In 1752, Benjamin Franklin is frequently confused as the key luminary behind electricity. William Watson and Benjamin Franklin share the discovery of electrical potentials. Benjamin Franklin promoted his investigations of electricity and theories through the famous, though extremely dangerous, experiment of flying a kite through a storm-threatened sky. A key attached to the kite string sparked and charged a Leyden jar, thus establishing the link between lightning and electricity. Following these experiments he invented a lightning rod. It is either Franklin (more frequently) or Ebenezer Kinnersley of Philadelphia (less frequently) who is considered as the establisher of the convention of positive and negative electricity.
Theories regarding the nature of electricity were quite vague at this period, and those prevalent were more or less conflicting. Franklin considered that electricity was an imponderable fluid pervading everything, and which, in its normal condition, was uniformly distributed in all substances. He assumed that the electrical manifestations obtained by rubbing glass were due to the production of an excess of the electric fluid in that substance and that the manifestations produced by rubbing wax were due to a deficit of the fluid. This theory was opposed by the "Two-fluid" theory due to Robert Symmer, 1759. By Symmer's theory the vitreous and resinous electricities were regarded as imponderable fluids, each fluid being composed of mutually repellent particles while the particles of the opposite electricities arc mutually attractive. When the two fluids unite by reason of their attraction for one another, their effect upon external objects is neutralized. The act of rubbing a body decomposes the fluids one of which remains in excess on the body and manifests itself as vitreous or resinous electricity.
Up to the time of Franklin's historic kite experiment the identity of the electricity developed by rubbing and by electric machines (frictional electricity), with lightning had not been generally established. Dr. Wall, Abbot Nollet, Hauksbee, Stephen Grey and John Henry Winkler had indeed suggested the resemblance between the phenomena of "electricity" and "lightning," Gray having intimated that they only differed in degree. It was doubtless Franklin, however, who first proposed tests to determine the sameness of the phenomena.
"At this key the phial (Leyden jar) may be charged; and from the electric fire thus obtained spirits may be kindled, and all the other electric experiments be formed which are usually done by the help of a rubbed glass globe or tube, and thereby the sameness of the electric matter with that of lightning be completely demonstrated."
Thomas-Franзois Dalibard, at Marley, near Paris, on 10 May 1742, by means of a vertical iron rod 40 feet long, obtained results corresponding to those recorded by Franklin and somewhat prior to the date of Franklin's experiment. Franklin's important demonstration of the sameness of frictional electricity and lightning doubtless added zest to the efforts of the many experimenters in this field in the last half of the 18th century, to advance the progress of the science.
Franklin's observations aided later scientists such as Michael Faraday, Luigi Galvani, Alessandro Volta, Andrй-Marie Ampиre, and Georg Simon Ohm whose work provided the basis for modern electrical technology. The work of Faraday, Volta, Ampere, and Ohm is honored by society, in that fundamental units of electrical measurement are named after them. Others would also advance the field of knowledge including those workers William Watson, Bose, Smeaton, Louis Guillaume Le Monnier, Jacques de Romas, Jean Jallabert, Beccaria, Tiberius Cavallo, John Canton, Robert Symmer, Abbot Nollet, John Henry Winkler, Richman, Dr. Wilson, Kinnersley, Joseph Priestley, Franz Aepinus, Edward Hussey Dйlavai, Henry Cavendish, and Charles-Augustin de Coulomb. A description of many of the experiments and discoveries of these early workers in the fields of electrical science and art will be found in the scientific publications of the time; notably the 'Philosophical Transactions', 'Philosophical Magazine', Cambridge Mathematical Journal, Young's Natural Philosophy,' Priestley's 'History of Electricity,' 'Franklin's 'Experiments and Observations on Electricity,' Cavalli's 'Treatise on Electricity,' De la Rive's 'Treatise on Electricity.'
Henry Elles was one of the first people to suggest links between electricity and magnetism. In 1757 he claimed that he had written to the Royal Society in 1755 about the links between electricity and magnetism, asserting that “there are some things in the power of magnetism very similar to those of electricity” but he did “not by any means think them the same”. In 1760 he similarly claimed that in 1750 he had been the first “to think how the electric fire may be the cause of thunder”. Among the more important of the electrical experiments and researches at this period were those of Franz Aepinus, a noted German scholar (1724–1802) and Henry Cavendish of London, England.
To Aepinus is accorded the credit of having been the first to conceive the view of the reciprocal relationship of electricity and magnetism. In his work 'Tentamen Theoria Electricitatis et Magnetism,' published in Saint Petersburg, 1759. He gives the following amplification of Franklin's theory, which in some of its features is measurably in accord with present day views: " The particles of the electric fluid repel each other, attract and are attracted by the particles of all bodies with a force that decreases in proportion as the distance increases; the electric fluid exists in the pores of bodies; it moves unobstructedly through non-electric (conductors), but moves with difficulty in insulators; the manifestations of electricity are due to the unequal distribution of the fluid in a body, or to the approach of bodies unequally charged with the fluid. "
Aepinus formulated a corresponding theory of magnetism excepting that in the case of magnetic phenomena the fluids only acted on the particles of iron. He also made numerous electrical experiments, amongst others those apparently showing that in order to manifest electrical effects tourmaline requires to be heated to a temperature between 37.5 °С and 100 °C. In fact, tourmaline remains unelectrified when its temperature is uniform, but manifests electrical properties when its temperature is rising or falling. Crystals which manifest electrical properties in this way are termed pyro-electrics, amongst which, besides tourmaline, are sulphate of quinine and quartz.
Cavendish independently conceived a theory of electricity nearly akin to that of Aepinus. He also (1784) was perhaps the first to utilize the electric spark to produce the explosion of hydrogen and oxygen in the proper proportions to produce pure water. The same philosopher also discovered the inductive capacity of dielectrics (insulators) and as early as 1778 measured the specific inductive capacity for beeswax and other substances by comparison with an air condenser.
About 1784 C. A. Coulomb, after whom is named the electrical unit of quantity, devised the torsion balance, by means of which he discovered what is known as Coulomb's law;
— The force exerted between two small electrified bodies varies inversely as the square of the distance; not as Aepinus in his theory of electricity had assumed, merely inversely as the distance. According to the theory advanced by Cavendish "the particles attract and are attracted inversely as some less power of the distance than the cube." A large part of the domain of electricity became virtually annexed by Coulomb's discovery of the law of inverse squares.
With the discovery, by the experiments of Watson and others, that electricity could be transmitted to a distance, the idea of making practical use of this phenomenon began, about 1753, to engross the minds of " inquisitive " persons, and to this end suggestions looking to the employment of electricity in the transmission of intelligence were made. The first of the methods devised for this purpose was probably that, due to Georges Lesage (1774). This method consisted in the employment of 24 wires, insulated from one another and each of which had a pith ball connected to its distant end. Each wire represented a letter of the alphabet. To send a message, a desired wire was charged momentarily with electricity from an electric machine, whereupon the pith ball connected to that wire would fly out; and in this way messages were transmitted. Other methods of telegraphing in which frictional electricity was employed were also tried, some of which are described in the history on the telegraph.
Hitherto the only electricity known was that developed by friction or rubbing, which was therefore termed frictional electricity. We now come to the era of galvanic or voltaic electricity. Volta discovered that chemical reactions could be used to create positively charged anodes and negatively charged cathodes. When a conductor was attached between these, the difference in the electrical potential (also known as voltage) drove a current between them through the conductor. The potential difference between two points is measured in units of volts in recognition of Volta's work.
