Nollet's Static Electric Experiment, 1746
Chain receiving a charge from a glass globe static electric machine attached to the waist of the man standing insulated on a block of wax. He becomes "charged" and his hands attract pieces of paper and small objects. Jean-Antoine Nollet (November 19, 1700 - April 25, 1770) was a French clergyman and physicist. He joined the Royal Society of London in 1734 and became the first professor of experimental physics at the University of Paris. In 1746 he gathered about 200 monks into a circle about a mile in circumference, with pieces of iron wire connecting them. He then discharged a battery of Leyden jars through the human chain and observed that each man reacted at substantially the same time to the electric shock, showing that the speed of electricity's propagation was very high. Image appeared in "Observations sur quelques nouveaux phenomenes d'electricite', Histoire de l'Academie royale des sciences avec les memoires de mathematique et physique", 1746. This image has been color enhanced.
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