In ancient times, lightning was seen as a tool of the gods. In Viking legend, it was Thor’s hammer striking an anvil in the sky that was responsible for lightning. For the Greeks, it was Zeus who threw lightning down to the earth. North American Indian tribes thought that lightning was produced by a mystical bird with flashing feathers whose flapping caused thunder. Even now, hundreds of years after the first scientific work with lightning, people remain in awe of its power. In the 18th century, the first systematic scientific study of lightning was carried out by Benjamin Franklin. Before Franklin’s experiments, electrical science had grown to the point of separating positive and negative charges, and had developed primitive capacitors. The sparks produced in laboratories were noted as similar to lightning, but it was Franklin who designed an experiment to prove that lightning was electrical.
Benjamin Franklin believed that clouds must be electrically charged, which would mean that lightning must also be electrical. For his first experiment, he stood on an electrical stand with an iron rod in one hand to achieve an electrical discharge between the other hand and the ground. If Franklin’s belief that the clouds were electrically charged was correct, then sparks should leap between the iron rod and a grounded wire held by and insulating wax candle. This test method was published in London and performed in both England and France. Thomas Francois D’Alibard of France was the first to successfully perform this experiment in May of 1752, when sparks were seen jumping from the iron rod during a thunderstorm.
Before Benjamin Franklin achieved results from his first experiment, he devised a better way of testing his hyp...
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...wave). Lightning is often seen long before its thunder is heard. This is because sound travels at about 343 m/s though air, much more slowly than 3.00x108 m/s, the speed of light. While a lightning strike takes less than a second to complete, the sound of its thunder often lasts much longer. There are many reasons for this. The shape of the lightning bolt is a major factor, as all parts are not an equal distance from the listener. Sound produced by closer portions of the bolt will be the first of the thunder a listener hears, and sound produced by portions of the bolt that are farther away will be heard later. Another factor is that objects on the ground interfere with the sound, and echoes from hills and other objects can perpetuate thunder. Often lightning occurs in groups, so the sounds from multiple bolts sometimes overlap to cause longer lasting thunder.
Ewald Georg von Kleist is a German scientist who created the capacitor in November of 1745. Regrettably, Kleist did not have the proper paper work to claim in the records that the design of the capacitor was his idea. Many months later, a Dutch professor named Pieter van Musschenbroek created the Leyden jar, the world’s first capacitor (on record). It was a simple jar that was half filled with water and metal above it. A metal wire was connected to it and that wire released charges. Benjamin Franklin created his own version of the Leyden jar, the flat capacitor. This was the same experiment for the more part, but it had a flat piece of glass inside of the jar. Michael Faraday was the first scientist to apply this concept to transport electric power over a large distance. Faraday created the unit of measurement for a capacitor, called Farad.
...e been beneficial to the experiment. An error may have occurred due to the fact that measurements were taken by different individuals, so the calculations could have been inconsistent.
To test this theory Chemist Stanley Miller and Physicist Harold Urey did a famous experiment in 1950. Mixing Methane, Ammonia, Water, and Hydrogen. Then the sparked the mixture to signify lightning. The result was amino acids.
Auroras have been emitting in our, and other planets’ skies as long as the Solar System has been in motion. In 1619 A.D., Galileo Galilei coined the term "aurora borealis" after Aurora, the Roman goddess of morning. He had the misconception that the auroras he saw were due to sunlight reflecting from the atmosphere. (Angelopoulos, 2008). In 1741, Hiorter and Celsius noted that the polar aurora is accompanied by a disturbance of the magnetic needle. In 1820, Hans Christian Oersted discovered electromagnetism. André-Marie Ampére deduced that magnetism is basically the force between electric currents. In 1851, Samuel Schwabe, a German amateur astronomer, announced the discovery of the 11-year sunspot cycle, and in 1859, Richard Carrington in England observed a violent and rapid eruption near a sunspot; 17 hours later a large magnetic storm began. In 1900-3, Kristian Birkeland experiments with beams of electrons aimed at a magnetized sphere ("terrella") in a vacuum chamber. The electrons hit near the magnetic poles, leading him to propose that the polar aurora is created by electron beams from the Sun. Birkeland also observes magnetic disturbances associated with the aurora, suggesting to him that localized "polar magnetic storms" exist in the auroral zone. In 1958, Eugene Parker (Chicago) proposes the theory of the solar wind. 1981, High resolution images are obtained by Lou Frank's group in Iowa of the entire auroral zone, using the Dynamics Explorer satellite. (Stern & Peredo, 2005) This is the major timeline of how auroras came to be discovered and understood.
One thunderous afternoon on June 1752, Benjamin Franklin conducted what is known today as the “Kite Experiment”. He wanted to prove that if one object was electrical, the energy from that object could be transferred to another object, therefore being classified as electricity and lightning. With his son William, Ben took a string and attached the kite to it, then he attached an iron key to the kite. Next, they tied a thin metal wire from the key and put the wire inside a Leyden jar which stored all the electrical charge. His experiment profitably showed that his accusations were correct. Many other scientist tried the same experiment and were electrocuted, but Ben Franklin was the lucky one. He changed the world of science.
...is mistakes and let go of any self-resentment, in the eyes of his son. Though these arguments appear as rebellious against Benjamin Franklin’s hubris or self-endowment, it can also be said that these elements helped fuel his ambition and lead to great discoveries. If Franklin’s infatuation with self-betterment was arguably responsible the creation of so many necessities and components of society today, then no criticism can be dished out – Franklin deals with enough inner critique as it is.
... and make a conclusion. Ben’s goal was to conduct electricity and extract an electrical charge. Once the storm came, he attached a key to a kite and flew it in the air, after the first strike on his key, Ben was then aware that lightning is indeed a form of electricity. After this, Ben then began to devise many different types of lighting rods. Today, Benjamin Franklin's lightning rods could soon be seen on top of many buildings and homes serving to protect from dangerous lightning strikes.
Jones, R.V. "Benjamin Franklin." Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London . no. 2 (1977): 201-225. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.usf.edu/stable/531827 (accessed November 21, 2013).
down. The rod diverted electricity from a lightning strike into the ground near a building.
The already mentioned laboratory possessed one of the largest, if not the largest model of Tesla coils ever built, which is commonly known as a "magnifying transmitter" as it was intended to transmit power to some distant receiver. With an input power of 300 kilowatts it could produce potential voltage in the 12 to 20 megavolt range at a frequency of 150 kHz, creating hug 42 m "lightning" bolts. The magnifying transmitter design is not completely the same as the classic two-coil Tesla coil circuit. In addition to the mentioned primary coil and secondary coil it had a third "resonator" coil, not magnetically coupled to the others but attached to the top terminal of the secondary. When driven by the secondary coil it produced additional high voltage by resonance, being adjusted to reverberate with its own parasitical, in biological terms said, capacitance at the frequency of the other
The Electric Franklin. "Benjamin Franklin's Inventions." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, 4 July 1995. Web. 23 May 2014.
Edison searched for the proper "filament" or wire, that would give good light when electricity flowed through it. He sent people to the jungles of the Amazon and forests of Japan in his search for a perfect filament material. He tested over 6,000 vegetable growths (baywood, boxwood, hickory, cedar, flax, bamboo) as filament material.
The history of engineering goes back into the 19th century when Alexander Volta (1745-1827) made a remarkable discover regarding the nature of electricity (Cosgrove 749). He discovered that electrical current could be controlled and could flow from one point to another. By the time the mid-19th century came about the rules for electricity were being established. During this time electromagnetic induction was discovered by Michael Faraday who lived from 1791 to 1867 (749). Also during this time Samuel Morris invented the telegraph in 1837 which relies on the principles of electromagnetic induction (749). Alexander Graham Bell, who lived from 1847 to 1922, created the telephone which also uses electricity in order to operate (749). Through the success of the telephone, Bell Telephone Company was established. In 1878, the light bulb was finally invented by Thomas Edison who lived from 1847 to 1931 (749). Off the principles of Faraday’s electric motor from 1821, Nicholas Tesla invented a more efficient and powerful electric motor in 1888 (749). To make these inventions be more significant, effort was expended to make better motors and transformers and to enhance the power needed to make them function. Through these inventions during the middle 19th century, it led to the capability of lighting homes and cities through the use of electricity, and it also led to the creation of the telephone communication system (750).
Faraday continued his electrical experiments. In 1832, he proved that the electricity induced from a magnet, voltaic electricity produced by a battery, and static electricity was all the same. He also did significant work in electrochemistry, stating the First and Second Laws of Electrolysis. This laid the basis for electrochemistry, another great modern industry.
Thomas Edison was another intelligent scientist that used the findings of Ben Franklin to invent a contraption called the light bulb. At the time of Edison?s findings, there was only gas and cand...