Static Electricity Producing Machine
Credit LineGift from the London Public Library, 1964
Object number1964.086.001
Label TextThis is a friction electrostatic generator, which Alexander Graham Bell (1847-1922) reputedly used in his experiments. A friction machine generates static electricity by direct physical contact. The glass cylinder would have been rubbed by a pad as it passed by. Throughout the 18th and 19th centuries, scientists and inventors alike explored the properties of electricity. Bell, in his varied studies that included the invention of the telephone, was one of them.
NameGenerator, Electrostatic
