ELI5: Explain Like I'm 5

Abel Clarin de la Rive

Well little one, Abel Clarin de la Rive was a really smart man who lived a long time ago. He was born in Switzerland in the 1800s and he studied a lot about electricity and how it works. You know how we use electricity to power our homes and devices like phones and tablets? Well, Abel helped us understand more about how that all works.

Abel was very interested in the way electricity moves through different kinds of materials, like metal wires or water. He did lots of experiments to figure out how this works and he wrote down what he learned so that other people could learn too.

He also studied something called electromagnetic waves, which are things like radio and TV waves that we can't see or touch but that travel through the air and help us communicate with each other.

Thanks to Abel and other scientists who came before and after him, we know a lot more about electricity and electromagnetic waves today than we did back when he was alive. And all of that knowledge has helped us do amazing things like invent computers, send people into space, and even fly planes!