Oersted, from Denmark, found that when electricity flows through a wire, it generates a magnetic field which affects the needle of a nearby compass. 1821 Michael Faraday discovered that when a magnet is moved inside the coil of a copper wire, a tiny electric current flows through the wire. This discovery led to the invention of electric motors. In the same year, Thomas Johann Seebeck discovered thermo-electricity. He found that when the junctions of certain metals are heated, electricity flows through them. 1826 André Ampère published his theories about electricity and magnetism, explaining the electro-dynamic theory. He was the first person to explain this theory. The unit for electrical currents, ampere or amps, is named after him.
1827 A German college teacher named George Ohm published his complete mathematical theory of electricity. Now, the unit of electrical resistance (ohm) is named after him. 1829 Joseph Henry showed that a wire wrapped in coils produces a greater electromagnetism than a straight one. 1830 Joseph Henry discovered the principles of the dynamo — an electrical generator. 1831 Michael Faraday demonstrated electromagnetic induction by passing a magnet through a coil of wire. Charles Wheatstone and William Fothergill Cooke also created the first telegraph machine. 1834 Using a revolving mirror and four miles of wire, Charles Wheatstone successfully measured the velocity of electricity. 1838 Samuel Morse invented Morse Code at an exhibition in New York. He demonstrated sending 10 words a minute by his new telegraph machine. 1870s Thomas Edison built a DC (direct current) electric generator. After this, he provided all of New York's electricity. 1876 Alexander Graham invented the telephone using electricity. 1878 A British scientist named Joseph Swan demonstrated the first electric light with a carbon filament lamp. Thomas Edison made the same discovery a few months later in America.
1880s Nikola Tesla developed an AC (alternating current) motor and a system of AC power generation. Thomas Edison believed this to be a threat to his DC supply, so he spread stories that it wasn't safe to use. However, after Tesla's system was used to power 100,000 electric lights at Chicago's World Fair in 1893, AC became the established power supply in the USA. Tesla also invented the Tesla Coil. He used this coil to make ordinary household currents produce extremely high-frequency currents. This was used to develop some of the first neon and fluorescent lights. Between 1880 and 1883, the Wimshurst machine (an electrostatic generator) was developed for generating high voltages of electricity. It was invented by a British inventor named James Wimshurst . 1881 The first public electricity supply in the UK was generated in Godalming , Surrey, using a waterwheel at a mill. 1883 Magnus Volks built the first electric railway. It was opened on Brighton seafront. Named the Volks Railway, it was built just for pleasure rides, is one mile long and still runs during summer. 1884 Charles Parsons built the first turbine, a type of engine which uses jets of high-pressure gases to operate. This type of engine was later developed to drive boat propellers, including the ones on the Titanic. 1886 Heinrich Hertz produced and detected electric waves in the atmosphere. 1890 Turbine driven generators were introduced to produce electricity.
1892 A Dutch physicist named Hendrik Lorentz published his electron theory. 1895 Wilhelm Fein invented the first electric hand drill. Wilhem Roentgen, a German physicist, discovered invisible rays that made a screen glow and passed through objects. These rays were X-rays. 1896 Nikola Tesla's hydroelectric power generators at Niagara Falls come into operation. Within a few years, these generators were supplying electricity to New York City for the elevated railways, the subways, and the lights on Broadway. 1897 Guglielmo Marconi sends a radio message from the Isle of Wight to Poole, which is 20 miles (ca. 32 km) away. He later sends a message across the Atlantic. 1905 Albert Einstein demonstrated that light energy could be used to produce electricity. 1918 Electric refrigerators and washing machines first become available. 1926 The first National Grid was introduced in the Electrical Supply Act. 1930s In the 1930s and 1940s, hydroelectric power stations were built in Scotland and Wales, even though most electricity still came from burning coal. Household electrical appliances were introduced, and mains powered radios, vacuum cleaners, fridges, and irons became a part of almost every household by the 1940s. 1936 The television was invented by John Logie Baird. 1956 At Calder Hall in Cumbria, the world's first large-scale nuclear power station was opened. The reactors were a prototype of the Magnox gas cooled reactor
1960s The UK developed advanced gas cooled reactors to improve on the previous Magnox stations. France and the USA adopted water cooled reactor technology. 1994 The UK's first pressurised water reactor (PWR) was opened at Sizewell B in Suffolk. It had taken 7 years to build. 2000 The world's first commercial wave power station, located on the Scottish island of Islay, began to generate electricity. Devices on the shoreline or out at sea use motion from the waves to compress air to drive a turbine or hydraulic pumps. It can provide energy for around 400 homes.
Importance of electronics and electricity in modern world It made people’s lives easier, smoother and more vibrant, and reduced distances between nations, such as the use of mobile phones and personal computers. It facilitated communication between individuals, communities and countries, deepened dialogue and approached languages, many of which relayed on translation features The electronics is used in communication and entertainment applications such as telephony and telegraphy, optical communication, wireless communication, television communication etc. The electronics is used in instrumentation applications such as the cathode ray oscilloscope (CROs), frequency counters, pulse and signal generators, digital multimeters, power supplies, pH meters, strain gauges etc. The electronic is used in industrial applications. The electronic is used in defense applications such as RADAR (Radio Detection And Ranging). The electronics is used in medical applications like X ray equipment, Electro cardiograph (ECG), Electro encephalograph (EEG), Cathode ray oscilloscope (CRO), short wave diathermy units, ultrasound scanner and etc.