Had it not been for the first pioneers of electrical experiments done by Franklin and the Frenchman Dalibard,
we maybe would not have had Westinghouse and Tesla who brought our wonderful electricity that we have today.
264 years ago 2 days before Christmas, Ben Franklin conducted an electrical experiment that went wrong.
He wrote a letter to a friend in Boston on December 25, 1750.
I have lately made an experiment in electricity, that I desire never to repeat.
Two nights ago, being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my own arms and body, by receiving the fire from the united top wires with one hand, while the other held a chain connected with the outsides of both jars.
The company present (whose talking to me, and to one another, I suppose occasioned my inattention to what I was about) say, that the flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol-bullet; by which you may judge of the quickness of the electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, or animal sensation.
What I can remember of the matter is that I was about to try whether the bottles or jars were fully charged, by the strength and length of the stream issuing to my hand, as I commonly used to do, and which I might safely enough have done if I has not held the chain in the other hand.
I then felt what I know not how well to describe; a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body, which gradually returned, and then I thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do.
That part of my hand and fingers, which held the chain, was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of my neck, which continued till the next morning, but wore off.
Nothing remains now of this shock, but a soreness in my breast-bone, which feels as if it had been bruised.
I did not fall, but suppose I should have been knocked down, if I had received the stroke in my head.
the whole was over in less that a minute.
You may communicate this to Mr. Bowdoin, as a caution to him, but do not make it more public, for I am ashamed to have been guilty of so notorious a blunder; a match for that of the Irishman, whom my sister told me of, who, to divert his wife, poured the bottle of gunpowder on the live coal; or of that other, who being about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron.
I am yours & c.
B. Franklin
P.S. The jars hold six gallons each.
we maybe would not have had Westinghouse and Tesla who brought our wonderful electricity that we have today.
264 years ago 2 days before Christmas, Ben Franklin conducted an electrical experiment that went wrong.
He wrote a letter to a friend in Boston on December 25, 1750.
I have lately made an experiment in electricity, that I desire never to repeat.
Two nights ago, being about to kill a turkey by the shock from two large glass jars, containing as much electrical fire as forty common phials, I inadvertently took the whole through my own arms and body, by receiving the fire from the united top wires with one hand, while the other held a chain connected with the outsides of both jars.
The company present (whose talking to me, and to one another, I suppose occasioned my inattention to what I was about) say, that the flash was very great, and the crack as loud as a pistol; yet, my senses being instantly gone, I neither saw the one nor heard the other; nor did I feel the stroke on my hand, though I afterwards found it raised a round swelling where the fire entered, as big as half a pistol-bullet; by which you may judge of the quickness of the electrical fire, which by this instance seems to be greater than that of sound, light, or animal sensation.
What I can remember of the matter is that I was about to try whether the bottles or jars were fully charged, by the strength and length of the stream issuing to my hand, as I commonly used to do, and which I might safely enough have done if I has not held the chain in the other hand.
I then felt what I know not how well to describe; a universal blow throughout my whole body from head to foot, which seemed within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick shaking of my body, which gradually returned, and then I thought the bottles must be discharged, but could not conceive how, till at last I perceived the chain in my hand, and recollected what I had been about to do.
That part of my hand and fingers, which held the chain, was left white, as though the blood had been driven out, and remained so eight or ten minutes after, feeling like dead flesh; and I had a numbness in my arms and the back of my neck, which continued till the next morning, but wore off.
Nothing remains now of this shock, but a soreness in my breast-bone, which feels as if it had been bruised.
I did not fall, but suppose I should have been knocked down, if I had received the stroke in my head.
the whole was over in less that a minute.
You may communicate this to Mr. Bowdoin, as a caution to him, but do not make it more public, for I am ashamed to have been guilty of so notorious a blunder; a match for that of the Irishman, whom my sister told me of, who, to divert his wife, poured the bottle of gunpowder on the live coal; or of that other, who being about to steal powder, made a hole in the cask with a hot iron.
I am yours & c.
B. Franklin
P.S. The jars hold six gallons each.
