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Twas back in the olden dayes, when hundred dollar founding father Benjamin Franklin flew
his kite and a key into a storm, lightning did strike upon it, and Ol’ Ben discovered
electricity.
Nearly every schoolchild in America has heard this tale, thanks to cartoons, storybooks,
art, et cetera.
And that version of the story is… false.
Which is a shame, because the true story of what Benjamin Franklin was doing when he made
the extremely questionable decision to fly a kite in a storm… is the story of a truly
pivotal moment in science *and* history, not just for America, but the world.
Now historians hate it when people say “this one moment changed everything” because it’s
almost never that simple but this is one case where that might actually be true?
Without this experiment, we may not even know the name Ben Franklin today, and American
history might have gone quite differently… if there even was an America.
So gather ‘round, let me tell you the true tale of one Benjamin Franklin, philosopher
and phenom of Philadelphia!
America’s most scientific founding father!
And how he tamed thunder with his electric kite.
[MUSIC]
Ben was born in Boston, the 15th of 17 children, to a candle-making family—a pretty good
business before the whole electricity thing was figured out.
Young Ben was fond of swimming, and once wowed his friends by surfing across a lake pulled
by a kite (file under “obvious foreshadowing”)
So after just 2 years of school, Ben goes to work for his brother, printing news and
learning how to make fun of the king (which gets his brother in trouble) so Ben takes
over and becomes a hit writing things under other people’s names
But all the while there’s an aching in his heart for his one true love: science
You see, it’s the peak of The Enlightenment, with a capital E so you know it’s important.
See, in the early 1700s, colonists were pretty superstitious.
Comet in the sky?
No, that’s a warning from Heaven.
Smallpox got you down?
Ye must have sinned too greatly.
Neighbor look at you funny?
They’re a witch.
So teenage Ben runs away, spends a year in London making friends with scientific smartypantses,
and returns to Philadelphia a printer by trade, but a scientist in his heart.
Nerds across the pond were obsessed with American flora and fauna, and Franklin became the guy
who could get you what you need.
In exchange, his continental cronies turn him on to Europe’s hottest scientific craze:
Electricity.
People had known for centuries that if you rubbeth a chunk of amber, stuff would sticketh.
In Latin, amber was called “electrum” so Francis Bacon named this attraction “electric”.
The 1700s sparked a craze of electric entertainment, and people started rubbing glass rods and
electrifying anything they could get their hands on: Women.
Children.
Louis the XV once had 180 soldiers hold hands just so he could shock them all with a static
spark, and Franklin even electrocuted himself zapping America’s honorary bird for Christmas
dinner.
People began to notice these sparks behaved suspiciously like that stuff from the sky.
But every time lightning killed a cow, fricasseed a farmer, or torched a town… the explanation
offered was supernatural, not scientific.
I mean lightning did seem to strike church steeples more than any other type of building.
To pious Puritans and humble Quakers this was obviously a sign from heaven or hell,
but Ben had a more lofty explanation: Uh, tallest point in town anybody?
Pointy metal thing on top?
Anyone?
Anyone?!
His revolutionary idea?
“Lightning is electricity!”
And he set out to prove it.
No, it’s not time for the kite yet.
Ben’s idea was a long iron rod, extending down through a roof.
The experimenter holds a wire connected to the ground, and when an electrified cloud
passes over, some of the charge would pass through as sparks.
Quick side note: This was an insane idea, because if lightning did strike this rod,
instead of just a cloud with some charge passing over, the person inside would be extremely
dead.
Franklin never did this experiment himself.
But he did write it down in a book: “Experiments and Observations on Electricity, Made at Philadelphia”
published in 1751 and an instant international bestseller across electricity-crazed Europe.
This book held all electrical knowledge known at the time, considered by many at the time
second only to the works of Isaac Newton.
Franklin invented the terms “electrician” and “battery”, and was the first to describe
charges as “positive” or “negative”.
Electricity went from parlor trick to a key element of the natural sciences.
It could be studied, described, and even controlled.
And it was time to prove it.
‘Twas June, 1752, just outside of Philadelphia.
With a storm a-brewin’, Ben and his son William launch into the air a silk kite, a
metal rod extending from its top.
A twine of hemp extends from the kite to a metal key.
And from the key to Ben’s hand, a silk ribbon, which he holds from under a doorway.
These are crucial details, because silk is a poor conductor, and Ben needed it and himself
to stay dry.
As rain soaked the kite and line, strands of hemp stood erect with electric charge.
And as Franklin drew his hand toward the key, it drew sparks of “electric fire very copiously”.
Today we understand that inside storm clouds, as ice crystals are blown upwards, they bump
into tiny falling droplets which steal their electrons.
A positive charge builds up in the top of the cloud, the bottom of the cloud becomes
more negative, making the ground beneath the cloud more positive.
If this difference becomes great enough, nature, desiring cloud and ground to be perfectly
balanced as all things should be, evens out the charge through a column of superheated
ionized gas that we call “lightning”
Franklin’s kite and metal rod, wet from the rain, became a shortcut so this unbalanced
charge could jump between cloud and Earth without lightning.
Franklin himself, insulated by the silk string, became the ground wire of a giant atmospheric
circuit, and the sparks he witnessed proved once and for all that thunderclouds are electrified.
To be clear: Franklin’s kite was not struck by lightning.
Because that obviously would have killed him.
You lied to us, Disney.
To say this was a huge deal in the scientific community is the understatement of the 18th
century, because like Newton had done with gravity, Franklin had unraveled the workings
of a force of nature, further unifying Earth and the rest of the universe under one set
of natural laws.
And this turned Franklin into an almost sorcerer-level celebrity.
I mean, ya think he got famous for bifocals or some stove?
Ha!
Here was a guy who could empty clouds of their thunder!
Awards, honorary degrees… and facetime with the richest and most powerful people in Europe…
which was about to come in handy…
America tell the British where they can stick their tea, independence is declarationed,
and revolution is upon us.
Small problem: The British have lots of guns, boats, and money… the colonies notsomuch.
Solution?
Ben “The Electric Wizard” Franklin is made minister plenipotentiary to France.
His scientific fame had earned him the ear of the king, who–eager to poke his old nemesis
the British in the eye without the messiness of his own war–decides to secretly fund
and arm the colonists.
A few Lafayettes and Yorktowns later, King George gives up, and the USA becomes a thing.
So let’s put this all together: if Ben Franklin doesn’t fly his kite, he doesn’t prove
thunderclouds are electrified, he doesn’t become the colonial Carl Sagan, he doesn’t
become King Louis’ bestest American friend, and France doesn’t help us beat the British.
You hear that, America?
You’re here because of science.
Now it’s time you start acting like it.
So that’s the real story of Ben Franklin and his kite.
It wasn’t struck by lightning.
He didn’t discover electricity.
But what he did do, was show the world that yet another force of nature could be understood
thanks to science.
And that is a spark that changed the world
Stay curious.
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