Abstract
THE desirability of protection from lightning was recognised from the earliest times. The earliest attempts consisted of exorcisms by priests, the wearing of charms, the ringing of church bells, and even the burning of witches. It was not until about 1750, when Franklin proved that a lightning flash was an electrical phenomenon and could be guarded against by suitable conductors, that these superstitions began to die away. Still, it is only of recent years that, mainly owing to the work of Lodge, the true function of these conductors has begun to be understood by physicists. Engineers are now putting into practice what they learn from theory and discover from high voltage experiments. Finality, however, is still far from being attained. We welcome, therefore, the new Code1 for protection against lightning, which has recently been issued by the U.S. Bureau of Standards and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers.
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R., A. Protection from Lightning. Nature 124, 212 (1929). https://doi.org/10.1038/124212a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/124212a0