科学美国人60秒:Franklin's Lightning Rod Served Political Ends

Besides helping to create the United States of America, Benjamin Franklin of course invented the lightning rod. Which sits atop buildings and protects them by attracting lightning strikes and conducting them to the ground. Rather than through the structure. Which can cause fires or outright electrocutions.

But what’s better? A lightning rod with a round end or one that comes to a sharp point? According to the book Revolutionary Science, by Steve Jones at University College London, Franklin liked lightning rods to be, in Franklin’s own words, “made sharp as a Needle.”

And so in North America, Jones writes, “The use of one or the other was interpreted as a statement in favor of the rebels or of the Crown.” In fact, Jones continues, “George III, to advertise his displeasure at the colonial revolt, had the sharpened structures on Buckingham Palace replaced with rounded versions.”

The king even pressured the Royal Society, the leading scientific organization of the time—and still highly regarded today—to endorse the idea that round-ended lightning rods were better than Franklin’s pointy ones. To which the president of the Royal Society responded, “I will always do my best to fulfill the wishes of His Majesty, but I am able to change neither the laws of nature nor the effects of its forces.”

Some Americans today, especially a few in positions of authority, would do well to acknowledge the reality of the laws of nature and the effects of its forces.

—Steve Mirsky