![]() (Image credit: Keith Lance via Getty Images)Ī few publications at the time reported on the experiment. ![]() 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.Īn illustration of Benjamin Franklin conducting his kite-and-key experiment during a thunderstorm. 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.Īs 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. 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. 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. 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. Lightning rods are metal rods placed at the top of structures, connected to the ground with a wire. ![]() In other words, by creating a lightning rod, Franklin was helping to protect wooden homes and buildings from being directly struck by lightning. "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. 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. It was unknown prior to Franklin's experiment whether lightning was electrical in nature, though some scientists, including Franklin, had speculated just that. Atoms are made up of negatively charged electrons orbiting a positively charged nucleus (made up of protons and neutrons). ![]() We now understand that these "fluids" are electrical charges generated by atoms. 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. Electricity had already been discovered and used for centuries before Franklin's experiment. For starters, it's a common myth that Franklin discovered electricity. ![]()
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