Editing Benjamin Franklin (section)

====Kite experiment and lightning rod====
[[File:BEP-JONES-Franklin and Electricity.jpg|thumb|''Franklin and Electricity'', a vignette [[Art and engraving on United States banknotes|engraved]] by the [[Bureau of Engraving and Printing]], {{Circa|1860}}]]
Franklin published a proposal for an experiment to prove that [[lightning]] is electricity by [[Kite experiment|flying a kite in a storm]]. On May 10, 1752, [[Thomas-François Dalibard]] of France conducted Franklin's experiment using a {{convert|40|ft|m|adj=mid|-tall}} iron rod instead of a kite, and he extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15, 1752, Franklin may possibly have conducted his well-known kite experiment in Philadelphia, successfully extracting sparks from a cloud. He described the experiment in his newspaper, ''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]'', on October 19, 1752,<ref>Benjamin Franklin, [http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=4&page=360a "The Kite Experiment"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100922095736/http://franklinpapers.org/franklin/framedVolumes.jsp?vol=4&page=360a |date=September 22, 2010 }}, printed in ''[[The Pennsylvania Gazette]]'', October 19, 1752. In The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, The American Philosophical Society and Yale University; digital edition by The Packard Humanities Institute, Vol. 4, p. 360a. Retrieved February 6, 2017.</ref><ref>{{Cite web|title=Pennsylvania Gazette – Benjamin Franklin Historical Society|url=http://www.benjamin-franklin-history.org/pennsylvania-gazette/|access-date=December 30, 2022|language=en-US}}</ref> without mentioning that he himself had performed it.<ref>Steven Johnson (2008) ''The Invention of Air'', p. 39 {{ISBN|978-1-59448-401-8}}. Retrieved February 6, 2017.</ref> This account was read to the Royal Society on December 21 and printed as such in the ''Philosophical Transactions''.<ref name="archives">{{Cite web|title=Founders Online: The Kite Experiment, 19 October 1752|url=http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Franklin/01-04-02-0135|access-date=December 30, 2022|website=founders.archives.gov|language=en}}</ref> [[Joseph Priestley]] published an account with additional details in his 1767 ''History and Present Status of Electricity''. Franklin was careful to stand on an insulator, keeping dry under a roof to avoid the danger of [[Electrical injury|electric shock]].{{sfn|Van Doren|1945|p=159}} Others, such as [[Georg Wilhelm Richmann]] in Russia, were indeed electrocuted in performing lightning experiments during the months immediately following his experiment.<ref>{{cite book|last=Clarke|first=Ronald W.|url=https://archive.org/details/benjaminfranklin00clar_0/page/87|title=Benjamin Franklin, A Biography|publisher=Random House|year=1983|isbn=978-1-84212-272-3|page=[https://archive.org/details/benjaminfranklin00clar_0/page/87 87]|author-link=Ronald W. Clark|url-access=registration}}</ref>

In his writings, Franklin indicates that he was aware of the dangers and offered alternative ways to demonstrate that lightning was electrical, as shown by his use of the concept of [[ground (electricity)|electrical ground]]. He did not perform this experiment in the way that is often pictured in popular literature, flying the kite and waiting to be struck by lightning, as it would have been dangerous.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mos.org/sln/toe/kite.html |title=Franklin's Kite |publisher=[[Museum of Science (Boston)]] |access-date=September 28, 2003 |archive-date=February 9, 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100209131349/http://www.mos.org/sln/toe/kite.html |url-status=dead }}</ref> Instead he used the kite to collect some electric charge from a storm cloud, showing that lightning was electrical.<ref name="Wolf"/> On October 19, 1752, in a letter to England with directions for repeating the experiment, he wrote:

{{blockquote|When rain has wet the kite twine so that it can conduct the electric fire freely, you will find it streams out plentifully from the key at the approach of your knuckle, and with this key a phial, or Leyden jar, may be charged: and from electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all other electric experiments [may be] performed which are usually done by the help of a rubber glass globe or tube; and therefore the sameness of the electrical matter with that of {{sic|light|ening}} completely demonstrated.<ref name="Wolf">{{cite book |last=Wolf |first=Abraham |title=History of Science, Technology, and Philosophy in the Eighteenth Century |publisher=Macmillan |location=New York |year=1939 |page=232}}</ref>}}

Franklin's electrical experiments led to his invention of the [[lightning rod]]. He said that conductors with a sharp<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1983/06/14/science/lightning-rods-franklin-had-it-wrong.html |title=Lightning Rods: Franklin Had It Wrong |access-date=March 16, 2018 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=June 1, 1983}}</ref> rather than a smooth point could discharge silently and at a far greater distance. He surmised that this could help protect buildings from lightning by attaching "upright Rods of Iron, made sharp as a Needle and gilt to prevent Rusting, and from the Foot of those Rods a Wire down the outside of the Building into the Ground;&nbsp;... Would not these pointed Rods probably draw the Electrical Fire silently out of a Cloud before it came nigh enough to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible Mischief!" Following a series of experiments on Franklin's own house, lightning rods were installed on the Academy of Philadelphia (later the [[University of Pennsylvania]]) and the Pennsylvania State House (later [[Independence Hall]]) in 1752.<ref>{{Cite journal |title=Benjamin Franklin and Lightning Rods |volume=59 |issue=1 |page=42 |last=Krider |first=Philip |journal=Physics Today |date=January 2006|doi=10.1063/1.2180176 |bibcode=2006PhT....59a..42K |s2cid=110623159 |doi-access=free }}</ref>

Though Franklin is famously associated with kites from his lightning experiments, he has also been noted by many for using kites to pull humans and ships across waterways.<ref>{{cite book| url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/34193/34193-h/34193-h.htm| title= The True Benjamin Franklin| first= Sydney George| last= Fisher| year=1903 |publisher=J.B. Lippincott Company| location=Philadelphia| edition=5|page=19}}</ref> [[George Pocock (inventor)|George Pocock]] in the book ''A Treatise on The Aeropleustic Art, or Navigation in the Air, by means of Kites, or Buoyant Sails''<ref>{{cite book| url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oMo-DVp_ypUC| title= A Treatise on The Aeropleustic Art, or Navigation in the Air, by means of Kites, or Buoyant Sails| first=George| last=Pocock| page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_oMo-DVp_ypUC/page/n16 9]| publisher=Longmans, Brown, and Co.| location=London| year=1851}}</ref> noted being inspired by Benjamin Franklin's traction of his body by kite power across a waterway.