Benjamin Franklin, as he described himself in his autobiography, impressed me with his apt for reading and writing

and his overall scientific curiosity. Not to mention his intellectually satirical way of writing that had me smiling as I
read his recollections of his youth. With only a modest formal education, Franklin was famous and even revered in
his own day for his accomplishments as a printer, author, politician, inventor, scientist, civic activist and diplomat,
among the many other roles he fulfilled during his life.
Franklin was born in January 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts, of the American colonies. A thing to note about
Franklins life was that he lived wholly within the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Franklin had a family history
of defending the middle class against wealthy landowners, with family coming to the colonies for their religious
freedom (Autobiography). Franklin was also a true man of the Enlightenment, embracing science, reason, natural
humanrights, free thinking and morality. He personally did not agree with many of the rules and doctrines of
religion as taught in church, favoring basic moral virtues that served practical purposes in the lives of men. He
was tolerant of different churches.
With partners William Goddard and Joseph Galloway, Franklin published thePennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper
known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British monarchy in the American colonies
(Autobiography). The writings of Benjamin Franklin, including his contributions to the United States
Constitution, reflected Enlightenment principles.
As a boy, Franklin grew up in Boston before making his way to Philadelphia to work as a printer. He eventually
started his own printing business in Philadelphia. He also worked in a famous printing house in London for a time.
Having grown up and worked in the cities of the American Colonies and England, he had an appreciation for civil
society and city affairs that other of Americas Founding Fathers did not. He was active in civil affairs all his life.
Franklin was also a scientist who was intrigued by the basic operations of nature, not just a tinkerer-inventor. He
both carried out experiments on electricity and constructed the devices required to do so. As an indication of his
self-taught scientific education, he often cited the work of famous scientists in the pamphlets about his inventions,
and he was well acquainted with Isaac Newtons writings. Preliminary experiments in which he observed that a
pointed conductor could draw changes from a greater distance that a blunt conductor led to Franklins invention of
the lightning rod. He also discovered the basic principle of conservation of electric change, an important principle in
physics. Robert Millikan (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work with electrons and for verification of
Einsteins photoelectric effect.) even declared Franklin to be the electrons true discoverer. Franklin garnered an
international reputation for his experiments in science.
I think Franklins studies of philosophy, morality, natural science, matters of health, civil affairs and politics
demonstrates the versatility of his skills and the vast nature of his curiosity. He had a mind for many different
subjects, and in all his endeavors sought skill, discipline and responsibility to his fellow men. In service of public
education, he founded a reading and writing club called the Junto and the American Philosophical Society. He also
founded the University of Pennsylvania.
By the time Franklin died in April 1790, in Philadelphia, he was famous nearly worldwide as a journalist, inventor,
businessman, statesman, military figure, diplomat, civic leader, musician, scientist, and even something of a
humorist and traveler (PBS). Just to name a few.

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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 Pennsylvaniafireplace, 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,
increasingheating 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 staticelectric 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 rodbecame
indispensable for protecting buildings from the destructive forceof lightning. Because he had
discovered he could get the Leyden jar to spark over a greater distance with a sharply pointed
rod, Franklin'slightning 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 thesky. 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 bifocallenses 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.