“哦，你電到我啦!”這是這個干燥的季節里常聽到的一句話。大家都知道這是靜電的作用。“電(Electricity )”已經成為現代生活中不可缺少的能源之一。電燈、電話、電腦、電冰箱……帶電的東西簡直不勝枚舉，可是你知道靜電（static electricity）是誰最先發現的嗎，為什么電的英文是Electricity，是誰為這種看不見摸不到卻讓人感到麻麻的東西起的名字？

Perhaps you've gotten a shock from touching a doorknob after walking on a carpet. You might even have seen a spark jump. These activities result from static electricity. .If you rub a comb on a piece of cloth, you'll find that scraps of paper will stick to the comb afterwards. If you have ever tried this, you have repeated an experiment done by Thales about 600B, and C.E and Gilbert in 1570.They both saw the effects of static electricity. Thales, a Greek,, was one of the first to describe what happened when amber was rubbed with a bit of wool. Later, British scientist William Gillbert repeated and expanded on the experiment. He named the effects electricity after the Greek word for amber, elektron.

amber: 琥珀

（河北師范大學通訊員杜志茹供稿 英語點津 Annabel 編輯）