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The invention of the lightning rod was a significant breakthrough in the field of electrical engineering, and has saved countless buildings and lives from the destructive effects of lightning strikes. [4] The Franklin bells were named for Benjamin Franklin, an early adopter who used it during his experimentation with electricity.
Franklin's friend Kinnersley traveled throughout the eastern United States in the 1750s demonstrating man-made "lightning" on model thunder houses to show a how an iron rod placed into the ground would protect a wooden structure. He explained that lightning followed the same principles as the sparks from Franklin's electrostatic machine.
Benjamin Franklin, who is usually credited with the latter invention, simply adopted the "German chimes" (described by Watson in his famous Sequel, 1746) to serve as an electrical annunciator in connection with his experimental lightning rod of 1752.
Experiments and Observations on Electricity is a treatise by Benjamin Franklin based on letters that he wrote to Peter Collinson, who communicated Franklin's ideas to the Royal Society. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] The letters were published as a book in England in 1751, and over the following years the book was reissued in four more editions containing ...
The kite in turn was attached to a metal key. During a storm, witnessed by his son William Franklin, Dr. Franklin had finally proven that lightning was a form of electricity when the metal key received an electrical charge from a bolt of lightning. Thus, the practical use of lightning rods, attributed to the inventor Benjamin Franklin, was ...
His numerous important inventions include the lightning rod, bifocals, glass harmonica and the Franklin stove. [8] He founded many civic organizations, including the Library Company, Philadelphia's first fire department, [9] and the University of Pennsylvania. [10]
Franklin's experiment, in its initial conception, depended on the completion of Christ Church in Philadelphia, whose steeples would be sufficiently high as to attract a lightning strike. Franklin then conceived of an alternative experiment that involved flying a kite during a thunderstorm with a metal key attached to the string.
In 1752, Franklin proposed an experiment with conductive rods to attract lightning to a leyden jar, an early form of capacitor.Such an experiment was carried out in May 1752 at Marly-la-Ville, in northern France, by Thomas-François Dalibard. [3]
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