Taming the Electrical
Fire:
A Conference
on the History and Cultural Meaning of the Lightning Rod
The Bakken Library and Museum, Minneapolis - November 4-6, 2002
The Conference is supported in part by generous donations
from the Otto Schmitt Foundation and from Mr. Thomas F. Peterson,
Jr.
Program
Monday, November 4, 2002
9:15 am - 12 noon First Session
9:15 Welcome to The Bakken
9:25 Roger Stuewer (Minneapolis):
Introductory Remarks
9:40 Rod Home (University of Melbourne)
Points or Knobs: Lightning Rods and the Basis
of Decision-Making in Late-18th-Century British Science
10:35 coffee break
11:05 Peter Heering (University of Oldenburg)
Lightning Rod Research in Late Eighteenth-Century
France
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Tours of The Bakken
2 pm - 5 pm Second Session
2:00 Paolo Brenni (CNR, Istituto e Museo di Storia della
Scienza, Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica, Firenze)
Playing with Fire: Instruments and Methods
for Studying Lightning
2.55 Willem Hackmann (Museum of the History of Science,
Oxford, retired)
The Lightning Conductor: A Case Study of
18th-Century Model Experiments
3.50 coffee break
4:05 Christian Fuhrmeister (University of Munich)
The Political Iconography of Lightning
5:00-6:00 Reception
Tuesday, November 5, 2002
9 am - 12 noon Third Session
9:00 E. Philip Krider (The University of Arizona)
The Lightning Rod - "an instrument so new"
9:55 C. B. Moore, G. D. Aulich and William Rison (Langmuir
Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, New Mexico Institute of Mining
and Technology Socorro)
A Modern Assessment of Benjamin Franklin's
Lightning Rods
10:50 coffee break
11:05 Steve Nowlin and David Rhees (The Bakken Library
and Museum)
Electricity in the 18th Century: A
Hands-on Workshop
12:00 Lunch
1:00 Tours of The Bakken
2 pm - 5 pm Fourth Session
2:00 Oliver Hochadel (University of Vienna)
The Foggy Summer of 1783: The Introduction
of Lightning Rods in German-Speaking Territories
2:55 Paola Bertucci (University of Bologna)
Enlightening Towers: Early Experiments with
Lightning Rods in Eighteenth-Century Italy
3.50 coffee break
4:05 Fiona Clark (Queen's University Belfast)
Pursuing the Light: The Lightning Rod as
a Tool in the Pursuit of Mexican Enlightenment in the Gazeta
de Literatura de México 1788-1795.
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
9 am - 12 noon Fifth Session
9:00 James D. Delbourgo (McGill University)
Lightning rods, the body, and the direction of nature
in eighteenth-century North America
9:55 Arwen Mohun (University of Delaware)
Lightning Rods and the Commodification of
Risk in Nineteenth-Century America
10:50 coffee break
11:05 Elizabeth Cavicchi (Dibner Institute for the
History of Science and Technology)
Earth Grounds and Heavenly Spires: "Lightning
Rod Men'', Telegraphy, Ballooning, and the Lightning Rod's
Ends
12:00 Lunch
1 pm - 4 pm Final Session
1:00 Frank James (The Royal Institution, London)
Michael Faraday, William Snow Harris and Lightning
Rods
1.55 Hans-Joachim Knaup (Keio University, Yokohama)
Lightning as an Object of Adoration and Fear in
Japan
2:50 coffee break
3.15 David Rhees (The Bakken, Minneapolis)
Closing Remarks and Final Discussion
End of conference
Abstracts
Paola Bertucci (University of Bologna)
"Enlightening Towers. Early Experiments with Lightning-Rods
in Eighteenth-Century Italy"
Architectural items of outstanding literal and metaphorical visibility,
towers were principal protagonists of the history of lightning rods.
Whether on top of observatory towers, bell towers, or towers of wealthy
palaces, in the Italian towns the presence of a metallic rod that
could attract upon itself the destructive powers of lightning did
not go unnoticed, provoking heated discussions that involved the
experts as well as the lay-public. In some cases, the popular opposition
to lightning rods led the civil authorities to order their removal
and the suspension of any experiment on the electricity of the atmosphere
in or near public buildings. In other cases, public acclaim of the
rods marked the dawn of successful careers in electrical experimental
philosophy.
The paper examines the different fortunes of the lightning rods that
were installed on the towers of some of the most representative Italian
towns during the Enlightenment, such as Bologna, Padua, Venice and
Turin. I analyse the increasing influence of public opinion over
the performance of experiments with lightning rods and the impact
that the confrontation with public opinion had on the career-paths
of the electrical practitioners involved in such experiments. I suggest
that the numerous controversies that surrounded the installation
of lightning rods - whether of national or international character,
at the expert or at the popular level - played a fundamental role
in the consolidation of electricity in academic curricula and research
programmes.
Paolo Brenni (CNR, Istituto e Museo di Storia
della Scienza, Fondazione Scienza e Tecnica, Firenze)
"Playing with Fire: Instruments and Methods for Studying
Lightning"
Lightning is one of the most spectacular and violent manifestation
of nature. Since the mid 18th century, experimenters began to study
the phenomena related to atmospheric electricity. The first rudimental
apparatus for detecting the "electric fire" were extremely
dangerous. Experimental philosophers did not hesitate to directly
connect a lightning rod to electroscopes and Leyden jars. In the
19th century, while several scientists struggled to calculate
the areas protected by lightning conductors, some simple devices
were developed for trying to estimate the energy of lightning. Furthermore,
the complex phenomena involved in the oscillating discharges began
to be understood. Around 1900, several apparatus similar to wireless
receivers were invented for detecting and recording lightning strokes
and distant thunderstorms. But only in the 20th century with the
development of rapid cameras, special spectroscopes and various measuring
devices such as oscilloscopes, klydonographs and fulcronographs
it was possible to better investigate the physical proprieties of
lightning. My paper will retrace the evolution of some of the most
important techniques and instruments for studying this fascinating
phenomenon.
Elizabeth Cavicchi (Dibner Institute for
the History of Science and Technology)
"Earth Grounds and Heavenly Spires: "Lightning
Rod Men"', Telegraphy, Ballooning, and the Lightning
Rod's Ends"
A century after the lightning rod's origin in American experimentation,
it proliferated there by the exercise of inventiveness, enterprise,
fancy and experience.
Traveling "lightning rod men" outfitted unwary homesteaders'
roofs with "fantastic and peculiar"' rods (R. Anderson,
1880, p. 133): flimsy spikes up top, often with nothing underneath. Or,
when an earth- terminal was installed, it might be just as unique
-- and nonfunctional. For example, Bryan's "earth battery" allegedly
received earth's electricity on buried galvanic plates, activating
an induction coil whose secondary dispensed it to the above-ground
rod.
The public could be duped and never know it, but not practitioners
in the new occupation of telegraphy. Daily they experienced
lightning and other environmental electrical effects. Extraneous
electricity disrupted telegraphed signals, melted overhead lines,
destroyed instruments, and shocked the operators. The telegraphic
circuit itself was completed only when both the line's ends kept
good underground contact with earth. Grounding failures were
apparent; removing them essential to restoring service. Diverse
devices evolved to protect telegraphic devices by diverting line
lightning directly to ground. These "lightning arresters",
inventively incorporating wirecards, flowerpots, or ornamental brass,
reveal the telegraphers' experiential understandings of electricity's
paths.
Another new pursuit -- aeronauts piloting balloons -- made the opposite
end of lightning's path accessible: its cloud-borne bolts. For
forty years, Pennsylvanian John Wise (1808-1879) toured the heavens
regularly in homemade hydrogen-filled balloons, logging his meteorological
observations. Sightings of cloud-to-cloud flashes below, and
sailing through electric glows, inspired him to propose and test
a Smithsonian-sanctioned, balloon-lofted electrical conduit. Safely
bringing heaven's electricity to earth's inhabitants, it would power
their engines.
This paper explores the earth grounds and upper terminations of nineteenth
century American lightning conductors. How do the conductors'
inventive endings reflect understandings of lightning that developed
through the maker's experiences in diverse activities of entrepreneurship,
telegraphy, and ballooning?
Fiona Clark (Queen's University Belfast)
"Pursuing the light: The lightning rod as a tool in the
pursuit of Mexican enlightenment in the Gazeta de Literatura de
México 1788-1795"
In this paper I hope to show how interest in the lightning rod, and
the effects of lightning in nature as experienced in Mexico, form
an integral part of the fabric of the periodical work published by
one of the most forward-thinking individuals of late eighteenth-century
Spanish America. I will show that it must be understood within
the context of a much wider dialogue taking place between the periodical
press and its readership, between the Old and New worlds, and between
tradition and modernity during those final years of Mexican colonial
society. As such, the articles written on this theme, which span
the years from 1790 to 1793, are emblematic of a desire for progress
in the understanding and harnessing of nature through reason and
experiment. José Antonio Alzate y Ram'rez, editor of four publications,
the most important of which is the Gaceta de Literatura de México
1788-1795, was an independent and largely, self-taught scientist,
educator and journalist. His main goal in these publications
lay in educating the wider public, to bring improvement economically,
intellectually and socially. Whilst making use of scientific writing,
in this particular case available from both Europe (Pistoi and Rosier)
and North America (Benjamin Franklin) through translation, Alzate
is always at pains to prove how these advances, although pertinent
to the Mexican situation must also be tested and understood in its
particularity. The articles included in the Gaceta demonstrate the
polemic between recognition of a world-wide community of science,
that breaks the limits of nationality, on the one hand, and the need
to prove the diversity, richness and progress of a particular national
science on the other. Alzate's attempts to introduce the use of the
lightning rod are, therefore, one small step toward a Mexican national
consciousness within the context of scientific enlightenment.
James D. Delbourgo (McGill University):
"Lightning rods, the body, and the direction of nature
in eighteenth-century North America"
In this paper, I explore the way in which lightning conductors involved
the body in re-defining views of the direction of nature in eighteenth-century
North America. Faith in the protective capacity of conductors was
based on bodily knowledge of lightning-as-electricity. In Franklin's
well-known experiments of the early 1750s, it was the controlled
interaction of atmospheric electricity and the body which made possible
this new knowledge, and the construction of useful technology for
re-directing lightning away from the body. When natural philosophers
attempted to replicate Franklin's experiments, however, they sometimes
failed because of sensory disorientation occasioned by this interaction.
What to philosophers was a useful and humane product of experiment,
was to Calvinist ministers an impious obstacle to the moral regulation
of human beings by God. This regulation proceeded through unmediated,
divine access to the body; securing bodies against lightning thus
appeared to deny God's sovereignty to punish sinners by harming their
bodies. In response, natural philosophers denied that re-directing
lightning away from the body challenged the idea that God directed
nature. Lightning was still an instrument of divine direction, philosophers
claimed, as long as one accepted their re-definition of this direction
as benevolent, lawful and predictable. In accounts of lightning-strikes
on houses published in philosophical journals, natural philosophers
concerned themselves with the physical direction in which lightning
traveled, in order to perfect the separation of lightning from human
bodies and structures, through the improvement of conductors. An
animating concern for these writers was the recurrent failure of
lightning rods to protect the houses on which they were mounted.
Without controversy, they discussed lightning-strikes and ways of
improving lightning protection in a consensual public forum. Yet,
in private, the failure of conductors could become linked to skepticism
about the agency of human beings to understand and control the electrical
environment in North America.
Christian Fuhrmeister (University of Munich)
"The Political Iconography of Lightning"
The cultural meaning of the lightning rod cannot be separated from
the cultural meaning of lightning itself. The history of the device
that tames the electrical force(s) cannot be written without taking
into consideration the deep fears and the great hopes that were linked
to the natural phenomenon in the last two centuries.
I am particularly interested in the political meaning of lightning.
There are numerous examples - caricatures, etchings, etc. - of the
use of lightning during the French Revolution to signify either refusal
or acceptance of social upheaval. Of course, this is in many cases
closely linked to Enlightenment's general position towards lightness
and darkness. While the significance of lightning in the arts (see
Rieth 1953 and Winter-Fritzsche 1990) has recently also been dealt
with from the perspective of cultural history (Kittsteiner 1991,
Briese 1998, to name just two authors), the political meaning itself
has not been properly investigated. Based on research I undertook
for my dissertation (University of Hamburg 1998, published 2001),
I propose to give a paper that focuses on the political dimension
of lightning by sketching the course of political imagery and popular
imagery from the late 18th century through the 19th to the first
half of the 20th century, particularly addressing the question of
how lightning functioned as a sign in different discourses. Despite
efforts to form a counter-imagery, the general tendency is quite
obvious: It is a 'left' symbol that is associated with liberation
and progress, opposed to tradition(s) and/or the status quo.
This is most obvious in Walter Gropius' Monument to the March Dead,
erected 1922 in Weimar. Made of concrete, it shows a large lightning
that comes from below, from the workers' graves. Precisely because
this monument is intricately tied to the political iconography of
lightning, which evolved since 1800, it was attacked and deteriorated
by the National Socialists who employed the symbol of lightning for
their own purposes.
Willem Hackmann (Museum of the History of
Science, Oxford)
"The Lightning Conductor: A Case Study of 18th-Century
Model Experiments"
Model experiments became especially popular in the 18th century in
areas of nature in which direct experimental intervention was limited,
as was the case with lightning and what were considered to be associated
manifestations of atmospheric electricity, such as water spouts,
auroras and earthquakes. This paper will discuss the process leading
from identifying lightning with common or artificial electricity
to the model experiments devised to both reinforce that lightning
is a manifestation of common electricity and identify means of protecting
building, ships and people against lightning strikes. This case study
allows us to examine the attitudes towards model experiments: the
criteria that made both conceptual and scale models acceptable, or
not. The period under discussion will be from Benjamin Franklin to
Alessandro Volta.
Peter Heering (University of Oldenburg)
"Lightning Rod Research in Late Eighteenth-Century France"
When Richard Anderson published in 1881 a translation of several
memoirs of the Paris' Academy on lightning rods he claimed comparing
the situation in England and France: "As regards lightning conductors,
there can be no manner of doubt that they manage things better on
the other side of the channel than with us". This complaint
covers the period from 1823 onwards when Gay-Lussac published a report
in which a committee proposed a protection cone with a radius twice
the height of the conductor.
One might question whether a similar observation could be made for
earlier periods and in particular for the eighteenth century. Looking
at historical accounts of lightning rod research the situation seems
to be entirely different compared to Anderson's analysis. This observation
can be made in particular for the period from Nollet's death in 1770
until the publication of the above mentioned report. This is the
starting point of my analysis: I am going to discuss the attempts
to determine the utility and properties of lightning rod in the respective
period. In doing so I will particularly focus on scientific discussions
and factor out questions such as who had the actual competence and
authority to manufacture or erect the rods. Therefore relevant questions
for my analysis are:
What were considered to be open questions in respect to lightning
rods?
What were considered to be proper methods of answering these questions?
What were considered to be relevant arguments in the discussions
on lightning rods?
Oliver Hochadel (University of Vienna)
"The Foggy Summer of 1783: The Introduction of Lightning
Rods in German-Speaking Territories"
The introduction of the lightning rods in German-speaking territories
only started on a greater scale in around 1780. In the Habsburg Empire
this coincided with the rule of Joseph II. (1780-1790), the epitome
of an enlightened monarch. His "anticlerical" politics
interlinked in 1783 with the abolition of the "Gewitterlaeuten",
the ringing of the church bells to chase away thunderstorms.
The paper attempts to answer the following questions: Why had previous
attempts of introducing the lightning rod dating back to 1755 failed?
In how far did the lightning rod become a symbol of enlightened resp.
absolutist politics? Who were the intercessors and propagandists
of the introduction? Interestingly, there seems to have been quite
a vocal learned opposition to the lightning rod and its alleged protective
potential in Vienna deserving special attention.
The paper will not only address the arguments exchanged but will
also ask more specifically: Who actually installed the lightning
rods? Was there some kind of a supervision? How was expertise in
these matters constructed? Was there a geographical or social pattern
in the "spreading" of the lightning rod?
Despite an impressive amount of scholarly work on Joseph II. and
enlightened absolutism the role of natural philosophy in this context
has elicited little interest among scholars. This is particularly
the case for electricity and lightning rods. In this virtually uncharted
territory the paper will draw on a vast amount of little known sources
and unpublished archival material.
Rod Home (University of Melbourne)
"Points or Knobs: Lightning Rods and the Basis of Decision-Making
in Late-18th-Century British Science"
It is well known that during the 1760s and 1770s, the British scientific
community was riven by a dispute over whether lightning rods should
have pointed or rounded ends. With the safety of the Royal Navy's
powder magazines at stake, a decision had to be reached. Though we
now know that it makes no difference whether points or knobs are
used, successive committees set up by the Royal Society of London
had no hesitation in declaring for points, notwithstanding the strongly
expressed dissenting opinion and dramatic public experiments of one
committee member, Benjamin Wilson, FRS. The story is best understood,
I shall argue, neither as a triumph of reason over superstition,
nor as a political struggle between republican sympathizers and royalists,
but as illustrating both a growing recognition during the period
in question of the importance of scientific expertise in making decisions
on technical issues, and the difficulties associated with deciding
who should count as an expert. In this paper, drawing on new documentary
sources I consider the process whereby Wilson, despite (or perhaps
because of) his reliance on public demonstrations and the patronage
of King George III, was transformed from a respected authority on
electricity into someone who could be successfully portrayed by his
opponents as a charlatan.
Frank James (The Royal Institution, London)
"Michael Faraday, William Snow Harris and Lightning Rods"
William Snow Harris and Michael Faraday, who were quite close friends,
held rather different views on the action of lightning rods. Harris
in many ways maintained an old fashioned view of electrical action
and encountered considerable resistance to his ideas of placing lightning
rods on ships and public buildings. However, his ideas were eventually
accepted and he was awarded a knighthood for his work which was a
relatively rare honour for a man of science in the first half of
the nineteenth century. Faraday, by contrast, was interested in explaining
how conductors worked in terms of his developing theories of electrical
action. What is especially interesting about Faraday is that when
he was asked for practical advice about rods (for example by the
East India Company or by Trinity House) he translated his new theoretical
views into fluid theories of electricity so as to be able to communicate
effectively with officials who only had acquaintance with the older
theories. Furthermore, Faraday had a fascination with lightning storms
both as events he witnessed (with some degree of awe) and also the
after effects of lightning strikes. This fascination seems to transcend
just scientific interest and will be considered in light of his theistic
view of the world. This is particularly interesting in the practical
application of lightning rods since the context in which their use
was advocated was the benefit they might bestow on humanity. By comparing
and contrasting Harris's and Faraday's ideological and theoretical
views and their practical approaches to the subject, we will be able
to understand better how this technology was developed in the nineteenth
century.
Hans-Joachim Knaup (Keio University, Yokohama)
"Lightning as an Object of Adoration and Fear in
Japan"
The Japanese word for thunder, lightning, and thunderstorms is kaminari,
which literally means "rumbling of the gods". Thunder and
lightning were regarded as a manifestation of divine power.
There have always been many ties between lightning and rice cultivation
in Japan. Frequent lightning strikes during a particular year were
thought to portend a good harvest, and in a ceremony seen throughout
Japan, people used to place green bamboo stalks around fields that
were struck by lightning, marking them as chosen targets of heavenly
power. In rural areas, the last lightning-strike of the year was
considered to indicate a particularly auspicious direction, a belief
that has survived into modern times.
On the other hand, lightning posed threats of disaster and death,
and people had to be careful to stay out of the way. Thus in Japan
we find many kinds of kaminari-yoke, charms used to avoid confrontation
with thunderbolt-wielding deities.
In Ibaraki, a prefecture north of Tokyo, people used specially made
bamboo instruments that produced frightening sounds when waved to
keep rice seedlings safe from lightning. This kind of magic, which
was common throughout Japan, is called kandachioi, which means "escorting
the heavenly power to another place". In the mountainous prefecture
of Wakayama, peasants used to grow a plant called benkeikusa or kaminarikusa
(thunder-grass) which was believed to protect wide areas from lightning.
Personal protection was sought from mosquito-nets and from special
anti-lightning-pills, which Japanese noblemen used to carry in small
boxes. Protection was also sought from incantations such as kuwabara-kuwabara,
which was believed powerful enough to keep whole areas free of thunderstorms
and lightning strikes, and is still heard today.
This lecture will analyze the history of the Japanese mentality toward
thunder and lightning. Special attention will be given to cultural
and social background and some differences in the perception of lightning
in the East and the West.
E. Philip Krider (The University of Arizona)
"The lightning rod - "an instrument so new""
The Philadelphia experiments on static electricity, as led and communicated
by Benjamin Franklin (1751, 1752), helped to stimulate the development
of electricity as a science and the beginnings of modern physics. This
work also led to the hypothesis that tall conductors, carefully insulated
from ground, could be used to determine if thunderclouds are electrified. In
1752, the sentry box and kite experiments in France and Philadelphia
proved once and for all that thunderclouds are electrified and that
lightning is an electrical discharge. These experiments also
validated the key assumption that led to Franklin's supposition that
tall, grounded rods might protect ordinary structures from lightning
damage. In this paper, we will trace the evolution of Franklin's
ideas about the design and function of protective rods, and we will
show how each of the key elements, i.e. the air terminals, the down
conductors, and the grounding system, were improved as Franklin saw
or learned more about the effects of lightning on structures. We
will trace how these ideas were put into practice in the American
colonies and in Europe and the opposition to protective rods that
was based in part on jealousy or super-stition, or fears that the
rods would attract lightning and would not protect against it. In
February, 1762, Franklin wrote Ebenezer Kinnersley that, "Indeed,
in the construction of an instrument so new, and of which we could
have so little experience, it is rather lucky that we should at first
be so near the truth as we seem to be, and commit so few errors." Lucky
indeed - we will show how elements of the 1762 design are still present
in all lightning protection codes that are used in the world today.
Arwen P. Mohun (University of Delaware)
"Lightning Rods and the Commodification of Risk in 19th
Century America"
In the late summer of 1853, Herman Melville spent a few months living
just outside the village of Pittsfield in the Berkshire Mountains
of Massachusetts. Chronically short of money, he was gathering
inspiration for short stories that could be sold to popular magazines. The
following spring, drawing on his experiences in Pittsfield, he wrote "The
Lightning-Rod Man" which appeared in the August 1854 issue of
Putnam's Monthly Magazine. The brief story that resulted recounts
the efforts of an itinerant lightning rod salesman to frighten the
narrator into buying his wares in the midst of a summer storm. Much
of the dialogue revolves around the efficacy of lightning rods and
the relative danger of lightning. The story finally resolves
itself when the narrator grows so frustrated with the salesman's
evasive patter that he breaks the rod and kicks his visitor out into
the storm, berating him with a speech about the hubris of testing
God's will by employing technology.
Lightning rod salesmen were a relatively new phenomenon in 1854. Although
lightning rods had been around for nearly a century, they had just
begun to change from a homemade device erected by knowledgeable farmers,
mechanics, blacksmiths, and others to a commodity made in a factory
and sold and installed by salesmen or lightning rod companies. This
transition coincided with what American historians have called the
'market revolution,' a period in which increasing numbers of Americans
(including significantly, small-town and rural Northerners) became
more tied to a cash economy and the values of a market society.
This paper will describe and analyze the process through which lightning
rods became commodified in mid-19th century America. It will
show that the market for this particular risk-mediating technology
built upon a fascination with electrical phenomenon propagated through
lectures and popular magazines in the early 19th century. By
the 1840s, manufacturers had begun to cash in on this interest with
factory-made lightning rod systems sold and installed by company
representatives. As lightning rods became commodified, both
their physical shape and cultural meaning shifted. Competing
manufacturers added balls, whorls, finials, and other decorative
devices to attract consumers who saw lightning rod as architectural
element declaring their modern, scientific outlook and willingness
to spend money on a risk mediating technology as insurance against
an uncertain event, the lightning strike.
C. B. Moore, G. D. Aulich and William
Rison (Langmuir Laboratory for Atmospheric Research, New Mexico
Institute of Mining and Technology Socorro)
"A Modern Assessment of Benjamin Franklin's Lightning
Rods"
Although Benjamin Franklin's sharp-tipped lightning rods have been
quite useful for reducing the damage done by lightning strikes, he
invented them on the basis of two misconceptions. Initially, he thought
that they would prevent lightning by discharging electrified clouds.
After his early rods were struck by lightning, he added the idea
that their sharp tips made them into preferred receptors for lightning.
Recent measurements show that the ready charge emissions from sharp-tipped
rods tend to weaken the electric fields over their tips thus delaying
their reception of lightning. It has also been found that these rods
are more effective as strike receptors when their tips are moderately
blunt."
Steve Nowlin and David Rhees (The Bakken
Library and Museum)
"Electricity in the 18th Century: A Hands-on Workshop"
This workshop features demonstrations and hands-on
electrical experiments developed at The Bakken over the past
15 years for use in education programs for students, teachers,
and the general public. Replications of experiments using
inexpensive modern materials have proven to be a very effective
way of engaging people with the science of electricity and
the historical and human nature of science. Participants
will have the opportunity to build an electrophorus and Leyden
jar, join in a circle shock demonstration, and witness an
exploding thunder house, Volta's hailstorm, and other experiments.
For further information please contact:
Dr. Peter Heering
Physics Department
University of Oldenburg
Germany
peter.heering@uni-oldenburg.de
Dr. Oliver Hochadel
Institute for Science Studies
University of Vienna
Austria
oliver.hochadel@univie.ac.at
David Rhees, Ph.D.
Executive Director
The Bakken Library & Museum
3537 Zenith Ave. So.
Minneapolis, MN 55416
612 927 6508
fax: 612 927 7265
rhees@thebakken.org
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