![]() To test Franklin’s hypothesis, naturalist Thomas-Francois Dalibard used a large metal pole to conduct electricity from lightning on May 10, 1752. Little did Franklin know that his original letter to Collinson, once translated to French, was causing quite a stir in Paris. Instead, in 1752, he devised a new plan: sending a kite into the air. But Franklin didn’t feel that he could get his conductor high enough into the clouds to do any good, so he never completed the experiment. He not only hypothesized that lightning and electricity were linked, but that metal objects could be used to draw lightning in order to protect homes from being hit. It was during this time, in 1750, that Franklin sent Collinson a letter proposing an experiment that would draw lightning through a 30-foot rod. In this early phase of experimentation, Franklin concluded that electricity was fluid. Franklin investigated how charged objects interacted and came to the conclusion that lightning was merely a huge spark that was created by charged forces. So let’s clear things up.įounding Father/diplomat/inventor/innovator/Philadelphian/total cad Benjamin Franklin became interested in the field of electricity when his friend and fellow scientist Peter Collinson sent him an electricity tube. Sorry everyone, your childhood science teacher sort of lied to you. Nor was he the first scientist to study charged particles. ![]() Though Franklin is believed to have completed his lightning experiment, he wasn’t the first to do so. In elementary school, most of us were taught that Benjamin Franklin discovered electricity by tying a key to a kite and standing in a thunderstorm.
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