{"id":21804,"date":"2019-07-22T18:13:41","date_gmt":"2019-07-22T22:13:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.myedme.com\/login\/?p=21804"},"modified":"2019-07-30T16:23:27","modified_gmt":"2019-07-30T20:23:27","slug":"chapter-3-benjamin-franklin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/chapter-3-benjamin-franklin\/","title":{"rendered":"Chapter 3. Benjamin Franklin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

If you want to look at the questions now, you can click here<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may know Benjamin Franklin as one of the founding fathers of our nation. But, did you know Ben Franklin also helped discover how electricity works? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Ben Franklin was the first person ever to establish the connection between lightning and electricity.<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

At this time, Philadelphia was still part of England.\nFranklin was a famous scientist and inventor. People could see static\nelectricity and lightning. But, they did not know much about electricity. (This\nwas the 1740s!) Franklin was one of the few thinking about electricity at this\ntime. After this experiment, people were excited about Franklin\u2019s new\ndiscoveries. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Franklin loved to help people. He was a diplomat, which\nmeant he went to other countries to explain America\u2019s thoughts. He always\nwanted to help people in his community. He searched for ways to improve\npeople’s lives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was also curious about things he observed. Because he\nthought about things that people saw every day, it made him an excellent\ninventor. For example, lightning interested him. He knew lightning was\ndangerous for his community. It started many fires and burned down many\nbuildings. This problem made Ben Franklin interested in finding some solutions.\nFirst, he had to learn more about lightning. So, he conducted one of the most\nfamous scientific experiments of all time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

THE EXPERIMENT THAT SHOCKED THE WORLD<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ben Franklin was the first person ever to establish the\nconnection between lightning and electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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A Thunderous Storm<\/strong>: The Picture above displays how Franklin set up his experiment. Despite what some believe, Franklin was not struck by lightning! Instead, the kite\u2019s conductor or \u201chemp cord\u201d picked up the electricity buzzing in the dark, stormy clouds. So, there was enough electrical charge to give Franklin a small shock when he put his hand near the metal key<\/strong> <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

One stormy, cloudy day, thunder was loudly clashing across\nthe sky. Two fearless individuals tried to uncover the puzzling nature of\nelectricity. These two individuals were Benjamin Franklin and his son, William\nFranklin! They wanted to see if electricity and lightning are similar. Their\nexperiment used a kite made out of silk handkerchiefs. They used silk so it\nwould not tear in the rain or wind. At the very tip of the kite they put a wire\nthat acted as a lightning rod. At the bottom, they attached a hemp cord and a\nsilk ribbon. The hemp cord got wet from the rain. Since water is a good\nelectrical conductor, it attracted electrons from the thunderstorm and built an\nelectrical charge. The silk ribbon on the bottom stayed dry. Because it was not\nwet, it was safe for Ben Franklin to hold. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The last part of the experiment was a metal key that was connected to the hemp cord. Franklin and his son waited a long time, then suddenly the hemp cord began drawing electrical charges. They knew this was happening because they observed a few threads of the cord were standing up. The cord was full of electrons from the thunderstorm clouds. Then, Franklin touched his hand near the metal key, and he received a shock! How, you might ask? Well, the negative charge from the metal key wanted to get the ground. Because Ben Franklin was touching the key and standing on the ground, he became the conductor for this electricity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Reading is Power:<\/strong> Franklin being busy in reading books. At the age of 8, his father put him in the Boston Latin School.  Did you know that his father wanted Ben to become a preacher. However, he soon changed his mind, and instead put Ben into a school that focused on writing and mathematics.<\/strong>

<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

It is important to remember that Franklin kept himself and the silk ribbon dry so he would not be shocked dangerously. Someone may tell you Franklin was struck by lightning. This is NOT true! If lightning directly struck the kite or the rope, Franklin would have been dangerously electrocuted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This shows how Franklin set up his experiment. Franklin was not struck by lightning! Instead, the hemp rope picked up electricity buzzing in the dark, stormy clouds. The hemp cord was the conductor for the electricity. The rope conducted enough electrical charge to give Franklin a small shock when he put his hand near the metal key.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Click here to answer questions about this chapter.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you want to look at the questions now, you can click here. You may know Benjamin Franklin as one of the founding fathers of our nation. But, did you know Ben Franklin also helped discover how electricity works? At this time, Philadelphia was still part of England. Franklin was a famous scientist and inventor. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21804"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22708,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21804\/revisions\/22708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/myedme.com\/login\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}