The First Man-Made Memristor: Circa 1801 [Scanning Our Past]

This article reexamines the historical carbon arc discharge experiment conducted by Humphry Davy in 1801. We present experimental evidence which indicates that such a carbon arc discharge is not only the first artificial light source, but also the world's first man-made memristor ever reported in the scientific literature. The original carbon arc discharge experiment has been repeated with modern power supply equipment with bipolar excitation capability. The carbon arc discharge exhibits the three fingerprints of memristors, including the pinched hysteresis loops, the lobe area changing with operating frequency, and such lobe area approaching zero as the operating frequency increases.