Electricity lectureIn 1751, Ebenezer Kinnersley advertised in the Pennsylvania Gazette that he was to give a lecture on "The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire." His lectures were the first of the kind in America or Europe. The announcement read: "Notice is hereby given to the Curious, that Wednesday next, Mr. Kinnersley proposes to begin a course of experiments on the newly discovered Electrical Fire, containing not only the most curious of those that have been made and published in Europe, but a considerable number of new ones lately made in this city, to be accompanied with methodical Lectures on the nature and properties of that wonderful element." Thus, Kinnersley was one of the earliest popularizers of science.«[Image: simplified version of Kinnersley's electrical air thermometer in which colored water in the airtight cylinder pushed water up the capillary tube when sparking between electrodes heated and expanded the air.] |
