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Invitation: The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity (Featuring Prof. Andre Assis)

Sunday Oct. 12 at 2pm ET

Rising Tide Foundation

Oct 9

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Sadly very few people understand that a long standing battle has been waged between two opposing traditions both laying claim to the title of ‘western science’.

Where one tradition encourages the actual creative experience of new discoveries of universals, the other, more impotent tradition proposes simple acts of memorization of formulas, repetition and irresponsible speculation detached from earned knowledge. Where one tradition emphasizes on the question ‘Why’, the other asserts that only ‘How’ can be posed.

Dr. Andre Assis (Professor of physics at the University of Campinas in Brazil) is someone who happily does not have the problem of shying away from ‘why’, nor does he have the problem of mistaking acts of memorization for genuine discoveries.

As such, his pioneering work in bringing the experimental work of the greatest scientists back to life has been such a breath of fresh air amidst the barren wasteland of ‘standard model’ thinking so pervasive among today’s scientific world.

One year ago, Dr. Assis delivered a presentation to the Rising Tide Foundation on the topic of The Lost Secrets of Wilhelm Weber’s Electrodynamics, and this coming Sunday October 12th at 2pm Eastern Time, he will be delivering a follow up lecture titled The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity. I asked Dr. Assis to write a short abstract of the presentation which can be read below:

“In this presentation I perform several experiments: (a) the attraction of paper bits by a rubbed plastic tube (experiment analogous to the amber effect); (b) an electrified straw rotating a versorium, the oldest instrument for the study of electricity; (c) I show an electric pendulum made by a paper disc suspended by a silk thread, then I show its attraction/contact/repulsion by an electrified plastic tube; (d) the levitation of a dandelion seed with an electrified straw, then I discuss the importance of this experiment in the history of electricity; (e) I show an electroscope made of cardboard, a thin paper strip and a plastic straw, then I show how to charge and discharge it; (f) finally I show how to distinguish insulators and conductors with an electroscope and utilize it to classify several materials (human body, rubber, glass, wood, cotton, silk, water etc.) I present some aspects related to the history of electricity which can be constructively explored in physics teaching. I show how to build these cheap and highly sensitive instruments, which were extremely important in the history of electricity. Finally, I discuss some mysteries related to the amber effect which have not yet been completely solved, although this is the oldest experiment in electricity with some 2400 years.”

The activities presented in this talk come from the book The Experimental and Historical Foundations of Electricity which is freely available in PDF format here

CLICK ON THE ZOOM LINK BELOW TO ACCESS THE LIVE LECTURE ON SUNDAY OCT. 12 AT 2PM ET:...

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Thursday, October 9, 2025