How on Earth Did We Invent Electricity?
Sometimes I sit at the kitchen table, staring at my phone that charges from the wall, the fridge humming behind me, and the lamp glowing gently above, and I wonder: How in the world did humans invent electricity?
Because I can’t even figure out how to keep my toddler from sticking crayons into the DVD player. And yet, somehow, hundreds of years ago, people looked at lightning bolts and thought, “Yeah, let’s use that to toast bread someday.”
The First Sparks
Electricity wasn’t invented so much as discovered. It’s always been here — in lightning, in static, even in the electric eels swimming around being show-offs.
Ancient Greeks noticed that rubbing amber with fur made it attract feathers. That’s static electricity, baby.
Benjamin Franklin, in the 1700s, flew a kite in a thunderstorm with a key tied to it. Why? Because apparently he had nothing better to do than risk his life proving lightning and electricity were connected. (Meanwhile, I risk my life just trying to shower while my kids are awake.)
Then came Alessandro Volta, who built the first battery in 1800. His name lives on in the word “volt.” Can you imagine being so smart that your name becomes a unit of measurement? My legacy will probably be “the mom who invented the applesauce-stained purse.”
Wires, Bulbs, and Brilliance
Electricity alone isn’t enough — we needed ways to control it. Cue the 1800s, when geniuses were popping up left and right:
Michael Faraday figured out how to make electricity move through a coil of wire. Without him, no washing machine. And without my washing machine, my kids would be running around looking like dirt monsters.
Thomas Edison gave us the light bulb (though, truthfully, others were working on it too). Either way, thanks to him, I don’t have to cook dinner by candlelight while refereeing toddler fights.
Nikola Tesla (no, not the car guy, though he inspired it) worked on alternating current, which is why electricity can travel long distances. Basically, he made sure we can binge Netflix far from the power plant.
These people figured this stuff out with no Google, no YouTube tutorials, no “Electricity for Dummies” book. Just brains, experiments, and probably a lot of electrocution.
Electronics: The Next Level
As if turning lightning into light bulbs wasn’t enough, humans decided, “Let’s shrink it, complicate it, and put it in everyone’s pocket.” Thus, electronics.
The transistor was invented in 1947 — basically the building block of every computer, phone, and microwave.
Microchips followed, turning giant machines into tiny devices. Imagine explaining to Volta that one day we’d use his “volt” to charge an iPad so a toddler could watch cartoons about talking vegetables.
Now we live in a world where my fridge can talk to me. I don’t need my fridge judging me for buying ice cream at midnight, thank you very much.
The Things We Don’t See
Electricity is like motherhood: invisible most of the time, but without it, everything collapses.
We don’t see the billions of electrons racing through wires every second.
We don’t see the power plants working day and night.
We don’t see the grid that quietly holds our modern life together… until the power goes out.
And let me tell you, a power outage in a house with two toddlers and two grandparents? That’s not a blackout. That’s chaos. No cartoons, no microwave, no coffee. Civilization crumbles within minutes.
Things I’ll Never Understand
How did these people come up with this stuff? How did Faraday figure out magnetic fields when I can’t even figure out how my two-year-old managed to lock the bathroom door from the outside?
How did Edison perfect the light bulb when I can’t perfect getting out of the house on time?
How did Tesla dream up wireless power, while my dreams are usually about chasing after a giant baby bottle or showing up to work without pants?
Funny Thoughts About Electricity
My one-year-old thinks the light switch is a toy. He flips it on and off like he’s DJ-ing in a nightclub. I call him “DJ Power Surge.”
My grandmother still doesn’t trust the microwave. She swears it “zaps the nutrition out.” Meanwhile, she’s happily feeding the kids cookies for “second breakfast.”
My husband once tried to fix an outlet himself. Ten minutes later, we were in the dark, and he was googling “Why is my house buzzing?” Lesson learned.
Lessons From the Light
Electricity reminds me of life in a way.
It’s powerful but invisible. You don’t always see the effort, but you feel the effects.
It can shock you, but it also lights up your darkest days.
It took centuries of trial and error, failures and sparks, for us to get here. And isn’t that just like life — figuring things out slowly, painfully, and with the occasional disaster?
Final Thought
Every time I flip a switch, charge my phone, or plug in my coffee maker, I think about the people who made it possible. People who stared at lightning and sparks and saw the future. People who believed they could make something out of the invisible.
And then I look at myself, standing in the kitchen, trying to invent new ways to sneak vegetables into toddler meals, and I laugh.
Because maybe I’ll never invent electricity, or design a microchip, or have a unit of measurement named after me. But I am inventing something, every single day — new ways to survive, new ways to love, new ways to laugh at the chaos.
And honestly? That feels just as powerful.
