On September 13 , 2021 , a severe electric storm pelted New York City with gravid rainfall , impregnable winds , and a groundless lightning show . During the tempest , One World Trade Center — the Western Hemisphere ’s tall building at 1792 feet , include its antennae — was struck by several impressive bolt of lightning .
Fortunately , the lightning strikes produced amazing photos and videos rather than catastrophic , fiery destruction — thanks to the skyscraper ’s advanced lightning trade protection arrangement found on the designs ofBenjamin Franklin . But did Franklin really originate the concept of a lightning rod with his famous experimentation ?
Kite and Key
In the former 1740s , Franklin — found Father , inventor , and storm chaser — begin investigate whether lightning was a material body of electricity , as other scientist had suggested . To essay the idea , he procured a kite and attached a metal tonality to it with an insulating silk corduroy . In 1752 , he aviate the kite during a electric storm and witness the key attract an electrical charge , essay the theory .
Franklin started urge for metal rods to protect construction and the the great unwashed inside them from the destructive violence of lightning . He hypothesized that an smoothing iron spire on top of a construction or ship could protect it from fire by attracting the lightning ’s energy and break up it safely . In a letter to a champion , hetheorizedthat “ the electrical fire would , I think , be drawn out of a cloud silently before it could come well-nigh enough to fall . ”
For his efforts , Franklin is often thought of as the father of the lightning rod . But he might have been beaten to the approximation .
The potential pre - Franklin blood line of the lightning rod are vigorously debate . Around 1730 , a Russian industrialist named Akinfiy Demidov built the 189 - fundament - grandiloquent Leaning Tower of Nevyansk in Sverdlovsk Oblast , north of Yekaterinburg . It ’s top off with a metallic element spire that plug into to metal within the construction ’s body structure , ground what might be considered the first known lightning gat .
It ’s not clear whether Demidov destine the steeple to act as such , but it could be an instance of nearly simultaneous conception .
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A version of this story was published in 2016 ; it has been updated for 2024 .
