Franklin and electricity
Lightning is shown to be electrical, and the lightning rod follows.
- When
- Known to
- ± 1 year
- Era
- Early Modern, Holocene
Franklin's experiments in the 1740s and 50s establish that electricity is a single fluid with positive and negative states — his terminology — and that lightning is an electrical discharge. The kite experiment of 1752 may not have happened as described, but the sentry-box version was performed in France and worked. The lightning rod that follows is among the first practical applications of experimental physics, and it was resisted as interfering with divine judgement.