![]() If the experimenter brought his knuckles close to the bottom of the rod, he would produce sparks,” Moura said. Franklin expected the tip of the rod to ‘draw fire’ from the clouds. “A kind of sentry box was to be set up on top of a tower, steeple or hill, and a man would stand inside it on an insulating dais made of wax, with a long, sharply pointed iron rod measuring some 10 meters inserted into it. In fact, he added, the kite experiment was designed to be a simpler version of another experiment Franklin thought up in 1750 and that is now known as the “sentry box” experiment.” “The kite experiment is Franklin’s most famous scientific achievement,” said Moura. (credit: PICRYL)Īn article on the study has just been published in the journal Science & Education under the title “Picturing Benjamin Franklin’s Kite Experiment in the Nineteenth Century.” What do illustrations get wrong about Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment? Benjamin Franklin's kite experiment (Illustration). ![]() People who try to reproduce them on the basis of what the illustrations depict might not get any results at all or could even face dangerous consequences.Ī study conducted by Breno Arsioli Moura, a researcher at the Federal University of the ABC in São Paulo, Brazil, investigated depictions of one of these famous experiments in which Franklin supposedly flew a kite in 1752 to draw electricity from a thundercloud. Many of these depictions convey false information, either because the experiments never actually happened or because they were performed quite differently. NOTE! Consider delaying until first div on page If (slot) slot.addService(googletag.pubads()) (function (a, d, o, r, i, c, u, p, w, m) 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.Pictures of Ben Franklin's kite experiment make major error - The Jerusalem Post ![]() He was also the first scientist to use the terms positive and negative charge, possibly the basis of the myth that he discovered electricity. 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.Īfter the experiments with lightning conductors, it would appear that he knew enough about grounding to insulate himself from serious harm. 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. A key was then attached near the bottom, to conduct the electricity and create a charge. The idea was to fly the kite into the storm clouds and conduct electricity down the kite string. Static electricity had been known about for thousands of years, although never fully understood, with most scientists believing that it was an 'invisible liquid'.įranklin'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.Īfter designing experiments with conducting lightning rods, which proved dangerous, he settled upon using a kite. 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.
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