Inspired from youth by Albert Camus' sense of the Absurd, I try to be a voice for REASON in the growing darkness and moral insanity of global capitalism .
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Thursday, May 8, 2025
Benjamin Franklin on the electric shock of the Leyden Jar - NO JOKE about those early experiments with accumulating static electricity
Benjamin Franklin took a pretty good shock. And then wrote about it.
["I then felt what I know not how well to describe; as universal Blow thro'out my whole Body from head to foot which seem'd within as well as without; after which the first thing I took notice of was a violent quick Shaking of my body which gradually remitting, my sense as gradually return'd, and then I tho't the Bottles must be discharged but Could not conceive how, till att last I Perceived the Chain in my hand, and Recollected what I had been About to do: that part of my hand and fingers which held the Chain was left white as tho' the Blood had been Driven Out, and Remained so 8 or 10 Minutes After, feeling like Dead flesh, and I had a Numbness in my Arms and the back of my Neck, which Continued till the Next Morning but wore off. Nothing Remains now of this Shock but a Soreness in my breast Bone, which feels As if it had been Brused. I Did not fall, but Suppose I should have been Knocked Down if I had Received the Stroke in my head: the whole was Over in less than a minute." ]
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Ron