Electric charge Electric pleasures Electronic addiction Commentary

Benjamin Franklin electromagnetism

Electric charge

• Benjamin Franklin conducted experiments with static electricity
• and discovered that pointed bodies conduct electricity
• more readily than rounded bodies,
• leading directly his inventing the lightning rod.
• He was the first to understand the difference
• between “a plenum of electrical fire”
• which he said was electrified positively or plus
• and “a vacuum of the same fire”
• which he said was electrified negatively or minus.
• He understood that the parts of electrical matter
• repel each other, but are attracted by other matter,
• so that electrified water molecules in a cloud repel each other
• until they are discharged as lightning,
• whereupon drops coalesce and fall as rain.
• He was the first to claim that electrical charge is conserved,
• and he was the first to show that static electricity
• gathered by friction and stored in a Leyden jar
• is the same as the electricity generated by an electrical storm
• and conducted to a key by the wet string of a kite.

Electric pleasures

• “A turkey is to be killed for our dinner
• by the electrical shock,
• and roasted by the electrical jack,
• before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle.”
• —Benjamin Franklin, 1748
• Or so we read on our electric monitor
• of the electric computer
• from a distant electric archive
• of an electric version of Franklin’s book,
• Experiments and Observations on Electricity.

Electronic addiction

• Users addicted to electronics
• argue electronics are good for them.
• There was a time when mankind
• could not control electrons.
• It would be foolish to argue
• lives were better then,
• and it would be foolish to argue
• we have no more to learn.