The story of Benjamin Franklin flying a kite during a thunderstorm to explore electricity is well known, but how much of it is true? Today, we’ll take a look at the details of this famous experiment and the real story behind Franklin’s groundbreaking work with electricity.
The Real Story
In June 1752, Benjamin Franklin and his son William conducted an experiment that would become iconic. Franklin wasn’t the first to suspect that lightning was a form of electricity, but he was the first to propose a practical experiment to prove it.
In 1750, Franklin suggested placing a wooden sentry box with a metal rod on a hill or steeple. He predicted that if a person inside the box held a wire touching the rod during a storm, they would see sparks when lightning struck. Although French scientists tested and confirmed his idea in May 1752, Franklin was unaware of their success and decided to try a different approach with a kite.
The Kite Experiment
On a stormy day in June 1752, Franklin and his son flew a kite made of silk with a metal wire attached to its top. To the end of the kite string, Franklin tied a metal key. As they flew the kite into the stormy sky, the wet string conducted electricity from the storm clouds. When Franklin brought his knuckles near the key, he felt a spark, demonstrating that the clouds were electrically charged.
Franklin then used a Leyden jar, an early form of a capacitor, to collect the electrical charge from the key. This confirmed his theory that lightning was indeed a form of electricity. It’s important to note that the sparks Franklin felt were from the ambient electrical charge in the air, not from a direct lightning strike. A direct strike would have likely been fatal, as evidenced by the death of a Russian man who attempted a similar experiment later that year.
Franklin's Electrical Legacy
Franklin’s experiments quickly earned him great acclaim in the scientific community. He introduced many terms still used today, such as battery, conductor, charge, and discharge. His invention of the lightning rod, designed to protect buildings from lightning strikes by providing a path for the electrical charge to travel safely to the ground, was one of his most significant contributions.
And that’s a brief history of Benjamin Franklin and his famous electric kite experiment.
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