On this day in history, in 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a thunderstorm. Earlier, in 1750, he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment (using a 40-foot-tall iron rod instead of a kite) and extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15, Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment and also successfully extracted sparks from a cloud (unaware that Dalibard had already done so, 36 days earlier).**
**note: the above passage was flagrantly stolen via copy/paste from Wikipedia.
That’s all. Class dismissed. No running in the hallways.
6 comments:
Thanks for the lesson!!! Great painting too!
McKay's blog...always interesting, more often than not amusing and NOW educational. Phew! Whattagal!
Teacher... Timmy shot a spit wad at me!
I heard he was a womanizer. Do you find him the least bit attractive?
~Jef
And look how well we've learned to harness all that power. It's only too bad the electric company charges so much for it. But heck, we couldn't live without it these days. What would one do without air conditioning?? or the computer?? or all the wonderful appliances that makes our lives easier??
Thanks for the history lesson.... I hope you are feeling better! Doesn't you play open tonight?
Break a leg!
I'll bet he didn't do it late at night, because Old Ben was always early to bed, early to rise. :)
Thanks for stopping by my blog and commenting. I like yours. Hope you are enjoying your play.
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