Electricity involves the flow of electrons, subatomic particles named after the ancient Greek word for amber ("elektron"), which was used in early experiments with static electricity. While an electric field's signal travels near the speed of light, the actual electrons move at a very slow "drift velocity," often less than one millimeter per second. Nature provides much more powerful examples. A single lightning bolt can heat the air to 54,000°F, roughly five times hotter than the surface of the sun, which causes the sonic boom known as thunder.

Some animals also utilize electricity. Electric eels, which are a type of knifefish, have specialized organs that can discharge over 860 volts to hunt or defend themselves. They also use weaker electric pulses for navigation, a sense called electrolocation. Humans may have harnessed electricity much earlier than believed. Archaeologists have found 2,000-year-old "Baghdad batteries," clay pots that could produce an electric current, though their exact use is unknown. Later, Benjamin Franklin proved that lightning is electricity (he did not discover electricity itself) and invented the lightning rod to safely ground the charge. Several common beliefs about electricity are incorrect. Pure, distilled water is actually an electrical insulator; it is the salts and minerals dissolved in regular water that make it conductive. Additionally, a car is safe in a storm not because of its rubber tires, but because its metal shell acts as a Faraday cage, conducting the lightning strike around the occupants and safely into the ground.

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