Benjamin Franklin and lightning rods

Physics Today

Volumn 59, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 42-48

  Krider, E Philip ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

SILENT DISCHARGES; SILK RIBBON;

ELECTRIC CONDUCTIVITY; ELECTRIC FIELDS; ELECTRIC SPARKS; INSULATION; STEEL;

LIGHTING;

EID: 29744456187     PISSN: 00319228     EISSN: None     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1063/1.2180176     Document Type: Review

References (19)

1. Portions of this paper are based on the author's presentation at the Inaugural Symposium of the International Commission on History of Meteorology, International Congress of History of Science, Mexico City, 11-12 July 2001,
2. and on E. P. Krider, in Benjamin Franklin: In Search of a Better World, P. Talbott, ed., Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT (2005), chap. 5.
3. I. B. Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Science, Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, MA (1990), chap. 6.
4. I. B. Cohen, Benjamin Franklin's Experiments: A New Edition of Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, MA (1941).
5. J. L. Heilbron, Electricity in the 17th and 18th Centuries: A Study of Early Modern Physics, U. of Calif. Press, Berkeley (1979).
6. Franklin's letters and associated quotations can be found in The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, L. W. Labaree et al., eds., Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT, vol. 1 (1959) to vol. 37 (2003). In the following citations, these volumes will be referred to as Franklin Papers. The first letter is in vol. 3, p. 126, and the remaining four letters are in vol. 3, pp. 156, 352, and 365 and vol. 4, p. 9.
7. Ref. 4, chap. 15.
8. Franklin Papers, vol. 4, p. 465.
9. Ref. 2, chap. 8.
10. J. Priestley, History and Present State of Electricity, with Original Experiments, printed for J. Dodsley, J. Johnson, B. Davenport, T. Cadell, London (1767), p. 179.
11. Franklin Papers, vol. 5, p. 71.
12. J. A. L Lemay, Ebenezer Kinnersley: Franklin's Friend, U. of Penn. Press, Philadelphia (1964), p. 78.
13. Franklin Papers, vol. 4, p. 463.
14. Franklin Papers, vol. 4, p. 293.
15. Franklin Papers, vol. 10, p. 52.
16. J. A. L. Lemay, ed., Benjamin Franklin Writings, The Library of America, New York (1987).
17. C. F. Adams, ed., The Works of John Adams, vol. 1, Little Brown and Co, Boston (1856), p. 660.
18. For further details on the influence of Franklin's science on his fame and diplomacy, see P. Dray, Stealing God's Thunder: Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod and the Invention of America, Random House, New York (2005)
19. and S. Schiff, A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America, Henry Holt, New York (2005).