If you’ve ever been to a science museum and put your hand on a metal globe that made your hair stand on end, you can thank an Alabamian. The device that makes kids giggle while learning about static electricity, and until modern times created the energy needed for important nuclear physics experiments, is called the Van de Graaff generator. It’s named for its inventor, Robert Jemison Van de Graaff, an MIT and Princeton professor who was born in Tuscaloosa in 1901 and earned his bachelor’s degree and master’s in mechanical engineering from the University of Alabama in 1922 and 1923, respectively. If you’ve never heard of him, but the name sounds familiar, his three older brothers — Hargrove, Adrian and William — were All Southern Conference players for the Crimson Tide in the early part of the 20th century. In fact, William “Bully” Van de Graaff was The Tide’s very first All-American in 1915. But it’s the scientist Van de Graaff whose name endures nearly 100 years later.