Electricity

One of my favourite question that I ask new friends of mine "What is the most fascinating invention till date,according to you?" and the answers have varied from railways to mobile phones.My answer always is Electricity and today any invention that my friends have cited needs electricity and without electricity life is awful.There are so many controversies about the invention/discovery about electricity,but,Thanks to Thomas Alva Edison,without him this world wouldn't have progressed at this speed.Edison had failed 1000 times before his first invention light bulb,when asked by someone,what do you have say about failing thousand times,Edison politely replied that he had found thousand ways not to make a light.Tesla was another genius who put electricity to commercial use,but he isn't as famous as Edison:-(. Enough of electricity,the main reason for writing about electricity is,one kid told me that electricity comes from the switch(OMG)as a kid even I thought the same,but lot of concern has been raised only in our period,and the intense of producing electricity was felt by people of Tamilnadu only in this past one year,everyone was affected,for a few months the life had changed,and "Is there power?"(கரண்ட் இருக்கா?) was on everyone's mouth for a short span.If we don't save electricity now we might be deprived of uninterrupted supply in few years.Electricity has become essential than air,food and water or atleast we believe it to be.There are so many people worried about Ecology,Environment,Global warming,Recycling etc,but we have a false notion its not gonna affect us in any way,each and every living species is a part of this world,knowingly or unknowingly has a role in this ecology.Many times we fail to realize,saving energy on our part can contribute a huge saving on energy and money over long term.Thermal power,hydro power,atomic power were all taught in my schools,and I read them only to pass through my exams,if my teachers had taught about saving electricity,I'd have saved a lot for my father.Now that,I'm aware of this,I'm saving energy and money on my part,CFL light bulbs,airconditioner @25 in my workplace,and on sleep mode at home,never charge mobile at nights while sleeping(draining the battery completely increases the life of battery),switch off my monitor while not in use.I'm not doing all of these because I'm actually interested,its just that I don't want power shortage to hamper my/my kids life anymore.I'll make sure I'll teach my kids that Electricity doesn't come from switches,there is lot of man power and depleting resource involved.And,if you happen to notice 40W bulb at the entrance of my house,don't judge me because that is my dad's way of saving environment.

P.S. Thanks to Dr.Ganesh,for suggesting me to write on Electricity