Ebenezer KinnersleyBorn 30 Nov 1711; died 4 Jul 1778 at age 66.English-born American experimenter and inventor who investigated electricity. In 1748 Kinnersley demonstrated that the electric fluid actually passed through water, using a 10-ft long trough of water. In 1751, as one of the earliest popularizers of science, he began delivering lectures on "The Newly Discovered Electrical Fire." His experiments discovered the difference between the electricity that was produced by the glass and sulphur globes, which he communicated to Benjamin Franklin at Philadelphia, since they showed beyond a doubt that the positive and negative theory was correct. He also sought ways to protect buildings from lightning, invented an electric thermometer (c. 1755), and demonstrated that electricity can produce heat.«[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.] |
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