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this post was submitted on 15 Mar 2024
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Asklemmy
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What's electricity?
I spent about 30 seconds staring at this question, followed by 3 minutes pondering how to explain the phenomenon of electricity to someone unfamiliar with it, but nothing came to mind. Then, I went online and found that, while we have some understanding of how to detect and manipulate electricity, fundamentally, it's just how our universe works and we don't know exactly what it is.
It's just little tiny things wiggling around in wires. They're always there, and if you wiggle them just right you can make rocks think!
I was moreso pointing to the fact that it wasn't discovered until after 1700, not the fact that it could have been explained to someone in 1700. It's still wild how we don't know why it happens.
I probably should have just said lightning instead