STEPPING STONES TO LIGHT

A neatly packaged history of the science of electricity through short sketches of the field's most important figures, from the early Greeks to the present day,- and their discoveries. There is such data as Thales' wonderments at a shiny piece of amber when it attracted a feather, Michael Faraday's era marking triumph with the electromagnet and the possibilities it opened for the dynamo, Edison's endless hours treating threads to make a filament strong enough for his lamp. Ohm, Ampere, Franklin, Galvani, Humphrey Davy are others at whose laboratories and minds the reader is given a peek. Although scientific detail is at a minimum, good historical background and the clear portrayals disclose the excitement of scientific progress.