Bolt of Fate : Benjamin Franklin and His Electric Kite Hoax

by Tucker, Tom

• ISBN13: 9781891620706
• ISBN10: 1891620703
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2003-06-18
• Publisher: Perseus Books Group

Summary

Was Benjamin Franklin's famous electric kite experiment a fraud? And did it determine the course of the American Revolution? Every schoolchild in America knows that Benjamin Franklin flew a kite during a thunderstorm in the summer of 1752. Electricity from the clouds above traveled down the kite's twine and threw a spark from a key that Franklin had attached to the string. He thereby proved that lightning and electricity were one. What many of us do not realize is that Franklin used this breakthrough in his day's intensely competitive field of electrical science to embarrass his French and English rivals. His kite experiment was an international event and the Franklin that it presented to the world--a homespun, rural philosopher-scientist performing an immensely important and dangerous experiment with a child's toy--became the Franklin of myth. In fact, this sly presentation on Franklin's part so charmed the French that he became an irresistible celebrity when he traveled there during the American Revolution. The crowds and the journalists, and the ladies, cajo

Author Biography

Tom Tucker is an award-winning author who writes often about the history of invention. His most recent publication, The Eclipse Project, was issued by NASA, the result of a fellowship administered by NASA Dryden Flight Research Center and Stanford University. He lives in Rutherfordton, North Carolina with his family

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Author's Note	xiii
Prologue	xv
PART ONE The Hand
Almanack-Writer	3	(9)
The Party Begins	12	(10)
The Equipment	22	(10)
The Genius of Nations	32	(9)
Universal Cure	41	(8)
Sunday	49	(10)
PART TWO The Virtuoso
Among Gentlemen	59	(11)
Night Benjamin	70	(9)
Ivy--Girls and Holly--Boys	79	(8)
Deadly Box	87	(12)
The Crusaders	99	(11)
Marly	110	(14)
Lightning	124	(11)
PART THREE Citizen of the World
The Kite	135	(22)
Death at St. Petersburg	157	(20)
Making Amends	177	(9)
Franklin's Point	186	(9)
The Tally	195	(10)
PART FOUR Household God
The Making	205	(10)
Bolt of Fate	215	(14)
Checkmate	229	(6)
Epilogue	235	(4)
Notes	239	(32)
Bibliography	271	(16)
Index	287