My Science School

            The inspiration for the kite experiment came from Franklin’s conviction that lightning mid electricity had close similarities. To prove this, he went out with his son on a dark afternoon on June 10th, 1752. They attached a silk string to the kite, and tied an iron key to its end. Then, they tied a thin metal wire from the key, and inserted it into something called a Leyden jar, a container for storing electrical charge.

             Franklin’s idea was to fly the kite into the storm-clouds and conduct electricity down the string. Later, when lightning struck the kite, Franklin moved his hand towards the key. Guess what happened? A spark formed, and Franklin felt a shock. But luckily for Franklin, he was standing on an insulator, keeping dry under a roof, to avoid the danger of electric shock.

            However, with this dangerous experiment, it was proved that lightning was electrical in nature. 

            Benjamin Franklin firmly believed that electricity and lightning had close similarities.

            One of his inventions was the lightning rod, a simple rod attached to the top of a building. The rod was meant to protect houses from the destructive forces of lightning. As the electric charge from lightning strikes the rod, it would conduct the charge harmlessly into the ground, saving the house and its occupants.

           Franklin made a description of this invention in 1753. He is also credited to have coined terms like battery, conductor, electric shock etc.

           It is believed that Franklin began his experiments on electricity in 1746. Two years later, he created a multiple plate capacitor which he called an electrical battery. The capacitors were wired together sequentially to store more charge than one alone could. This helped to produce a bigger discharge of static electricity. For his contributions to the study of electricity, Benjamin Franklin received the Royal Society’s Copley Medal in 1753. 

• University of Rochester


• Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics, Kolkata

• Theoretical Physics

• William H.Riker University Award for Excellence in Graduate Teaching (2006)


• Fulbright Fellowship (1997, 2006)


• Rockefeller Foundation Award (2004)


• Department of Energy Outstanding Junior Investigator (1983-1989)


• Edward Peck Curtis Award (1991)

To know more about Ashok Das Click  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Das 

Patcha Ramachandra Rao (21 March 1942 – 10 January 2010) was a metallurgist and administrator. He has the unique distinction of being the only Vice-Chancellor (2002–05) of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) who was also a student (1963–68) and faculty (1964–92) at that institution. From 1992 to 2002, Rao was the Director of the National Metallurgical Laboratory Jamshedpur. After his tenure as Vice-Chancellor of B.H.U., in 2005, he took the reins of the Defence Institute of Advanced Technology (DIAT) as its first Vice-Chancellor. He was to serve DIAT until his superannuation in 2007. From 2007 till the end, Rao was a Raja Ramanna Fellow at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials, in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh.

Institutions

• Indian Institute of Technology (BHU)


• National Metallurgical Laboratory


• Defence Institute of Advanced Technology


• Indian Institute of Science, Osmania University?

Fields

• Metallurgy


• Material science


• Engineering

Awards

• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize (1985)


• National Metallurgist Award (2004)


• Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Gold Medal. INSA (2005)?

Honorary positions

·        President, The Asia-Pacific Academy of Materials (APAM), India Chapter

·        President, Indian Institute of Metals

·        Vice-President, Materials Research Society of India

·        Vice-President, Indian National Science Academy, New Delhi.

·        Sectional President, Materials Science Section, Indian Science Congress