Ten founding fathers of the electrical science: III. benjamin franklin: And the universal nature of electricity

Benjamin Franklin established the identity of friction-produced electricity and lightning, proposed the principles of the lightning rod, and evolved the single-fluid theory of electricity. He concluded that the peculiar property of charged bodies to attract and repel one another was the transfer of electric fluid, thus providing a complete understanding of the operation of capacitors and charged bodies. THERE WAS A SPAN of a century between the activity of Guericke and Benjamin Franklin. In this time several major contributions to the ever-growing interest in electricity were made, in particular the independent invention of the Leyden jar, or first capacitor, by E. G. von Kleist of Pomerania and Petrus van Musschenbroek of Leyden. Before Franklin, materials used in electrical experiments were separated into “electrics” and “nonelectrics.” The former were those bodies that could be charged by friction while held in the hands of the experimenter, while “nonelectrics” included those that could not be so charged.