Ask Mike: Did Ben Franklin really discover electricity?
Hey Guys,
One of my most common dreams involves me being sent back in time to the 1700s. There, I meet Ben Franklin, who says he can help get me home. I just need to explain how a very simple modern-day invention works. Any halfway intelligent human being from the 21st century could do it. Of course, I never know the answer, much to Dr. Franklin’s disgust. The dream ends with me realizing that I’m destined to live my life in the 1700s as an apprentice to a second-rate blacksmith.
Now that’s a long-winded way of saying A) I have some issues and B) I obviously have a lot of respect for Ben Franklin. And, after looking around Yahoo! Answers, I see I’m not the only community member who either admires Dr. Franklin or has questions regarding some of his inventions. One of the most common inquiries — did Dr. Franklin really “discover” electricity?
The answer, in a word, is no. According to various sites across the Web, electricity (specifically static electricity) was discovered centuries earlier by a Greek mathematician named Thales. A site from ThinkQuest explains that Thales observed that “amber rubbed with animal fur attracted light objects.” Others may have noticed this phenomenon before, but Thales was the first to write it down.
Franklin is given credit for “discovering” electricity due to the “tall tale” of his flying a kite in a lightning storm as well as his invention of the lightning rod. The Franklin Institute hosts an excellent article on the invention’s impact and even includes a photo of the original. Something tells me it’s going to be in my dreams tonight.
Thanks for reading,
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“I invented electricity! Benjamin Franklin is the Devil!”
-Mama
yeah, but what about the Baghdad Battery?
Yo Ben, I know you’re busy inventing and imma let you finish but the wheel is one of the greatest inventions of all time. OF ALL TIME.
well i had just did a school report on diffrent scientest and i picked benjamin franklin and he didnt invent electricity but he is a life scientist. But he also invented the lightning rod which doesent produce electricity but protects people and houses from lightning strikes a long time ago i hope that answers your question
Franklin didn`t “discover” electricity but rather found one method to control it, if what the tale says is true. The key word is “control”. The properties of electricity, even flight was known for 1000`s of years, but nobody ever came along who knew how to control those properties. I mean humans probably going back since the stone age knew all about static electricity, “minature lightning” when rubbing dry fur together, but they couldn`t control it much further than that. The same with flight. It goes without saying it must have happened 1000`s of times 1000`s of years before the Wright brothers that someone would take a piece of bark, some flat wood, and would notice it lift while running into the wind. The properties were known but controlling it, directing it was a different matter altogether. The same thing goes on today. We know the properties of cold fusion but cannot control it. If we could, the entire energy problem of the earth would be solved.
hi sorry do diturb you but do you know how to measure thermal energy, cuv i forgot
A very poor essay. You might as well say Newton discovered the apple or Henry Ford discovered the automobile. Franklin proved that lightening is electricity. That was his real contribution to science.
No, this idea that Franklin discovered electricity is false, as you say. He did, however, define the mechanism of electrostatic fields, discovered that they surround us, and is considered a brilliant scientist and natural philosopher, though primarily he gets that designation and respect in Europe, and not America.
He unfortunately never met Voltaire when stationed as ambassador in France, but maintained correspondence and relationships with a multitude of other researchers across the pond. His contributions to understanding electricity at the time are substantial, despite the long-lived myth of the kite experiment, which, unfortunately, works to “cloud” the real nature and extent of his work.
Ben frankiln, the best invention of all time wasnt te wheel or any of the things you made. It was the condom, and no one could argue that.
Yes, electricity really was discovered by Benjamus Frankillium who was one of the ancient greeks. He flew a kite off of the Acropolis and used a “church key” because locks had not been invented yet. He was also the founder of the ” Saturday Evening Pontificus “.
yes he did but not with a kyte due to the fact that you would die in the process and its been proven.
^ lol
Who is Ben Franklin?
I make wheat.
Sure Ben gets his respect.
But the true person behind electricty , is not who discovered it but put it to work. Nicola Tesla
Ben or even some other persons in History may discovered its pressents. But look at Nicola, he put it to work. He was the designer of Nirgra, The powerplants. And he later made the first electronic manufacturing company. Yep called WhiteWestinghouse. Remember the group Tesla the great radio controversy. This was an oad to to him.
Feel free to read about his life and what he did.
From Germany of course. Well he is Austrian
Ben. I think you need help … serious help with those dreams.
The Baghdad Battery, sometimes referred to as the Parthian Battery, is the common name for a number of artifacts created in Mesopotamia, possibly during the Parthian or Sassanid period (the early centuries AD). These jars were probably discovered in 1936 in the village of Khuyut Rabbou’a, near Baghdad, Iraq. These artifacts came to wider attention in 1938 when Wilhelm König, the German director of the National Museum of Iraq, found the objects in the museum’s collections. In 1940, König published a paper speculating that they may have been galvanic cells, perhaps used for electroplating gold onto silver objects.[1] This interpretation continues to be considered as at least a hypothetical possibility. If correct, the artifacts would predate Alessandro Volta’s 1800 invention of the electrochemical cell by more than a millennium.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery
Mike: Ben franklin never discovered electricity he discovered the lightning is electricity when he send a kite on a storm with a key to see what would happen if the lightning hits the kite thats how he found out that lighting is electricity.
jason your right. edison discovered straight current.nicola testa alternating current that we use today. few people know this
I agree with you jhonny but i still don’t get it who invented (well discovered) electricity?!
Even though there might have been other people who discovered electricity before Benji it was Benjamin himself who officially discovered electricity during written history.
why does it say that its 1:12AM! when its actually 7:13 pm! im not somebody to stay up that late?!
Actually it was Benjamin who discovered how to harness electricity. No one actually “discovered” electricity as it has been around since the dawn of time.
And please ignore my other comment I’m tired.
NO
ben franklin did NOT ‘discover’ electricity
and he was also not the first person to control it i believe the first people to control electricity where from somewhere in north africa probably morocco around 3,ooo years ago.
they devised a small device to generate electricity
i know how west europeans like to believe we invented EVERYTHING but the truth is most of our ideas came from the ancients the greeks, romans egyptians …….
were not THAT smart .
here’s a
link :
http://www.thelivingmoon.com/43ancients/02files/Ancient_Electricity_01.html
Electricity was most likely first discovered by a Black man or woman just like the majority of other discoveries were. But the credit was given to a White man since they can’t discover anything themselves and since Blacks were oppressed back in those times.
Benjamin did on discovery electricity, cos ligtning is electricity. look up a guy called James Watt. I’m sure that would explain why electricity is measured in Watts. and not Franklins. he just happened to be the first to feel electricity’s adverse effects. Strange, but possibly true.
Bem Franklin and Albert Einstein are the greatest inventions on Earth.
Ben Franklin did not discover electricity itself. He discovered that lightning was actually electricity. That’s what the whole kite, key, and bottle thing was all about.
Electricity was not invented, it was discovered. Ben Franklin proved storm lightling contains electricity by flying a kite with a key attch to the string.
Ben would be the first to tell you that he didn’t
discover electricity (the Greek word for amber, after all,
is “Electra”). He would tell you that he was the first to prove that lightning is a form of electricity.
He would also tell you that he was the first person to chart the Gulf Stream, and the first American to
invent a musical instrument, the glass armonica.
not till the thunder bolt struck.thats when her descover’ed Electicity and the fact it Electrifies or Fries any thing it strikes.ha ha ha.this one should be apon the jokes and riddles section.if i were you and book smart i would type it all:Question & Answers into some book ands make your Yahoo web site money’s back.this is the age old question each school student ask yet the answer had written tons of books about the subject.and lots of comedy watching Mr;Franklin get Bar B Que’d by pure white lightning thunder bolts one after the other.
Electricity was already known, but before the “Enlightenment”, electricity and lightening was thought of as an act of God or ghosts or some kind of supernatural thing. Franklin was somewhat above this type of thinking treated electricity as a scientific research project, not a magical trick.
Boomer — Myth???? There is no proof that the kite experiment was a myth. The event was never documented or witnessed, except for probably his helper/son. Franklin did document how to do the experiment and it was repeated by others around the world, with at least one getting electrocuted.
Source: The First American: The Life and Times of Benjamin Franklin, by H W Brands.
Benjamin Franklin, is responsible for experimenting with the effects of conductivity. Out of the trial and errors of tinkering with electrical occurance specifically from lightening the evolution of fire protection in the form of “lightening rod” to ground surfaces exposed to lightening voltage.
Actually no he didn’t really invent the lightbulb. Another man invented it, but that bulb he made didn’t last for very long. Ben Franklin improved this model to create the modern day lightbulb
Write it down or finish one of your 100 inventions in his head. I bet there happen to be a lot more inventers out there. Its just they are thinking to much or asking a friend to get involved to help finish something and they steal the Idea’s and want to take credit. Ya know some people really don’t care about the credit they just want to have meaning and a helpful foot print one this planet.
“Yo Ben, I know you’re busy inventing and imma let you finish but the wheel is one of the greatest inventions of all time. OF ALL TIME.”
E P I C-
I would like to point out, that electricity, and all the people who helped us figure out how to use it, and all the people bored enough to read this whole article and every single response, are all matter, which exists within this time and place currently. Other than that I dont really know what your talking about. PS I make up to 4 mw an hour at my job, which is jack shit really but if you do the math , assuming a MW is really worth an Average of 18 dollars a mw, being at a low around 5 $ a mw, and about 30 dollars a mw tops maybe more, the variance being by the hour per hour throughout the day, I assume the company I work for makes between 35,000 and 50,000 a month on electricity alone, and I dont feel that my making 15.50 an hour is very fair. PS down with large companies stealing from small families. Good luck figuring out who where and when whom did what and how, for real.
egyptian knew about electricity before franklin was even born. checkout the baghdad light bulb.
The word “electricity” was in everybody’s vocabulary LONG before Ben flew his kite. It’s a common error that school teachers make by saying he discovered it.
Of course he didn’t. The Lord your God created electricity. Ben Franklin went to Hell for making like he invented electricity. Franklin insulted God and God’s brother, which is the Holy Ghost.
no he didn’t really discover electricity, he just used it in a different way
Benjamin Franklin still inspires passionate debate about his real contributions: For a helpful perspective on BF, click on http://bit.ly/GlT9z
i dared my bro and he didnt get hurt
Nikola Tesla discovered electricity.he made Thomas Edison famous.No joke.