Lasers -

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

animals, thousands of forest and brush fires, as well as millions of dollars in damage to buildings, communications systems, power lines, and electrical systems are also the result of lightning. Finally, the threat of lightning causes many work stoppages and lost production increasing the time and cost required to
prepare NASA spacecraft for flight.
Benjamin Franklin performed the first systematic, scientific study of lightning during the second half of the 18th century. Prior to that time, electrical science had developed to the point where positive and negative charges could be separated. Electrical machines could, by rubbing together two different materials, store the charges in primitive capacitors called Leyden Jars from which sparks could be generated and observed.
While others had previously noted the similarity between laboratory sparks and lightning, Franklin was the first to design an experiment which conclusively proved the electrical nature of lightning. In his ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

CITE THIS PAGE: