Benjamin Franklin |
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I've started a National Holiday to commemorate the first
successful electrical engineering research experiment. Just 252 years
ago from May 10th, outside of Paris, a French scientist confirmed Benjamin
Franklin's hypothesis on the identity of electricity and
lightening. He was able to charge a capacitor using only a lightening
rod that was insulated from the ground. With that charge he was able
to do experiments that proved it was the same "substance" gotten from
rubbing cloth on glass rods. The experiment was repeated a week later
for the King of France (Louis XVI). Franklin's paper was then read
before the Royal Society of England.
Franklin himself an month later did his famous kite and key
experiment. Having proven to himself that his hypothesis was true, he
then designed the first device utilizing knowlege of electricity to
improve man's lot on earth: the lightening rod. Thus, Ben Franklin was
the first electrical engineer.
Many of the common words we use every day in electrical engineering were first used by Franklin in his papers on electricity. These include: positive, negative, (he was the first one to understand the "two types" of electricity), conductor, charge, current, electric force and many others. To quote his biographer, Carl van Doren, "Franklin found electricity a phenomenon, and left it a science". In my opinion, Benjamin Franklin played the key role in ushering in the modern age: the age of electricity. Because of this, he deserves a day to remember and commemorate forever his achievements. So I designate May 10th
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| Franklin Day is the first 'virtual holiday' and should be celebrated on the internet in whatever way is appropritate. Ben would've wanted it that way. |