Competent scientist and diplomat

In addition to all his other accomplishments Benjamin Franklin was a competent scientist. He marvelled at the newly invented Leyden Jar and was among the first to realize that it could store electricity. The natural phenomenon, lightning, also interested him deeply. Franklin was the first to prove that lightning was just a gigantic electrical spark. In November 1749, he drew up a list showing twelve ways in which lightning and electricity were similar. Then he invented a way "of drawing the electric fire from the clouds by means of pointed rods of iron erected on high buildings" and a lightning rod for that.

In June 1752, he risked his life and that of his son William, who helped him, to prove that lightning is an electrical discharge. They made a kite of silk on a cedar frame tipped with metal wire. Standing in a doorway, they flew it in a thunderstorm. A silk ribbon was attached to the lower end of a silken kite-string. Franklin held a dry portion of the silk ribbon. A metal key was suspended from the kite-string above the ribbon. Below the key was a Leyden Jar. At first nothing happened, but as the kite-string got wet from the rain, electricity began to flow. Sparks jumped between the key and the Leyden Jar. The electric current hadn't been able to travel along the kite-string till it got wet. Dry silk is a non­conductor, but wet silk, like metal, is a good conductor of electricity.

Franklin's observations on electricity were published in London in 1751 and brought him the applause of British scientists. He gave the study of electricity a boost. In the hundred years after he flew his kite, Coulomb, Ampere, Ohm and Volta all made important discoveries. As printer, journalist, scientist, philosopher and statesman, Benjamin Franklin was one of the most prominent men of his age.

Having retired from business, Franklin became a diplomat. He was a born diplomat, and spent nearly twenty years abroad. In 1757-1763 he represented American colonies in England. He was one of the first to notice the impossibility of compromise between the colonies and their mother country.