I am searching it on Google but I am not finding,who had discovered static electric spark for the first time,that later Benjamin Franklin proved that this spark(already discovered spark) is same as that of the outside lighting? As I know scientists have seen attraction (charged amber and charged glass rod attraction) and repulsion(charged glass rod and charged glass rod repulsion) but no electric spark they have seen then from where did the scientist know about electric spark before Benjamin Franklin?
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1$\begingroup$ Hi, please rewrite to make it clear what you are researching. Are you looking for the first people who identified electric current/power/"fluid" , or people who determined that a static electricity spark was electric, or that lighting is electricity, .. ? $\endgroup$– Carl WitthoftMay 20, 2019 at 12:37
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$\begingroup$ I share Carl's puzzlement. Wikipedia's electric spark article has a history section:"Around 600 BC, Greek philosopher Thales of Miletus observed that amber could be electrified when rubbed with a cloth and attract other objects and produce sparks. In 1671, Leibniz discovered that sparks were associated with electrical phenomena". $\endgroup$– ConifoldMay 20, 2019 at 17:57
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$\begingroup$ Electric sparks arise when you pet a cat, in a dark room, and were known since the ancient times. It is meaningless to ask about such things when they were discovered. $\endgroup$– Alexandre EremenkoMay 20, 2019 at 18:07
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$\begingroup$ I gather the poster is referring to famous kite experiment by Franklin, which confirmed that electric lightening and the sparks produced by electrification is one and the same thing. benjamin-franklin-history.org/kite-experiment  $\endgroup$– AChemMay 20, 2019 at 22:03
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$\begingroup$ Alexandre Eremenko I just wanted to know how it was discovered before Benjamin Franklin $\endgroup$– user230507May 21, 2019 at 4:09
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2 Answers
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As comments suggest, the static spark is (like fire) found in nature - it was not discovered.
In terms of who first harnessed the static spark or created one purposefully, that is also likely to date to time immemorial, since commonly used textiles (like wool, especially) tend to create static easily.
The first experiments by "scientists" (a role that in the past was not a specific professional occupation, and would have been less clearly defined) with electric sparks probably began around the time of the invention of the chemical battery.
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1$\begingroup$ We know that spark is found in nature and the question is also not asking about who invented spark but asking about who discovered spark $\endgroup$ May 21, 2019 at 8:51
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1$\begingroup$ Likewise electricity which now we are using also the phenomenon that is found in nature but still there are many discoverer. If they don't have discovered we won't have known about electricity $\endgroup$ May 21, 2019 at 8:54
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$\begingroup$ @user230720, how can something found (obviously) in nature be discovered? If you're asking "who discovered that the spark was a manifestation of what we now know generally as electricity?", then obviously that places it within the past few hundred years and the development of the theory of electromagnetism, but that's different from the "discovery" or first witnessing of the spark itself. $\endgroup$– SteveMay 21, 2019 at 10:54
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1$\begingroup$ This answer is mostly correct, except the last sentence: scientific study of electricity (including sparks) began before the invention of the battery. They used electrostatic machines to generate it. $\endgroup$ May 21, 2019 at 17:30
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From my prospect von kliest, the discoverer of leyden jar,is the first scientist to know about spark.
As he might have seen when he took the charged glass rod near the
nail of the jar then the glass rod lost its charge as it can't attract any more and taking his finger towards the nail he could see the spark and feel the shock.
