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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 พ.ย. 2020
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You’ve probably heard of Ben Franklin and the kite. But do you know the TRUE story of how his famous experiment changed the world? Here’s the tale of how one person’s quest for scientific knowledge altered the direction of history.
References:
Dray, Philip. “Stealing God's Thunder: Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod and the Invention of America.” Random House, 2005.
Franklin, Benjamin. “Experiments and observations on electricity, made at Philadelphia in America” 1769. archive.org/details/experimen...
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I like to imagine Ben and his son taking turns zapping themselves and giggling.
Wholesome
I have to agree. I mean, wouldn't you? I would!
Just straight up Pillsberry doughboy style.
The first time experiencing sparks, I would agree 100%. They could even be laughing excitedly whilst zapping themselves.
You have a great imagination my dear sir
And I got bullied for flying kites in middle school. This guy flies a kite as an adult, and is praised.
Did you ever fly a kite during a thunder storm though?
as all heroic stories go, they always starts with a stupid guy doing stupid stuff that no one ever did, always get ridiculed, always keep doing it and doesn't care, then repeat and repeat. we all probably did some seemingly stupid thing at some point in our lives, the ones persevered are Ben Franklin, the ones gave up are called general public.
That's because you did it just for fun, Franklin changed the world
Lots of stuff that gets you picked on as a kid gets you praise (or at least can help you get a good job) as an adult. Middle school bullies make poor life coaches, I guess.
"The difference between screwing around and science is writing it down."
-Adam Savage
I love how the King has his men line up so he can shock them all
That statement literally killed me with laughter.
Line up, and hold hands! That's the part I like ; )
Two things you missed:
1. Ben Franklin is generally credited with the creation of the Lightning Rod. There are two guys before who may have beaten him to the punch in Europe, but we don't know enough to give them credit. The first, Akinfiy Demidov had inclusions a set of metal spikes at the top of The Leaning Tower of Nevyansk tied to metal rebar in the building's frame. However, it is not known if this detail was specifically to mitigate lightning strikes or if it's just an architectural detail. Prokop Diviš would have been the other challenger who did build a true lightning rod, but his experiments were in an attempt at weather control over minimizing lightning strikes and his work was cut short due to local protests. Since Ben's papers on the lighting rod is the first to deliberately explain the connection between weather and electricity and specifically detail how electricity could be diverted between sky and ground safely via a metal wire, he generally gets the nod.
2. While Ben never did the experiment as Disney outlined, a few did run the experiment Disney style based on Franklin's publication, to the predicable deadly results. Georg Wilhelm Richmann was killed the year following Ben's publication trying to replicate the kite experiment when lightning struck his kite.
So it was just by blind luck that lightning didn't strike Franklin's kite and kill him?
Thanks for the info. This should be added to the video description. It's a great addition to the video.
Excellent additional details! But Richmann was actually killed doing the sentry box experiment, the one you see drawn on the paper in the middle of the video (mostly because he happened to have his face right next to the wire when lightning struck his pole)
@@Eralen00 ben was using silk
@@manojkrishna4935 DRY silk
"if you rubbeth a chunk of ember, stuff would sticketh"
-some englishmen in the 1700s
truly poetic
amber
Sticketh Not,
Unless Rubethed A Lot...
The correct form would probably be "If thou rubbeth a chunk of amber, stuff wouldst stick." But you knew that, right?
@@bxdanny technically, that's wrong too. The -th ending is simple present 3rd person singular (he runneth) and the -st ending is simple present 2nd person singular (thou runnest).
@@bxdanny... Doesn't Rhyme...
"you're here because of science, now act like it." nice.
And France :>
Me when argue with creationist.
Halarious part, it said "ok dad" as small text nect to him right after he said that.
Actually, we Americans are here more because of Christianity, than the science of people like Franklin.
@@FLPhotoCatcher i think it's more of, people come to America more because of Christianity but America became free more because of the enlightenment era
video: The SHOCKING Truth About Ben Franklin and the Kite
me: say watt
(it took me a whole minute to think of that joke and im very proud of myself)
MAXIMUM EFFORT
You should be very proud of that joke.
Fun fact: Bees can fly higher than Mount Everest
I have made a vid dedicated to fun facts..
@@besmart i did put maximum effort my friend... my brain is fried now (that was intentional btw :) )
@@DarrensGeneralInfo I can jump higher than Mount Everest
"Don't look children, it's super gross"
Did I mention how much I love those hidden details?
Today I learned that when my time comes I just want to be mildly dead, not extremely which would be awful!
"He's just MOSTLY dead" - Miracle Max
@@besmart Came for the cool science video, stayed for the Princess Bride reference!
"America, you're here because of science, and it's you start acting like it"
THAT'S A LOTTA DAMAGE
5:38 “Nature, desiring cloud and ground to be balanced as all things should be”
Ok Thanos
Proof that Thanos is also a force of nature that can be explained with Science
Notice the purple arm when he said that?
@@_JayRamsey_ such great eyes
Came to the comments for commenting this 👍
Made me laugh out loud
You are now charged with the crime of a terrible Tom Scott impersonation!
Are you positively sure about this?
I concur. The accusation is grounded on solid observation. Anode there'd be some question.
"You hear that, America? You're here because of…" - I expected this to end with: "…France!"
I thought your Tom Scott impression was electrifying!
This is actually really cool! Thanks for sharing the real story!
Comments are crazy
how did you comment 9 hrs ago, early access? lol
Hol- up
Patrons get early access!
@@besmart oh yeah! I remember I read about that
ooooh That Tom Scott impression will not be unpunished in his next video "Things you might not know about Joe"
100% would watch it.
I very much liked the outtake at the end, the Tom Scott impression.
Benjamin Franklin became so famous after the discovery that even Thor, the god of thunder became one of his fanboy!
If It wasn't for Ben, we would be watching this video on our candles and hunting mammoths.
Hahahaha “watching on our candles” 😂
Reminds me of the time my mom and I moved into a new house but our furniture didn’t arrive yet, so we sat on the stairs and watched a movie on my phone. It was wicked uncomfortable, but we still joke about that time we watched movies “the way our forefathers did”
Don't you mean hunting whales for fuel
"Hear that America? You're here because of science, so ACT LIKE IT!"
Thanks for that reminder to mask up, Joe. 👍🏼
I really wish teachers were more like you and everyone else on Scishow and Eons! It would make school so much better. My children actually pay attention when we watch these channels together. They actually become interested in learning and that is why teachers should teach in this way. Huge difference and our children would probably learn a lot more.
Science must be learned in context with its historical environment to fully understand it and get the emotional component needed to a deep and persistent understanding.
Enough political history, more history of science.
Joe gets to talk to his audience one on one with the power of rehearsal and editing, while teachers have to babysit 30+ distracted kids and hit curriculum. I understand and appreciate your sentiment but it's not a fair comparison.
@@Lucas-ge5tl I had only two science teachers in all my scholarship who help us love the matter. All the others went to the "memorize and forget after the exams" way. Today, I am at science thanks to those two.
Remember that these science shows are written, rewritten and rehearsed. The cast does not have to contend with a score or more of kids, not all o whom are well behaved, when they record what we see here.
I really wish people would stop blaming teachers for their lack of motivation to learn. You think if this guy was teaching he would be so enthusiastic and entertaining 100 percent of the time? Anyway my teachers were great.
Ben Franklin doesn’t get the recognition he deserves among the general population. He was truly a genius.
As someone that's familiar enough with Photoshop to know how difficult some things are..
Props to the artist that made the Queenie-$100 bill. Outstanding work.
I love this channel! It inspired my sci-fi/futurist channel!!
I remembered that Franklin's kite story was simplified / apocryphal, but I don't think I've ever seen the real story given this much detail. Thanks!
Didn't he define positive and negative current wrong. But out of respect for him, we still choose to call negative, positive.
Yeah he made the sub optimal choice mathematically speaking but that wouldn't be understood for a long while needing the secrets of the atom and of course the mathematical formalism of Maxwell
What do you mean?
@@daemonace5910 Standard current, the convention Franklin used and we still use today in engineering, flows from areas with positive charge to places with negative charge, which seems intuitive. However electrons are negatively charged, so they actually flow from negative areas to positive areas, so real electric current in a circuit flows in the opposite direction that the diagram says. The result is whenever a physicist's is looking at an electrical diagram, they have to flip all the current directions around if they want to calculate things like electron build up or magnetic fields correctly.
@@planetfall5056 Ah I see. So the thing that got me confused as to why they made it THAT way was attributed to Ben Frank then. I see now
@@planetfall5056 I personally feel this is the fault of the physicists here. The electron wasn't discovered until the 1900's after all, and they COULD have labeled it positive and called the proton negative. That certainly would have kept everything straight. And now both sides are too entrenched for either to change. **sigh** Maybe our alien overlords will have gotten it correct.
The thing I learned from this video: US dollars have pictures of different people on different amount of currency note
"As all things should be."
I understood that reference.
Because of Franklin's writing skills, he was able to take advantage of it and easily published tons of his works. That's why he was so famous for his "discovery of electricity" even though he wasn't the first one to discover it.
i used to watch you explain stuff religiously a couple years ago and i just wanted to say you're still so great at it
„You hear that America? Youre here because of SCIENCE! Now its time you start acting like it!“
- Joe
YES!!!!! I hate when people say that science is not real or that the earth is flat or that the moon is a hologram, its INFURATING
I would like to put the people who think that the moon is a hologram on the moon with no food or water until they admit that it IS real and than bring them home and give them food and water.
Of coarse they would question weather food is edible and if we should just eat broken glass.
Like this if you feel the same
@@megancary4844 agreed
Joe bidennnnnn
@3:00 Electrocuted is a portmanteau of "Electric" and "Executed", if he had electrocuted himself (and it's a wonder he didn't!) This would have been a very short video indeed!
Nice! I always wondered what the heck Ben Franklin ever did to end up on the $100 bill...
Commenting here that everyone needs to stick around for the Tom Scott impersonation at the end
There are a lot of really good Tom Scott impersonations floating around YT, lol.
The sassy 🌎 is back! Also so many little references in this vid - love it.
I had heard the lightning and kite thing was false, but it's nice to know that there is some truth to it. Ben is one of my favorite historical people.
Thank you Dr Joe Hanson, for clearing up this kite story.
You're right, it's really a lot more important than people realise.
tbf France trying to get one back at Britain was nearly as inevitable as lighning.
Franklin was just very good at poking.
I loved the writing and editing in this video, it keeps getting better and better with every upload, so funny!
So you're telling me that in rural Uganda we're taught the real - well, a simplified one - but most Americans get the Disney version?
Americans like to have things disneyfied.
@@ErilynOfAnachronos yeah it's like how Disney butchered the original Hercules story (probably because the real story is too bloody and tragic)
Here in Brazil we don't learn it at all. I only know thanks MythBusters and Fairy OddParents.
@@ErilynOfAnachronos at least in kindergarten in middle and high school they cut the crap and things get real
Of course.
Loved the story and the style of this video! Also, had me rolling with your Tom Scott impression!
💚😸🌎😎🖖
Explaining history and science for the layman. Brilliant!
So in a way modern day science communicators like yourself influence, inspire, and educate much like the Ben Franklins of old. Very patriotic of you, oh wise wizard ;)
I had never heard the true story of Ben Franklin and his kite, or truly understood why he was held in such high esteem by the French elite, whom he convinced to help the US become independent of the British.. This video is a great watch!!
Appreciate you guys working hard to share knowledge!
I perform a solo Ben Franklin show, and naturally include the kite experiment. Thank you for being 100% accurate. Of course, two Frenchmen did the experiment first----but fully based on Franklin's writings--and they gave Franklin full credit.
I really liked the animations in this video! And the information, too, of course :D
Informative. I didn't know about the silk portion of the kite string. That couldn't have been by accident. Clearly thought and experimentation were required. Louis' support for our revolution not only made it succeed but also cost him both his throne and his life and those of his wife and children. A couple of bad harvests contributed...oh, and an inadvertently locked door.
Ahh... that helps explain the whole Statue of Liberty thing.
6:05
Oldest-looking son ever 😂
One of my favorite! Keep up the great show!
I was just wondering about this recently, but not enough to do the research. Thanks!
Yes can't speak enough about this man love u❤
7:16 “isn’t funny that I am helping you to throw a total monarchy and I am a total monarchy? Like imagine if your revolution inspired my people to do their own revolution and throw me off the throne and chop my head off”
Benjamin Franklin: *awkward silence*
“THATS CALLED FORESHADOWING” -oversimplified 2019
Wow this is so cool! Almost SHOCKING how defferent the story is
This was really interesting! Thanks a lot for creating this content.
Thank you for this wonderful and exceptional episode.
Favorite Franklin quote, "All cats are grey in the dark."
It is always said that Washington is THE indispensable figure in the founding of America. I don't want to detract too much from his significant importance to the Nation, but his main contribution to the Revolution was holding together an under-funded army while he fought skirmishes - and ran, buying time until the French showed up.
The influence of Franklin can hardly be measured. From his early editorials, to commentary on the Iroquois Nation, publishing several newspapers, multiple print shops distributing pamphlets, printing currency, his international fame and influence, negotiating treaties with France; and England - and Ambassador to Sweden. Post Master, Governor of Pennsylvania, Continental Congressman, Constitutional Delegate - all without ever running for a political office ... Franklin is the true indispensable 'Father' of the Country - and he was a party animal too.
the issue is that even within the scientific community today, there is a superstition that veils all of our eyes and, invention or progress can only be made if we step outside our biases and, creatively make some new assumptions about how our world functions around us. consider the frame or scope as to which we operate within, socially, scientific etc. love this guy, started my journey diving into his material more so recently. great coverage on the subject
The Monty Python reference was amazing.
My mind had been *BLOWN* !!! 🤯🤯🤯
Random question: what if we ran out of things to discover? what will happen then? what if there's nothing left to stay curious about?
Thanks for the knowledge, I learn here more than school.
Thank you! This helps me a lot in my novel!
I was very surprised at the title and now I know this episode is going to be good 👍
Franklin shocks himself. GENIUS
I shock myself. DUMB
Fascinating! This is the complete opposite
I own the land where Franklin flew his kite experiments. He stayed at the farm house next door and conducted experiments on my land . I live in new hope on Ridge rd which is the highest elevation area . It is rumor that Philadelphia would not let him conduct experiments in the city because all wood buildings so he was forced to do experiments in a rule area.
You always rock
And always be my inspiration
I am talking not only about Ben
Blinded me with science!! Thanks B.F.😎
Thank you so much! That was absolutely fascinating! 💟📃💫
It is also the reason that Franklin knew that by attaching a heavy wire cable to that pointy metal thing on the top of church steeples and ran those cables outside the church and into the ground that lightning would follow the cable around the outside of a church rather than go through the church and cause the inside of the church to catch fire. And, of course, if you installed pointy metal things on the top of other buildings and attached a heavy cable to them and ran those cables outside the building and into the ground that lightning would follow the cable around the outside of a building rather than go through the building and cause the inside of the building to catch fire.
Since Franklin was also involved in establishing a fire fighting organization, lightening rods would save them a lot of work and the owners of those buildings a lot of grief and expense.
Finally a video where joe doesn’t go full vsauce Michael mode
lol. And does not go crazy like the last one about weeks. I totally cracked when he did that sound for the decimal point
You get a thumbs up for the Tom Scott impression attempt!
in school we learned he did the kite thing to show you could drain lighting from the cloud through a conductor and that was how he came up with lightning rods which were important for tall buildings and powder magazines
Very cool story! Thanks for educating
“You hear that, America? You’re here because of science. Now start acting like it.”
People who refuse to wear masks: *nervous sweating*
Please make more videos like this!
When I was in like the 5th grade the local weather man came to do a segment on the weather, he stated that lighting starts at the ground and what we see is the discharge going back down. Never been able to find anything stating that as a fact 😂
Every big finding has one a "tall tale" like this to make it poetically perfect.
Somehow "smart ass figured something out" doesn't hold as much sway around the campfire than "struggling scientist hits stroke of inspiration".
It's like Neuton's "apple falling from the tree" story, it sounds better than "shy weirdo thought it up and put it on the shelf untill someone had to tell him it was worth something."
I think they're mostly harmless though, it's important to not forget changing the world requires a lot of risk and faith just to see the science through to completion within yourself.
1:29 I was today years old when I learned Ben Franklin invented Kite Surfing
kind of off topic but reminds me of being a kid, one rainy windy day i held an umbrella while i was waiting for the school bus and the wind picked me up from my umbrella and i flew for a few of my body lengths down the sidewalk. It was so magical and nobody saw so i felt like i had to share that with you decades later. natures power can be... shocking?
Franklin held up a Leyden jar - basically a capacitor - to the key, and saw the spark, and afterwards could draw sparks out of the Leyden jar.
Thanks for this super interesting video!!!!!!!
As a history nerd that works in the electronics field I now have a new book to read I see.
Somehow this makes me appreciate the kite story more
you have my upvote for the Tom Scott impression :-)
the tom Scott impression was too good 💀
This is the only channel I've subscribed.
U have been doing this for years and u are the best
I can see why they wouldn’t want to teach something like this in schools, especially in my neck of the woods. They would rather you believe we are here due to a magic bearded man in the sky ordaining it so.
2:45
A rare illustration of 'Electric Avenue' before the song made it famous.
That Tom Scott impression was hilarious
Brilliant video.
superb!!! Thanks!!
Amazing, thanks!
Very good work
Wow! The original story is far less flashy (pun intended) but order of magnitude more heroic. Old boy Ben took such a tremendous risk with a true spirit of science and enlightenment. This is called Lion hearted scientist.
Tom Scott needs to see that outro now
You pulled a nice James Burke on this video
Thank you! This comment is particularly funny for reasons that I can't explain in public
@@besmart, to pull a Full Burke, you'd have to have also mentioned the Albany Plan of Union.
No way James would have left that HUGE piece out Connections between these puzzle pieces.
I can also imagine JB committing to bestowing Franklin with the title of *Most Important Founding Father.*
Committee of Five, and all that. You simply can't beat the totality of what he did.
EXCELLENT job, Joe, in communicating that with your visual of Lizzy on the Hundred.
It would have been a nice touch to morph that into a £100 note.
I was also hoping to see you throw in the detail of _why_ Ben called it a "battery".
Because the array of Leyden jars to him resembled a battery of cannons.
Great video! Congrats.
I'm in love with you videos 🤩 it's okay to be smart
I like that the animation shows the negative charge on the surface of the earth that is not under the clouds. Fun fact, in fair weather conditions, the surface of the earth is negatively charged while the atmosphere and ionosphere are positively charged 🤷♀️
The “Tosefta” of Shabbat Chapter 7 verse 10 which was written in the second century explains a Jewish tradition possibly dating back to 2300 BC that shepherds put metal rods in their fields to protect their animals from lightning. I find it amusing when people credit Ben Franklin with the lightning rod when Jews have known about it for thousands of years.