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Benjamin Franklin Drawing Electricity from the Sky, an artistic rendition of Franklin's kite experiment painted by Benjamin West, c. 1816 The BEP engraved the vignette Franklin and Electricity (c. 1860) which was used on the $10 National Bank Note from the 1860s to 1890s.
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.
Franklin demonstrated that the clouds carried an electrical charge by bringing a finger near the metal key, producing a spark. [3] His experiments led to the widespread adoption of lightning rods on tall buildings to draw electricity off the building and into the ground.
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 ...
Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the lightning rod. He said that conductors with a sharp [181] rather than a smooth point could discharge silently and at a far greater distance. He surmised that this could help protect buildings from lightning by attaching "upright Rods of Iron, made sharp as a Needle and gilt to ...
The system of operation of the Franklin clock considers that the electrostatic force generated by an electric field is used to move the pendulums that strike two metal bells. [8] [9] The Franklin bells uses a metal rod as a lightning rod to attract current. One bell is connected to the lightning rod and the other bell is connected to the ground.
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A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect the structure from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it is most likely to strike the rod and be conducted to ground through a wire, rather than passing through the structure, where it could start a fire or ...