Massachusetts - born Benjamin Franklin was an inventor , writer , pressman , philosopher and one of the United States ' set up fathers . In fact , he was the only somebody who put his key signature on all of the unexampled Carry Nation ’s documents , including The Declaration of Independence , the Treaty of Alliance with France , the Treaty of Paris and the Constitution . Plus , he was one heck of a kite flyer . He may even have used a homemade kite to discoverelectricity .
Can you imagine living or mould without the attention of electricity ? But in his day , few people gave it much thought . Many of Franklin ’s innovations are still relevant to modern life .
Franklin , however , was convinced that rein electricity could be useful and he was one of many scientists who were experimenting with it . establish on Franklin ’s everyday observations oflightning , he became convinced that it was a character of electricity . He detail this idea in a serial of letters called " Experiments and Observations on Electricity , " which he published in 1751 [ source : Krider ] .
While Franklin waited impatiently for a church spire to be constructed ( from which he plan to transmit a lightning experimentation ) near his home , he came up with another , more approachable idea . In 1752 , Franklin made a kite using two pin , a silk hankey and strand . At the ending of the train , he placed a metal key in a Leiden Jar ( or Leyden Jar ) design to hive away electrical charges [ informant : Code Check ] . As the story goes , the kite was struck by lightning , which electrified the headstone and give Franklin a shock . This proved to him that lightning and electricity were the same .
However , many people have erect doubts that the experimentation actually happened that path . Some compete that Franklin bang that a lightning strike would be virulent . After all , he ’d already detailed a lightning rod design in the " Experiments and Observations on Electricity " letter he ’d written a yr earlier . Franklin ’s letters understandably indicated he know the dangers of lightning and the need for a grounding mechanism – something that would have been absent from his kite experiment . The realism is that if lightning had move the kite he was flying , it probably would have killed him .
It ’s far more likely that Franklin fly the kite as a thunderstorm was beginning to build . Because of the timing , he was able to reduce his jeopardy of being hit by lightning , yet was able to capture enough of an electric charge to prove his hypothesis [ source : It ’s Not Magic , It ’s scientific discipline ] .
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