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Rational Thinker · Friday · 21 min

How The Electric Force Was First Measured

By the 1750s, we had a pretty decent understanding of electricity. However, the theory was incomplete. This was demonstrated most precisely when Benjamin Franklin put a cork inside a charged metal can expecting it to be influenced by the can. However, the cork didn't move whatsoever. This confusion sparked a chain reaction of events that ultimately led to Coulomb's law, published in 1785.

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By the 1750s, we had a pretty decent understanding of electricity. However, the theory was incomplete. This was demonstrated most precisely when Benjamin Franklin put a cork inside a charged metal can expecting it to be influenced by the can. However, the cork didn't move whatsoever. This confusion sparked a chain reaction of events that ultimately led to Coulomb's law, published in 1785.