Electric Universe

How Electricity Switched on the Modern World

By: David Bodanis

Narrated by: Del Roy

Length: 6 hrs and 39 mins

Publisher's summary

The best-selling author of E=mc2 weaves tales of romance, divine inspiration, and fraud through an account of the invisible force that permeates our universe—electricity—and introduces us to the virtuoso scientists who plumbed its secrets.

For centuries, electricity was seen as little more than a curious property of certain substances that sparked when rubbed. Then, in the 1790s, Alessandro Volta began the scientific investigation that ignited an explosion of knowledge and invention. The force that once seemed inconsequential was revealed to be responsible for everything from the structure of the atom to the functioning of our brains. In harnessing its power, we have created a world of wonders—complete with roller coasters and radar, computer networks and psychopharmaceuticals.

In Electric Universe, the great discoverers come to life in all their brilliance and idiosyncrasy, including the visionary Michael Faraday, who struggled against the prejudices of the British class system, and Samuel Morse, a painter who, before inventing the telegraph, ran for mayor of New York City on a platform of persecuting Catholics. Here too is Alan Turing, whose dream of a marvelous thinking machine—what we know as the computer—was met with indifference, and who ended his life in despair after British authorities forced him to undergo experimental treatments to “cure” his homosexuality.

From the frigid waters of the Atlantic to the streets of Hamburg during a World War II firestorm to the interior of the human body, Electric Universe is a mesmerizing journey of discovery.

©2005 David Bodanis (P)2005 Books on Tape, Inc.

Critic reviews

2006, New York Public Library Books for the Teen Age: Winner

"Hugely impressive. No one makes complex science more fascinating and accessible—and indeed more pleasurable—than David Bodanis.” —Bill Bryson, author of A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods

“Bodanis wears his immense knowledge lightly. His crystal-clear explanations of everything from force fields under the Atlantic to GPS satellites combine with a flair for narrative and an eagle eye for obscure facts (where else can you learn that antidepressants turn into liquid electricity when swallowed?) to provide an intriguing account of how the wonders of electricity have transformed our world.” —Ross King, author of Brunelleschi’s Dome and Michelangelo and the Pope’s Ceiling

“Electric Universe is a technological odyssey complete with heroes and villains, triumph and tragedy—a true scientific adventure.” —Simon Singh, author of Fermat’s Enigma and Big Bang

Fascinating and informative

This is a captivating history of electricity that I think everyone should hear. I came away from it much the wiser, with a much more clear understanding of the impact it has had on our world.

Listen to this book!

Anyone who is even mildly interested in electricity or technology should get this book. It's the best history of technology that I've read/listened to and compelling all the way to the end. Even though I don't know anything about the narrator, I truly believe that he was present during all of the events he speaks of. This is the lecture professor that everyone wishes for but so seldom receives.

Storyline from the Dark Ages of Scientism

Scientism because the author's perspective is such. Dark ages because the book culminates in crass atheist materialism, talking about how scientists cut hearts out of frogs, chop heads off of mice during coitus, etc. All in the holy pursuit of empirical knowledge.

If scientism seems perveted and demonic to you, avoid the later chapters. The first half of the book is much more interesting and neutral in its paradigm. It relates interesting and perspectives and histories about the entrance of electricity into the mind of modern man.

Nicolai Tesla missing in action

3 6 9
3 6 9
3 6 9

Everything is light.
Try to live without it for a minute or two.

A childish attempt to insult Tesla in my opinion

As I read through the reviews of this book, (which I wish I had read more thoroughly before buying it although now I also perceive a need for my critique of the material contained within) Several reviewers which gave poor marks, commented on Mr. Bodanis’ omission of any reference to Nicola Tesla. I am led to believe these reviewers might imagine that Bodanis was ignorant of Tesla. While this is a truly unforgivable omission on Bonadis’ part I do not believe the omission to be, in any way, accidental. I do not believe that Bodanis did not know Tesla’s identity or his work, to believe so would be equivalent of accusing the author of outright foolish ignorance of history which he is clearly not. Of course, I cannot know since I have never spoken to, and know nothing about Mr. Bodanis’ knowledge other than that he has written in this book. The great effort he put into minute detail of historical events is evidence of his knowledge.
The truth is, I believe that Tesla never fit into a childish clique of materialist scientists or the halls of academia and Tesla remains an outcast today. He was a foreigner, not British, not American nor French, and possessed an imagination. These seem to be offences to materialist science’s qualifications for membership, and could not be overlooked in their grammar school level of maturity.
Tesla finally and most unforgivably publicly mocked Einstein’s theory of relativity which Tesla believed to be a short sighted and foolish blunder. Tesla held that energy was primary to matter. In other words, matter was a manifestation of energy. Einstein and his materialist worshipers believed, and still believe today just the opposite. They preach that material is primary and the bumping together of material particles creates energy. A religious belief that is upheld just as violently as the church held that the earth was the center of the universe and all planets and stars revolved around the earth. The church tortured scientists and researchers to death for violating this religious belief even though the church’s belief in this matter was so clearly in error by the observations Galileo made through his telescope. Observations that Galileo retracted when he was questioned by the church while touring in a room full of the instruments of torture. A recantation that Bruno burnt at the stake rather than giving to the pope decades before Galileo. (note; the more cowardly defender of the sciences holds such a superior role in its history, the survivors write the history.)
Today similarly, the religion of materialism punishes and silences heretics of materialist’s faith by writing them out of history and or destroying their reputations with “propaganda”. (The reader may note that Bodanis did give Hitler credit for his advancement of propaganda in the radio broadcast section of his book. I suppose Hitler did not offend the materialists or Bodanis as Tesla did.) Re-writing history is one very effective propaganda tactic used in oppressive regimes such as Hitler’s Nazi regime or Saddam Hussein,s terror in Iraq. This brings to my mind the cryptic dedication George Orwell gave his future shock novel, “1984”. “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past”. One can replace the words “the past” with the word “history” to clarify Mr. Orwell’s warning.
To explain my suspicion as to the purpose of the unbelievable omission of Tesla’s contribution to our understanding and use of electricity by Bodanis, I need to explain how and why, in my opinion, this religious fervor developed in a supposedly irreligious system like materialist science and therefore became the possible impetus for Bodanis’ rewrite of accurate history;
Modern science has its foundations in a period when the church violently controlled all philosophy and scientific theory. Scientists that were bold enough to defy the church died horrible deaths and many did out of principle. The less bold survivors, however, became the ones who wrote the history and set the standard for future generations of thinkers. Dead scientists like Bruno cannot write history or teach new students of science. Only the less brave and compliant survived to promote their compromised theories. This resulted in the foundation of science advancing only in the area of material study. Any invisible forces were considered “spiritual” and the church guarded the interpretation of the cause and effect of such forces strictly. Scientists became very sensitive and careful with the phenomena they investigated. Any invisible phenomena sent scientists running away for dear life. Evidence of this superstition today can be seen in any paper written by most mainstream scientists when referring to invisible forces. The ridicule it as “Woo, Woo”. This clearly came from the sounds ghosts or spirits make in children’s stories.
This atmosphere of the fear of invisible forces permeated the development of scientific method and philosophy so much so that once science was free from the church’s tyranny, it had forgotten the reason invisible forces were taboo was due to the church’s tyrannical oppression. Ultimately the realm of invisible forces had no terminology or laws or definitions with the exception of Newton’s laws governing the force of gravity. Newton expertly navigated the politics to not offend the church with his theories and the way they were worded, so “gravity” became the only force safely available to scientists. When science finally found itself free of church oppression, its theories were already very complexly developed on the foundation of gravity as the primal if not the only important force in nature. Like any fully formed structure or system, if the foundation is for a circular structure, but then one finds that rectangular would be a better form, one would need to tear down much, if not all of the structure to realize the new rectangular shape. It is easier to discredit the rectangular shape and its visionaries and continue to do one’s best in the inferior circular building.
One thing obvious to the most naïve observer, the universe we experience is obviously a combination of material and energy that moves, excites, or transforms that material. Materialist science, having only gravity as their primary force to work with, came up with one theory after another to explain all observations in the universe with their one force, gravity.
When experiments in electricity by Faraday became so well known and repeatable by other scientists like watts and hertz, electricity was reluctantly received as real by materialist science. Even then Faraday suffered much persecution and personal ridicule by mainstream science. When they failed to discredit his research and experiments, they attacked him personally. But throughout the nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, one new discovery of the properties of electricity after another embarrassed the materialists by defying materialists claims no such phenomenon could possibly exist. When more and more inventions proved the materialists wrong, they naturally developed a hatred for scholars of electricity.
Science of the early 20th century found itself in crisis because of electricity and all the seemingly magical devices made possible by it. Magical only because materialists had no explanation for how they could work. This was horribly embarrassing, I am sure. When Einstein published his theory of relativity, it gave materialists a model that could explain everything including the properties of light and atomic structure in the terms of particles, and all energy was a result of particles of matter rubbing and bumping or crowding one another in gravitational fields. The fact that there was no understanding of what gravity, magnetism, electricity and even light were, was shoved under the rug by the materialist, now “Einsteinian”, mainstream scientific community.
Science was now complete and free from the church. Science had theories that explained all invisible forces. Any forces other than gravity and a rather ignored magnetism and pesky electricity were relegated to imaginary beliefs of the superstitious and the uneducated. They clumsily explained light as a particle and electricity as little balls of matter that had been rubbed off an atom. Magnetism was a result of the electrified little balls, “electrons”. The details of how all this works was explained to the public by convincing the uneducated masses that they were too ignorant to understand the true workings of these forces so they should just accept that scientists knew all about them and the busy public could go about their daily tasks confident the scholars had a good understanding of these complex interactions. And for the most of the 20th century this ruse worked. However, with the advent of the internet and the public’s access to more and more information, unexplained phenomena became more and more available to the un-washed masses. The emperor’s new clothes began to fade, and the ugly naked butt of the materialist cover-up began to show. This only intensified the pressure for mainstream science to stifle and suppress any information that might offer credibility to forces other than gravity ruling our universe.
Though not elaborated on by materialists, electricity is billions of times more powerful than gravity. That is all fine for their cover up if this electric force remains confined to running along copper and aluminum wires, but if it were to get loose, out in space, unconfined then science would have to make allowance for it in their theories. This would spell the end of the worship and faith in E=MC2. The result for mainstream science was to absolutely and viciously discredit and destroy any theories that used electricity as a primary force in nature.
Tesla was a gentle soul and not one to fight a vicious public war, rather his nature was to turn the other cheek and give gifts to his enemies. He was cheated by Edison out of what would be millions of dollars today. His greatest dream at Wardenclyffe was not only de-funded by Morgan but the tower itself was demolished at great expense to Morgan, yet Tesla had no unkind words for either of these men. When Westinghouse came to Tesla with concerns that Tesla’s royalties for AC electricity would make it impossible to provide electricity to the masses, Tesla tore up the contract and never showed any regret even in the poverty he experienced in old age. Tesla unarguably would have been the richest man on earth had he agreed to a fraction of the original royalty. This gentleness to Einsteinian bigots like Bodanis is apparently not a virtue but a chink in the armor of the enemy. A weakness to be exploited to hide the failure of materialism in this new century of information.
Back to Tesla’s crime that removed him from materialist history. Tesla committed many but the two most damning were; one, he was a respected inventor and genius and he criticized Einstein and did so quite adeptly, asking questions that are just now resurfacing in mainstream science. Two, he demonstrated electricity could travel outside wires in empty space. This was so against science at the time that Tesla’s demonstrations in Europe were billed as “magic shows” and he was famous as a “magician”.( Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic .Arthur C. Clarke) Tesla’s magical electrical demonstrations have not been repeated to this day and no one knows how he accomplished these feats. This fact lends credibility to my claim that materialist science, in its vicious contest for superiority, stole from mankind and the sciences, the miracles that might have developed from Tesla’s knowledge had his work been embraced rather than ridiculed.
I am sorry for men like Bodanis, as I think they have apparently lost what it means to be a scientist and even a proper member of the human race. I am sorrier that I purchased this book and contributed even a tiny royalty to support such dishonesty. Our history as humans is important on so many levels to our species. To violate the true history of one’s own species is equivalent in my opinion, to helping an enemy destroy one’s own family. Furthermore; I believe Bodanis’ omission of Tesla was a bow offered to his master, the materialist scientific community. He is a cardinal in the court of the pope of his religion and he wished to show his solidarity with the oppressive hierarchy. Possibly Bodanis felt a little pat on the head and heard a “that’s my good boy”.
In conclusion and on a more serious and human note; This childish and immature struggle for dominance of ideas has murdered millions of innocent women, men, and children. Advancements in healthcare, living conditions, education, farming, and many other vocations could have come so much sooner and who knows how many never came due to the tyranny and selfish glory-hogging of many leaders of scientific research. This behavior is not scientific. It is not respectable, it is not inherently human, it is not healthy, and it is definitely not necessary. It is behavior we have abolished in government because it is so destructive. It is behavior fit for a bullying criminal gang boss in a third world prison, not the top of academia and certainly not for one that professes a life of service to the betterment of the planet or mankind. We should not tolerate it, overlook it, or wink at it. Those exhibiting this type of behavior should be exposed and publicly shamed for their childish and horrible dis-service to humanity. The scientific community has proven itself over and over again to be subject to the same vices as leaders of governments. In government the masses intervened and took away the power of corrupt kings and dictators, then we have developed systems to prevent politicians bad behavior. (I do recognize the ability of stupid and immature persons to infiltrate the system, but contend that their behavior is often checked by the triad system in the US and other democracies.) I call for a system that would govern and protect true science from these leaders who’s behavior is equivalent with the Dictator of North Korea.
In my opinion, this book and its author need to be held accountable for its part in this stupidity. I have attempted to do so in this review.

Started Hot, Cooled Off

The first part of the book was very engaging. The science and development of electricity was presented within a historical context, with a focus on individuals and their struggles to understand their universe (if you are a LOST fan, you will love the background on Michael Faraday and his contemporaries). Fascinating stuff about the laying of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, the war effort, etc. However, two-thirds of the way into the book, it entered the modern era, and it became a science lecture about electrons, etc. Probably interesting if you really like the nuts and bolts of science; pretty darn boring for an English major. This is the first audio book I simply couldn't finish.

Slanted, sensationalized, contemptuous

The author writes well, but in a lurid and sensational way that often showers contempt upon the figures described.

Well written but wrong

The author can write. The telling is quite fast paced and random topics are woven together by the universal thread of electricity. On writing and telling, the book is five star. Alas, the author is neither a scientist nor understands how to check historical facts.

One minor example is when he talks about Lord Kelvin and the age of the earth, he takes a quote out of context, “assuming no other source of heat”, and weaves a fantasy about how Lord Kelvin anticipated radioactivity. This story is well known, Lord Kelvin, one of the great thinkers of all time, refused publicly to add radioactivity into his calculations even when his private letters showed he began to doubt his previous arguments.

I can forgive a great old man for not wanting to admit to a failing, but I cannot forgive an author who reads some scientific fact or historical bit and weaves a tale that does not reflect the known historical interpretation.

Another example is when he talks about Turing but completely ignores Dr. John W. Mauchly and J. P. Eckert, Jr who built the first completly electronic computer (ENIAC). Turing’s lasting contributions were theoretical not practical, he actually failed in his attempt to develop a programable computer. But no reader would know Mauchly and Eckert ever existed fromt his book nor that Turing did not invent software!

Time and time again the author regurgitates science with the wrong slant: the words are all correct but the overall impression is slewed.

So the book is a fun read, use the book as a jumping off point to learn more, just don’t use the book as a reference on how electricity, or scientists, work.

Meanstream Science, Rehearsed

What disappointed you about Electric Universe?

Buyer beware - this is not the Electric Universe by Wallace Thornhill & David Talbott. The only "shocking" aspect of this book is that it reiterates JP Morgan's version of history: Morse, Bell, Edison, etc. while classically flagrantly ignoring other facets of the study of electricity: Tesla, Maxwell, Russell, Bearden etc.

What about Del Roy’s performance did you like?

Animated, well articulated.

You didn’t love this book... but did it have any redeeming qualities?

This tale is a highly detailed, albeit partial, account via JP Morgan's mainstream history and the limited details of electricity as represented by conventional physics. It's written as a string of personalized stories, so it can be seen as engaging, even if it does lack many pertinent facts about the nature of electricity, facts about history or facts about how the business of electricity was developed (and suppressed).

Any additional comments?

The reader is recommended to consider reading The Electric Universe by Wallace Thornhill & David Talbott

Where's Tesla??

What disappointed you about Electric Universe?

The wonderful inventors in this used Tesla's patents.

Why is there no mention of Tesla?