The word electricity has its origin in the Greek word elektron, which means amber. Spanish inherited it from the Latin electrum, and the latter comes from the Greek elektron.
Amber is a yellow fossil resin extracted from pine, which when rubbed attracts small objects. Thales of Miletus, a Greek mathematician, was the first to observe these physical properties of the material.
Although it was Thales of Miletus who initially discovered the property that amber possessed of attracting objects when rubbed, it was not until 1646 when the English word electricity was first used by Sir Thomas Browne in his work Pseudodoxia Epidemica.
As Sir Thomas explained, there are objects that have the property of attracting objects and others that do not possess it.
In 1733 the French chemist Charles François de Cisternay du Fay confirmed that not only amber possessed that property, but also the glass could attract objects when rubbed. Then he called resinous electricity to that produced by amber and vitreous electricity to that produced by the glass.
In the eighteenth century, after multiple experiments with electricity, the scientists gave the name negative electric charge to the resinous electricity and positive electric charge to the glassy electricity. Likewise, they deduced that similar charges repel and different charges are attracted.
Benjamin Franklin observed in his experiments, that all materials possess a single type of electrical fluid that can penetrate matter freely, but can not be created or destroyed. The action of rubbing simply transfers fluid from one body to another, electrifying both.
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