An Entertainment for Angels, rather than for Men, one observer called electricity, and it proved to be the most significant scientific discovery of the Enlightenment. Lecturers attracted huge audiences who marveled at sparkling fountains, flaming drinks, pirouetting dancers, and electrified boys. Flamboyant experimenters made chains of soldiers leap into the air, while wealthy women titillated their admirers with a sensational electric kiss. Optimists predicted that this strange power of nature would cure illnesses, improve crop production, even bring the dead back to life. An Entertainment for Angels tells the story of how electricity charged the eighteenth-century imagination. With contemporary illustrations and engaging prose, Patricia Fara vividly portrays the struggles to understand the unusual and exciting effects that electrical experiments were producing.
One of the heroes of the story is Benjamin Franklin, renowned on both sides of the Atlantic as an expert on electricity, who introduced lightning rods to protect tall buildings, pioneered techniques to treat paralyzed patients, and developed one of the most successful explanations of this mysterious phenomenon. Others include Luigi Galvani, whose electrical research on frogs and animals makes for grisly reading but led to the discovery of direct current electricity; and Alessandro Volta, who -- with Napoleon's enthusiastic support -- became one of Europe's leading scientific practitioners and invented the world's first battery.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 6.00
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Paperback. Condition: New. Early Reprint. Essex, Icon Books, 2003. Reprint. 8vo. Paperback with pictorial cover, 177 pp. "The poet Percy Bysshe Shelley was fascinated by scientific experiments," writes Patricia Fara in the Introduction to this tale of the strange birth of electrical science, and its emergence from a high-society party trick to a symbol of man's dominance over nature. Fara writes of Benjamin Franklin, of course, but also of possibly lesser-known personnages in such chapters as "Robert Boyle and the Air-pump," "Francis Hauksbee and the Electrical Machine," "Henry and the Torpedo," and "Luigi Balvani and his Frogs." "Vividly captures the ferment created by the new science of the Enlightenment, Fara deftly shows how new knowledge emerged from a rich mix of improved technology, medical quackery, Continental theorizing, religious doubt and scientific rivalry."-New Scientist. New. Seller Inventory # EM-B1237-01
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_1840464593
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think1840464593
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard1840464593
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new1840464593
Book Description Condition: New. New. In shrink wrap. Looks like an interesting title! 0.53. Seller Inventory # Q-1840464593