build, it still did not allow the force to be harnessed.
The work of Benjamin Franklin (1706 1790) brought the science another step closer to this goal. He suggested and conducted a variety of experiments in the late 1940s, including a series that linked lightning and electricity. The French scientist D'Abilard was able to complete one of these experiments before Franklin and so was the first to prove this link in May of 1972 (Dunsheath, p. 9). However, Franklin conducted his famous kite-and-key-in-a-storm experiment soon after providing more data and proof. Immediately lightning rods popped up everywhere to protect buildings from storm damage. This was perhaps the first practical application of electrical studies.
After this, work in the field progressed rapidly. Henry Cavendish (1731 1810) developed a rating scale for conductivity and tested various substances accordingly. He also noted the inverse law of electrical attraction and repulsion (Dunsheath, p. 22). This was later proved by Charles Augustin Coulomb (1736 1806), who advanced the field even further when he developed a method to accurately measure electrical force (Dunsheath, p. 22). His work with this tool led him to develop Coulomb's Law, which will be examined later.
Allessandro Volta's (1745 1827) contribution was the discovery of continuous electric current. His invention, the condensing electrometer, increased the sensitivity to voltage measurement a hundred times and allowed electricity to be applied for practical uses (Dunsheath, p. 37). He is immortalized for his efforts in the terms voltage and its associated words.
Humphrey Davy (1778 1829) built upon Volta's data by studying the application of electric currents to chemical compounds. As a result, ideas about the constitution of matter began to formulate and electrical force began to be harnessed to do actual work. One invention of Davy's was the miner's lamp, which saved hundreds of liv...