benjerman franklin vs lightning
BY : aby medina
benjamin franklin is an exclusive inventor , here in philadelphia benjamin franklin had been working on electricity in his lab , he was trying to see if he could static electricity from the sky. he went outside with a kite and a wet twine. he wanted to prove to everybody that static electricity can be draw from the The friction in the sky .
• Silk fabric • Kite with metal point at top • Twine (When wet, the twine acted as a conductor of electricity) • Silk ribbon at bottom (Franklin stood under a shelter to keep himself and the ribbon dry so it would not conduct electricity) • Metal key
Luckily, Franklin’s kite was not actually hit by a bolt of lightning. If
it had been, he would probably have been killed. But the electrified
air carried enough current to make its point. When he touched the key
with his knuckle, he was zapped with a strong spark. Painful, but it
proved that lightning was electricity—static electricity. “The Kite is to be raised, when a Thunder Gust appears to be comeing on (which is very frequent in this country) & The Person who holds the String must stand within a Door, or Window, or under some cover, so that the Silk Ribbon may not be Wet; & care must be taken that the Twine does not touch the Frame of the Door or Window. As soon as any of the thunder Clouds come over the Kite, the pointed wire will draw the Electric Fire from them, & the Kite, with all the Twine, will be Electrified and the loose filaments of the Twine will stand out every way and be attracted by an approaching finger. “When the Rain has Wet the Kite and Twine, so that it can conduct the Electric Fire freely, you will find it stream out plentifully from the Key on the approach of your knuckle.”