VOLUME 33, NO. 3, MARCH, 1956

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN AND ELECTRICITY

KANT once remarked that Benjamin Franklin was a new Prometheus who had stolen fire from heaven. In his own day, Franklin was celebrated throughout all Europe as the world's foremost electrician and his book on the subject was in demand in many countries. Far-reaching in its influ- ence, the book became an important text in the elecfrical field and even today we still write of elec- tricity in terms introduced in print by Franklin. Used in the electrical sense, probably for the first time, in the inventor's book were words such as annature, batlmy brush, charged, charging, eondase, onductm, dischatge, electrical f i e , electrical shock, electrician, electrified, electrify, Leyden bottle, minus, negatiw, n-ndueting, mn-conductor, non-electric, plus, positive, and others.

Franklin saw his first electrical demonstration in Boston in 1746. He purchased all the appa- ratus used by the British experimenter, Dr. Spence, and proceeded in electrical experiments of his own with great interest. The work that he did was soon far ahead of the European discoveries. With great enthusiasm, he described new discoveries that were to him unique, for he had no way of telling what work his predecessors had done. Foremost among the observations was the d i e covery of the action of points in drawing off and throwing off the electrical 6re. One of Franklin's scientific achievements was his experiment with the Leyden jar. He explained the startling dis- coverv that the eleatdied iar became charzed ~ositivelv on the outside. neeativelv on the inside. - . , - and showed by means of experiment that the positive charge on the outer coating of the jar was exactly equal and opposite to the negative inner charge.

Besides the importance and usefulness of Frmklin's discoveries, the world knows him well for his hypothesis concerning the electrical nature of lightning. Up to his discoveries the general impression w a ~ that lightning was caused by the explosion of poieonous gases in the air. In 1749, Franklin established that electrical fluid and lightning bad similar properties of giving light. color of the lieht, crooked direction. swift motion. heine conducted bv metals, crack or noise in exploding, subsisting in water or ice,'rending hod& i t pa& through, destroying animals, melting metals, firing inflammable substances, sulphnreous smell.

[ E I ~ O K ' S SOTL: Jmuary 17, 1!)56, was the 250th atmivwsary <,I Ilrc birth cof Frmklin. .\ qm.inl t:ommittre with h w d q w t r t ~ r ~ 31 Pliil:~delphia'~ Franklin lurtitute plhus a year-luug intcrnatioml celebration.]