What contribution did Franklin make to understanding electricity?

Answer 1

Benjamin Franklin made many important contributions to the study of electricity. Most people know only about his famous kite experiment, but he was actually one of the foremost electrical scientists of his day.

He became fascinated with the topic when he saw some electrical experiments performed in 1746. He acquired a Leyden jar (a device that stores static electrical charges) and began to perform experiments and formulate theories - he didn't just use electricity to play parlor tricks as most of his friends did. Franklin made an electrical battery, roasted a fowl on a spit turned by electricity, sent a current through water to ignite alcohol, and ignited gunpowder with an electrical charge.

Before Franklin, electricity was generally thought to be the result of certain types of friction, such as rubbing silk over amber. Franklin thought that in fact, electricity was spread lightly throughout most substances, and that certain types of friction were able to organize or collect it in some way. Franklin was also the first person to develop the theory of positive and negative electricity.

Franklin began to think about the possibility that lightning was in fact a huge electrical spark that consisted of the same type of electricity as that produced by rubbing amber with silk. In 1752, he performed his famous kite experiment, flying a kite up into the clouds during a storm and creating a spark when he put his knuckle near the key at the end of the kite string, proving that lightning was indeed electrical. He also stored electricity gathered from the clouds in a Leyden jar and found it able to do all the things that electricity gathered from silk and amber could do, proving that both types of electricity were really the same. Note that Franklin did not stand around waiting for the unlikely possibility that lightning would strike the kite; he simply flew it up into the clouds where he surmised an electrical charge was building, and he was correct.

Building fires caused by lightning striking a house were a tremendous problem at the time, with so many all-wooden buildings and limited means to fight the fire - a bucket brigade, not a pressure hose. Franklin began the use of lightning rods, tall pointed iron rods sticking up from the roofs of houses and carrying the electrical charge down into the ground, where it could be dispersed harmlessly. As with the kite, the rods did not need to be struck directly with lightnng to be effective; they merely had to pass through a low-lying cloud to draw off its electricity and lessen the possibility of a lightning strike.

Answer 2

He didn't. Electricity was discovered by the ancient Greeks, so long ago that no one knows who or exactly when. More than 2000 years ago almost for sure. This was static electricity, interesting but not really useful. However, the Greeks did give us a word - they made their static electricity by rubbing a yellow material that we call amber; the Greek name for amber was elektron.The next advance was made by an Italian named Volta who was very interested to hear that Galvani, while dissecting a frog, had seen the leg of a dead frog twitch when he touched it with a scalpel. This information started a line of research which led him to invent the electric cell soon followed by the battery. The generation of electricity using a magnet and some wire was done by the Englishman Michael Faraday, who investigated it pretty thoroughly, producing a generator, and the first electric motor. All of the above took place before Benjamin Franklin joined the fun. Franklin suspected that lightning was electrical in nature, whether because he heard it from someone else, or worked it out himself. When he flew a kite up into a thundercloud, the gods smiled on him and he just drew sparks from the kite-string. The next scientist to try it was killed. Franklin did produce a lot of inventions; the notable one to do with electricity was the lightning conductor.

Answer 3

Benjamin Franklin postulated the idea that lightning was electricity, and designed an experiment to test whether this was the case. He also showed that the types of electricity, known as vitreous and resinous electricity at the time, were in fact the same thing. He invented the lightning rod, as well.

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Answer 4

, Franklin did notice that loose threads of the kite string were repelling each other and deduced that the Leyden jar was being charged. He moved his hand near the key and observed an electric spark, proving the electric nature of lightning.

Answer 5

He discovered lightning was electricity and that electricity was found naturally in nature.

Answer 6

Ben Franklin was the first to label charges as positive and negative. He also developed the concept of electrical grounding.

Answer 7

Benjamin Franklin conducted many experiments dealing with electricity. The most famous is probably putting a key on a kite string in a lightning storm.

Answer 8

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