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People of the Revolutionary War | The Founding Fathers - An Overview | Benjamin Franklin |
Benjamin Franklin and Discovery of Electricity
Benjamin Franklin and Discovery of Electricity
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Have you ever watched lightning during a storm? Have you ever wondered about its power? Have you ever wanted to
know more about it? Ben Franklin did. Actually, Ben's interest in electricity was not just limited to lightning.
He received an electricity tube from his friend Peter Collinson and began to play around with it, performing
experiments. However, it is Ben's interest in lightning that we best remember.
Ben suspected that lightning was an electrical current in nature, and he wanted to see if he was right. One way
to test his idea would be to see if the lightning would pass through metal. He decided to use a metal key and
looked around for a way to get the key up near the lightning. As you probably already know, he used a child's
toy, a kite, to prove that lightning is really a stream of electrified air, known today as plasma. His famous
stormy kite flight in June of 1752 led him to develop many of the terms that we still use today when we talk
about electricity: battery, conductor, condenser, charge, discharge, uncharged, negative, minus, plus,
electric shock, and electrician.
Ben understood that lightning was very powerful, and he also knew that it was dangerous. That's why he also
figured out a way to protect people, buildings, and ships from it, the lightning rod.
Have you ever heard of Ben's lightning bells? Ben was always looking for new
ideas about electricity, since it was one of his favorite pastimes.
Although electricity was just a hobby for Ben Franklin, he made many important contributions. Later scientists,
like Michael Faraday and Thomas A. Edison, continued to study electricity using many of Ben's ideas. Even today,
scientists are still studying electricity and learning more about it. They've learned that all citizens need
to practice good safety habits, since electricity can be very dangerous. Ben Franklin would be amazed at how
important his stormy kite flight really was!
Benjamin Franklin Discovers Electricity
Ben Franklin's Lightning Bells
The artist's rendering (on the left) is based upon the text below. The drawing represents just one possible interpretation.
No known images exist of the real Franklin bells.
The artist's rendering (on the right), by Steve Nazigian, offers another interpretation.
Visit his website and learn more about his theory.
Ben also developed another device to help him understand electricity. Called "lightning bells," the
bells would jingle when lightning was in the air. Following are two descriptions.
In September 1752, I erected an Iron Rod to draw the Lightning down into my House, in order to make some
Experiments on it, with two Bells to give Notice when the Rod should be electrified. A contrivance obvious
to every Electrician.
I found the Bells rang sometimes when there was no Lightning or Thunder, but only a dark Cloud over the Rod;
that sometimes after a Flash of Lightning they would suddenly stop; and at other times, when they had not rang
before, they would, after a Flash, suddenly begin to ring; that the Electricity was sometimes very faint, so
that when a small Spark was obtained, another could not be got for sometime after; at other times the Sparks
would follow extremely quick, and once I had a continual Stream from Bell to Bell, the size of a Crow-Quill.
Even during the same Gust there were considerable variations.
Excerpted from: The Papers of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Leonard W. Labaree. New Haven: Yale University Press,
1962. Vol. 5, p. 69, letter from Benjamin Franklin to Peter Collinson dated September 1753.
What quantity of lightning a high, pointed rod, well communicating with the earth, may be expected to
discharge from the clouds silently in a short time, is yet unknown; but I reason from a particular fact to
think it may at some times be very great. In Philadelphia I had such a rod fixed to the top of my chimney,
and extending about nine feet above it. From the foot of this rod, a wire (the thickness of a goose-quill)
came through a covered glass tube in the roof, and down through the well of the staircase; the lower end
connected with the iron spear of a pump. On the staircase opposite too my chamber door, the wire was
divided; the ends separated about six inches, a little bell on each end; and between the bells a little
brass ball, suspended by a silk thread, to play between and strike the bells when clouds passed with
electricity in them. After having frequently drawn sparks and charged bottles from the bell of the upper
wire, I was one night awaked by loud cracks on the staircase. Starting up and opening the door, I perceived
that the brass ball, instead of vibrating as usual between the bells, was repelled and kept at a distance
from both; while the fire passed, sometimes in very large, quick cracks from bell to bell, and sometimes
in a continued, dense, white stream, seemingly as large as my finger, whereby the whole staircase was
inlightened (sic) as with sunshine, so that one might see to pick up a pin. And from the apparent quantity
thus discharged, I cannot but conceive that a number of such conductors must considerably lessen that of
any approaching cloud, before it comes so near as to deliver its contents in a general stroke; an effect
not to be expected from bars unpointed, if the above experiment with the blunt end of the wire is deemed
pertinent to the case.
The Writings of Benjamin Franklin. Edited by Albert Henry Smyth. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906.
Vol. 5, pp. 421-422, "Experiments, observations, and facts tending to support the opinion of the
utility of long, pointed rods, for securing buildings from damage by strokes of lightning," by
Benjamin Franklin. Read at the Committee appointed to consider the erecting of conductors to secure the
[powder] magazines at Purfleet, August 27th, 1772.
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