On June 15, 1752, in the midst of a storm, the American Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) decided to prove some of his scientific assumptions. The scientist and also writer and diplomat Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) used a metal wire to fly a paper kite. This thread was attached to a key, also made of metal, manipulated by a silk thread. Franklin released the “toy” along with his son and observed that the electrical charge of the rays descended through the device.
The dangerous experiment, carried out on June 15, 1752, proved to the scientific community of the time that lightning is just an electrical current of great proportions. As a scientist focused on the practicality and usefulness of his discoveries, Franklin also demonstrated that iron rods connected to the earth and positioned on or beside buildings would serve as conductors of atmospheric electrical discharges. The lightning rod was invented.
In a letter sent to a friend in London, Franklin suggested the widespread installation of these lightning protection stakes. The idea quickly spread, and just a year later, a priest was building the first lightning rod in Europe. In Germany, the invention arrived a few years later, with the first device being installed in Hamburg in 1769.
A lightning rod built today is composed of metal rods and cables, placed at the highest point of the place to be protected. These cables, which connect the top of a building to the ground, receive lightning discharges, directing them to the earth. The other end of the conductor wire is connected to a metal bar buried in the ground, which receives the electric current.
More than two centuries of controversy
Since the invention of the lightning rod, there has been no consensus among scientists on how best to build the device. Franklin suggested a pointed object, while in England rounded lightning rods were made, by decree of King George III. According to court orders, a sharp device would attract even more lightning. Only in June 2000 (!), that is, 248 years after Franklin’s invention, did the controversy end.
Precise experiments have proved that the rounded shape is more effective in carrying electric currents. This does not, however, imply any kind of praise for King George III. The monarch did not even have basic knowledge on the subject and only defended the rounded shape due to political disagreements with the American inventor.
Since 1747, Franklin had been studying the theory of electricity, having developed concepts that, in their basic parameters, are still valid today. Although it was previously known, the hypothesis that lightning is an electrical phenomenon was only proved by him, which greatly contributed to his reputation among the European scientific community at the time.
Important political action
But it would be unfair to limit Franklin’s achievements to the scientific field. His political performance was essential for the fate of the American colonies. It was he who founded America’s first public library, in the year 1731. Six years later, he would be appointed deputy in the state of Philadelphia. Between 1750 and 1764 he was a congressman in Pennsylvania.
Among other activities, he defended the interests of the American colonies several times, as their official envoy to London and Paris. In 1790, as president of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, Franklin urged Congress to urgently free the slaves. This was his last public act.
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