I still don't get how electricity was "discovered" with a kite by Benjamin Franklin.?

Answer 1

yeah, that is somewhat misrepresented in our history and lore

you're instinct is correct, he certainly didn't "discover" electricity

what Franklin did was show that lightning WAS electricity
electric currents were already being generated by scientists before Franklin's time

here is a good site describing the experiment, what it proved, and why that was very important to advancement of electrical science

http://sln.fi.edu/franklin/scientst/electric.html

Answer 2

From Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Franklin#Inventions_and_scientific_inquiries

"Franklin proposed that "vitreous" and "resinous" electricity were not different types of "electrical fluid" (as electricity was called then), but the same electrical fluid under different pressures (See electrical charge). He was the first to label them as positive and negative respectively,[3] and the first to discover the principle of conservation of charge.[4] In 1750, he published a proposal for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity by flying a kite in a storm that appeared capable of becoming a lightning storm. On May 10, 1752, Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin's experiment (using a 40-foot-tall iron rod instead of a kite) and extracted electrical sparks from a cloud. On June 15, Franklin conducted his famous kite experiment and also successfully extracted sparks from a cloud (unaware that Dalibard had already done so, 36 days earlier). Franklin's experiment was not written up until Joseph Priestley's 1767 History and Present Status of Electricity; the evidence shows that Franklin was insulated (not in a conducting path, as he would have been in danger of electrocution in the event of a lightning strike). (Others, such as Prof. Georg Wilhelm Richmann of St. Petersburg, Russia, were spectacularly electrocuted during the months following Franklin's experiment.) In his writings, Franklin indicates that he was aware of the dangers and offered alternative ways to demonstrate that lightning was electrical, as shown by his use of the concept of electrical ground. If Franklin did perform this experiment, he did not do it in the way that is often described, flying the kite and waiting to be struck by lightning, (as it would have been dramatic but fatal). Instead he used the kite to collect some electric charge from a storm cloud, which implied that lightning was electrical. See, for example, the 1805 painting by Benjamin West of Benjamin Franklin drawing electricity from the sky."

Answer 3

Static electricity was already known in Franklin's time. The point of the kite experiment is that he demonstrated that lightning was electric. I think he did this by connecting a Leyden jar (a device that stores electric charge, what we'd call a capacitor today) to his kite string and showing that the jar acquired a charge after the kite was struck by lightning.

Answer 4

Electricity had been known since ancient times. Franklin discovered that lightning was a form of electricity, which was suspected but not proven until the kite experiment.

Answer 5

What he did was conduct electricity from a cloud (we call it lightening) which was led down the kite string (we call that conduction) and lodged in a metal key in a Leyton jar. It was, in effect, the first battery, because some of the charge could be regained from the Leyton jar.
He didn't actually 'discover' anything, he just took advantage of a natural phenomenon, and almost killed himself in the process, as he had no notion just how powerful a lightening bolt could be.
It's a wonder more of the early experimenters didn't do themselves in, because they took some awful risks!

Answer 6

Ever watch the show "Mythbusters"? They proved that if he actually was holding a kite that was struck by lightning in the rain, that he would have died. Most likely it was static electricity from the storm, not a lightning bolt, that traveled down the string to the key at the bottom. Ben noticed a spark travel from the key to his finger.

Answer 7

It wasn't!

I heard it was a hoax pulled off by and self-corraborated by Franklin in the race with the French to discover electricity. It never happened, it's an urban myth.

Seriously, look it up!

Answer 8

There was a key attached to the end of the kite string. Lightening + metal key = electric shock for good 'ole Ben.

Answer 9

The dood just happened to be using his kite with a key to see if he could get a jolt out of the air and he noticed it and how.

Answer 10

he must knew some things about it before going out and flying a kite with a metal key on it