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That Time Benjamin Franklin Tried (and Failed) to Electrocute a Turkey

posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 10 2019, @04:37AM   Printer-friendly
from the shocking dept.
/dev/random

upstart writes:

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1337

That time Benjamin Franklin tried (and failed) to electrocute a turkey

Through his experiments, Franklin was able to demonstrate that electricity consisted of a common element he called "electric fire," arguing that it flowed like a liquid, passing from one body to another. He studied how sparks jumped between charged objects, correctly concluding that lightning was merely a massive electric spark. And he coined several electricity-related terms we still use today: "charging," "discharging," "conductor," and "battery," for instance.

But Franklin had yet to find a practical application for this exciting new phenomenon, which irked him greatly. To that end, he conceived of throwing an electricity-themed dinner party. "A turkey is to be killed for our dinner by the electric shock, and roasted by the electrical jack, before a fire kindled by the electrified bottle," Franklin wrote to Collinson. Guests would drink their wine from electrically charged glasses so they would receive a subtle shock with every sip.

It's not clear if Franklin ever hosted such an elaborate dinner party, but we do know that he experimented with electrocuting various fowl using six-gallon Leyden jars. A Leyden jar is basically a glass jar partially filled with water, with a conducting wire sticking out of its cork. The jar was charged by exposing the end of the wire to an electric spark generated by friction—created by, say, rotating a glass plate so that it rubbed against leather pads. There were no standard units of electricity back then, but modern estimates indicate that a pint-sized Leyden jar would have had the energy of about 1 joule.

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  • (Score: 3, Funny) by maxwell demon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:33AM (1 child)

    by maxwell demon (1608) on Tuesday December 10 2019, @06:33AM (#930480) Journal

    This dept. line is excellent.

    --
    The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.

    • (Score: 2) by barbara hudson on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:23PM

      by barbara hudson (6443) <barbara.Jane.hudson@icloud.com> on Tuesday December 10 2019, @02:23PM (#930569) Journal
      The description of the Leyden jar is bogus. Instead of looking at the picture, they should have read the text. A Leyden jar is a capacitor that holds static electricity made out of a glass jar for an insulator and lined with metal foil. No water.

      Also,when Ben Franklin tried to shock the turkeys, he said "hold my beer."

      --
      SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.

  • (Score: 2) by iWantToKeepAnon on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:42PM (1 child)

    by iWantToKeepAnon (686) on Tuesday December 10 2019, @08:42PM (#930767) Homepage Journal
    Please, let's keep tired memes out of headlines. I just threw up, and not a little. : /
    --
    "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." -- Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:44PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday December 10 2019, @10:44PM (#930824)

      You want us to zap bad puns that lost their energy?

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