Static electricity is the most ancient form of electricity known to humans. More
than 2000 years ago, the Greeks recognized the attraction between certain mate-
rials when they were rubbed together; indeed, the word electricity comes from
the Greek elektron, which means amber. During the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, several key experiments were conducted to understand and measure
static electricity. But the discovery of electromagnetism and its formidable break-
through has rapidly outgrown interest in static electricity. Even today, where
the industrial applications of static electricity are not insignificant, they cannot
compare with those of electromagnetism and electrodynamics.
