Otto von Guericke

That feeble and mysterious force, which had been the wonder of the simple and the amusement of the vain, could not be slighted any longer as a curious freak of nature, but assuredly none dreamt that a day was dawning in which it would transform the world.

Otto von Guericke, burgomaster of Magdeburg, was the first to invent a machine for exciting the electric power in larger quantities by simply turning a ball of sulfur between the bare hands.

Improved by Sir Isaac Newton and others, who employed glass rubbed with silk, it created sparks several inches long.

The ordinary frictional machine as now made is illustrated in Figure one, where P is a disc of plate glass mounted on a spindle and turned by hand.

Nor was the German love for investigation and practical invention entirely quenched by the Thirty Years' War.

In 1650, Otto von Guericke invented the air pump, and four years later he demonstrated its efficiency before the Diet of Ratisbon by the experiment of the Magdeburg hemispheres, so called from Guericke being mayor of Magdeburg.

Besides this, he constructed the first manometer and electrical machine.

Even the princes occupied themselves much with such experiments, often, however, not so much from an interest in science as from their bent toward alchemy and similar cabalistic studies.