Whilst this seems like a stupid method, the evidence showed that he actually intended for the electricity to jump into a primitive form of capacitor known as a Leyden jar, and that touching the key was purely accidental.Īfter the experiments with lightning conductors, it would appear that he knew enough about grounding to insulate himself from serious harm.

The kite was struck by lightning and, when Franklin moved his hand towards the key, a spark jumped across and he felt a shock, proving that lightning was electrical in nature.

A key was then attached near the bottom, to conduct the electricity and create a charge. The idea was to fly the kite into the storm clouds and conduct electricity down the kite string. Static electricity had been known about for thousands of years, although never fully understood, with most scientists believing that it was an 'invisible liquid'.įranklin's contribution was that he believed that lightning was a form of static electricity on a huge scale, and designed a number of experiments to try to ascertain the truth.Īfter designing experiments with conducting lightning rods, which proved dangerous, he settled upon using a kite. The first thing to note is that Benjamin Franklin did not discover electricity - the principle was known long before that and primitive capacitors and batteries were already in use by researchers.

Ben franklin kite key