Who invented wire for conducting electricity?

by Ed Pores

http://www.heartland-rec.com/safety3.html

http://www.snopud.com/Education/EducationalPrograms/ClassroomActivities/MetalMovers.ashx?p=2103

http://library.thinkquest.org/6064/history.html

Here is an alternate possibility, suggesting that the use of wire and electricity is much older than might commonly be imagined: http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/parthian_battery.php

-Jon

Say what you like, it was Good Ol' Ben Franklin!!
All the others: (Volta etc. ) mere big-heads and strutting pretenders!

As Ben said:

"The greatest monarch on the proudest throne is obliged to sit upon his own arse."

Alan

History:17th-18th Century Electricity.

1600. William Gilbert, physician to Elizabeth I of England, coins the term 'electra' for objects holding static electrical charges. cf. greek electra = amber
1646. Sir Thomas Browne, physician, first uses word 'electricity'..."a power to attract strawes or light bodies, and convert the needle lightly placed."
1729. Stephen Grey, English scientist, demonstrates transfer of static charges over 450 ft of wet hemp thread, and repeats the experiment over longer distances with a brass wire.
1746. Jean-Antoine Nollet, French physicist, in a demonstration to Louis XV, electrocutes 180 Royal Guards.
1747-1752 Ben Franklin shows lightning is electricity, coins +ve and -ve, invents the lightning conductor, describes a battery in a letter, flies the kite in a thunderstorm. Also invents a woodstove, watertight compartments for ships, the odometer, bifocals etc. etc.
1769 Edward Bancroft, American scientist, shows that shocks from Torpedo fish could be insulated from, or conducted by, suitable materials.
1775 Abildgard electrocutes a chicken. "Later, it laid an egg."
1780 Galvani notices that a frog's leg he has just cut off twitches when touched with an electrified scalpel.
1792 Volta constucts his voltaic pile, (a battery). This is 40 years after Franklin's description.
Galvani uses one to kill frogs.

So, we have Volts, Galvanometers but no Franklins. Why is that?

Alan

PS, So apart from static electricity, Franklin invents the metal (lightning) conductor and the battery. The defense rests its case!

PPS, Further research reveals: Franklin had an experiment running in his house, with a lightning conductor on the roof, and an arrangement of wire conductors, glass tubes for arcs, bells etc. to a ground rod running down the stairs in his house. A letter from his wife to him while he is visiting England, reveals her begging instructions on how to dismantle the bloody thing as it's driving her nuts! So, Franklin gets house wiring and grounding electrodes added to the list as well!



[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 06-19-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 06-19-2005).]

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 06-20-2005).]

"So, we have Volts, Galvanometers but no Franklins. Why is that?"

Guess they just don't pay us well enough $$$



[This message has been edited by IanR (edited 06-23-2005).]

Come to think of it, other 'greats' have missed out on the 'name-that-unit' lottery too.
Einstein, Edison, Swann.
Any more?

Alan,
At least Einstein had a chemical element named after him.
Einsteinium has an Atomic No. of 99.

I got one named after me- Atomic no 13

As an aside, is the 'man-in-the-moon' face ( ) upside down when viewed from the antipodes?
Had a 20 minute 'conversation' with She Who Must Be Obeyed tonight driving back from the restaurant, and I can't visualise it.

Alan



[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 06-23-2005).]

I happened to be reading a copy of "Time" magazine, in the local Doctors waiting room where they had a feature on Benjamin Franklin.
Did you know, that not only did he invent the lightning rod, but he also invented the Odometer, the First Subscription Library(where people pay to rent books), the bi-focal glasses and the twin burning wood-burner.
So, the next time you light your fire, put your glasses on and then settle down to read a good library book, don't say you've never heard of Ben Franklin.
Alan mentions a person above:
Charles Swann.
Swann invented the light bulb, not Edison as most of us are led to believe.
Swann was an Englishman, that's probably why popular thought would side with an American like Edison.
{I can feel the knives already}
BTW Alan,
The moon is the same way up as far as I'm aware.
It shouldn't matter, it's all cheese anyway.



[This message has been edited by Trumpy (edited 06-25-2005).]

Mike,
KER-LUNK! - The sound of Denise's model of the Solar System, constructed entirely of potatoes and cocktail sticks, (to show the moon is upside down in NZ), going in the trash can!! I am keeping a low profile.

Franklin was, seriously now, a true genius, who deserves better recognition for his work. 40 years after he was making his world-changing discoveries, the scientific establishment, (Volta, Galvani, Abildgard et al.) were still off on the wrong track entirely about electricity, obsessed with biological electrical 'life forces'. If you notice in the above history, their experiments always seemed to involve some hapless creature getting deaded. This craze for the seeming 'life force' of electricity was reflected in the general culture of the 18th century, and led directly to the creation of Frankenstein's monster- ie the dead, bought to life by mysteries of electricity.
Are we any better, playing with genetics?
Alan

ps. Or potatoes and cocktail sticks!

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 06-25-2005).]

Swann patented a light bulb, the patent being purchased by Edison, who engineered it into a commercial proposition, along with developing the early electrical supply industry to power the bulbs. I'd say they both deserve credit, in the same way as Daimler conceived a car, Ford built one for the rest of us!
Alan

Yep, but you wouldn't believe how I learned about those when I was a kid! It was from an old episode of Bewitched where Sam zaps Ben Franklin into the present day!

He was involved in fire fighting too:
http://www.ushistory.org/franklin/philadelphia/fire.htm

Ben created an insurance company, and to protect the property he insured he advocated and financially supported the fire department. If you tour the old part of Philadelphia today you will see the familiar "4 handed wrist lock" plaque on many of the homes. (I think Ben Franklin Insurance might still use that symbol today) The story goes, that if your house had a plaque, meaning you were insured by Bens company, the fire fighters would work to put out the fire but if it wasn’t insured they let it burn.

Off thread a bit, but has anyone any info. on Ben Franklin having a pet turkey? I keep finding elusive references to the said bird but no story, except a brief intimation that he took it to London once.

Alan

Elisha Gray?

I don't know, but you've reminded me of the old Bob Newhart sketch about Walter Raleigh.

"Did we get the boatload of turkeys? Yeah, they're running around all over London actually...."

"Well, that's an American holiday, Walt!"

(O.K., so the sketch took some liberties with historical chronology.... )

Alan, if I am not mistaken here, Franklin wanted the turkey as our national bird, not the eagle as we have today.

He apparently thought the turkey had a high intelligence.

Today we have the eagle as our symbol, and the turkeys in congress, go figure.


Dnk...

Sure we do...ever see a $100 bill

HA! Ol' benny has him beat by 0.01¢

I don't know about a pet, but that would explain why Ben wanted the National Emblem to be a turkey: http://www.baldeagleinfo.com/eagle/eagle9.html (see inset, mid-page)



[This message has been edited by Celtic (edited 07-19-2005).]