White Lightning: Faraday & Franklin

The following is an excerpt of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN PHILOSOPHICAL SOCIETY, published in 2006.

IN CONTEMPLATING the careers of Franklin and Faraday, one encounters the confluence of many common, and a number of contrasting, characteristics. Franklin and Faraday, at different times, were each the best known and most admired of men in the Western world: Franklin during the last half of the eighteenth century; Faraday, who was born eighteen months after Franklin's death in 1790, during the middle half of the nineteenth century. Each discovered a large variety of new phenomena, and each was associated with some of the most spectacular (and dangerous) experiments ever performed: the fabled "kite" experiment in the case of Franklin (which demonstrated that the source of lightning is electrical); the "electrified cage" (which established that a conducting body is charged on the outside) in the case of Faraday. Electricity was of central importance in their scientific endeavours: its nature, its creation, its control, its utilization. Each in their different ways, and in different contexts, established a language of electrical discourse. The terms battery and positive and negative electricity, and the immensely important principle of electro-neutrality, all came from Franklin; the words electrolysis, electrolyte, anode, cathode, and ion, and the demonstration that matter and electricity are inextricably connected, came from Faraday.2Both Franklin and Faraday achieved mastery over nature without outward prompting-they were driven by some compelling, ineffable, intrinsic curiosity. They each believed passionately in prudence, skepticism, intellectual honesty and the sanctity of evidence. And their accomplishments afforded proof that being highly cultured, and even learned, does not necessarily imply formal education.

Sources:

John Meurig Thomas, "Faraday & Franklin", https://www.jstor.org/stable/4599022?read-now=1&seq=19#page_scan_tab_contents

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