Spark from the Deep

How encounters with strongly electric fish informed our grasp of electricity.

Spark from the Deep tells the story of how human beings came to understand and use electricity by studying the evolved mechanisms of strongly electric fish. These animals can shock potential prey or would-be predators with high-powered electrical discharges.

William J. Turkel asks completely fresh questions about the evolutionary, environmental, and historical aspects of people’s interest in electric fish. Stimulated by painful encounters with electric catfish, torpedos, and electric eels, people learned to harness the power of electric shock for medical therapies and eventually developed technologies to store, transmit, and control electricity. Now we look to these fish as an inspiration for engineering new sensors, computer interfaces, autonomous undersea robots, and energy-efficient batteries.

Praise for Spark from the Deep

“This beautifully written and exhaustively researched book traces the links between experiments on strongly electric fish and scientific understanding of electricity . . . Turkel’s book is a joy to read; it will entertain and educate scientists, historians, and anyone with an interest in the natural world.” —Choice

“Turkel’s book convincingly reminds us that all the laptops and gadgets we surround ourselves with are remixes; altered versions of strongly electric fish. For that strange and insightful observation, this book ought to be widely read and enjoyed.” —Chris Conway, Endeavour

“[I]t is refreshing to explore a book which takes seriously ancient encounters with manifestations of natural electricity as precursors to more recent innovations.” —James F. Stark, The British Journal for the History of Science