In the ancient city of Miletus, nestled along the Aegean coast, lived a remarkable thinker named Thales. It was around 600 BCE, a time when magic and superstition danced hand in hand with the mysteries of the natural world. Thales, however, was different. He sought rational explanations, not mystical enchantments.
One day, as Thales strolled through the bustling marketplace, he encountered a peculiar substance: amber—a fossilized tree resin. Curious, he took a rod of amber and began to rub it vigorously. To his astonishment, the rod gained an inexplicable power. It could attract lightweight objects, like bits of feathers, as if by magic. But Thales knew better; he sensed there was science behind this phenomenon.
Thales had discovered the basic principle of static electricity—the accumulation of charge in one place. Unlike his contemporaries, who attributed such wonders to gods and spirits, Thales reasoned. He became the world’s first scientist, unraveling the secrets of the universe one observation at a time. His explanations weren’t always accurate (he believed everything was made of water and that Earth was flat), but they were steps toward understanding.
Thales’s spark of enlightenment ignited a journey that would span centuries. From his humble rubbing of amber, humanity would eventually harness electricity for its benefit
