Where did Ben Franklin Go after Lightning Rang His Bells?

Yesterday, I taught a “grounding and bonding” class to a mix of electricians and solar photovoltaic system installers.  The very first slide of my Power Point presentation depicted an image of Benjamin Franklin. 

Franklin, as I explained to the class, was perhaps the first person to recognize that lightning was the same thing as the static charges snapping from our fingers.  He was also the first person to reckon that lightning flowed from different points of potential as a kind of current.  He called this current “electric fire” and reckoned that the current flowed between what he termed as “positive” and “negative” points.

As a side note (pun not fully intended), Franklin is also very good to have in your pocket as a $100.00 bill.

While the lightning experiments Franklin conducted with kites are thought to be more mythical than reality, Franklin made serious contributions to the study of electricity.  He invented the lightning rod, which is still in use today.  He was also the first person to “ground” any sort of true electrical system—the very reason I launched my class with him.

Ben Franklin’s system, though simple, proved very effective.  Franklin created his system by attaching a lightning rod to the roof of his house.  He then routed a wire from the rod and fixed the wire to a couple of bells.  From the bells, he dropped the wire down the side of his home, and then fastened the wire to a rod driven in the ground.  Lightning struck the rod repeatedly, ringing the bells and showering the home with sparks—but the system spared the home from any of the damage normally associated with a direct lightning strike by efficiently discharging the impulse into the earth.

Question for today: Where did Ben Franklin Go after Lightning Rang His Bells?  Please choose the best answer from the choices listed below.

1. ____ “Franklin went to Dairy Queen and ordered a Mint Oreo Blizzard.”
2. ____ “Ben Franklin sailed off to Europe to bathe with questionable women.”
3. ____ “Franklin didn’t go anywhere.  He remained home drinking beer by the pot-bellied stove he invented.”
4. ____ “Ben Franklin went to fetch his wife after she ran out of the house, screaming obscenities.”

Correct answer for the question posted on 11-19-2012:   #3 “Genghis Khan jammed it behind a blown screw-in type fuse to restore power to his Xbox.”

--Mitchell Hegman