Benjamin Franklin possessed one of history’s most brilliant scientific minds. He was fascinated by many fields of science, and he made numerous discoveries and inventions, including bifocal glasses. He started interested in electricity in the mid-1700s.
Who invented the use of electricity?
For millennia, electricity remained little more than an intellectual curiosity until 1600, when William Gilbert, an English scholar, published De Magnete, a detailed study of electricity and magnetism in which he distinguished the lodestone effect from static electricity produced by rubbing amber. To describe the property of attracting small items after being rubbed, he devised the New Latin word electricus (“of amber” or “of amber,” from elektron, the Greek word for “amber”). The English words “electric” and “electricity” were coined as a result of this relationship, and they first appeared in print in Thomas Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica in 1646.
Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray, and C. F. du Fay continued their research throughout the 17th and early 18th centuries. Later in the 18th century, Benjamin Franklin performed substantial research in the field of electricity, raising funds by selling his belongings. He is said to have tied a metal key to the bottom of a dampened kite thread and flown the kite in a storm-prone sky in June 1752. Lightning was electrical in nature, as evidenced by a series of sparks flying from the key to the back of his hand. He also described the Leyden jar’s seemingly contradictory function as a device for storing huge amounts of electrical charge in terms of both positive and negative charges.
When was the first time electricity was used?
Thomas Edison is a famous inventor. Many inventors and scientists spent the next century trying to figure out how to harness electrical power to create light. Thomas Edison, an American inventor, was ultimately able to create a dependable, long-lasting electric light bulb in his laboratory in 1879.
Who is the most influential figure in the field of electricity?
Franklin, a well-known inventor, made significant advances in the field of electricity.
He was certain that lightning contained electricity that could be harnessed. He devised the lightning rod through a series of (questionable but legendary) tests. The rod carried lightning’s electric energy away from structures, preventing them from being destroyed.
Is it possible that Benjamin Franklin invented electricity?
On a June afternoon in 1752, the sky over Philadelphia began to darken. When the rain started to fall and lightning threatened, most of the city’s residents rushed inside. However, Benjamin Franklin was not one of them. He felt it was the ideal moment to go kite-flying.
Franklin had been looking forward to a chance like this. He intended to show the electrical component of lightning and required a thunderstorm to do it.
He was prepared with his materials: a simple kite built from a huge silk handkerchief, hemp string, and silk string. He also possessed a house key, a Leyden jar (an electrical charge storage device), and a sharp piece of wire. William, his son, aided him.
According to his contemporaries, British scientist Joseph Priestley (who, incidentally, is credited with inventing oxygen), Franklin had planned to conduct the experiment atop a Philadelphia church spire, but he changed his mind when he discovered he could accomplish the same purpose by flying a kite.
As a result, Franklin and his son “took advantage of the first impending thunder storm to take a walk into a field,” according to Priestley’s account. “To demonstrate, in the most thorough manner possible, the similarity of the electric fluid with the stuff of lightning, Dr. Franklin concocted an electrical kite, which he launched when a storm of thunder was reported to be approaching, to actually bring lightning from the heavens.”
Despite popular belief, Benjamin Franklin did not invent electricity during this period of experimentation. Electrical forces had been known for over a thousand years, and scientists had experimented with static electricity extensively. The relationship between lightning and electricity was shown by Franklin’s experiment.
Franklin’s kite was not struck by lightning, to disprove another myth. Experts believe he would have been electrocuted if it had happened. Instead, the kite picked up the storm’s ambient electrical charge.
This is how the experiment went down: Franklin made a lightning rod out of a basic kite by attaching a wire to the top of it. He tied a hemp string to the bottom of the kite, and then a silk string to that. Why is it necessary to have both? When the hemp was wet from the rain, it swiftly conducted an electrical charge. Franklin held the silk rope in the doorway of a shed to keep it dry, but it wouldn’t budge.
The metal key was the final piece of the puzzle. Franklin tied it to the hemp thread and flew the kite with the help of his kid. They then sat and waited. Franklin spotted loose hemp string threads standing erect, “almost as if they had been suspended on a common conductor,” Priestley wrote, just as he was beginning to despair.
Franklin moved his finger towards the key, and a spark occurred when the metal piece’s negative charges were attracted to the positive charges in his hand.
“Struck by this promising appearance, he quickly presented his knucleto with the key, and the discovery was complete (let the reader decide the incredible delight he must have felt at that point). Priestley wrote that he noticed a strong electric spark.
Franklin “collected electric fire extremely copiously” with the Leyden jar, according to Priestley. That “electric fireor electricity” might then be released at a later time.
On October 19, 1752, the Pennsylvania Gazette published Franklin’s account of the event. He supplied directions for reproducing the experiment in it, concluding with:
As soon as any of the Thunder Clouds pass over the Kite, the pointed Wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, electrifying the Kite and all of the Twine, and the loose Filaments of the Twine will stand out in every direction, attracting the attention of an approaching Finger. And when the Rain has wet the Kite and Twine enough to allow it to transmit the Electric Fire freely, you’ll discover it pouring out of the Key on the Approach of your Knuckle in abundance. The Phial may be charg’d at this Key, and from the Electric Fire thus obtained, Spirits may be kindled, and all other Electric Experiments may be carried out, which are usually carried out with the aid of a rubbed Glass Globe or Tube; and thus the Sameness of the Electric Matter with that of Lightning is fully demonstrated.
Franklin wasn’t the first to establish lightning’s electrical nature. Thomas-Francois Dalibard of northern France had done it successfully a month before. A year after Franklin’s kite experiment, Baltic physicist Georg Wilhelm Richmann tried a similar test but was murdered by ball lightning (a rare weather phenomenon).
Franklin continued to experiment with electricity after his successful demonstration, perfecting his lightning rod creation. In 1753, the Royal Society awarded him the coveted Copley Medal for his “curious experiments and observations on electricity.”
What is the true origin of electricity?
Michael Faraday, the Father of Electricity, was born on September 22, 1791. The English scientist, who is credited with the inventions of electromagnetic induction, electrolysis, and diamagnetism, was born into an impoverished blacksmith’s family. Faraday only received a minimal education due to a lack of financial support.
What was Ben Franklin’s role in the development of electricity?
His concept revolved around electricity and lightning. Franklin saw various parallels between the two: they both produced light, exploded with a loud bang, were drawn to metal, had a distinct odor, and so on. Franklin assumed that electricity and lightning were the same thing based on his observations. A few individuals agreed with him, but no one had ever put his theory to the test.
Franklin expressed his opinions on electricity in a series of letters to a London-based scientist. This physicist and other London scientists thought Franklin’s letters were significant sources of information, so they published them in a small book called Experiments and Observations on Electricity in 1751.
Franklin’s strategy for proving that electricity and lightning were the same was stated in one of the letters. His concept necessitated a big structure, such as a hill or a towering skyscraper, but Philadelphia lacked both at the time. While waiting for a tall building to be erected, Franklin devised a new strategy. A key and a kite were involved in this one.
Which country was the first to have electricity?
The streets of the Surrey town of Godalming in the United Kingdom were lit with electric light in late 1881, making it the world’s first public electricity supply.
What did William Gilbert come up with?
When he noticed that magnetic forces frequently caused circular motions, he began to associate magnetism with the earth’s rotation. This led to his discovery of the earth’s inherent magnetism, which laid the theoretical groundwork for geomagnetism.
Who was the first to invent electrical engineers?
Michael Faraday, who was born in 1791, did not acquire a regular scientific education. He worked as a bookbinder’s apprentice, learning about scientific subjects via the books he bound. He began to attend scientific seminars as his interest in science grew. He was particularly fascinated with electricity, galvanic currents, and mechanics. He eventually attended four Humphry Davy lectures, which marked the beginning of his scientific career.
Faraday spent 18 months traveling throughout Europe with Davy in 1814, meeting numerous scientists and expanding his scientific expertise. After his return, he spent several years working with Davy on chemical experiments before publishing his study on electromagnetic rotation, the principle of the electric motor, in 1821. Perhaps this was the beginning of the electrical engineering discipline.
Faraday did not do much more substantial work with electricity for another twelve years. He discovered electromagnetic induction in 1831, which is the basis for electric transformers and generators. He demonstrated that a magnet could create an electrical current in a wire, and that mechanical energy could be turned into electrical energy. This finding demonstrated that electricity had great technological growth potential. It was no longer necessary to confine it to a laboratory.
Faraday died in 1867 after a long career in the field of electricity. Because the essential ideas he established are still in use today, his work serves as the foundation for electrical engineering.