what did ben franklin kite experiment prove

Did Benjamin Franklin really discover electricity with a kite and key?

Did the founding father really discover electricity?

On a dark, stormy summer night in 1752, Benjamin Franklin flew a kite with a key attached to the string waiting in anticipation for lightning to strike. The dramatic bolt would harken the discovery of electricity (or as Franklin called it "electrical fire") … or so the story goes.

But is there any truth to this tale? Did Franklin really discover electricity by getting zapped by a lightning bolt during this experiment?

Though most people know Benjamin Franklin — an American founding father, legendary statesman and the face of the U.S. $100 bill — for his political contributions, Franklin was well known in his time as a scientist and an inventor: a true polymath. He was a member of several scientific societies and was a founding member of the American Philosophical Society. As a result, he stayed informed on the most pressing scientific questions that occupied learned people of his time, one of which was the nature of lightning.

As for the kite-and-key experiment, most people are aware of the version in which the metal key acted as a lightning rod, and Franklin subsequently "discovered" electricity when lightning struck his kite. However, several details about this experiment are unknown, including when and where it happened. Some historians even doubt that it took place. 

Related: Did Benjamin Franklin really want the turkey to be the US national bird?

For starters, it's a common myth that Franklin discovered electricity. Electricity had already been discovered and used for centuries before Franklin's experiment. Franklin lived from 1709 to 1790, and during his time, electricity was understood as the interaction between two different fluids , which Franklin later referred to as "plus" and "minus." According to French chemist Charles François de Cisternay du Fay, materials that possessed the same type of fluid would repel, while opposite fluids attracted one another. We now understand that these "fluids" are electrical charges generated by atoms. Atoms are made up of negatively charged electrons orbiting a positively charged nucleus (made up of protons and neutrons).

It was unknown prior to Franklin's experiment whether lightning was electrical in nature, though some scientists, including Franklin, had speculated just that . Page Talbott, author and editor of " Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World " (Yale University Press, 2005) and the former president and CEO of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, said that Franklin was particularly interested in this question because lightning strikes had caused disastrous fires in cities and towns where houses were made of wood, which many homes in the U.S. were at the time. "By attaching a key to the string of a kite, thus creating a conductor for the electrical charge , he was demonstrating that a pointed metal object placed at a high point on a building — connected to a conductor that would carry the electricity away from the building and into the ground — could make a huge difference to the long-term safety of the inhabitants," Talbott told Live Science in an email. In other words, by creating a lightning rod, Franklin was helping to protect wooden homes and buildings from being directly struck by lightning.

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Lightning rods are metal rods placed at the top of structures, connected to the ground with a wire. If lightning strikes the building, it will likely strike the electrically conductive rod instead of the building itself and safely run through the wire to the ground.

Here's how the experiment worked; standing in a shed, Franklin flew a kite, made of a simple silk handkerchief stretched across a cross made of two cedar strips, during a lightning storm. The tail of the kite was made of two materials — the upper end attached to the kite was made of hemp string and attached to a small metal key, while the lower end, held by Franklin, was made of silk. The hemp would get soaked by the rain and conduct electrical charge, while the silk string would remain dry because it is held under cover.

As Franklin observed his flying kite, he saw that the hemp strands stood on end as they began to accumulate electrical charge from the ambient air. When he placed his finger near the metal key, he reportedly felt a sharp spark as the negative charges that had accumulated on the key were attracted to the positive charges in his hand. 

A few publications at the time reported on the experiment. "[Franklin] published a statement about the experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette , the newspaper he published, on October 19, 1752," Talbott said. He then sent the text of this statement to a patron of the American Philosophical Society named Louis Collinson; Franklin had spent the last few years communicating his theories and proposing his experiments concerning lightning to him.

Franklin referred to the experiment in his autobiography, and other colleagues in Europe wrote about it as well, Talbott said. Notably, the experiment appeared in the 1767 book " History and Present Status of Electricity " by Joseph Priestley, an English chemist. Priestley heard about the kite-and-key experiment from Franklin himself around 15 years after the fact, and in his book, he wrote that it occurred during June 1752. However, exactly when the experiment came to Franklin and when he did it is a matter of debate.

There are some historians who doubt whether Franklin actually did the experiment himself, or merely outlined its possibility. In his book " Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and His Electric Kite Hoax " (PublicAffairs, 2003), author Tom Tucker stated that Franklin wanted to thwart William Watson, a member of the Royal Society of London and a preeminent electrical experimenter. Watson had sabotaged the publication of some of Franklin's previous reports and had ridiculed his experiments in the Royal Society, Tucker wrote. Could Franklin have felt pressured to invent the kite story to get back at Watson?

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Tucker also noted that Franklin's description of his experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette was phrased in the future conditional tense: "As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them..." Franklin could have simply been saying that the experiment could, in theory, be performed. Given that his statement has a few missing details — Franklin didn't list a date, time or location, for example — it's possible that the American diplomat did not perform the experiment himself.

However, some historians remain unconvinced that the experiment wasn't carried out, pointing to Franklin's great respect for scientific pursuits . Franklin experts, such as the late American critic and biographer Carl Van Doren, also point to the fact that Priestley specified the month in which Franklin performed his experiment, suggesting that Franklin must have given him precise details directly.

Originally published on Live Science.

Jacklin Kwan is a freelance journalist based in the United Kingdom who primarily covers science and technology stories. She graduated with a master's degree in physics from the University of Manchester, and received a Gold-Standard NCTJ diploma in Multimedia Journalism in 2021. Jacklin has written for Wired UK, Current Affairs and Science for the People. 

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An Account of the Kite Experiment

From Carl Van Doren's "Benjamin Franklin," ©1938 by Carl Van Doren

"Before that he had thought of another way of proving his theory, and with the help of his electrical kite had drawn lightning from a cloud. The episode of the kite, so firm and fixed in legend, turns out to be dim and mystifying in fact. Franklin himself never wrote the story of the most dramatic of his experiments. All that is known about what he did on that famous day, of no known date, comes from Joseph Priestley's account, published fifteen years afterwards but read in manuscript by Franklin, who must have given Priestley the precise, familiar details. "As every circumstance relating to so capital a discovery (the greatest, perhaps, since the time of Sir Isaac Newton) cannot but give pleasure to all my readers, I shall endeavour to gratify them with the communication of a few particulars which I have from the best authority. "The Doctor, having published his method of verifying his hypothesis concerning the sameness of electricity with the matter of lightning, was waiting for the erection of a spire [on Christ Church] in Philadelphia to carry his views into execution; not imagining that a pointed rod of a moderate height could answer the purpose; when it occurred to him that by means of a common kite he could have better access to the regions of thunder than by any spire whatever. Preparing, therefore, a large silk handkerchief and two cross-sticks of a proper length on which to extend it, he took the opportunity of the first approaching thunderstorm to take a walk in the fields, in which there was a shed convenient for his purpose. But, dreading the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science, he communicated his intended experiment to nobody but his son" — then twenty-one, not a child as in the traditional illustrations of the scene — "who assisted him in raising the kite. "The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knuckle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wet the string he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he heard of anything they had done."

The True Story Behind Ben Franklin's Lightning Experiment

In elementary school, most of us were taught that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity by tying a key to a kite and standing in a thunderstorm. Though Franklin is believed to have completed his lightning experiment, he wasn’t the first to do so. Nor was he the first scientist to study charged particles. Sorry everyone, your childhood science teacher sort of lied to you. So let’s clear things up.

Founding Father/diplomat/inventor/innovator/Philadelphian/total cad Benjamin Franklin became interested in the field of electricity when his friend and fellow scientist Peter Collinson sent him an electricity tube. Franklin investigated how charged objects interacted and came to the conclusion that lightning was merely a huge spark that was created by charged forces. In this early phase of experimentation, Franklin concluded that electricity was fluid.

It was during this time, in 1750, that Franklin sent Collinson a letter proposing an experiment that would draw lightning through a 30-foot rod. He not only hypothesized that lightning and electricity were linked, but that metal objects could be used to draw lightning in order to protect homes from being hit. But Franklin didn’t feel that he could get his conductor high enough into the clouds to do any good, so he never completed the experiment. Instead, in 1752, he devised a new plan: sending a kite into the air.

Little did Franklin know that his original letter to Collinson, once translated to French, was causing quite a stir in Paris. To test Franklin’s hypothesis, naturalist Thomas-Francois Dalibard used a large metal pole to conduct electricity from lightning on May 10, 1752. In Dalibard’s writing of his Paris experiment, he concluded that Franklin’s hypothesis was right .

It was exactly one month after the Dalibard experiment, on June 10, 1752, that Franklin (supposedly) performed his famous kite and key experiment. Franklin stood outside under a shelter during a thunderstorm and held on to a silk kite with a key tied to it. When lightning struck, electricity traveled to the key and the charge was collected in a Leyden jar .

Here’s the tricky bit—there is a lot of doubt between historians as to whether or not Franklin ever conducted the experiment.

In October of 1752, Franklin wrote a brief statement in the Pennsylvania Gazette saying that the iron rod experiment had been achieved in Philadelphia, but “in a different and more easy Manner,” with a kite. But as his previous thought experiment was being replicated across the continent with great success, this was only of minor scientific interest and Franklin never really elaborated on it. Also, he never said that he was the one who did the experiment. It only became a story 15 years later when Joseph Priestley wrote a full description in which he describes Franklin as bringing “lightning from the clouds” to the ground.

As modern scientists have come to discover, if Franklin had performed the experiment as delineated in Priestley’s account, Franklin would have been struck dead on the spot . In his 1752 article, Franklin claimed you could touch the key and feel a spark; however, that much charge would have sizzled his insides. But other historians read his original statement in the Gazette and think it’s been misinterpreted. Instead of getting hit by lightning, the kite just picked up the ambient electric charge—Franklin was lucky that his kite never got a direct hit.

So, while we can credit Franklin for writing up the experiment that posits whether lightning is the same as electricity and can be drawn through metal, he was not the first to actually perform said experiment and write about its results. In fact, there are few sources that can prove Franklin ever did the kite experiment at all—we have to trust his word that it happened.

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This Day In History : June 10

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Benjamin Franklin flies kite during thunderstorm

In the summer of 1752—possibly on the 10th of June— Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm to collect ambient electrical charge in a Leyden jar, enabling him to demonstrate the connection between lightning and electricity. (Scholars debate the June 10 date , but agree it likely happened sometime in June of that year.) It is one of his most famous—and mythologized—experiments.

Franklin became interested in electricity in the mid-1740s, a time when much was still unknown on the topic, and spent almost a decade conducting electrical experiments. He coined a number of terms used today, including battery, conductor and electrician. He also invented the lightning rod, used to protect buildings and ships.

Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, to a candle and soap maker named Josiah Franklin, who fathered 17 children, and his wife Abiah Folger. Franklin’s formal education ended at age 10 and he went to work as an apprentice to his brother James, a printer. In 1723, following a dispute with his brother, Franklin left Boston and ended up in Philadelphia, where he found work as a printer. Following a brief stint as a printer in London, Franklin returned to Philadelphia and became a successful businessman, whose publishing ventures included the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s Almanack , a collection of homespun proverbs advocating hard work and honesty in order to get ahead. The almanac, which Franklin first published in 1733 under the pen name Richard Saunders, included such wisdom as: “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” 

Whether or not Franklin followed this advice in his own life, he came to represent the classic American overachiever. In addition to his accomplishments in business and science, he is noted for his numerous civic contributions. Among other things, he developed a library, insurance company, city hospital and academy in Philadelphia that would later become the University of Pennsylvania.

Most significantly, Franklin was one of the founding fathers of the United States and had a career as a statesman that spanned four decades. He served as a legislator in Pennsylvania as well as a diplomat in England and France. He is the only politician to have signed all four documents fundamental to the creation of the U.S.: the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Treaty of Alliance with France (1778), the Treaty of Paris (1783), which established peace with Great Britain and the U.S. Constitution (1787).

Franklin died at age 84 on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia. He remains one of the leading figures in U.S. history.

Benjamin Franklin’s Kite Experiment: What Do We Know?

Surprisingly little.

11 Surprising Facts About Benjamin Franklin

The United States’ original renaissance man created some unusual inventions—and was a passionate swimmer.

The Eventful Life of Benjamin Franklin

The Pennsylvania scientist and diplomat signs both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

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The kite experiment, 19 october 1752, the kite experiment.

I. Printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette , October 19, 1752; also copy: The Royal Society. II. Printed in Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (London, 1767), pp. 179–81.

Franklin was the first scientist to propose that the identity of lightning and electricity could be proved experimentally, but he was not the first to suggest that identity, nor even the first to perform the experiment. 4 For many years pioneer electricians had noted the similarity between electrical discharges and lightning, and in 1746 John Freke in England and Johann Heinrich Winkler in Germany separately advanced the idea of identity and suggested theories to account for it. Franklin’s later adversary the Abbé Nollet wrote to the same effect in 1748. 5 Franklin and his Philadelphia collaborators, working independently, also observed the similarities, and in his letter of April 29, 1749, to John Mitchell on thundergusts he took as the basis for his entire discussion the hypothesis that clouds are electrically charged. 6 In the “minutes” he kept of his experiments he listed under the date of November 7, 1749, twelve particulars in which “electrical fluid agrees with lightning,” and noted further that “the electrical fluid is attracted by points,” but that it was not yet known whether this property was also in lightning. “But since they agree in all other particulars wherein we can already compare them, is it not probable they agree likewise in this? Let the experiment be made.” 7

However obvious the suggestion of such an experiment may now seem, no one had made it before. Herein lies Franklin’s principal claim to priority in this great discovery. A test of lightning required the prior discoveries embodied in the “doctrine of points,” of which he was the undisputed author, and the knowledge he had gained of the role of grounding in electrical experiments. It was the pointed metal rod, with its peculiar effectiveness in electrical discharge, which both led to the suggestion and facilitated the experiment.

In the following March Franklin, writing to Collinson, suggested that pointed rods, instead of the usual round balls of wood or metal, be placed on the tops of weathervanes and masts, and that they would draw the electrical fire “out of a cloud silently,” thereby preserving buildings and ships from being struck by lightning. 8 He repeated the suggestion in July 1750 in his “Opinions and Conjectures,” with the important addition that a wire be run down from the rod to the ground or water, and he then proposed the “sentry-box” experiment. This was the first public suggestion of an experiment to prove the identity of lightning and electricity. 9

According to Joseph Priestley, who almost certainly received his information directly from Franklin about fifteen years later, he did not perform the experiment himself at once because he believed a tower or spire would be needed to reach high enough to attract the electrical charge from a thunder cloud, and there was no structure in Philadelphia he deemed adequate for the purpose. Presumably he was waiting until Christ Church steeple, then in the early discussion stage, should be erected. 1 English scientists, who could have read Franklin’s proposal when it was published in Experiments and Observations in April 1751, apparently failed to recognize its significance. But about a year later, in the spring of 1752, when a translation had been published in Paris, the French reaction was very different. Delor, “master of experimental philosophy,” repeated most of Franklin’s experiments before the King, and then in May Dalibard, Franklin’s translator, and Delor each set up apparatus which performed successfully the “Philadelphia experiment” of drawing electricity from a thunder cloud. 2 Word of these achievements awoke the English electricians, and during the summer of 1752 the experiment was repeated several times in England as well as in France and Germany. 3

At some time during 1751 or 1752 Franklin got the idea that he could send his conductor high enough by means of a kite, and that if it were flown during a thunder shower, the wet string might serve to bring the electrical charge down within reach. When the idea first came to him and just when he carried it out cannot be established with absolute certainty. Priestley wrote that the famous experiment with kite and key took place during June 1752, and the present editors believe there is no good reason to doubt the correctness of this date. If so, then Franklin performed his experiment before he learned of what Dalibard and Delor had done in France.

Almost never during these years did Franklin report a particular electrical experiment until some time had elapsed and this affair seems to have been no exception. Word of Dalibard’s and Delor’s successes reached Philadelphia toward the end of August and the Pennsylvania Gazette of August 27 carried a short account reprinted from the May issue of the London Magazine . During September Franklin erected a lightning rod on his own house, ingeniously equipping it with bells that would ring when the wire became charged and thus notify him when the atmosphere above the house was electrified. 4 Then at last, on October 19, he printed in the Gazette a brief statement about the kite experiment with instructions for repeating it. The text of this statement, transmitted to Collinson, was read to the Royal Society on December 21. Neither in this paper nor at any later time did Franklin—or Priestley on his behalf—ever claim priority in carrying out the experiment he had been the first to propose. 5

The same October 19 issue of the Gazette also announced that Poor Richard for 1753 was then “In the Press, and speedily will be published”; in that almanac Franklin printed for the first time precise instructions for the erection of lightning rods for the protection of buildings. 6 The sequence of events in this somewhat complicated chain may be clarified by the following chronology:

Unfortunately, Franklin’s statement of the kite experiment has not been found in his own handwriting. Two text versions survive: that printed in the Pennsylvania Gazette of October 19, 1752, reprinted below; and a copy in the hand of Peter Collinson, now in the Royal Society. 7 Aside from unimportant variations in paragraphing, spelling, capitalization, and punctuation, the Collinson copy differs from the Gazette version in several respects: (1) It is headed “From Benn: Franklin Esqr To P Collinson” and is dated “Philadelphia Octo: 1: 1752.” (2) At the end, following the words “compleatly demonstrated,” Collinson skipped the equivalent of about three lines, then added in two lines: “See his Kite Experiment” and “to be printed with the rest.” These lines were later struck out. (3) In the intervening space and running on to the right of the two canceled lines appears the following insertion not in Collinson’s hand, but in one which is strikingly like that of William Watson: “I was pleased to hear of the Success of my experiments in France, and that they there begin to Erect points on their buildings. Wee had before placed them upon our Academy and Statehouse Spires.” (4) The paper is endorsed in the hand of a Royal Society clerk: “Letter of Benjamin Franklin Esq to Mr. Peter Collinson F.R.S. concerning an Electrical Kite. Read at R.S. 21 Decemb. 1752. Ph. Trans. XLVII . p. 565.”

These text differences present several puzzles. The heading and date (item 1) have led several writers 8 to believe that the text which follows is an extract of a letter from Franklin to Collinson of October 1, written more than two weeks before the statement was printed in the Gazette . In that case the Gazette text would be an extract from this earlier letter to Collinson. This is possible, but it leaves unexplained Franklin’s undated letter to Collinson, assigned below (p. 376) to the latter part of October, in which he wrote that he was sending, among other items, “my kite experiment in the Pennsylvania Gazette .” If what he had printed in the Gazette was indeed a passage from a letter already sent to Collinson, there would seem to have been no need to send him another copy of it. Conceivably, Collinson’s pen slipped when he wrote “Octo: 1,” as it occasionally did in referring to other Franklin letters, and he should have written “19,” “21,” or “31,” in which case he might have been copying the Gazette statement enclosed in Franklin’s later letter. Subsequent correspondence between the two men does not clarify the point.

The canceled addendum at the bottom (item 2) seems to have been intended as an instruction to a printer. Possibly Collinson first meant this paper for the printer of the 1753 Supplement of Experiments and Observations , and then decided to submit this copy to the Royal Society instead. But the question remains unexplained why he should have written “See his Kite Experiment,” when this document itself is the kite experiment, and is the only account of it we have in Franklin’s own words. The endorsement (item 4) presents no problem. The fact that the paper is lodged in the Royal Society makes it clear that this endorsement was added later for filing purposes after it had been printed in the Philosophical Transactions .

This leaves for consideration item 3, the short paragraph added to Collinson’s paper which mentions the French experiments and the erection of “points” in France and Philadelphia. The facts that it is written in a different hand from Collinson’s and that it is clearly an addition have not been considered by previous commentators. The paragraph has been taken as evidence that lightning rods were erected on the Academy building and the State House (Independence Hall) before October 1, 1752. The words are doubtless Franklin’s, though they have not been traced with certainty to any surviving document of his. If they were in fact part of a letter of October 1 to Collinson which also contained the original text of the statement on the kite experiment, then they must have been added to Collinson’s copy by someone else, probably Watson, who saw the original letter and thought this passage more important than Collinson had done. Or the paragraph may have been part of the later undated letter, probably of late October (the full text of which may not have been printed in the 1753 Supplement), with which Franklin enclosed the item on the kite experiment from the Gazette . Whatever the source, the paragraph must have been written by about November 1, 1752, in order for it to be read to the Royal Society as part of the report on the kite experiment on December 21 and printed as such in the Philosophical Transactions . 9 The probable date for the erection of the two Philadelphia lightning rods is not materially affected in any case. The problem of the source of this added paragraph is not resolved by any printed version of Franklin’s account. The Philosophical Transactions printed the text from Collinson’s copy. The Gentleman’s Magazine and London Magazine and the 1753 Supplement to Experiments and Observations also printed the report, but all three followed the dating and text of the Gazette version, not the Collinson copy. 1

It will be noticed that Franklin’s paper is not really an account of the kite experiment, but rather a brief statement that the experiment had taken place, followed by instructions as to how it could be successfully repeated. Franklin never, so far as is known, wrote out a narrative of his experience. The most detailed account that has survived is that which Joseph Priestley inserted in 1767 in his History of Electricity . There is every reason to believe that he learned the details directly from Franklin, who was in London at the time Priestley wrote the book. Franklin encouraged him to undertake the work and Priestley acknowledged in his preface the information Watson, Franklin, and Canton had supplied him. The account of the kite experiment, as Priestley wrote it about fifteen years after the event, may err in some details through faulty memory on Franklin’s part or misunderstanding on the Englishman’s, but it is probably correct in all major respects. In any case, since it is the nearest thing we have to a contemporary, first-hand account of one of the most famous episodes in Franklin’s career, it is reprinted here directly following Franklin’s statement.

I. Franklin’s Statement

Philadelphia, October 19

As frequent Mention is made in the News Papers from Europe, of the Success of the Philadelphia Experiment for drawing the Electric Fire from Clouds by Means of pointed Rods of Iron erected on high Buildings, &c. it may be agreeable to the Curious to be inform’d, that the same Experiment has succeeded in Philadelphia, tho’ made in a different and more easy Manner, which any one may try, as follows. 2

Make a small Cross of two light Strips of Cedar, the Arms so long as to reach to the four Corners of a large thin Silk Handkerchief when extended; tie the Corners of the Handkerchief to the Extremities of the Cross, so you have the Body of a Kite; which being properly accommodated with a Tail, Loop and String, will rise in the Air, like those made of Paper; but this being of Silk is fitter to bear the Wet and Wind of a Thunder Gust without tearing. To the Top of the upright Stick of the Cross is to be fixed a very sharp pointed Wire, rising a Foot or more above the Wood. To the End of the Twine, next the Hand, is to be tied a silk Ribbon, and where the Twine and the silk join, a Key may be fastened. This Kite is to be raised when a Thunder Gust appears to be coming on, and the Person who holds the String must stand within a Door, or Window, or under some Cover, so that the Silk Ribbon may not be wet; and Care must be taken that the Twine does not touch the Frame of the Door or Window. As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, and the Kite, with all the Twine, will be electrified, and the loose Filaments of the Twine will stand out every Way, and be attracted by an approaching Finger. And when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle. At this Key the Phial may be charg’d; and from Electric Fire thus obtain’d, Spirits may be kindled, and all the other Electric Experiments be perform’d, which are usually done by the Help of a rubbed Glass Globe or Tube; and thereby the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning compleatly demonstrated.

II. Priestley’s Account

To demonstrate, in the completest manner possible, the sameness of the electric fluid with the matter of lightning, Dr. Franklin, astonishing as it must have appeared, contrived actually to bring lightning from the heavens, by means of an electrical kite, which he raised when a storm of thunder was perceived to be coming on. This kite had a pointed wire fixed upon it, by which it drew the lightning from the clouds. This lightning descended by the hempen string, and was received by a key tied to the extremity of it; that part of the string which was held in the hand being of silk, that the electric virtue might stop when it came to the key. He found that the string would conduct electricity even when nearly dry, but that when it was wet, it would conduct it quite freely; so that it would stream out plentifully from the key, at the approach of a person’s finger. 3

At this key he charged phials, and from electric fire thus obtained, he kindled spirits, and performed all other electrical experiments which are usually exhibited by an excited globe or tube.

As every circumstance relating to so capital a discovery as this (the greatest, perhaps, that has been made in the whole compass of philosophy, since the time of Sir Isaac Newton) cannot but give pleasure to all my readers, I shall endeavour to gratify them with the communication of a few particulars which I have from the best authority.

The Doctor, after having published his method of verifying his hypothesis concerning the sameness of electricity with the matter of lightning, was waiting for the erection of a spire in Philadelphia to carry his views into execution; not imagining that a pointed rod, of a moderate height, could answer the purpose; when it occurred to him, that, by means of a common kite, he could have a readier and better access to the regions of thunder than by any spire whatever. Preparing, therefore, a large silk handkerchief, and two cross sticks, of a proper length, on which to extend it; he took the opportunity of the first approaching thunder storm to take a walk into a field, in which there was a shed convenient for his purpose. But dreading the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science, he communicated his intended experiment to no body but his son, who assisted him in raising the kite. 4

The kite being raised, a considerable time elapsed before there was any appearance of its being electrified. One very promising cloud had passed over it without any effect; when, at length, just as he was beginning to despair of his contrivance, he observed some loose threads of the hempen string to stand erect, and to avoid one another, just as if they had been suspended on a common conductor. Struck with this promising appearance, he immediately presented his knucle to the key, and (let the reader judge of the exquisite pleasure he must have felt at that moment) the discovery was complete. He perceived a very evident electric spark. Others succeeded, even before the string was wet, so as to put the matter past all dispute, and when the rain had wet the string, he collected electric fire very copiously. This happened in June 1752, a month after the electricians in France had verified the same theory, but before he heard of any thing they had done.

4 .  The best discussion of this entire topic is I. Bernard Cohen, “The Two Hundredth Anniversary of Benjamin Franklin’s Two Lightning Experiments and the Introduction of the Lightning Rod,” APS Proc , XCVI (1952), 331–66. The present editors are in full agreement with Cohen’s conclusions except, as this headnote will show, those derived specifically from consideration of the Collinson copy of BF ’s statement on the kite experiment.

5 .  Cohen, BF’s Experiments , pp. 104–9, discusses the matter with citations and quotations from various writers.

6 .  See above, III , 365–76.

7 .  Quoted by BF in his letter to John Lining, March 18, 1755 , Exper. and Obser. 1769, p. 323. The originals of BF ’s minutes have not survived.

8 .  See above, III , 472–3

9 .  See above, pp. 19–20.

1 .  See above, p. 116.

2 .  See above, pp. 302–10, 315–17.

3 .  See below, 390–2.

4 .  BF to Collinson, September 1753.

5 .  Writing in 1788 in his autobiography, BF mentions the Dalibard and Delor successes with the “Philadelphia experiments” and then adds simply and with disappointing brevity: “I will not swell this Narrative with an Account of that capital Experiment, nor of the infinite Pleasure I receiv’d in the Success of a similar one I made soon after with a Kite at Philadelphia, as both are to be found in the Histories of Electricity.” Par. Text edit., p. 386.

6 .  See below, p. 408.

7 .  The Collinson copy is reproduced in facsimile in APS Proc. , XCVI , pp. 334–5.

8 .  Notably Cohen in the works cited in the first two footnotes to this headnote, and Carl Van Doren in Franklin , p. 169, and Autobiographical Writings , p. 76.

9 .  The paragraph could be from some now missing letter of later date than about Nov. 1, 1752, only in the unlikely circumstance that it was added to the Collinson copy between the reading of the paper on December 21 and the transmission of this number of Phil. Trans. to the printer sometime in 1753.

1 .  Gent. Mag. , XXII (1752), 560–1; London Mag. , XXI (1752), 607–8; Supplemental Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Part II (London, 1753), pp. 106–8. Gent. Mag. and the 1753 Supplement both add the initials “B.F.” at the end; London Mag. omits the first paragraph and begins “Make a small cross, …” but otherwise follows the Gazette version.

2 .  In 1760 and later printed editions: “which is as follows:”

3 .  At this point Priestley inserted a footnote reference to Exper. and Obser ., p. 106, where BF ’s statement is printed.

4 .  At this time William Franklin was at least 21 years old (see above, III , 474), not the child shown in the well-known Currier and Ives print depicting the scene. There are a number of other errors in the picture.

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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

Famous historical figures.

In June of 1752 Benjamin Franklin began to study the atmosphere with kites,which led to extensive meteorological work that continued for 150 years, until the airplane was developed.

Franklin was trying to determine whether the earth and sky functioned like the conducting layers of a Leyden jar in the presence of an electric charge. 

The memorably demonstrated experiment in Philadelphia did prove that lightning is electricity. In June of 1752 the experiment was begun in some secrecy, with only the assistance and witness of Franklin’s 21 year old son. Franklin dreaded the possibility of the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science.

Franklin waited until there was a storm and then proceeded to fly his kite made of silk, the silk would tolerate the pouring rain better than other materials available at that time. They waited a very long time and even considered calling off the experiment when Ben noticed a few threads of silk tied to the key were standing straight out, he then touched the back of his knuckle to the key and felt a shock. His enormous pleasure at proving his theory is legendary.

It’s amazing that Franklin was not killed during this experiment, as others who tried to reproduce it were. Many people trying the experiment according to Franklin instructions were knocked on their butts. Even Franklin admits that he had killed many a turkey in his trials and had himself been knocked unconscious by a charge from one of his Leyden jars. He eventually learned to ground his wires.

Franklin’s interest and experience with kites were not all work. Traction, the use of kites to pull boats, carriages, sleds, and other objects is one of their earliest applications. One of the first instances recorded in the west is a boyhood experience of Benjamin Franklin.

One fine summer day young Ben was out flying a paper kite. He came upon a pond which was a mile broad. He tied his kite off and proceeded to swim, and think about his kite. He wanted to combine these two pleasurable activities.

A brief account in young Franklin’s own words from his autobiographical writings goes as follows:”…I found that by lying on my back and holding the stick in my hands. I was drawn along the surface of the water in a very agreeable manner. Having then engaged another boy to carry my clothes round the pond, to a place which I pointed out to him on the other side. I began to cross the pond with my kite, which carried me quite over without the least fatigue and with the greatest pleasure imaginable.” During the winter Franklin also used kites to pull him along while ice skating.

There has been a great resurgence of kite traction over the last few years, with New Zealand’s Peter Lynn’s invention of the kite buggy: a low riding three wheeled buggy that is steered with the feet while the pilot is pulled along by a variety of kites that he/she flies. It is not uncommon to reach speeds of 30mph or more.

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Ben Franklin Kite Experiment

The Ben Franklin Kite Experiment is one that most of us have heard something about.

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The most common belief is that he flew a kite into some storm clouds and received an electric shock, discovering electricity. Whilst this is not strictly true, this experiment was a major contribution to physics, increasing our knowledge of natural phenomena.

Benjamin Franklin was one of those rare men who excelled in many fields of expertise, as a politician, journalist and author. He is regarded as one of the major contributors to American culture and science, the only non-president to appear on dollar bills. He was a notable inventor, creating bi-focal glasses and made some interesting discoveries about how ocean currents and winds worked.

The Real Facts

The first thing to note is that Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity - the principle was known long before that and primitive capacitors and batteries were already in use by researchers.

Static electricity had been known about for thousands of years, although never fully understood, with most scientists believing that it was an 'invisible liquid'.

Franklin's contribution was that he believed that lightning was a form of static electricity on a huge scale, and designed a number of experiments to try to ascertain the truth.

After designing experiments with conducting lightning rods, which proved dangerous, he settled upon using a kite.

The idea was to fly the kite into the storm clouds and conduct electricity down the kite string. A key was then attached near the bottom, to conduct the electricity and create a charge.

The kite was struck by lightning and, when Franklin moved his hand towards the key, a spark jumped across and he felt a shock, proving that lightning was electrical in nature.

Whilst this seems like a stupid method, the evidence showed that he actually intended for the electricity to jump into a primitive form of capacitor known as a Leyden jar, and that touching the key was purely accidental.

After the experiments with lightning conductors, it would appear that he knew enough about grounding to insulate himself from serious harm.

He was also the first scientist to use the terms positive and negative charge, possibly the basis of the myth that he discovered electricity. His discoveries in this field led to further research into the nature of electricity, influencing the invention of batteries by Volta, and the electric motor by Faraday in the early nineteenth century.

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Martyn Shuttleworth (Jun 24, 2008). Ben Franklin Kite Experiment. Retrieved Sep 01, 2024 from Explorable.com: https://explorable.com/ben-franklin-kite-experiment

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Scientific observations and discoveries

Positive and negative electric charges.

His discovery of positive and negative electric charge led to the invention of batteries by Volta and the electric motor.

Storm clouds are full of electric charges

Flying a kite in a storm was perhaps Franklin’s most famous experiment that led to the invention of the lightning rod. Electricity had been known for thousands of years but not fully understood.

Franklin speculated about the usefulness of lightning rods for several years. Since Philadelphia has a flat geography he was waiting for the Christ Church to be built so that he could complete his experiment. One day it occurred to him that he could conduct the experiment by flying a kite. With the help of his son William he attached a metal key to the string of the kite connected to a Leyden jar so that it could accumulate electricity. He kept dry by retreating into a barn, the end of the string was also kept dry to insulate himself. The kite was not struck by lightning but it drew electricity to the key and Leyden jar. It appears that he knew enough about grounding to protect himself from being electro shocked.

When the stormed passed over his kite the negative charges passed into his kite, to the key and to the Leyden jar. When he moved his hand near the key he received a shock because the negative charge attracted the positive charge in his body. This experiment also led to the discovery of positive and negative electric charges.

Mapping the Gulf Stream  

The presence of the Gulf Stream had been known since Spanish sailors reached the Americas but it was not mapped until Franklin took interest in it.

Franklin’s cousin, Timothy Folger, who was a Nantucket whaling captain, helped him record the stream. The map was published in 1786 with notes and observations.

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Meteorology.

He was also puzzled by hail in summer. He correctly deduced, but had no way to prove, that the air at high altitudes of the atmosphere was colder than the air below it, allowing rain to freeze before hitting the ground.

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Every edition of a newspaper hits the streets with the intention of going down in history, and the Pennsylvania Gazette achieved that goal on 19 October 1752. On that day, the owner of the publication put his name to an article, not to editorialise on some political issue, but with another more unusual purpose: to report the success of an experiment that had used everyday implements, such as a kite and a key, to demonstrate “the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning.”

That publisher was also a politician, inventor, scientist and one of the founding fathers of the United States. But despite the countless activities of Benjamin Franklin (17 January 1706 – 17 April 1790), the kite experiment has endured throughout the world as his best-known feat , considered as the birth of electrical science. In fact, the idea is widespread that Franklin discovered electricity thanks to a lightning bolt that struck his kite, proof that the development of history has created an amalgam of realities, myths and unknowns.

The truth is that in that article Franklin did not attribute to himself the execution of the experiment, which together with the scant details has led some scholars to argue that neither the kite nor its flight ever existed. After the brief article by Franklin, the only detailed contemporary reference appeared in 1767 in History and Present Status of Electricity , the work of the English chemist Joseph Priestley , who allegedly gathered the data from Franklin himself.

In 2003, Tom Tucker published Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and His Electric Kite Hoax (Public Affairs Books), arguing that the history of the kite had been a Franklin’s joke on the British Royal Society for not taking him seriously as a scientist. Tucker went so far as to try to reproduce the experiment, following the instructions published by Franklin, apparently without success: neither the kite flew, nor could he do what Franklin said he had done.

The origin of the lightning rod

But what was the experiment supposed to do? It is worth emphasising that Franklin did not discover electricity . This natural phenomenon had been known at least since ancient Egypt through the discharges of certain fish, and in the year 1600 the English physician William Gilbert coined the term in Latin electricus—meaning “like amber”—in reference to the property of this material to attract objects when rubbed. In the eighteenth century, static electricity was already a subject of study for several scientists, and Franklin became interested in it in the 1740s thanks to a gift from his friend, the English botanist Peter Collinson: a simple glass tube that was given an electric charge upon being rubbed.

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However, the relationship between this curiosity and the deadly lightning caused by storms had not yet been proven. Between 1749 and 1750, Franklin wrote to Collinson suggesting this relationship and a method to demonstrate it: by erecting a pointed iron rod atop a building and connecting it to the ground by a wire , he suggested that it would be possible to transmit electricity from the clouds to the ground and thus dissipate it to avoid lightning strikes.

Therefore, Franklin invented the lightning rod , but through a curious half-failure: in fact his invention was not able to prevent lightning as he believed, but it would offer a path of least resistance so that the bolt of electricity passed through it and not the structure, achieving in any case the goal of preserving buildings. Collinson, intrigued by Franklin’s proposal, read his letters to the Royal Society, of which he was a member, and soon the American’s ideas spread throughout the European scientific community.

As a result, on 10 May 1752 the Frenchman Thomas-François Dalibard carried out for the first time the Philadelphia experiment , proving that the lightning rod was capable of stealing electricity from thunderclouds . In the following months, the same experiment was repeated in England. For his part and without knowledge of these developments, in June of that year Franklin decided to abandon his idea of ​​waiting for the erection of a new spire at Christ Church in Philadelphia, opting instead for a bolder solution: elevating his lightning rod to the sky on a kite.

Franklin’s experiment

Perhaps Franklin might have abandoned his plan if he had known that lightning could hit his device and cost him his life . But “lightning did not strike his kite,” archaeologist and historian Michael Brian Schiffer, author of Draw the Lightning Down: Benjamin Franklin and Electrical Technology in the Age of Enlightenment (University of California Press, 2003), tells OpenMind . Instead, the wet string of the kite transmitted the electricity from the clouds to the iron key and from there to a Leyden jar, a primitive capacitor. “I believe Franklin conducted the experiment, but it is generally misunderstood by critics and sceptics, probably because it wasn’t well described,” Schiffer adds.

This continues to be the version accepted by most experts today. “I don’t think Franklin would have lied to Priestley, whom he admired,” the historian Henry W. Brands, author of The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin , (Doubleday, 2000) tells OpenMind . For his part, the atmospheric scientist E. Philip Krider, specialist in thunderstorms and author of several studies on Franklin’s science, points out to OpenMind that the experiment was later repeated and published by other scientists, such as John Lining in 1753. “I have no doubt that Franklin did perform the kite experiment in just the way he said he did,” he says. But in the end, and as Brands observes, “there is no proof, so one can’t be sure.”

Javier Yanes

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Benjamin Franklin was one of the leaders of the American Revolution and Founding Fathers of the United States, helped draft the Declaration of Independence and was one of its signers. Franklin was a man of many talents and among others he was a printer, journalist, publisher, author, philanthropist, abolitionist, public servant, scientist, librarian, diplomat, and inventor. What Did Benjamin Franklin Invent? Benjamin Franklin made important contributions in many fields. His scientific achievements in science and invention include the Franklin stove, bifocals, medical catheter, swim fins, library chair, the odometer, glass armonica and more (a few of this devices he only improved or came up with his own version). In electricity he invented the lightning rod, discovered the principle of conservation of charge and identified positive and negative electrical charges. But he’s best remembered for the Franklin’s kite experiment (see below), and no wonder that sometimes he’s referred to as “Master of Electricity”. In literature and journalism he’s best known for writing, printing and publishing the famous Poor Richard's Almanac and The Pennsylvania Gazette . Franklin was also a diplomat and represented the United States in France during the American Revolution, and secured the French support that helped to make independence of the United States possible. He was also a civil servant and in 1775 Franklin became the first U.S. Postmaster General. Franklin's Kite Experiment Ben Franklin himself never wrote the story of the most dramatic of his experiments. All that is known about what he did on that famous day, of no known for sure date, comes from two resources: Joseph Priestley's account, published fifteen years afterwards in 1767 appears to be based on Franklin’s account himself through close and intense correspondence between them. ( The History and Present State of Electricity, with original experiments , by Joseph Priestley, 1775 Vol. I pp 216-217 ) A letter in which Franklin described his kite experiment that was written in Philadelphia on October 1752 and was addressed to Peter Collinson, who had earlier provided Franklin with some simple apparatus for performing electrical experiments. A copy of the original letter is at present in the archives of the Royal Society in London. http://www.aip.org... (Letter XI) According to these sources, Franklin, on June 1752, built a kite with a sharp pointed wire attached to the kite to attract easier electrical charges (working like a lightning rod). He attached a key to the end of the kite string, near his holding hand, but held the kite with a silk ribbon also tied to the key for insulation security reasons. A thin metal wire, connected also to the key, was inserted into a Leyden jar, a container for storing electrical charges. Then, on a thunderstorm he let the kite fly. The kite was struck by lightning and cloud sparks (electrical charges / static electricity) flew through the wet kite and string to the key and inside the Leyden jar. After he noticed that loose fibers of the string were bristling outward because the string was charged with static electricity, he intentionally reached out his knuckle to touch the key and he felt an electrical shock. This experiment - the electrical shock to Franklin’s hand, the charged Leyden jar and the string's bristling fibers - proves beyond any doubt that lightning is an electric phenomenon. Many cast doubt at the possibility that Franklin really performed this experiment. For example, Tommy Tucker, a science writer, offers two reasons in particular for rejecting the kite story. One is that in describing the experiment in his newspaper, The Pennsylvania Gazette , Franklin does not say that he did it. The other is that the experiment as Franklin described it would be unlikely to succeed because of the design of the kite and the difficulty of flying it under the conditions outlined by Franklin. ( Tucker, Tom. Bolt of fate; Benjamin Franklin and his electric kite hoax. Public Affairs, 2003. ) On The other hand, others believe that Franklin indeed performed this experiment. Bernard Cohen, states that Franklin was in close contact with Priestley and therefore it is safe to assume that Priestley’s detailed report is based on Franklin himself. ( Benjamin Franklin's Science I. Bernard Cohen, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London, England, 1990 ) http://books.google.com... Schiffer, professor of anthropology at the University of Arizona, accepts the tradition of the kite experiment, although he says it is "a long and inconclusive story." Schiffer, Draw the Lightning Down, (2003, University of California Press ) Others think that basically Franklin performed this experiment but with some required changes and not the way it is often described, namely, he did tie a key to the kite string, fly it in a thunderstorm, and wait for it to be struck by lightning - had he done so, most chances are that he wouldn’t survive it without to be killed. Evidence, from his writings, shows that he was aware of the dangers of electricity and to other possible safe alternatives to perform this dangerous experiment - among them, to draw sparks directly into the Leyden jar, from the key, without the need to touch it and as shown by his invention of the lightning rod using of the concept of electrical ground. http://www.mos.org... It doesn’t really matter if Benjamin Franklin indeed performed the kite experiment in reality. What really matters is the question if this experiment (or maybe only a theoretical proposal) is founded on sound scientific principles and as a matter of fact it is a possible experiment that enables the conclusion that lightning is an electric phenomenon. Since we think that the answers to these questions are “yes” than we also think that Franklin should be fully credited with this experiment. There is some evidence that also Jacques de Romas, a Frenchmen, invented the famous kite experiment independently. Romas produced very long sparks in front of enthusiastic crowds in 1753. But regretfully only the name of Franklin is remembered. ( The noteworthy involvement of Jacques de Romas in the experiments on the electric nature of lightning , Berger Gérard ; Ait Amar Sonia, Journal of electrostatics, 2009, vol. 67, no2-3, pp. 531-535. ) The Invention of the Lightning Rod In 1750, Benjamin Franklin published a proposal for an experiment to determine if lightning was electricity. He proposed extending a conductor into a cloud that appeared to have the potential to become a thunderstorm. If electricity existed in the cloud, the conductor could be used to extract it. Basically this experiment is the same as the one with the kite except the fact that the pointed conductor in the case of the kite is much higher and closer to the charged clouds. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a 40-foot (12 m)-tall iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. There is evidence that in the early 1750s Franklin himself tried the iron rod method for experimentation. It is clear that Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. He noted that conductors with a sharp rather than a smooth point were capable of discharging silently (like the case with the kite), and at a far greater distance. He surmised that this knowledge could be of use in protecting buildings from lightning, by attaching upright rods of iron, made sharp and gilt to prevent rusting, and from the foot of those rods a wire down to the outside of the Building into the Ground. Following a series of experiments on Franklin's own house, lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the University of Pennsylvania) and the Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) in 1752. http://www.benjaminfranklinhouse.org... In the early 1750s, Franklin erected a lightning rod on top of his house for the purposes of experimentation, protection and, perhaps, to get electricity for experimentation without having to go through the laborious process of creating it himself via a primitive battery. Franklin's "iron rod" drew lightning down into his house. The rod was connected to a bell and a second bell was connected to a grounded wire. Every time there was an electrical storm, the bells would ring and sparks would illuminate his house (see below). http://www.ushistory.org... Basically, the kite experiment and the lightning rod are based on the same scientific principle that electric charges try to find their way in the shortest and easiest way to the ground. In the case of the kite experiment it was the wet kite and string, the key and Franklins body that grounded the clouds static electricity, and in the case of the lightning rod it is the sharp metallic rod. Follow in the Steps of Ben Franklin Don’t try to repeat the kite experiment or to erect lightning rods on building tops or elsewhere since those experiments are lethally dangerous. Warning : experiments with electricity should be performed under the supervision of teachers or adults familiar with electricity safety procedures. Especially, take in account that experiments with capacitors (Leyden jars) can produce lethal high voltage shocks dangerous to your health. Build a Leyden Jar Franklin used Leyden jars in many of his experiments as seen above. Among others, he built, from a few Leyden jars connected in parallel, a primitive kind of battery. A Leyden jar is a primitive, first invented, capacitor where the dielectric is a glass jar or a plastic container and the metal plates are aluminum or metal foils coating the inside and outside of the jar or container; the container is closed by a foil coated cap. A wire or chain is connected to the inside coating and its free end is passed through the cap. The two electrodes of the Leyden jar are the outer foil coating and the wire or chain connected or touching the inside foil. Take in account that in order to get good results the Leyden jar must be grounded – put on any quite big metal surface. Wrinkles in the foil can be a major leakage source and is recommended to apply melted paraffin to the top of the both coatings for this end. You can charge your Leyden jar with an electrostatic generator, such as a Wimshurst machine or a Van de Graaf generator by connecting the machine’s two connectors to the Leyden jar’s electrodes. If you do not have an electrostatic machine you can also do it with an electrophorus or simply by rubbing fur. After your Leyden jar is charged you can discharge it and get sparks. The following links will help you in this effort: Build Your Benjamin Franklin Lightning Bells As mentioned above, Franklin erected a lightning rod on top of his house. The rod was connected to a bell and a second bell was connected to a grounded wire and a clapper or ball was suspended between them from an insulated stand. Every time there was an electrical storm approaching, the bells would ring. This electrostatic device was invented in 1742 by Andrew Gordon, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University at Erfurt, Germany. Franklin used Gordon’s idea in order to build his storm alarm. We are not going to connect our bells to any lightning roads since this is extremely dangerous. Instead we are going to use either a Wimshurst Static Electric Machine or a Van de Graaff generator or a TV set as our static electricity resource. How does this interesting device works? The lightning rod will charge the bell which is connected to it. Then this bell will attract the clapper because of rearrangement of electrical charges inside the clapper through charge induction. When the clapper hits the charged bell it will become charged to the same charge potential and therefore it will be repelled. Since the opposite bell is charged oppositely this will also attract the clapper towards it. When the ball touches the second bell its charge is transferred to the clapper and as a result the clapper is charged the same and is repelled again, and the process repeats. For more information: Further Reading Did Ben Franklin's Famous Kite Experiment Actually Happen? If you're an American, you no doubt learned about Benjamin Franklin's  kite experiment at some point during your education. You know the basics already: Scientist-statesman Ben Franklin tied a key to the end of a kite string, took the kite out during a thunderstorm, and waited for lightning to strike. When it did, Franklin was able to prove that lightning is a form of electricity. Franklin's experiment is a source of pride for many Americans, especially when so many of history's great experiments are attributed to Europeans. But did Franklin's kite experiment ever really happen? Or is it just another one of the myths we're raised to believe about our nation's Founding Fathers ? According to the National Archives , the first report of Franklin's kite experiment was published in the October 19, 1752 edition of  The Pennsylvania Gazette , and was written by Franklin himself. In the article, Franklin encourages any curious individual to try repeating the experiment, and explains how they may do so. First, construct a kite with a metal wire on its top. Tie a metal key to the end of the kite's string, then add a silk ribbon to hold — and make sure not to get the silk wet (so you won't electrocute yourself) by standing "under some cover." When lighting strikes the kite, electricity will travel down the wet twine to the key, which will become noticeably electrified. Thus, we can conclude that lightning = electricity. Eureka! Benjamin Franklin wrote about the kite experiment, but historians doubt the details There's one thing that's particularly surprising about Franklin's 1752 account of the kite experiment in The Pennsylvania Gazette : Nowhere does Franklin ever claim that he performed the experiment. This has puzzled historians, some of whom have suggested that Franklin may have been reporting on an experiment performed by someone else, or simply describing a thought experiment of his. But, per the National Archives , a 1767 account of the kite experiment written by a friend of Franklin's, Joseph Priestley, confirms that Franklin did indeed conduct the experiment himself. Even so, some historians doubt whether the kite experiment actually happened the way Franklin and Priestley described. In his 2003 book Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and His Electric Kite Hoax , historian Tom Tucker suggests that the experiment never occurred at all. Tucker points out that Franklin's description of the kite experiment was much less detailed than his typical writing style when describing his own research. Further, Tucker suggests that the kite experiment as described in the Gazette  wouldn't actually work — but other historians, like Michael Schiffer , have disagreed with Tucker on this point. Additionally, the MythBusters discovered that Ben Franklin would have instantly died after touching a key charged with the electricity from a direct lightning hit. But, per Mental Floss , many historians have interpreted the Gazette passage to suggest that Franklin's kite only collected ambient electrical charge from storm clouds, and was never directly hit by a lightning bolt. Franklin's kite experiment wasn't the first to link lightning and electricity Ultimately, historians are divided over whether or not Franklin's famous kite experiment ever did happen, but most agree that it could have happened. It's also worth pointing out, however, that Franklin's supposed kite flight was not the first experiment to conclusively prove the link between lightning and electricity. In 1750, per Mental Floss , Franklin sent a letter to his friend, fellow scientist Peter Collinson. In the letter, Franklin suggested that the link between lightning and electricity could be proven via experiment — not by a kite, but by a "lightning rod" on top of a tall building. Unfortunately, no building in Philadelphia was tall enough for the purpose at the time, so Franklin was unable to perform the experiment himself. But a translated version of Franklin's letter began to cause quite a stir among the scientific community in France. In May of 1752, French naturalist Thomas-Francois Dalibard recreated the experiment Franklin laid out in his letter. Dalibard published the results, confirming the relationship between lightning and electricity, as well as the efficacy of lightning rods. It wasn't until June 1752 that Franklin became fed up of the lack of tall buildings in Philadelphia and (supposedly) performed his kite experiment. While Franklin's experiment wasn't the first to confirm lightning's status as electricity , the actual first experiment was still inspired by his writing, so it's appropriate to give credit for the discovery to Franklin. When Benjamin Franklin Shocked Himself While Attempting to Electrocute a Turkey The statesman was embarrassed by the mishap—no doubt a murder most fowl Timothy J. Jorgensen Most everyone knows that Benjamin Franklin was not only a famous statesman but also a great inventor and scientist , particularly in the field of electricity. He actually introduced much of the electrical terminology still in use today, including battery, conductor, positive charge, negative charge, current and discharge. Among his many electrical experiments, the one for which Franklin is most celebrated is his successful attempt to capture the electricity of thunderclouds in a jar. But this victory might never have happened if not for a painful lesson he’d learned from one of his lesser-known tests, an experiment performed two years earlier, in December 1750. During that failed endeavor , Franklin was traumatized and humbled by an unexpected foe: a turkey. Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life A fresh look at electricity and its powerful role in life on Earth Franklin’s strategy for the June 1752 experiment —inspired, perhaps, by that avian accident—was to fly a kite with a wire pointing up from its top near a passing thundercloud. He reasoned that static electricity in the cloud would be attracted to the wire and flow down the wet kite string on its way to the ground. But he was concerned that if he were to hold the end of the kite string directly, he might very well be killed as the electricity passed through him. So, he decided to take precautions by tying the end of the kite string to a metal key and connecting the key to a silk ribbon. He would control the kite by holding the silk ribbon rather than the string. Because dry silk is an excellent electrical insulator, Franklin felt it would provide him the needed protection against the electricity. To ensure the silk ribbon remained dry, he flew the kite while standing in a small rain shelter. Sure enough, when the kite was in the sky, static electricity moved down the wet string as far as the key—but not through the silk ribbon to his body. Franklin then touched the metal key to an electrode protruding from the top of a Leyden jar (an electricity-storing glass jar recently invented by Dutch physicist Pieter van Musschenbroek). He’d captured the thundercloud’s electricity in a glass jar, making history in the process. And, just as importantly, he’d live to tell about it. Given the magnitude of electricity that Franklin was handling, his precautions may seem insufficient to modern observers; nevertheless, he did consider the dangers and had planned accordingly to protect his life. Precisely because he survived, his kite experiment is now world famous . The reason why Franklin took such detailed precautions may very well have been due to his earlier encounter with a turkey. Besides electricity, Franklin had a vested interest in the birds. Popular lore suggests he wanted the wild turkey rather than the bald eagle—both animals native to North America—to be named the national bird of the United States. But the Franklin Institute , a Philadelphia-based science museum and education center that bears the politician’s name, deems this story a myth. In truth, the organization writes on its website, Franklin simply criticized the Great Seal’s original eagle design for too closely resembling a turkey, which he called “a much more respectable Bird, ... a little vain & silly, [but] a Bird of Courage.” Franklin’s love of turkeys stemmed primarily from his gastronomic interests . He was very fond of food, and turkey was one of his favorite dishes. For some reason, he believed a turkey killed with electricity would be tastier than one dispatched by conventional means: decapitation. As fellow scientist William Watson wrote in 1751, Franklin claimed that “birds kill’d in this manner eat uncommonly tender.” The statesman set out to develop a standard procedure for preparing turkeys with static electricity collected in Leyden jars. One day, while performing a demonstration of the proper way to electrocute a turkey, he mistakenly touched the electrified wire intended for the turkey while his other hand was grounded , thereby diverting the full brunt of the turkey-killing charge into his own body. Writing to his brother John two days later, on Christmas Day in 1750, Franklin detailed what happened next: The company present ... say that the flash was very great and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterward found [that] it raised a round swelling where the fire entered as big as half a pistol bullet, by which you may judge of the quickness of the electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than the sound, light or animal sensation. Acknowledging the oversight that led to this shock (“I might safely enough had done if I had not held the chain in the other hand,” he wrote), Franklin attempted to describe the intense pain he’d experienced: I then felt what I know not how well to describe—a universal blow through my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent, quick shaking of my body, which, gradually remitting, my sense as gradually returned, and I then thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do. That part of my hand and fingers which held the chain was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of my neck, which continued till the next morning, but wore off. Nothing remains now of this shock but a soreness in my breast bone, which feels as if I had been bruised. I did not fall but suppose I should have been knocked down if I had received the stroke in my head. The whole was over in less than a minute. Franklin appears to have been very embarrassed by his foolish behavior with the turkey. In the letter to his brother, he ended by saying, “You may communicate this to Mr. Bowdoin [a friend who was also experimenting with electricity] as a caution to him, but do not make it more public, for I am ashamed to have been guilty of so notorious a blunder.” It’s probably safe to say that all the turkey-eating enthusiasts who witnessed Franklin’s accident that day decided decapitation was still the best way to prepare turkeys for the table. After all, the kite experiment never would have happened if Franklin’s turkey experiment had killed him first. Adapted from   Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life   by Timothy J. Jorgensen. Copyright © 2021 by Timothy J. Jorgensen. Reprinted by permission of Princeton University Press. Get the latest History stories in your inbox? Click to visit our Privacy Statement . A Note to our Readers Smithsonian magazine participates in affiliate link advertising programs. If you purchase an item through these links, we receive a commission. Timothy J. Jorgensen | READ MORE Timothy J. Jorgensen is a professor at the Georgetown University School of Medicine. He is author of the award-winning book  Strange Glow: The Story of Radiation  (Princeton, 2016), and the newly published  Spark: The Life of Electricity and the Electricity of Life  (Princeton, 2021). He lives in Rockville, MD. Franklin's Lightning Rod What would you think if you saw a man chasing a thunder and lightning storm on horseback you would probably wonder what on earth he was trying to do. well, if you lived in the 1700s and knew benjamin franklin, this is just what you might see during a terrible storm. ben was fascinated by storms; he loved to study them. if he were alive today, we could probably add "storm-chaser" to his long list of titles.. It was in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1746 that Franklin first stumbled upon other scientists' electrical experiments. He quickly turned his home into a little laboratory, using machines made out of items he found around the house. During one experiment, Ben accidentally shocked himself. In one of his letters, he described the shock as "...a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body..." (He also had a feeling of numbness in his arms and the back of his neck that gradually wore off.) Franklin spent the summer of 1747 conducting a series of groundbreaking experiments with electricity. He wrote down all of his results and ideas for future experiments in letters to Peter Collinson, a fellow scientist and friend in London who was interested in publishing his work. By July, Ben used the terms positive and negative (plus and minus) to describe electricity instead of the previously used words " vitreous " and " resinous ." Franklin described the concept of an electrical battery in a letter to Collinson in the spring of 1749, but he wasn't sure how it could be useful. Later the same year, he explained what he believed were similarities between electricity and lightning, such as the color of the light, its crooked direction, crackling noise, and other things. There were other scientists who believed that lightning was electricity, but Franklin was determined to find a method of proving it. By 1750, in addition to wanting to prove that lightning was electricity, Franklin began to think about protecting people, buildings, and other structures from lightning. This grew into his idea for the lightning rod. Franklin described an iron rod about 8 or 10 feet long that was sharpened to a point at the end. He wrote , "the electrical fire would, I think, be drawn out of a cloud silently before it could come near enough to strike..." Two years later, Franklin decided to try his own lightning experiment. Surprisingly, he never wrote letters about the legendary kite experiment; someone else wrote the only account 15 years after it took place. In June of 1752, Franklin was in Philadelphia, waiting for the steeple on top of Christ Church to be completed for his experiment (the steeple would act as the " lightning rod "). He grew impatient and decided that a kite would be able to get close to the storm clouds just as well. Ben needed to figure out what he would use to attract an electrical charge; he decided on a metal key and attached it to the kite. Then, he tied the kite string to an insulating silk ribbon for the knuckles of his hand. Even though this was a very dangerous experiment, (you can see what our lightning rod at the top of the page looks like after getting struck), some people believe that Ben wasn't injured because he didn't conduct his test during the worst part of the storm. At the first sign of the key receiving an electrical charge from the air, Franklin knew that lightning was a form of electricity. His 21-year-old son William was the only witness to the event. Two years before the kite and key experiment, Ben had observed that a sharp iron needle would conduct electricity away from a charged metal sphere. He first theorized that lightning might be preventable by using an elevated iron rod connected to the earth to empty static from a cloud. Franklin articulated these thoughts as he pondered the usefulness of a lightning rod: "May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix, on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle...Would not these pointed rods probably draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible mischief!" Franklin began to advocate lightning rods that had sharp points. His English colleagues favored blunt-tipped lightning rods, reasoning that sharp ones attracted lightning and increased the risk of strikes; they thought blunt rods were less likely to be struck. King George III had his palace equipped with a blunt lightning rod. The decision became a political statement when it came time to equip the colonies' buildings with lightning rods. The favored pointed lightning rod expressed support for Franklin's theories of protecting public buildings and the rejection of theories supported by the King. The English thought this was just another way for the flourishing colonies to be disobedient to them. Franklin's lightning rods could soon be found protecting many buildings and homes. The lightning rod constructed on the dome of the State House in Maryland was the largest "Franklin" lightning rod ever attached to a public or private building in Ben's lifetime. It was built in accordance with his recommendations and has had only one recorded instance of lightning damage. The pointed lightning rod placed on the State House and other buildings became a symbol of the ingenuity and independence of a young, thriving nation, as well as the intellect and inventiveness of Benjamin Franklin. 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Podcast A Practical Guide to the Cosmos Archives & Oddities Ingenious: The Evolution of Innovation The Road to 2050 Science Stories Spark of Science That's B.S. (Bad Science) Group Visits Plan an Event 370 IMAGES Kite Experiment on Electricity by Benjamin Franklin... and others Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment Photos and Premium High Res Chapter 6 Electric Charge and Electric Field Did Benjamin Franklin really discover electricity with a kite and key Benjamin Franklin, Kite Experiment Poster Print by Science Source Benjamin Franklin experiment using a kite to investigate … stock image VIDEO Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment #fyp #fypシ #history #shorts Benjamin Franklin's Unknown Inventions Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment: Shocking Truth Revealed! #short #history #positive History Stretched: Ben Franklin's Kite Experiment The Myth of the Kite and Ben Franklin COMMENTS Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment: What Do We Know? Even if Franklin's kite and key experiment did happen, it didn't play out the way many people think it did. Contrary to popular myths, Franklin didn't conduct the experiment to prove the ... Benjamin Franklin and the Kite Experiment Here's how the experiment worked: Franklin constructed a simple kite and attached a wire to the top of it to act as a lightning rod. To the bottom of the kite he attached a hemp string, and to that he attached a silk string. Why both? The hemp, wetted by the rain, would conduct an electrical charge quickly. Kite experiment 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. Kite Experiment Flying a kite in a storm was perhaps Benjamin Franklin's most famous experiment that led to the invention of the lightning rod and the understanding of positive and negative charges. The connection between electricity and lightning was known but not fully understood. By conducting the kite experiment Franklin proved that lighting was an electrical discharge and realized that it can be ... Did Benjamin Franklin really discover electricity with a kite and key An illustration of Benjamin Franklin conducting his kite-and-key experiment during a thunderstorm. (Image credit: Keith Lance via Getty Images) A few publications at the time reported on the ... Ben Franklin's Kite Experiment An Account of the Kite Experiment. "Before that he had thought of another way of proving his theory, and with the help of his electrical kite had drawn lightning from a cloud. The episode of the kite, so firm and fixed in legend, turns out to be dim and mystifying in fact. Franklin himself never wrote the story of the most dramatic of his ... The True Story Behind Ben Franklin's Lightning Experiment It was exactly one month after the Dalibard experiment, on June 10, 1752, that Franklin (supposedly) performed his famous kite and key experiment. Franklin stood outside under a shelter during a ... Ben Franklin's electricty experiments: How Franklin made his kite How Franklin Made His Kite. Written by Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson, October 19, 1752. Phil. Mus. of Art ... spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be performed, which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning completely ... Benjamin Franklin flies kite during thunderstorm In the summer of 1752—possibly on the 10th of June— Benjamin Franklin flies a kite during a thunderstorm to collect ambient electrical charge in a Leyden jar, enabling him to demonstrate the ... The Kite Experiment, 19 October 1752 The Kite Experiment. I. Printed in The Pennsylvania Gazette, October 19, 1752; also copy: The Royal Society. II. Printed in Joseph Priestley, The History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments (London, 1767), pp. 179-81. Franklin was the first scientist to propose that the identity of lightning and electricity could be ... Benjamin Franklin's Inventions & Kite Experiment Explained If the accounts are to be believed - including a letter by Franklin in the Pennsylvania Gazette - he set out in June 1752 to prove his theory that lightning was of an electrical nature. His method was to fly a kite in a storm, with a metal key attached. Benjamin Franklin's experiment with kite and key (Photo by Getty Images) This picked up ... Kites The memorably demonstrated experiment in Philadelphia did prove that lightning is electricity. In June of 1752 the experiment was begun in some secrecy, with only the assistance and witness of Franklin's 21 year old son. Franklin dreaded the possibility of the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science. Ben Franklin Kite Experiment A key was then attached near the bottom, to conduct the electricity and create a charge. The kite was struck by lightning and, when Franklin moved his hand towards the key, a spark jumped across and he felt a shock, proving that lightning was electrical in nature. Whilst this seems like a stupid method, the evidence showed that he actually ... Scientific observations and discoveries Franklin discovered positive and negative electric charges by conducting experiments with electricity using the Leyden Jar. He proved his theory by performing his kite experiment during a storm. When the stormed passed over his kite the negative charges passed into his kite, to the key and to the Leyden jar. When he moved his hand near the key ... Lightning and Sparks: Did Benjamin Franklin's Kite ... But despite the countless activities of Benjamin Franklin (17 January 1706 - 17 April 1790), the kite experiment has endured throughout the world as his best-known feat, considered as the birth of electrical science. In fact, the idea is widespread that Franklin discovered electricity thanks to a lightning bolt that struck his kite, proof ... Benjamin Franklin's Kite Experiment: Unraveling the Mysteries of Delve into the captivating story of Benjamin Franklin's daring kite experiment, a pivotal moment in the history of science. Explore how his fearless pursuit ... Ben Franklin: lightning storm The experiment proved Franklin's theory that lightning is electricity and led to his invention of the lightning rod. Benjamin Franklin, with his son William, conducts his famous lightning experiment—flying a kite during a thunderstorm with a key attached to the string—in 1752. The experiment proved Franklin's theory that lightning is ... Benjamin Franklin: The Kite Experiment Did you know Benjamin Franklin risked his life to prove lightning is electricity? Discover the gripping details of his daring kite experiment! #History #Benj... Benjamin Franklin: The Kite Experiment and the Invention of the On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a 40-foot (12 m)-tall iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. There is evidence that in the early 1750s Franklin himself tried the iron rod method for experimentation. It is clear that Franklin's electrical experiments ... Did Ben Franklin's Famous Kite Experiment Actually Happen? Even so, some historians doubt whether the kite experiment actually happened the way Franklin and Priestley described. In his 2003 book Bolt of Fate: Benjamin Franklin and His Electric Kite Hoax, historian Tom Tucker suggests that the experiment never occurred at all. Tucker points out that Franklin's description of the kite experiment was much ... When Benjamin Franklin Shocked Himself While Attempting to Electrocute A fresh look at electricity and its powerful role in life on Earth. Franklin's strategy for the June 1752 experiment —inspired, perhaps, by that avian accident—was to fly a kite with a wire ... Franklin's Lightning Rod The pointed lightning rod placed on the State House and other buildings became a symbol of the ingenuity and independence of a young, thriving nation, as well as the intellect and inventiveness of Benjamin Franklin. Note: The object pictured above is part of The Franklin Institute's protected collection of objects. essay homework paper phd review speech study thesis