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ben franklin2

ben franklin2 Benjamin Franklin is recognized as one of the greatest Americans ever. He contributed to the advancement of our country in many different ways. Since Franklin was a statesman, journalist, diplomat, inventor, and philosopher he was always in the middle of everything of importance. It is arguable which of these appositives best describes him. One thing that can not be disputed is that he is the greatest inventor ever. To be forty-two in Franklin’s time was to be well beyond middle age. Life was much shorter then. He never guessed he would live to double that age. Since retirement was not forced upon him, he felt no depression for cutting himself off from his work. This is when he was ready to plunge into his life as a scientist and inventor. (Meltzer pg.110) Ben did not invent things to make a profit or for just his own benefit. He refused to patent any of his inventions, because he felt that as we benefit from the advantages of the inventions of others, we should be glad to serve others by any inventions of our own. In Franklin’s mind there was nothing that could not be improved. He was always looking for flaws in things so he could in some way fix them. He was a very arrogant man who thought that his way was always right and that his invention was better. Some of his inventions were the Franklin stove, a better candle, and numerous advancements in electricity. (Meltzer pg. 116) One of his earliest inventions was the Franklin stove. Before his invention, chimneys were unable to carry off all the smoke. Then, too, fireplaces were often too hot to sit near, and when you did, while the heat toasted your front, the cold air nipped you back and legs. It was next to impossible to warm a room with such a fireplace. So between 1739 and 1740 he invented a stove that fitted into a fireplace and radiated the heat outward. It warmed rooms better, and at the same time saved fuel. The important feature was the flue, which doubled back and formed sort of a radiator around which warm air circulated. It cured most smoky chimneys, thus protecting both the eyes and the furniture. He turned over his model to a friend with an iron furnace, who cast the plates for the stoves. They were soon in great demand as people learned about them through a pamphlet Ben wrote and printed. (Osborne pg.66) Benjamin was as much interested in ventilating rooms as in warming them. He believed it healthier to keep windows open and let in fresh air, a practice that annoyed many of his friends. To keep rooms warmer in cold weather, he developed a damper, a metal plate that fits horizontally into the base of the chimney passage and can completely close it off, or when opened a small distance, creates a slight draft, allowing smoke to go up the chimney while keeping most of the warm air in the room. (Meltzer pg.116) To improve the lighting of rooms, he devised a new candle made from whale oil. It gave a clearer and whiter light, could be held in the hand without softening, and its drippings did not make grease spots. His candles lasted much longer and needed little or no snuffing. He also developed a four-sided lamp to light the city streets. The lamps stayed clean much longer and thus gave more light. (Meltzer pg.116) Franklin’s experiments in so many different fields were completely original and crucial. The way he went about his research displayed his analytic powers and his objectivity. He never rested with merely amplifying what someone else had done. His work on electricity is the best example. Before he began to think about it, electricity was a mass of uncoordinated observations and confusing theories worded in obscure and puzzling language. His mind was able to unify what was already known, and then to add his own original findings so that he came out with a new and simple theory that would stand the test of time. The very vocabulary of modern electricity originated with him: as he went along he had to invent words like condenser, conductor, charge, discharge, battery, electrician, electric shock, positive and negative electricity, and concepts of plus and minus charges. (Britannica vol.19 pg.532) Few of his contemporaries were equipped to perceive how different and advanced his approach was. Those who did understand his work thought it extraordinary. By the time he went abroad on his first diplomatic mission in 1757, scientists in England and Europe greeted him as the Newton of electricity. (Osborne pg.67) The first spark to ignite Ben’s interest in this field was struck on a visit to Boston in 1743. There he met Dr. Archibald Spencer from Scotland who was traveling around the colonies to display his bag of tricks in electrostatics. His most spectacular stunt was to suspend a small boy from the ceiling by silken threads while he drew sparks from the child’s hands and feet. The audiences for these shows were both fascinated and frightened. Ben said that what he witnessed had “surprised and pleased” him as quite a new subject. (Meltzer pg.118) Part of the standard equipment of electrical experiments at that time was the Leyden jar. It was simply a stoppered bottle of water. Through the cork stopper a metal rod hung down into the liquid. Some experimenters coated the bottle with metal foil. When charged, the Leyden jar gave a strong shock to people touching it. In one experiment to enlighten the French court, when a shock was given to a line of 180 guardsmen, all holding hands, they jumped simultaneously into the air as though parading in the sky. The same experiment at a monastery threw 700 monks into a whirling convulsion. (Meltzer pg.119) Here is how a twentieth-century physicist, Mitchell Wilson, explains the significance of Franklin’s Leyden jar experiments: Franklin set himself the task of answering a question which no one else had thought of asking: exactly what was it in such an apparently simple arrangement of glass, metal, and water that allowed for such enormous accumulations of electricity? Was it due to the wire, the water or the bottle? Or what combination? In Franklin’s day, no one even knew, once the questions had been asked, how to go about finding the answer. Actually, to ask the same question two centuries after Franklin would leave an embarrassingly large number of people looking blank. Franklin’s step-by-step approach had the simplicity of genius. Through his experiments Ben found out that the electricity remained in the bottle. He then performed another experiment, which found out that the electrical charge resided in the bottle, because it was glass and that the shape did not matter. In this one experiment alone, Franklin had invented the electrical condenser, one of the most useful elements in circuit theory, a device that was to be used in every radio, television set, telephone circuit, and radar transmitter. (Meltzer pg.119-20) Benjamin Franklin is the greatest American of all time. He contributed so much to this country that everyone who calls himself or herself an American has him to thank for it. He is the model American for all people to follow. He did not only help Americans though. He affected everyone with his original inventions and ideas. Life would not be the same today without the involvement of Ben Franklin. Bibliography: Works Cited 1) Franklin, Benjamin. The Autobiography and Other Writings by Benjamin Franklin. New York: Bantam, 1982. 2) Meltzer, Milton. Benjamin Franklin: the new American. New York: Library of Congress Cataloging, 1988. 3) Osborne, Mary Pope. The Many Lives of Benjamin Franklin. New York: Penguin, 1990. 4) “Franklin.” Encyclopedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 1991 ed.

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