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Dec 28, 2021 · Here's what historians have to say about whether Benjamin Franklin really flew a kite tied to a key during a lightning storm.
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Everything we know about Franklin’s kite and key experiment comes from two sources. The first is a letter Franklin wrote to his friend Peter Collinson in October 1752 that was published in the The Pennsylvania Gazette and read before the Royal Society. The second is a section of Joseph Priestley’s 1767 book History and Present Status of Electricity...
Electricity was already a known phenomenon during the mid-18th century. There were, however, debates about the nature of this phenomenon, and Franklin was one of a group of philosophers and scientists who theorized that lightning was a form of electricity. In March 1750, Franklin wrote a letter to his friend Collinson about his idea for a lightning...
So what would this experiment have actually looked like? Although many artists have tried to depict it, “most of the pictures and drawings that you see depicting Franklin in this experiment are inaccurate,” says Harold D. Wallace Jr., a curator in the division of work and industry at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History. “They show F...
Learn about the legend of Franklin's kite and key experiment, which may not have happened as we think. Find out how Franklin proved that lightning was a form of electricity and invented the lightning rod.
- Becky Little
- 42 min
Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky, an artistic rendition of Franklin's kite experiment painted by Benjamin West, c. 1816. The kite experiment is a scientific experiment in which a kite with a pointed conductive wire attached to its apex is flown near thunder clouds to collect static electricity from the air and conduct it down the wet kite string to the ground.
Jun 12, 2017 · Despite a common misconception, Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity during this experiment—or at all, for that matter. Electrical forces had been recognized for more than a thousand years, and scientists had worked extensively with static electricity.
Before Franklin started his scientific experimentation, it was thought that electricity consisted of two opposing forces. Franklin showed that electricity consisted of a "common element" which he named "electric fire." Further, electricity was "fluid" like a liquid.
As a scientist, his studies of electricity made him a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics. He also charted and named the Gulf Stream current. His numerous important inventions include the lightning rod, bifocals, and the Franklin stove. [8] .
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Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a treatise by Benjamin Franklin based on letters that he wrote to Peter Collinson, who communicated Franklin's ideas to the Royal Society.
