Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
His kite experiment demonstrated that lightning is electricity. He was the first to use the terms positive and negative charge.
Franklin was one of seventeen children. He quit school at age ten to become a printer. His life is the classic story of a self-made man achieving wealth and fame through determination and intelligence.
James Watt (1736-1819) was born in Scotland. Although he conducted no electrical experiments, he must not be overlooked. He was an instrument maker by trade and set up a repair shop in Glasgow in 1757. Watt thought that the steam engine would replace animal power, where the number of horses replaced seemed an obvious way to measure the charge for performance. Interestingly, Watt measured the rate of work exerted by a horse drawing rubbish up an old mine shaft and found it amounted to about 22,000 ft-lbs per minute. He added a margin of 50% arriving at 33,000 ft-lbs.
William Thomson, Lord Kelvin (1824-1907) was best known in his invention of a new temperature scale based on the concept of an absolute zero of temperature at -273°C (-460°F). To the end of his life, Thomson maintained fierce opposition to the idea that energy emitted by radioactivity came from within the atom. One of the greatest scientific discoveries of the 19th century, Thomson died opposing one of the most vital innovations in the history of science.
Thomas Seebeck (1770-1831) a German physicist was the discoverer of the "Seebeck effect".
He twisted two wires made of different metals and heated a junction where the two wires met. He produced a small current. The current is the result of a flow of heat from the hot to the cold junction. This is called thermoelectricity. Thermo is a Greek word meaning heat.