Lightning rod
metal rod or metallic object to protect from lightning
A lightning rod or lightning conductor (British English) is a metal rod mounted on a structure and intended to protect it from a lightning strike. If lightning hits the structure, it is most likely to strike the rod and be conducted to ground through a wire, rather than passing through the structure, where it could start a fire or cause electrocution. In technical documents, lightning rods are generally referred to as 'strike termination devices'.
In a lightning protection system, a lightning rod is a single component of the system. The lightning rod requires a connection to the earth to perform its protective function. Lightning rods come in many different forms, including hollow, solid, pointed, rounded, flat strips, or bristle brush-like. All lightning rods must be made of conductive materials, such as copper and aluminum. Copper and its alloys are the most common materials used in lightning protection.
History
The first proper lightning rod was assembled by Father Prokop Diviš, a Czech priest and scientist, who erected a grounded lightning rod in 1754. Diviš's design involved a vertical iron rod topped with a grounded wire, intended to attract lightning strikes and safely conduct them to the ground.
The public source identifies “Lightning rod” as metal rod or metallic object to protect from lightning. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lightning, metal and metallic.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 27, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7973. The first chronological checks are 1754.
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This entry incorporates text from “Lightning rod” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.