Most Americans are familiar with the story of Benjamin Franklin and his famous 18th-century experiment in which he attached a metal key to a kite during a thunderstorm to see if the lightning would ...

On this day in history, June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin reportedly flew a kite during a thunderstorm, with the goal of collecting ambient electrical charge in a Leyden jar — a container that could ...

Let’s talk about the kite and the lightning storm. In the public’s mind, Benjamin Franklin’s scientific work has largely been reduced to this one experiment, in which Franklin demonstrated that ...

Illustrations of scientific experiments play a fundamental role in both science education and the dissemination of scientific knowledge to the general public. Confirming the adage that “a picture is ...