This was called electromagnetic induction, and it was another step on a long road of scientific and technological achievement that led to all of us sitting in front of computers, reading on the Internet. It remained for Faraday to close the loop when he showed how magnetism could be used to generate electricity. By 1820, Hans Christian Oersted discovered the first half of the link between electricity and magnetism when he found charged wires affected a compass needle. Alessandro Volta had invented the electric pile, or battery, in 1800. Strange to say, many scientists of Faraday's time did not accept his findings, chiefly because he had no mathematics to back it up (Faraday's laboratory work was empirical and intuitive, and belonged to an older school of scientific research usually called Natural Philosophy). Faraday published the results of his work in 1831, before Henry, and so gets the credit. Michael Faraday and Joseph Henry discovered the principles of electromagnetic induction at much the same time. The electrical current passing through the light bulb is enough to make it light up.Great discoveries are sometimes made by more than one person at the same time. The electrons flow from the positive electrode to the light bulb and back to the negative electrode. You can tap into the electricity by connecting wires from the electrodes to a light bulb to form a circuit. When the nail and pennies are connected to a potato in a circuit, the chemical energy is converted to electrical energy. The potato acts as an electrolyte, which means it enables the electrons to flow through it. In other words, the metals become electrodes, one positive and the other negative, and electrons flow between the metals. The zinc is more reactive than the copper so it wants to take electrons from the copper. The copper and zinc have chemical energy. Certain types of metals – especially copper and zinc – react with the potato when they are inserted inside. Here's how it works.Ī potato contains sugar, water and acid. This experiment is leveraging that electrical energy. We all know that electricity is what makes a light bulb work, right? The crazy thing is that there is electrical energy all around us, even in the food we eat. You can also try different types of potatoes to see which kind makes the most powerful circuit. Start with a small circuit of just one or two potatoes and work your way up to several potatoes, testing the voltage of each circuit. If you have a voltmeter, replace the light bulb with the test terminals of the voltmeter to test the voltage coursing through the potato circuit.So you can try cutting the potatoes in half and adding in more coins and nails to make the circuit bigger. If it STILL doesn’t light up you may not have enough voltage.If it still doesn’t work then try a different light. If the light doesn’t turn on, try turning the light around the other way (LEDS are polarized).If you are using thin electric wire without alligator clips, you will need to remove some of the plastic covering.Connect the two loose ends of the wires to the light bulb and watch it light up!.Insert a coin and the end of one piece of copper wire into the potato that has no coin in it.Push a nail into the potato with the coin in it and wrap the end of a piece of wire around the top of the nail.Wrap the loose end of the wire around one of the nails and insert it into the other potato.Insert a coin and the end of one piece of copper wire into the potato so that they are pressed together inside the potato.Start with two potatoes to see if they can turn on the light. Hydrogen gas may also be a byproduct of the chemical reactions in the potato, so don't perform the experiment near open flames or strong sources of heat Three pieces of copper wire (with or without alligator clips)īe careful when handling the wires, because there is a small electric charge running through the wires.