Until relatively few years ago, lightning was still something wonderful, awe-inspiring, and supernatural in origin. As late as the late 17th century, a prominent English scholar described lightning as an explosion of “nitrous and sulfurous vapors” in the air, similar to the firing of gunpowder. But, as scientists became better acquainted with electricity, they began to suspect that lightning and electricity were the same. Benjamin Franklin of the United States first suggested this idea in 1749 when he pointed out twelve similarities between electricity and lightning.

“Electric fluid,” wrote Franklin, “agrees with lightning in these details:

1. Give light.

2. Color of light.

3. Crooked direction;

4. Quick movement.

5. Being driven by metals.

6. Crack or noise when exploding.

7. Subsisting on ice or water;

8 Torn bodies through which it passes.

9. Destroy animals.

10. Metal fusion.

11. Fire flammable substances.

12. Sulfurous smell “.

Franklin went on to say that “electric fluid is attracted to the points,” adding: “We don’t know if this property is in the lightning. But since they agree in all the details in which we can compare them, aren’t they likely to agree equally? on this? Let the experiment be done. ” A few weeks later, Franklin made his first suggestion about the use of a lightning rod whereby “electrical fire would come out of a cloud silently before it could get close enough to strike.” He made more suggestions on how to test lightning, and his theories were tested by experiments by French scientists in 1752. But, before hearing of this success, Franklin had proved the same with his now famous experiment with comets. Fortunately, his kite did not make contact with a heavy bolt, otherwise his successful experiment could have been fatal as well.

As a result of these experiments, lightning rods were used to protect houses and barns, although some people wondered whether such methods of evading divine wrath showed a lack of faith. A Baptist pastor friend of Franklin’s made a special point by explaining that the use of lightning rods was neither presumptuous nor irreligious. Franklin did not try to patent the lightning rod or profit from it. He was willing to contribute his findings to science, and the personal satisfaction he got from answering his own questions was apparently reward enough. Until the middle of the last century, no one knew exactly what lightning looked like.

From the days when Zeus and Jupiter appeared holding lightning, lightning bolts were depicted as zigzag stripes with sharp angles. It is still represented that way in conventional designs. However, the photographs show that the rays are never actually angular, but are always more or less sinuous, like a meandering river, and that they often have many ramifications.