Diviš's lightning conductor (meteorological machine)
Pararrayos de Diviš (máquina meteorológica)
- Date
- 1754 · confidence high
- Place
- Přímětice, Znojmo, South Moravia, Czechia
- Credited to
- Prokop Diviš
- People
- 👤 Benjamin Franklin1706–1790
- Field
- Matter & energy
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
A pole with more than two hundred iron points connected to the ground by chains, raised in his parish garden to discharge thunderstorms. It is one of the first earthed lightning conductors, developed independently of Franklin's.
Diviš aimed to prevent storms by discharging the clouds, not to protect buildings as Franklin did; the machine was set up in June 1754, two years after the experimental confirmation of Franklin's idea in France. Peasants destroyed it in 1760, blaming it for a drought.
What it led to
- protection of buildings and stores in Moravia against lightning
- electrical experiments on the effect of points in the atmosphere
- a European debate on whether storms could be diverted