National Kite Flying Month begins March 29th! (Don't ask me why it doesn't begin on the first of the month. Also, Wisconsin doesn't participate in Kite Flying Month for some reason.)Here's a little more info on our most famous kite-flier:
In June of 1752 Benjamin Franklin began to study the atmosphere with kites,which led to extensive meteorological work that continued for 150 years, until the airplane was developed.
Franklin was trying to determine whether the earth and sky functioned like the conducting layers of a Leyden jar in the presence of an electric charge.The memorably demonstrated experiment in Philadelphia did prove that lightning is electricity. In June of 1752 the experiment was begun in some secrecy, with only the assistance and witness of Franklin's 21 year old son. Franklin dreaded the possibility of the ridicule which too commonly attends unsuccessful attempts in science.
Franklin waited until there was a storm and then proceeded to fly his kite made of silk, the silk would tolerate the pouring rain better than other materials available at that time. They waited a very long time and even considered calling off the experiment when Ben noticed a few threads of silk tied to the key were standing straight out, he then touched the back of his knuckle to the key and felt a shock. His enormous pleasure at proving his theory is legendary. To read the complete story, click here.
2 comments:
That brings me with a funny story with Bill Engvall he was flying a kite with his son and a guy comes ask and ask him "Flying at kite?" Bill replys "No were just fishing for birds!"
It's snowing very hard in Dekalb, it's blizzard-like.
Post a Comment