Today in Technology History
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November 30
American inventor and scientist Ebenezer Kinnersley, one of the most significant electrical experimenters of his day, was born 290 years ago.
In science and technology, no one works in a vacuum: all research and innovation depends upon the work that preceded it. Moreover, the history of science and technology is replete with examples of researchers and inventors who competed or collaborated with their contemporaries. Even Benjamin Franklin, that eminently creative American, depended upon a cadre of fellow Philadelphians to aid his work on electricity. Kinnersley was the most important of Franklin's partners and disciples.
Kinnersley was born in Gloucester, England on November 30, 1711, but his family moved to the American colonies when he was young. Kinnersley became a Baptist pastor, and he participated in certain arcane church controversies in the 1740s.
Franklin and Kinnersley met and became friends. They began to discuss electricity and share ideas for experiments.
The humorous introduction to a letter Kinnersley wrote to Franklin. Kinnersley discovered that water could conduct electricity; he also discovered that electricity could be used to produce heat, and he invented an electrical thermometer. He assisted Franklin in inventing the lightning rod, and in 1749 Kinnersley actually gave the first public demonstration of that invention. Kinnersley and Franklin together discovered and named "positive" and "negative" electricity.
In the 1750s, Kinnersley started to deliver public lectures about electricity, so some historians consider him the first American science popularizer. His accomplishments have been mostly neglected since his death in 1778, but it is worthwhile to occasionally bring him out from under Franklin's shadow -- as a reminder that even original thinkers like Franklin didn't work totally alone.
Related link:
Click here for a biography of Kinnersley.
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