Editing Jean-Paul Marat (section)

=== ''Recherches Physiques sur L'Électricité'' ===
Marat's third major work, ''Recherches Physiques sur l'Électricité'' (English: ''Research on the Physics of Electricity''), outlined 214 experiments. One of his major areas of interest was in [[Magnetism|electrical attraction and repulsion]].  Repulsion, he held, was not a basic force of nature. He addressed a number of other areas of enquiry in his work, concluding with a section on [[lightning rods]] which argued that those with pointed ends were more effective than those with blunt ends, and denouncing the idea of "[[earthquake rods]]" advocated by [[Pierre Bertholon de Saint-Lazare]]. This book was published with the censor's stamp of approval, but Marat did not seek the endorsement of the Academy of Sciences.<ref>[[#Conner1999|Conner (1999)]], p. 132</ref>

In April 1783,<ref name="Conner 1999, p. 35"/> he resigned his court appointment and devoted his energies full-time to scientific research. Apart from his major works, during this period Marat published shorter essays on the medical use of electricity (''Mémoire sur l'électricité médicale'' (1783)) and on optics (''Notions élémentaires d'optique'' (1784)). He published a well-received translation of Newton's ''[[Opticks]]'' (1787), which was still in print until recently,{{When|date=July 2022}} and later a collection of essays on his experimental findings, including a study on the effect of light on soap bubbles in his ''Mémoires académiques, ou nouvelles découvertes sur la lumière'' (''Academic memoirs, or new discoveries on light'', 1788). [[Benjamin Franklin]] visited him on several occasions and [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|Goethe]] described his rejection by the Academy as a glaring example of scientific despotism.