Electricity and the Modern World

Hace unos meses les hablé de los 20 logros más sobresalientes de la ingeniería, en los cuales la ''Electrificación'' tuvo el merecido mérito de ser el logro más importante del siglo pasado.

Hoy les hablaré (en un interesante artículo que escribí para una clase de inglés) un poco más sobre lo que es la electrificación y las razones por las ha cambiado (y sigue cambiando) nuestro mundo.








Electricity and the Modern World


      As time progresses, some inventions become ordinary items of our daily life, forgetting how different life was before they were invented.  People of the next or ‘’upcoming’’ generation will probably consider having a computer or an iPod as usual as of how other generations considered having a Television or a refrigerator, without taking in consideration some of the greatest achievements that made our ordinary life as comfortable as we know it. Out of those achievements, there’s one that needs to be always remembered, one that not only revolutionized the way we live, but one that also opened a path to other great inventions, a path that would have never been crossed or even considered, that changed in a dramatically good way everything we do: from taking classes to cooking or working. The achievement we are about to discuss  changed us humans in a way that not only made us forget about our uncomfortable past, but that also keeps allowing us to technologically evolve. The achievement of efficiently supplying electricity anywhere in this planet (or Electrification) is considered the greatest Engineer achievement of the century, a title that I consider not enough for the invention and should be changed to the greatest achievement of all times. I’ll explain why taking in consideration three main subjects: the immediate effects of electrification, some of its applications and a comparison of how life was before and how it is now after the global production of electricity.


      After the "Current Wars", which was a dispute between Edison’s Direct Current and Tesla's Alternate Current, in which Tesla's side was favored for it's cheap distribution, everything around the world was about to change in a matter of years. Light bulbs were about to be used everywhere around the globe, offering people an alternate source of light in their homes. But light bulbs were not all...with the distribution of electricity, other areas of study were born, areas such as electronics, radiology, telecommunications... Other areas such as Industrial Design and Engineering in general were heavily influenced, electric machinery was now possible to produce, slowly erasing the need of steam engines; applications of electronics in household items were created and things started to get better and better.


      Pretty much because now we had a way to get energy to different places, ideas of how to efficiently use that energy emerged. Soon enough refrigerators were invented, allowing people to store food, then radios and after that TVs. Electrification also allowed the distributing of energy in schools, hospitals and workplaces, and for every institution that was ‘electrified’, more and more applications came, some of them were not even technologically involved! Hospitals could now function properly at nights, schools could offer more classes, and more jobs were created for those who preferred to work late.  As for those who were indeed technologically involved, there are so many inventions that would be almost impossible for a human to name but...not for a computer! Yes, the development of computer systems and software production are also some of the benefits that electrification brought us. 


      Even right now, more and more inventions are being created taking in consideration a source of energy. And that’s the real benefit of electrification, every gadget needs energy to function, and most of      that energy is gotten from electricity. For us now to imagine how life was before the creation of electrification is almost impossible. It’s so uncomfortable to think about having candles instead of light bulbs, or not having a place to store your food or an electronic device that allows us to call anyone in the planet. For those who study science related fields, new ways to get electrical energy is a main area of focus, whether it’s from the sun or the sea, new ways to produce electricity is the main goal of hundreds of scientists and engineers.


      ‘’Scores of times each day, with the merest flick of a finger, each one of us taps into vast sources of energy—deep veins of coal and great reservoirs of oil, sweeping winds and rushing waters, the hidden power of the atom and the radiance of the Sun itself—all transformed into electricity, the workhorse of the modern world.’’(From The National Academy of Engineering, USA). From the simple switches that control the light bulbs of our homes, to the operation of satellites, the applications of electricity in our world not only has improved the way we live, but also keeps allowing the development of new machinery and gadgets. In fact, most of the inventions that we use today were created thanks to the efficient use of supplied electricity. And even though it is still possible to live without electricity, that would be the same as taking a step backwards in evolution, disregarding years of investigation and industrial development. Some wonder what will come next, but as default, whatever comes next will come because of electricity, as it is the energy of the modern world.