[Sailor Steve]

We've all heard about Ben Franklin and the kite. What a lot of people don't know is that old Ben was a dedicated scientist. The kite-and-key experiment was actually very carefully controlled, and took place in a budding storm but not when actual lightning was coming down.

Franklin saw a static-electricity demonstration after he retired from the printing business and bought a set of six Leyden jars and a static generator. He conducted experiments over a period of several months, trying his jars both in series and in parallel. He then sent his papers to the Royal Academy of Sciences in London. They awarded him the Copley medal for scientific achievement, prompting him to write back "I am pleased to see that, while you have not yet perfected the creation of gold, you have discovered how to duplicate it."

Part of Franklin's paper was an apology for creating inadequate terms for dealing with the subject, and invited the Academy to change any of them they wished to. Among his "inadequate" terms were "Positive" and "Negative Charge", and "Storage Battery".

Benjamin Franklin was not only an author, politcian and statesmen, he was regarded by his peers as one of the great scientists of his time.

Oh, and the relevance? Franklin didn't invent the electric battery, but he did give it that name.