I am not a total fan of technology but I realize that my life is quite different from that of my grandparents and their grandparents. There are many differences but I think the biggest difference is in the area of electricity. Amazon or somebody made me aware of the book "Electric Universe" by David Bodanis. It really is a very good book. While reading it, the book "Electricity in the Human Body" by Dame Frances Ashcroft. ("Dame" is the British honorific for women and is equal to "Sir" somebody, a Knight). Prof. Ashcroft is a professor of anatomy and physiology at Oxford University. She is a specialist in ion channels, special proteins in human cells that allow only some substances to pass into or out of the cell.
The ion channels manage their work by making use of electrical forces and are fundamental to all the body processes, including all the senses we have.
The ancients were, in some cases, aware of magnets and of lightning but rarely thought there was any connection. If you have never read the story of how the telegraph, the telephone, legs of dead frogs and bodies of executed criminals lead to more research and more thought about what electricity is, it is very worth going through. Both of the books mentioned above related the story but Ashcroft's veers a little more toward the body while Bodanis includes more about machines and engines and in nature.
You may have been in a cabin or camping and experienced life for a while without electricity. The Colorado town that had its own little generating station under pressure and leadership of Stanley of automobile fame has a sign on it that says when it was built, nobody expect anyone would want electricity 24 hours a day. Yet, in today's America, we do for the most part want electricity all the time. Refrigeration, television and other communication, those depending for life on special machines such as iron lungs, operating room illumination and many other aspects of life today depend on a steady supply of electrical power.
