The first signs of the study of static electricity date back to the time of the ancient Greeks, when the philosopher Thales of Miletus (624 BC – 546 BC) identified strange behaviors based on friction between amber and fabrics such as wool, generating an attractive force on objects with static electricity.
Later, in the 17th century, the first analyses of the relationship between electricity and magnetism were carried out with the aim of improving the accuracy of magnetic compasses. Italian scientist Niccolo Cabeo analyzed studies by British physicist William Gilbert, and he concluded that there were forces of attraction and repulsion between bodies in accordance with their characteristics.
In 1733, the French physicist and chemist Francois de Cisternay du Fay proposed the existence of two types of electrical charges: negative and positive. Then, in 1785, the French physicist Charles Coulomb also formalized the quantitative concepts of electrical forces in a treatise. He formulated Coulomb’s Law, which advanced propositions on attraction and repulsion with static electric charges. This law was supplemented by Gauss’s theorem, which defined almost all electrostatic phenomena.