World of Scientific Discovery on Benjamin Franklin

Born on January 17, 1706, in the British colony of Boston, Massachusetts, Franklin was the fifteenth of seventeen children. His father was an impoverished candlemaker, unable to afford to send young Benjamin to school. As a result, he received only two years of formal education. Franklin was working in his father's shop at the age of ten, and later was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, where he developed a love for books. In 1724 he went to London where he became skilled at printing, returning to Philadelphia two years later. In Philadelphia he made a name for himself, as well as a small fortune, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanack. Franklin's first major invention, around 1740, was the Pennsylvania fireplace, which eventually became known as the Franklin stove. Improving on an existing design, the Franklin stove had a flue around which room air could circulate. The flue acted like a radiator, increasing heating efficiency. Franklin claimed it made a room twice as warm, with one-quarter of the wood. In addition to his pursuit of printing, Franklin became interested in the study of electricity in 1746. During this period, scientists around the globe, many of whom had advanced degrees, were investigating the phenomena of static electricity. A less confident man might have felt inadequate to compete, but Franklin, who was essentially self-educated, obtained a Leyden jar and began his own research. The Leyden jar, invented by Musschenbroek, was a water-filled bottle with a stopper in the end. Through the stopper was a metal rod that extended into the water. A machine was used to create a static electric charge, which could be stored in the jar. A person who touched the end of the charged rod received an electrical jolt. Public demonstrations, in which many people joined hands and received a simultaneous shock, were very popular. Franklin saw such a demonstration, and that initiated his interest in electricity. It was Franklin's originality and tenacity that earned him the reputation as a leading scientist. He was the first person to wonder how the Leyden Jar actually worked, and performed a series of experiments to find the answer. He poured the "charged" water out of the jar into another bottle, and discovered the water had lost its charge. This indicated that it was the glass itself, the material that insulated the conductor, that produced the shock. To verify that, he took a window pane and placed a sheet of lead on each side. He "electrified" the lead, removed each sheet one at a time, and tested for a charge. Neither sheet gave so much as a single spark, but the window pane had been charged. Franklin had unknowingly invented the electrical condenser. The condenser, also known as a capacitor, was destined to be one of the most important elements in electric circuits. Today the condenser, which received its name from Alessandro Volta, is used in radios, televisions, telephones, radar systems, and many other devices. Drawing a parallel between the sparking and crackling of the charged Leyden Jar and lightning and thunder, Franklin wondered if there was an electrical charge in the sky. He planned to erect a long metal rod atop Christ Church in Philadelphia to conduct electricity to a sentry box in which a man, standing on an insulated platform, would be able to collect an electric charge. Because he was a proponent in the free exchange of ideas, Franklin had written a book outlining his theories

which received wide circulation in Europe. A French scientist named D'Alibard stole Franklin's idea and performed the experiment himself on May 10, 1752, charging a Leyden jar with lightning. Franklin generously gave D'Alibard credit for being the first to "draw lightning from the skies." If nothing else, Franklin did receive credit for the invention of the lightning rod. While waiting for the rod to be installed atop Christ Church, Franklin had come up with an idea of a faster way to get a conductor into the sky. He tied a large silk handkerchief to two crossed wooden sticks, attached a long silken thread with a metal key at the end, and waited for a thunderstorm. The rain made the thread an excellent conductor, and the static charge traveled down to the key. When Franklin brought his knuckle to the key, a spark jumped from the key to his hand, proving the existence of electricity in the sky. Franklin had been wise enough to connect a ground wire to his key; two other scientists, attempting to duplicate the experiment but neglecting the ground wire, were killed when they were actually struck by lightning Still, Franklin was lucky he was not hit by lightning himself. Franklin invented the lightning rod from his work with electricity. The lightning rod became indispensable for protecting buildings from the destructive force of lightning. Because he had discovered he could get the Leyden jar to spark over a greater distance with a sharply pointed rod, Franklin's lightning rods had very sharp points. (In 1776, after the unpleasantness between the Colonies and King George III had broken out, the king ordered that lightning rods with blunt ends be installed on his palace.) By 1782 there were four hundred lightning rods in Philadelphia. His discovery of sky-borne electricity led Franklin to speculate on the nature of the aurora borealis, the " northern lights" that illuminate the sky. Franklin thought they might be electrical in nature, and suggested that conditions in the upper atmosphere might be responsible. His work on electricity led to a plethora of new words (battery, condenser, conductor, armature, charge and discharge to name a few) and concepts. He suggested that electrical charge was due to the abundance or lack of "something" that resulted in attraction and repulsion, and he established the concept of positive and negative charges, believing (incorrectly) that electrical flow went from positive to negative. In fact, the opposite is true. Continuing his observations of the weather, he noticed there was a prevailing pattern as it moved from west to east and suggested the circulation of air masses was responsible, establishing the concept of high and low pressure. He went on to show that the boiling point of water was affected by air pressure; as he created a vacuum in a sealed water bottle, the temperature needed to boil the water dropped. He also charted the flow on the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. Franklin's scientific instincts were wrong on occasion. When Cotton Mather proposed inoculating people to avert smallpox, Franklin was one of those who disagreed. Ironically Franklin 's own son became a casualty of the disease, after which Franklin became a proponent of inoculation. Volumes have been written about Franklin's life as a statesman. He founded service organizations, became Postmaster of Philadelphia, and established a college that eventually became the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to London in 1757 as an Agent of the

Pennsylvania Assembly and remained there until 1775. After warning that the "Stamp Tax" was not a good way to obtain revenue from the American Colonies, he returned and joined the committee drafting the Declaration of Independence. During Franklin's long life he developed many inventions (such as bifocal lenses and the Franklin stove), received numerous honors and achieved an international reputation, becoming the only American of colonial days to do so. He died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia, at the age of eighty-four

World of Physics on Benjamin Franklin

Born on January 17, 1706, in the British colony of Boston, Massachusetts, Franklin was the fifteenth of 17 children. His father was an impoverished candlemaker, unable to afford to send young Benjamin to school. As a result, he received only two years of formal education. Franklin was working in his father's shop at the age of 10, and later was apprenticed to his brother, a printer, where he developed a love for books. In 1724 he went to London where he became skilled at printing, returning to Philadelphia two years later. In Philadelphia he made a name for himself, as well as a small fortune, publishing the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanack. Franklin's first major invention, around 1740, was the Pennsylvania fireplace, which eventually became known as the Franklin stove. Improving on an existing design, the Franklin stove had a flue around which room air could circulate. The flue acted like a radiator, increasing heating efficiency. Franklin claimed it made a room twice as warm, with one-quarter of the wood. In addition to his pursuit of printing, Franklin became interested in the study of electricity in 1746. During this period, scientists around the globe, many of whom had advanced degrees, were investigating the phenomena of static electricity. A less confident man might have felt inadequate to compete, but Franklin, who was essentially self-educated, obtained a Leyden jar and began his own research. The Leyden jar, invented by Pieter van Musschenbroek, was a water-filled bottle with a stopper in the end. Through the stopper was a metal rod that extended into the water. A machine was used to create a static electric charge, which could be stored in the jar. A person who touched the end of the charged rod received an electrical jolt. Public demonstrations, in which many people joined hands and received a simultaneous shock, were very popular. Franklin saw such a demonstration, and that initiated his interest in electricity. It was Franklin's originality and tenacity that earned him the reputation as a leading scientist. He was the first person to wonder how the Leyden jar actually worked, and performed a series of

experiments to find the answer. He poured the "charged" water out of the jar into another bottle, and discovered the water had lost its charge. This indicated that it was the glass itself, the material that insulated the conductor, that produced the shock. To verify that, he took a window pane and placed a sheet of lead on each side. He "electrified" the lead, removed each sheet one at a time, and tested for a charge. Neither sheet gave so much as a single spark, but the window pane had been charged. Franklin had unknowingly invented the electrical condenser. The condenser, also known as a capacitor, was destined to be one of the most important elements in electric circuits. Today the condenser, which received its name from Alessandro Volta, is used in radios, televisions, telephones, radar systems, and many other devices. Drawing a parallel between the sparking and crackling of the charged Leyden jar and lightning and thunder, Franklin wondered if there was an electrical charge in the sky. He planned to erect a long metal rod atop Christ Church in Philadelphia to conduct electricity to a sentry box in which a man, standing on an insulated platform, would be able to collect an electric charge. Because he was a proponent in the free exchange of ideas, Franklin had written a book outlining his theories that received wide circulation in Europe. A French scientist named D'Alibard stole Franklin's idea and performed the experiment himself on May 10, 1752, charging a Leyden jar with lightning. Franklin generously gave D'Alibard credit for being the first to "draw lightning from the skies." If nothing else, Franklin did receive credit for the invention of the lightning rod . While waiting for the rod to be installed atop Christ Church, Franklin had come up with an idea of a faster way to get a conductor into the sky. He tied a large silk handkerchief to two crossed wooden sticks, attached a long silken thread with a metal key at the end, and waited for a thunderstorm. The rain made the thread an excellent conductor, and the static charge traveled down to the key. When Franklin brought his knuckle to the key, a spark jumped from the key to his hand, proving the existence of electricity in the sky. Franklin had been wise enough to connect a ground wire to his key; two other scientists, attempting to duplicate the experiment but neglecting the ground wire, were killed when they were actually struck by lightning. Still, Franklin was lucky he was not hit by lightning himself. Franklin invented the lightning rod from his work with electricity. The lightning rod became indispensable for protecting buildings from the destructive force of lightning. Because he had discovered he could get the Leyden jar to spark over a greater distance with a sharply pointed rod, Franklin's lightning rods had very sharp points. (In 1776, after the unpleasantness between the colonies and King George III had broken out, the king ordered that lightning rods with blunt ends be installed on his palace.) By 1782 there were 400 lightning rods in Philadelphia. His discovery of sky-borne electricity led Franklin to speculate on the nature of the aurora borealis, the " northern lights" that illuminate the sky. Franklin thought they might be electrical in nature, and suggested that conditions in the upper atmosphere might be responsible. His work on electricity led to a plethora of new words (battery, condenser, conductor, armature, charge, and discharge, to name a few) and concepts. He suggested that electrical charge was due to the abundance or lack of "something" that resulted in attraction and repulsion, and he established the concept of positive and negative charges, believing (incorrectly) that electrical flow went from positive to negative. In fact, the opposite is true.

Continuing his observations of the weather, he noticed there was a prevailing pattern as it moved from west to east and suggested the circulation of air masses was responsible, establishing the concept of high and low pressure. He went on to show that the boiling point of water was affected by air pressure; as he created a vacuum in a sealed water bottle, the temperature needed to boil the water dropped. He also charted the flow on the Gulf Stream in the Atlantic Ocean. Franklin was caught off-base on occasion. When Cotton Mather proposed inoculating people to avert smallpox, Franklin was one of those who disagreed. Ironically Franklin's own son became a casualty of the disease, after which Franklin became a proponent of inoculation. Volumes have been written about Franklin's life as a statesman. He founded service organizations, became postmaster of Philadelphia, and established a college that eventually became the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to London in 1757 as an agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly and remained there until 1775. After warning that the "Stamp Tax" was not a good way to obtain revenue from the American colonies, he returned and joined the committee drafting the Declaration of Independence. During Franklin's long life he developed many inventions (such as bifocal lenses and the Franklin stove), received numerous honors, and achieved an international reputation, becoming the only American of colonial days to do so. He died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia, at the age of 84.

World of Invention on Benjamin Franklin

Born in what was then the British colony of Boston, Massachusetts, on January 17, 1706, Franklin was the fifteenth of seventeen children and received only two years of a formal education. He started working in his father's candlemaking shop at the age of ten and later became an apprentice printer, working for his brother James. As a printer he developed a love for books, from which he educated himself. He spent two years in London, where he learned more about printing, and returned to Philadelphia in 1726. There he established the Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard's Almanack, which earned him a tidy income. Franklin's first major invention, around 1740, was the Pennsylvania fireplace, which eventually became known as the Franklin stove. Improving on an existing design, the Franklin stove had a flue around which room air could circulate. The flue acted like a radiator, increasing heating efficiency. Franklin claimed it made a room twice as warm, with one-quarter of the wood. In 1746 Franklin had witnessed a public demonstration of electricity, and his interest was piqued. It is for his work in this subject that he became most famous. In the demonstration, a machine was used to generate static electricity which was stored in a Leyden jar (a water-filled bottle with a stopper through which a metal rod extended). People were instructed to join hands, forming a "circuit," and they simultaneously received a shock from the jar.

Investigating electric phenomena was all the rage, especially in Europe, but not one of the learned scientists had thought to ask the simple question Franklin framed: "How does it work"" He decided to obtain a jar of his own and find out. Franklin charged his jar, poured the water into another bottle, and found it had lost its charge. If the water did not hold the charge, it indicated that the glass of the jar did. To see if that was the case, he took a window pane, placed a thin sheet of lead on each side, and gave it a charge. He removed the sheets and tested for an electric charge. The glass sparked but no charge was indicated. Inadvertently, Franklin had just invented the electrical condenser. The condenser, also known as a capacitor, was destined to be one of the most important elements in electric circuits. Today the condenser, which received its name from Alessandro Volta , is used in radios, televisions, telephones, radar systems, and many other devices. Drawing a parallel between the sparking Leyden jar and lightning, Franklin began to speculate that the sky might have an electrical charge. To "collect " this charge, he hit upon the idea of erecting a long metal rod on the top of Christ Church in Philadelphia. The rod would conduct electricity to a man on an insulated platform in a sentry box, who could collect the charge in a Leyden jar. Unfortunately, before the rod could be attached to the church, a French scientist named D'Alibard, who had read of Franklin's work, successfully performed the experiment himself on May 10, 1752. Franklin, always the diplomat, generously gave D'Alibard credit for being the first to " draw lightning from the skies." Was D'Alibard really the first? While waiting for the installation of the lightning rod , Franklin thought of a quicker way to get a conductor in the sky. Yes, he really did fly a kite in a thunderstorm! He was fortunate lightning did not actually strike his kite because he would have been killed. Two other scientists who duplicated the experiment suffered this fate. Whether D'Alibard was the first to "draw lightning" or not is irrelevant; it is Franklin that history remembers as being the inventor of the lightning rod. The lightning rod became indispensable for protecting buildings from the destructive force of lightning. Because he had discovered he could get the Leyden jar to spark over a greater distance with a sharply pointed rod, Franklin's lightning rods had very sharp points. (In 1776, after the unpleasantness between the Colonies and King George III had broken out, the king ordered that lightning rods with blunt ends be installed on his palace.) By 1782 there were four hundred lightning rods in Philadelphia. Franklin's work with electricity led him to coin numerous terms and propose several theories. Battery , conductor, condenser, armature, electrician, charge, and discharge are some of the words attributed to Franklin. He came up with the idea of "positive" and "negative" electricity having "plus" and "minus" charges. He incorrectly thought electric flow was from positive to negative; the opposite is true. To say Franklin was involved in politics is a great understatement. He established service organizations, was Postmaster of Philadelphia, and founded a college that eventually became the University of Pennsylvania. He returned to London in 1757 as an Agent of the Pennsylvania Assembly and remained there nearly 18 years. In 1775 he returned and joined the committee drafting the Declaration of Independence. While in France after the Revolutionary War, eighty-

three year old Franklin came up with yet another innovation: bifocal lenses. He had become frustrated with having to continually change his glasses for reading up close or seeing at a distance and came up on the idea of mounting half of each lens in a single frame. Franklin is also credited with inventing the rocking chair, the glass harmonica, the concept of daylight savings time, and the first public library. On April 17, 1790, Franklin died in Philadelphia.