Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin

A+ Essays

Benjamin Franklin
(An A+ Essays Original Paper, written by WeirdHTML)

Benjamin

Franklin was one of the first and most famous scientists in America. He
was a man of many talents and interests. Franklin was always curios about
they way things work, and he always tried to find ways to make them work
better. Even though he started out as a published, he was always interested
in science. However this interest soon became a passion to Franklin. He
even retired from his publishing business to work in a laboratory with
his mostly homemade equipment. Throughout his life Benjamin Franklin made
many important discoveries and theories which greatly influenced future
scientists and inventors.

Benjamin

Franklin was born in Boston Massachusetts, on January 17, 1706. He was
the seventh child in his family. Franklin started going to school when
he was ten, and became an apprentice to his older brother who owned a
printing firm in Philadelphia. He quickly became well known throughout
the American colonies as the publisher of the Pennsylvania Gazette, a
newspaper, and of Poor Richard's Almanac, an annual compilation of information
and witticisms (Grolier 90). Even though he did not attend school for
a long time, Franklin began interested in science. He was particularly
interested in electricity. Even though there were already many experiments
being conducted in this field, none of them had fully explained this phenomenon.

Franklin
soon left his printing business and built a laboratory to spend more time
studying electricity. In the subsequent decade he plunged into his scientific
investigations and into provincial politics with equal zest (Morris 15).

While he was in Boston, he met Dr. Spence who had arrived from Scotland
and showed Franklin several experiments. They were not perfectly performed
since Dr. Spence was not an expert, but they did surprise and interest

Franklin. Some time later he had received a glass tube and some information
on how to perform experiments with it. Franklin soon became practical
in performing such experiments, and also invented some of his own. People
from all over the town even came to witness them.

Benjamin

Franklin developed a theory that every object had an "electrical fluid".

He believed that some objects had too much of this fluid, while others
did not. By putting his theories together, he invented the electrical
battery. It was made out of glass, lead plates, silk thread, and some
wire. He was also the first to explain the electric force produced from
friction. Franklin realized that if a piece of silk were rubbed against
a glass, the glass would have a positive charge. Other scientists at that
time believed that rubbing produced electricity, however Franklin said
that it was just the "electric fluid" being transferred from the silk
to the glass. This is known today as the law of conservation of change
and it is one of the basic principles of physics.

Franklin
published his theories in a book titled "Experiments and Observations
on Electricity Made at Philadelphia". It became a best seller in Europe
as well as in the colonies. The main topic of this book was Franklin's
theory that lightning was electrical energy. This was not a new idea,
but Benjamin Franklin was the first to perform an experiment on it. He
said that if a metal rod was to be placed on top of a tower or a tall
building, it would be struck by lightning and hold an electrical charge.

Many scientists in Europe tried this experiment, and some had successful
results. When a French scientist, De Lor, attempted to repeat one of the
proposed experiments from the book a huge crowd of curious people had
gathered in Paris to see it.

In 1752 Franklin
devised another experiment to test if lighting has an electrical charge.

He flied a kite carrying a pointed wire in a thunderstorm and attempted
to test his theory that atmospheric lightning is an electrical phenomenon
similar to the spark produced by an electrical frictional machine (Bruno
406). To the kite Franklin attached a silk thread with a metal key. This
was a very dangerous procedure, because if he failed to ground the wire
he could have been easily killed by the electric current. His experiment
was successful, and whenever the lightning hit the key, it produced sparks
just like Franklin theorized. By performing this experiment, he has demonstrated
that electricity in the atmosphere is the same as that generated on earth.

For his success Franklin received a gold medal from Sir Godfrey Copley
presented to him by the governor.

This experiment
led to Franklin's invention of a lighting rod. It was a long metal pole
to be attached to the roof of a house. During a storm the lightning would
hit the pole, without destroying the building. Franklin's invention saved
hundreds of lives, because house fires caused by lighting were a big problem
during his time. Similar lightning rods are still in use today, and are
always placed atop tall structures.

Benjamin

Franklin always tried to invent new and easier ways of performing common
tasks. For example, when he was appointed the postmaster of Philadelphia,
he had to figure out routes for delivering mail. Franklin went out to
measure the routes and needed a way to keep track of the distances. He
invented an odometer and attached it to his carriage. Today a similar
device is placed in all motor vehicles, and is used to measure the distance
it has traveled.

Another well-known
invention of Benjamin Franklin was the open stove, often called the "Franklin

Stove". In 1742 he attempted to create a stove which would provide better
warming of rooms and at the same time save fuel. It was based on the models
constructed by Robert Grace, one of Franklin's friends. He published a
pamphlet entitled "An Account of the new-invented Pennsylvania Fireplaces".

In it Franklin described how the stove was to be constructed and operated,
as well as it's advantages over other methods of warming houses. The pamphlet
became very popular in Philadelphia, and Governor Thomas even offered
to give Franklin a patent for the sole right of producing and vending
them. However Franklin declined because he believed that peoples appreciation
of his invention was better then any financial reward. He wrote in his
autobiography, "As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others,
we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of
ours; and this we should do freely and generously" (76).

At the same time Franklin established America's first fire insurance company.

He also organized a night watch and a militia to keep peace and provide
safety for the residents of Philadelphia.

Even though
he was successful in his scientific career, by the middle of 1750s Benjamin

Franklin decided to go into politics. He proved to be a skilled politician,
helping to lead the colonies through the American Revolution (Grolier
92). Even during his frequent trips to Europe on diplomatic missions,

Franklin tried to conduct scientific research. He learned a lot about
ships and the way they worked. He discovered a way to make ships work
better and more safely by inventing watertight bulkheads.

While being
in Paris in 1767, Benjamin Franklin proposed the idea of daylight savings
time. In his autobiography Benjamin wrote, "I observ'd there was not one
shop open, tho' it had been daylight and the sun up above three hours;
the inhabitants of London chusing voluntarily to live much by candle-light"
(84). He thought it was ridiculous that people sleep during sunshine and
live by candlelight. Also many of the residents were complaining about
the high price of candles and their poor durability. Franklin proposed
that time should be adjusted so that there would be more daylight during
the evenings in autumn, and less during the spring. His idea was strong
advocated by a London builder in the pamphlet "Waste of Daylight" that
proposed advancing clocks 20 minutes on each of four Sundays in Geller
7 April, and returning them by the same amount on four Sundays in September.

His campaign led to the introduction of British Summer Time in an Act
of Parliament in 1916. Clocks were put one hour ahead during the summer
months. This idea proposed by Benjamin Franklin is still in use all around
the world, and today it also helps conserve energy as well as daylight.

Because of
his frequent reading, Benjamin Franklin had poor vision and required glasses.

Because he had to constantly take them off and put them on again, he tried
to figure a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He
cut two pairs of spectacles in half and put each one into a separate frame.

Today these types of glasses are called bifocals and are used by many
people with poor vision.

In 1769 Benjamin

Franklin developed the first chart of the Gulf Stream. The Gulf Stream
is the warm ocean current that flows northeast up the Atlantic coast of

North America. He said that ships traveling to Europe should stay in this
stream and those returning to America should avoid it.

At his old
age Franklin was still productive and continued inventing new things.

He found that it was difficult for him to reach books from the high shelves.

Even though he had many grandchildren who were willing to help him, he
invented a tool called "the long arm" to reach books located on high shelves.

It was a wooden pole with a grasping claw at the end.

A list of

Benjamin Franklin's inventions reveals a man of many talents and interests.

He was a brilliant scientist and his ingenuity brought us many inventions
we are still using today. Franklin was always curious to find out how
different things worked, and always tried to find some way of making them
work better. Other famous scientists like Thomas A. Edison and Alexander

Graham Bell followed his footsteps and created many new inventions which
made people's lives easier and more enjoyable.

Works

Cited

1. Franklin,

Benjamin. The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Buccaneer

Books Inc., 1984.

2. Van Doren,

Carl. Benjamin Franklin. New York: Viking Penguin, 1991.

3. Birch,

Beverly and Robin Bell Corfield. Benjamin Franklin's Adventures with Electricity.

New York: Baron's Educational Series, Inc., 1998.
4. The Grolier

Library of North American Biographies. Connecticut: Grolier Educational

Corporation, 1994.

5. Bruno,

Leonard. Science and Technology Breakthroughs. Michigan: Gale Group, 1998.

6. Morris,

Richard. Seven Who Shaped Our Destiny. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1973.

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