3 Electrical experiments

Chapter 3 Electrical experiments Thales had made a good start, but no one learned much more about electricity until William Gilbert, over 2,000 years later.

泰勒斯开了个好头，但直到2000多年后的威廉·吉尔伯特才对电学有了更多的了解。

Gilbert lived in the 1600s. He was Queen Elizabeth I's doctor, but he was more interested in magnets than medicine. In his spare time, he studied magnetism and tried out Thales' experiments with amber. Excuse me! What about your royal patient?

吉尔伯特生活在17世纪。 他是伊丽莎白女王一世的医生，但他对磁铁比对医学更感兴趣。 在业余时间，他研究磁学，并尝试泰勒斯对琥珀的实验。 打扰一下!那你的皇家病人呢？

Soon, other scientists were doing their own electrical experiments. An American named Benjamin Franklin thought that lightning was an electrical force in nature. In 1752, he decided to prove it.

很快，其他科学家也开始做他们自己的电子实验。 一位名叫本杰明·富兰克林的美国人认为闪电是自然界中的一种电力。 1752年，他决定证明这一点。

Like Thales, Gilbert saw that rubbing amber gave it a pulling force. But he realized this wasn't quite the same as a magnetic force. So Gilbert named it electricity, from the Greek word for amber, elektron. It's electric! One is not amused.

和泰勒斯一样，吉尔伯特发现摩擦琥珀会产生拉力。 但他意识到这和磁力不太一样。 所以吉尔伯特把它命名为“电”，这个词来自希腊语琥珀的意思，电子。 这是电!没有人觉得好笑。

He believed that Electrical Fire- his name for lightning- could travel through a metal object such as a key. But he had to make sure the lightning reached the key, so he set up an experiment with a kite. First he made a kite with a metal spike at the top. At the bottom of the kite string he tied a key. Then he flew the kite in a thunderstorm.

他相信电火——他对闪电的命名——可以穿过像钥匙这样的金属物体。 但他必须确保闪电击中钥匙，所以他用风筝做了一个实验。 首先，他做了一个顶部有金属钉的风筝。 他在风筝线的底部系了一把钥匙。 然后他在雷雨中放风筝。

It worked! Electricity flowed from the clouds into the kite and down the wet kite string to the key. When Franklin put his finger near the key on the end, he saw a spark. It looks like the spark you get with amber. It's electricity! By the way, you should never try this yourself. Franklin was lucky not to be badly hurt. The electrical force in lightning is so strong, it kills people.

它工作!电流从云层中流入风筝，顺着湿漉漉的风筝线流入钥匙。 当富兰克林把手指靠近钥匙末端时，他看到了火花。 就像你和安珀擦出的火花。 这是电!顺便说一下，你不应该自己尝试。 富兰克林很幸运，没有受重伤。 闪电中的电力非常强大，足以致人于死地。