Electric Universe: How Electricity Switched on the Modern World (Abridged)

The bestselling author of E=mc2*weaves tales of romance, divine inspiration, and fraud through an account of*the invisible force that permeates our universe-electricity-and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets.

For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The for...