franklin - society Glass Armonica • Invented in 1761 • One of the most franklin franklin - society Glass Armonica • Invented in 1761 •... SCHOOL View Full Document Benjamin Franklin • Born in Boston, Mass. On January 17,1706 • Grew up in this house on Milk St. Background • At age 12 he was an apprentice to his father who was a candle maker • At age 14 he was an apprentice to his brother who was a printer • At 17 he moved to Philadelphia • Married Deborah Reed on Oct.

1, 1730 Major inventions • Lightning Rod • Bifocals • Odometer • Glass Armonica • Franklin Stove • Catheter Lightning Rod • One of Franklin’s major works in electricity • Vital to society and science • Used to protect buildings and homes against the awesome power of lightning • Composed of an iron rod mounted on top of a edifice • Attracts lightning currents and channels it to the ground Bifocals • Perfect example of one of Ben’s famous quotes “Necessity is the mother of invention” • Allows user to use one set of glasses for myopic and hyperopic vision handicaps Odometer • Designed to measure distance by using gears • Very important and useful in today’s This preview has intentionally blurred sections. Sign up to view the full version. View Full Document This is the end of the preview. Sign up to access the rest of the document.

Unformatted text preview: society Glass Armonica • Invented in 1761 • One of the most celebrated musical instruments of the 18th century • Sound is produced by vibrations from the glasses in the armonica Franklin Stove • An iron stove used to produce heat in homes then were ten poorly insulated • Very important because it replaced the use of fires in homes that were made of all wood Catheter • Invented in December of 1752 • Thin flexible tube • It is inserted into bodily passage or cavity in order to allow fluids to pass into or out of • mechanism was constructed for his brother john, who was extremely ill Interesting facts • At age 16 Ben experimented vegetarianism to save money to buy more books • At age 70 Ben was the oldest delegate to sign the Declaration of Independence • In 1778 Ben was so impressed by a bust of himself that was sculpted by Jean Antoine Houdon he invited Houdon to the states to sculpt a similar one of George Washington...

University of South Florida - Tampa EGN 3000 - Spring 2009 Galileo Galilei (1564-1642) Here, a simple tube and two lenses had made a rod for bea galileo Mayling Garcia - Glass Armonica Performer This article ran in many newspapers nationwide during the last weeks of February 2001. (AP Photos by Roberto E. Rosales.) (Click images for a larger view) Armonica use may have led to Beethoven's death By: RICHARD BENKE ASSOCIATED PRESS CORRALES, N.M. -- A glass instrument that produces the hypnotic music of wet crystal is sounding a clarion call for debate over the lead poisoning of Beethoven. The glass armonica, invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761, was demonstrated to Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart when Franklin visited France during the American Revolution. Both composers then wrote music for the instrument, which created an international sensation--and superstition. The instrument consists of blown crystal bowls, in graduated sizes, arrayed along a spindle that rotates while the player places moistened fingers on them.

In the early history of the instrument, lead glass stemware was sometimes used instead of crystal, and leaded paint was applied to some of the bowls to differentiate those notes. Recent California-sponsored studies of Beethoven's hair show the composer had a concentration of lead 100 times higher than is normal today, according to the Health Research Institute in Naperville, Ill. Researchers commissioned by San Jose State University say it's virtually certain Beethoven had lead poisoning, or plumbism, which could explain some of his illnesses, his strange behavior, maybe his deafness and quite possibly his death Armonicist Mayling Garcia of Corrales believes Beethoven's association with a lead-glass armonica may have been instrumental in his death. Beethoven was exposed to the armonica before his symptoms started as a young man, she said. Rumors of lead poisoning were associated with the glass armonica, also sometimes called a glass harmonica, for years before the Beethoven study was released last October, says William Zeitler of Seattle. He is among about a dozen armonicists in the United States.

"It's been kind of running around in the armonica community as long as I've been involved," said Zeitler, a pianist who took up the armonica six years ago. Modern armonicas are made in the United States by G. Finkenbeiner Inc. of Waltham, Mass., where the glass bowls are blown and the electrically rotated spindles are built. Lead glass and leaded paint are no longer used in them. Garcia, 35, said company founder Gerhard Finkenbeiner told her about historic armonica lead contamination--and more. The armonica was greeted in colonial America with allegations of witchcraft. People who played it were said to have later gone insane. Franz Anton Mesmer, a pioneer in hypnosis and a contemporary of Franklin, used it to entrance some of his subjects. In Germany, where the armonica was popular for years after Franklin introduced it, the instrument was banned in some states after a baby's unexplained death during a concert, according to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. "That was the last straw," Garcia said. "People were that scared.

It was literally legally banned." Zeitler doesn't buy the Beethoven armonica theory, saying there's nothing to substantiate it. A 582-strand Beethoven hair sample, taken just after his death at age 56 in 1827, was purchased at auction for $7,300 in 1994 by Ira Brilliant, founder of the Center for Beethoven Studies at San Jose State University, and Alfredo Guevara, a surgeon from Nogales, Ariz. William Meredith, director of the Center for Beethoven Studies, said it's a long stretch to prove the armonica killed Beethoven, who lived in an era when lead was everywhere--in pewter drinking vessels, dinnerware and utensils, in the leading of windows, in candles, in water pipes, in paint. "Perhaps he chewed on his pencils," Meredith said, "but we are very far away from knowing what was the source of Beethoven's lead poisoning." Garcia first heard the armonica played by a street musician in Cambridge, Mass., in 1987. "I thought: What is she doing playing for tips in a hat? She could be a star," Garcia said.

She persuaded Finkenbeiner to teach her how to play the instrument before he disappeared in May 1999, believed lost in the crash of a light plane. Garcia performs 50 to 100 times a year, often playing "The Star-Spangled Banner" at sports events. She has appeared on the Univision Spanish-language television show "Sabado Gigante" and gives free demonstrations at schools throughout the country. At a performance in January at Onate Elementary School in Albuquerque, she enthralled 30 youngsters, ages 5-11, during an after-school Campfire program. "I could not believe how quiet you guys were," she told the children afterward. But that's typical, she said. When she played the national anthem at a hockey game, she said, "you could have heard a pin drop." Benke, Richard. "Armonica use may have led to Beethoven's death." AP Wire 25 Feb. 2001, natl.

ed Click here to return to the menu at the top In December 1998, the editors of Hispanic Business Magazine selected a number of Hispanic-owned businesses that "possess a remarkable business concept, marketing niche, organizational approach, or success story" as winners of the 1998 Entrepreneurial Spirit Awards. Mayling was selected as one of these winners. Making Music from Gold and Glass Photo by Mike Grady "1998 Entrepreneurial Spirit Awards" Sr. Editor Joel Russell, Hispanic Business Magazine. vol. 20 no. 11, p. 46 December 1998. Mayling Garcia bills herself as the only Latina who plays the glass armonica - a reasonable claim given that only 100 such instruments exist in the world. Invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1761, the glass armonica works on the idea that when a wet finger rubs the rim of a wineglass, it produces a pure note. Unfortunately, Mr. Franklin built his models with lead crystal, and the players developed lead poisoning. In 1940, a German scientist resurrected the idea, incorporating gold instead of lead.

Ms Garcia purchased a lead-free instrument in 1993, learned to play via telephone with the German scientist, and launched her musical career under her Albuquerque-based company Mayling Garcia Glass Armonica Performer. In addition to performing at schools and private functions, she has played three gigs on the Univision variety show "Sabado Gigante." Producers have contacted her about playing "The Star Spangled Banner" at next month's Superbowl. A monthly feature of New Mexico Magazine is called "Asi Es Nuevo Mexico" "This is New Mexico" which spotlights exceptional New Mexican people and organizations. Mayling was featured in the February 1997 edition. Albuquerque musician keeps in touch with history - Jim Bowman An Albuquerque musician is doing her part to erase a blotch on the otherwise sterling record of American statesman and inventor extraordinaire, Ben Franklin. Mayling Garcia, at 31, has become a living link to Franklin, the youngest person in the world and only Hispanic to master his illfated instrument, the glass armonica. Franklin introduced the glass armonica - a strange cross between a harpsichord and a xylophone - in 1761.

Concertgoers heralded ani invention they thought might rival the lighning rod , bifocals, and the Franklin stove in importance. Even the era's musical titans, Beethoven and Mozart, wrote compositions specifically for the instrument. But by 1830, the last of Franklin's glass armonicas had been banished to dank storage rooms in museums and the vaults of wealthy families. The public hadn't grown tired of the sweet, high-pitched melodies produced by the armonica. But no one wanted to touch the instruments because those who did so often went stark-raving mad. Some critics accused Franklin of fomenting witchcraft. Others conjectured that the glass armonica's piercing sounds caused players to lose their sanity. Only in recent years has the mystery been solved. Franklin used leaded crystal in manufacturing the 45 glass bowls that form the core of the instrument. Since it's played by physically rubbing the rims of the bowls, musicians of the era fell victim to lead poisoning, absorbed directly through their fingertips and into their bloodstreams. Garcia faces no such risk.

She's playing a new, lead-free model of the glass armonica, developed by a German glass blower in the 1980s. When she first heard the strange instrument played during a concert in Harvard Square, Garcia knew she had to try her own hand at it. But because she had little formal musical training, she was reluctant to invest the several thousand dollars required to purchase a glass armonica. After years of procrastinating, Garcia took the plunge, buying an instrument and resolved to teach herself to play "by trial and error, if need be". Eventually, she succeeded, though she admits tying up her family's phone line dialing an 800 toll-free number set up by the manufacturer to seek assistance. Garcia now gives frequent public concerts, once playing the National Anthem on the glass armonica to open an Albuquerque Dukes baseball game. Her repertoire includes classical favorites, as well as children's songs, Christmas carols and traditional Hispanic folk tunes. "My dad used to ask, 'Why don't you get a real job?,'" she says. "Now he's proud of what I have accomplished." "Albuquerque musician in touch with history" Jim Bowman, New Mexico Magazine. vol. 75 no.

2, p. 16 February 1997. Photos by Mike Grady In the June 1997 edition of The Santa Fean Magazine, Mayling was featured in their regular section entitled "Tales of the 'City Different' ". Music of the Hemispheres -- Perrin Patterson Witchcraft, lead-poisoning and mystery ... the armonica has a story to tell and Albuquerque-based performer Mayling Garcia intends to narrate. Inspired by water-filled musical glasses, Benjamin Franklin constructed the odd-looking instrument in 1761. Comprised of concentric glass bowls lined horizontally along a revolving rod and played with moistened finger tips, the otherworldly sounding, high-pitched instrument enjoyed global popularity - Mozart even composed a quintet for it. The popularity ended, however, when people began to notice certain deranging effects it seemed to have on it's players. Rumors of witchcraft spread. Franklin's invention was considered his greatest failure and, "by 8130, playing the instrument in public had been banned. If you played the armonica at all, you were considered evil," says Garcia.

However, she has a more logical explanation for the strange behavior attributed to glass armonica musicians; lead-poisoning. The glass bowls of the armonica were made of lead crystal, and the toxin, Garcia says, seeped through finger pores and poisoned the players. Now, using bowls hand-blown from lead-free crystal, Garcia wants to help us rediscover this unusual instrument.. One of only six musicians in the world who play the armonica publicly, Garcia has her work cut out for her. You can often her find her carefully lugging the thirty-pound instrument to private parties and children's events across New Mexico. Call Mayling Garcia for a chance to hear this misunderstood melody-maker; she has armonica, will travel. "Music of the Hemispheres" Perrin Patterson, The Santa Fean Magazine. vol. 25 no. 5, p. 11 June 1997. Sabado Gigante is a Spanish language variety show seen on television every Saturday night by 120 million viewers in 52 countries world-wide. Mayling has appeared on the show 5 times. The pictures below, featuring Mayling with host Don Francisco, are from the 1998 Christmas Special.

Click on each picture below to see a larger version: Mayling performed on "America's Got Talent" nationwide on NBC during it's first season. She was one of five unique musicians vying for a chance to win a slot in the finals. Unfortunately, Mayling was not selected to move forward in the contest. Below is a clip from her appearance on Thursday, July 27, 2006. This is a selection from "Over the Rainbow", music by Harold Arlen. Real Player is required to watch. Mayling Garcia can be contacted at the number and address above or by e-mail at All trademarks, service marks, and copyrights are property of their respective owners. Their inclusion does not imply an endorsement or sponsorship of any kind. Benjamin Franklin - Diplomat, Scientist, Inventor, Writer - Biography.com Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin is best known as one of the Founding Fathers who drafted the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. IN THESE GROUPS “We are all born ignorant, but one must work hard to remain stupid.” “Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember.

Involve me and I learn.” “A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” “Do not fear mistakes. You will know failure. Continue to reach out.” “From a child I was fond of reading, and all the little money that came into my hands was ever laid out in books.” “So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do.” “In reality, there is, perhaps, no one of our natural passions so hard to subdue as pride.

Disguise it, struggle with it, beat it down, stifle it, mortify it as much as one pleases, it is still alive, and will every now and then peep out and show itself; you will see it, perhaps, often in this history; for, even if I could conceive that I had compleatly overcome it, I should probably be proud of my humility.” “Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.” “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” “In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government; when this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved, and tyranny is erected on its ruins.” “He does not possess wealth, it possesses him.” “Experience keeps a dear school, yet fools will learn in no other.” Benjamin Franklin Benjamin Franklin - Mini Biography (TV-14; 2:15) A short biography on Benjamin Franklin, who's been famously called the "first Citizen of the 18th Century." A man of many trades, Franklin is famous for "Poor Richard

's Almanac," as well as his work in electrical theory.

Synopsis Born in Boston in 1706, Benjamin Franklin helped to draft the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, and he negotiated the 1783 Treaty of Paris, which ended the Revolutionary War. His scientific pursuits included investigations into electricity, mathematics and mapmaking. A printer and writer known for his wit and wisdom, Franklin was a polymath who published Poor Richard’s Almanack, invented bifocal glasses and organized the first successful American lending library. Early Life Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston in what was then known as the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His father, English-born soap and candle maker Josiah Franklin, had seven children with first wife, Anne Child, and 10 more with second wife, Abiah Folger. Ben was his 15th child and youngest son. Ben learned to read at an early age, and despite his success at the Boston Latin School, he stopped his formal schooling at 10 to work full-time in his cash-strapped father’s candle and soap shop. Dipping wax and cutting wicks didn’t fire the young boy’s imagination, however.

Perhaps to dissuade him from going to sea as one of his brothers had done, Josiah apprenticed Ben at 12 to his brother James at his print shop. Although James mistreated and frequently beat his younger brother, Ben learned a great deal about newspaper publishing and adopted a similar brand of subversive politics under the printer’s tutelage. When James refused to publish any of his brother’s writing, 16-year-old Ben adopted the pseudonym Mrs. Silence Dogood, and “her” 14 imaginative and witty letters delighted readers of his brother’s newspaper, The New England Courant. James grew angry, however, when he learned that his apprentice had penned the letters. Tired of his brother’s “harsh and tyrannical” behavior, Ben fled Boston in 1723 although he had three years remaining on a legally binding contract with his master. He escaped to New York before settling in Philadelphia, which became his home base for the rest of his life. Franklin found work with another printer in Philadelphia and lodged at the home of John Read, where he met and courted his landlord’s daughter Deborah.

Encouraged by Pennsylvania Governor William Keith to set up his own print shop, Franklin left for London in 1724 to purchase supplies from stationers, booksellers and printers. When the teenager arrived in England, however, he felt duped when Keith’s letters of introduction never arrived as promised. Although forced to find work at London’s print shops, Franklin took full advantage of the city’s pleasures—attending theater performances, mingling with the populace in coffee houses and continuing his lifelong passion for reading. A self-taught swimmer who crafted his own wooden flippers, Franklin performed long-distance swims on the Thames River. (In 1968, he was inducted as an honorary member of the International Swimming Hall of Fame.) In 1725 Franklin published his first pamphlet, "A Dissertation upon Liberty and Necessity, Pleasure and Pain," which argued that humans lack free will and, thus, are not morally responsible for their actions.

(Franklin later repudiated this thought and burned all but one copy of the pamphlet still in his possession.) Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1726 to find that Deborah Read had married in the interim, only to be abandoned by her husband just months after the wedding. In the next few years he held varied jobs such as bookkeeper, shopkeeper and currency cutter. He returned to a familiar trade in 1728 when he printed paper currency in New Jersey before partnering with a friend to open his own print shop in Philadelphia that published government pamphlets and books. In 1730 Franklin was named the official printer of Pennsylvania. By that time, he had formed the “Junto,” a social and self-improvement study group for young men that met every Friday to debate morality, philosophy and politics. When Junto members sought to expand their reading choices, Franklin helped to incorporate America’s first subscription library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, in 1731. Prominent Citizen In 1729 Franklin published another pamphlet, "A Modest Enquiry into The Nature and Necessity of a Paper Currency," which advocated for an increase in the money supply to stimulate the economy.

With the cash Franklin earned from his money-related treatise, he was able to purchase The Pennsylvania Gazette newspaper from a former boss. Under his ownership, the struggling newspaper was transformed into the most widely read paper in the colonies and became one of the first to turn a profit. He had less luck in 1732 when he launched the first German-language newspaper in the colonies, the short-lived Philadelphische Zeitung. After the future Founding Father rekindled his romance with Deborah Read, he took her as his common-law wife in 1730. Around that time, Franklin fathered a son, William, out of wedlock who was taken in by the couple. The pair’s first son, Francis, was born in 1732, but he died four years later of smallpox. The couple’s only daughter, Sarah, was born in 1743. Franklin’s prominence and success grew during the 1730s, especially with the publication of Poor Richard’s Almanack at the end of 1732.

In addition to weather forecasts, astronomical information and poetry, the almanac—which Franklin published for 25 consecutive years—included proverbs and Franklin’s witty maxims such as “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise” and “He that lies down with dogs, shall rise up with fleas.” Franklin amassed real estate and businesses and organized the volunteer Union Fire Company to counteract dangerous fire hazards in Philadelphia. He joined the Freemasons in 1731 and was eventually elected grand master of the Masons of Pennsylvania. The 1740s saw Franklin expanding into entrepreneurship with invention of the Franklin stove, which provided more heat with less fuel, and also into scientific pursuits. His 1743 pamphlet "A Proposal for Promoting Useful Knowledge" underscored his interests and served as the founding document of the American Philosophical Society, the first scientific society in the colonies. By 1748, the 42-year-old Franklin had become one of the richest men in Pennsylvania. He turned his printing business over to a partner to give him more time to conduct scientific experiments.

He moved into a new house in 1748 and acquired the first of his slaves to work in the new home and in the print shop. Franklin’s views on slavery evolved over the following decades to the point that he considered the institution inherently evil, and thus, he freed his slaves in the 1760s. He became a soldier in the Pennsylvania militia at the age of 42, but his abiding interest in electricity was ignited at this time, too. His investigations into electrical phenomena were complied into “Experiments and Observations on Electricity,” published in England in 1751. He conducted the famous kite-and-key experiment in 1752 to demonstrate that lighting was electricity. He invented the lightning rod and coined new electricity-related terms that are still part of the lexicon, such as battery, charge, conductor and electrify. A prolific inventor, Franklin developed bifocals that could be used for both distance and reading. He is credited with inventing the first rocking chair, flexible catheter and American penny. He even devised a new “scheme” for the alphabet that proposed to eliminate the letters C, J, Q, W, X and Y as redundant.

Franklin’s inventions took on a musical bent as well. In 1761 he commenced development of the armonica, a musical instrument composed of spinning glass bowls on a shaft. Both Ludwig van Beethoven and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart composed music for the strange instrument. His self-education earned him honorary degrees from Harvard, Yale, England’s Oxford University and Scotland’s University of St. Andrews in Scotland. In 1749, Franklin wrote a pamphlet relating to the education of youth in Pennsylvania that resulted in the establishment of the Academy of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania. Public Service Franklin became a member of Philadelphia’s city council in 1748 and a justice of the peace the following year. In 1751 Franklin was elected a Philadelphia alderman and a representative to the Pennsylvania Assembly, a position to which he was re-elected annually until 1764. Two years later, he accepted a royal appointment as deputy postmaster general of North America.

When the French and Indian War began in 1754, Franklin called on the colonies to band together for their common defense, which he dramatized in The Pennsylvania Gazette with a cartoon of a snake cut into sections with the caption “Join or Die.” He represented Pennsylvania at the Albany Congress, which adopted his proposal to create a unified government for the 13 colonies. Franklin’s “Plan of Union,” however, failed to be ratified by the colonies. In 1757 he was appointed by the Pennsylvania Assembly to serve as the colony’s agent in England. Franklin sailed to London to negotiate a long-standing dispute with the proprietors of the colony, the Penn family, taking William and his two slaves but leaving behind Deborah and Sarah. He spent most of the next two decades in London, where he was drawn to the high society and intellectual salons of the cosmopolitan city. After Franklin returned to Philadelphia in 1762, he toured the colonies to inspect its post offices and William took office as New Jersey’s royal governor, a position his father arranged through his political connections in the British government.

After Franklin lost his seat in the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1764, he returned to London as the colony’s agent without Deborah, who refused to leave Philadelphia. It would be the last time the couple saw each other. Franklin would not return home before Deborah passed away in 1774 from a stroke at the age of 66. He returned to London at a tense time in the relations between Great Britain and the American colonies. Parliament’s passage of the Stamp Act in March 1765 imposed a highly unpopular tax on all printed materials for commercial and legal use in the colonies. Since Franklin purchased stamps for his printing business and nominated a friend as the Pennsylvania stamp distributor, some colonists thought Franklin implicitly supported the new tax, and rioters in Philadelphia even threatened his house. Franklin’s passionate denunciation of the tax in testimony before Parliament, however, contributed to the Stamp Act’s repeal in 1766. Two years later he penned a pamphlet, “Causes of the American Discontents before 1768,” and he soon became an agent for Massachusetts, Georgia and New Jersey as well.

Franklin fanned the flames of revolution by sending the inflammatory private letters of Massachusetts Governor Thomas Hutchinson, which called for the restriction of the rights of colonists, to America where they caused a firestorm after their publication by Boston newspapers. In the wake of the scandal, Franklin was removed as deputy postmaster general, and he returned to North America in 1775 as a devotee of the patriot cause. Always intellectually curious, Franklin began to speculate on his return trip across the Atlantic Ocean about why the westbound trip always took longer, and his measurements of ocean temperatures led to his discovery of the existence of the Gulf Stream, the knowledge of which served to cut two weeks off the previous sailing time from Europe to North America. In 1775, Franklin was elected to the Second Continental Congress and appointed the first postmaster general for the colonies. And in 1776, he was appointed commissioner to Canada and was one of five men to draft the Declaration of Independence. Franklin’s support for the patriot cause put him at odds with his Loyalist son. When the New Jersey militia stripped William Franklin of his post as royal governor and imprisoned him, his father chose not to intercede on his behalf.

After voting for independence, Franklin was elected commissioner to France and set sail to negotiate a treaty for the country’s military and financial support. Later Years Much has been made of Franklin’s years in Paris, chiefly his romantic life, as essentially the first U.S. ambassador to France. After Deborah’s death, Franklin had a rich romantic life in his nine years abroad. At the age of 74, he even proposed marriage to a widow named Madame Helvetius, but she rejected him. Franklin was embraced in France as much, if not more, for his wit and intellectual standing in the scientific community as for his status as a political appointee from a fledging country. His reputation facilitated respect and entrees into closed communities, including that of King Louis XVI . And it was his adept diplomacy that led to the Treaty of Paris in 1783, which ended the Revolutionary War. After almost a decade in France, Franklin returned to the United States in 1785. He was elected in 1787 to represent Pennsylvania at the Constitutional Convention, which drafted and ratified the new U.S. Constitution.

The oldest delegate at the age of 81, Franklin initially supported proportional representation in Congress, but he fashioned the Great Compromise that resulted in proportional representation in the House of Representatives and equal representation by state in the Senate. Franklin helped found the Society for Political Inquiries, dedicated to improving knowledge of government, in 1787. He also became more vociferous in his opposition to slavery. He served as president of the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, wrote many tracts urging the abolition of slavery and petitioned the U.S. Congress in 1790 to end slavery and the slave trade. Death and Legacy Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the home of his daughter, Sarah Bache. He was 84, suffered from gout and had complained of ailments for some time, completing the final codicil to his will a little more than a year and a half prior to his death. He bequeathed most of his estate to Sarah and very little to William, whose opposition to the patriot cause still stung him. He also donated money that funded scholarships, schools and museums in Boston and Philadelphia.

Franklin had actually written his epitaph when he was 22: “The body of B. Franklin, Printer (Like the Cover of an Old Book Its Contents torn Out And Stript of its Lettering and Gilding) Lies Here, Food for Worms. But the Work shall not be Lost; For it will (as he Believ'd) Appear once More In a New and More Elegant Edition Revised and Corrected By the Author.” In the end, however, the stone on the grave he shared with his wife in the cemetery of Philadelphia’s Christ Church reads simply, “Benjamin and Deborah Franklin 1790.” The image of Benjamin Franklin that has come down through history, along with the likeness on the $100 bill, is something of a caricature—a bald man in a frock coat holding a kite string with a key attached. But the scope of things he applied himself to was so broad it seems a shame.

Founding universities and libraries, the post office, shaping the foreign policy of the fledgling United States, drafting the Declaration of Independence, publishing newspapers, warming us with the Franklin stove, pioneering advances in science, letting us see with bifocals and lighting our way with electricity—all from a man who never finished school but shaped his life through abundant reading and experience, a strong moral compass and an unflagging commitment to civic duty. Franklin illumined corners of American life that still have the lingering glow of his attention. He was a true polymath and entrepreneur, which is no doubt why he is often called the “First American.” Videos 1000+ images about Benjamin Franklin for Kids on Pinterest | Benjamin franklin, Inventions and Franklin stove Forward Glass Armonica- Invented in 1761 by Benjamin Franklin, the Glass Armonica was one of his favorite inventions. The word "Armonica" is the Italian word for "Harmony". It is played on the same principle of rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a wineglass. The glass bowls are individually tuned, so that they do not need to be filled with water, though the players fingers do need to be moistened with water.

The glass bowls are tuned by size, mounted one inside each other with cork on a metal… See More 1000+ images about Benjamin Franklin on Pinterest | Trafalgar square, Inventors and Political cartoons Forward Glass Armonica- Invented in 1761 by Benjamin Franklin, the Glass Armonica was one of his favorite inventions. The word "Armonica" is the Italian word for "Harmony". It is played on the same principle of rubbing a wet finger around the rim of a wineglass. The glass bowls are individually tuned, so that they do not need to be filled with water, though the players fingers do need to be moistened with water. The glass bowls are tuned by size, mounted one inside each other with cork on a metal… See More Benjamin Franklin - Biography, Facts and Pictures Benjamin Franklin Lived 1706 – 1790. Benjamin Franklin lived his life in the spirit of a renaissance man: he was deeply interested in the world around him, and he excelled in several widely differing fields of human endeavor. He had a profound effect on our understanding of electricity and shaped the language we use when we talk about it, even today.

Here we shall concentrate on his life as a scientist and an inventor, only briefly touching on his other achievements. Advertisements Benjamin Franklin’s Early Life and Education Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17, 1706, in Boston, Massachusetts. His father, Josiah, was a tallow chandler, candle maker, and soap boiler who had moved to the American Colonies from England. His mother, Abiah Folger looked after the home and was the mother of ten children, including Benjamin, who was the eighth child in the family. She was born in Nantucket, Massachusetts. Benjamin only had two years of formal education, which finished when he was ten years old, because his family could not afford the fees. His informal education then accelerated, because his mind was too restless to stop learning. He had to work in his father’s business, but in his spare time he read everything he could, about every subject under the sun. When he was twelve, Benjamin began working as an apprentice in a printing shop owned by one of his elder brothers, James. When his brother started printing a newspaper, Benjamin wrote to it in the name of “Mrs. Dogood” in defense of freedom of speech.

Aged 17, Benjamin Franklin left for Philadelphia, escaping from his apprenticeship, which was against the law. He was, however, free. After a few months in Philadelphia he left for London, England, where he learned more about printing, before returning to Philadelphia at the age of 20 to continue his career in printing. Benjamin Franklin – Publisher By the age of just 23, Franklin had become the publisher of the Philadelphia Gazette. Aged 27, in December 1732, the first editions of the publication that would make him a wealthy man rolled off his printing press: Poor Richard’s Almanac, which Franklin would publish annually for the next 25 years. It was a general interest pamphlet offering interest and amusement for its readers, including: ‘how to’ guides, practical tips, stories, astrological forecasts, and brain teasers. With each year he published the Almanac, his financial position grew more secure, and Franklin’s fertile mind began looking for new outlets. He continued reading as much as he could, increasing his knowledge of science and technology until he was in a position to begin innovating himself.

Benjamin Franklin’s Science, Innovation, and Inventions Franklin was an original thinker, scientist and inventor. Dating his inventions is not always easy, because Franklin did not patent what he invented. He said that anyone who wanted to make money from his ideas was free to do so. This means the dates given to his inventions are approximate. Bifocal Spectacles Franklin wore spectacles for most of his life. He felt limited by the spectacles of his day, because a lens that was good for reading blurred his vision when he looked up. Working as a printer, this could be infuriating. He defeated this problem in about 1739, aged 33, with his invention of split-lens bifocal spectacles. Each lens now had two focusing distances. Looking through the bottom part of the lens was good for reading, while looking through the upper part offered good vision at a greater distance. The Franklin Stove As Franklin read more about science, he learned more about heat transfer. He looked at the design of a typical stove and concluded that it was inefficient. Much more heat was lost up the flue than necessary. He decided to redesign the stove using the concept of heat-exchange/heat recovery.

The idea was that hot gases which would normally simply go up the flue would exchange their heat with cold air from the room, heating it up, and so heating the room up. In 1741, the Franklin Stove came on to the market, allowing homeowners to get more heat into their homes for each unit of fuel they burned. Cold air (blue) gains heat from contact with the hot stove. As this warming air continues on its path, it gains more heat through contact with metal, the other side of which is in contact with the hot smoke (red) going to the flue. Franklin wrote: The use of these fireplaces in very many houses, both of this and the neighboring colonies, has been, and is, a great saving of wood to the inhabitants. American Philosophical Society In 1743, Franklin founded the American Philosophical Society. (In those days, scientists were called philosophers.) The Society offered a scientific forum for new ideas, including Franklin’s electrical theories.

The Size of the Units of Matter Benjamin Franklin performed a beautiful experiment using surfactants; on a pond at Clapham Common, he poured a small amount of oleic acid, a natural surfactant which tends to form a dense film at the water-air interface. He measured the volume required to cover all the pond. Knowing the area, he then knew the height of the film, something like three nanometers in our current units. Pierre-Gilles de Gennes, 1932 to 2007 Electricity In summer 1743, Franklin visited his hometown of Boston. Always seeking new knowledge, he visited a science show. There he saw Dr. Archibald Spencer, who had arrived from Scotland, demonstrating a variety of scientific phenomena. The electrical part of the show intrigued Franklin most: it featured the effects of static electricity. Franklin left the show determined to learn more about electricity. It seemed to him that Dr. Spencer didn’t really understand it. This, of course, was true: nobody understood it! It was more a source of entertainment than a science. In 1747, Franklin got hold of a long glass tube for the efficient generation of static electricity from Peter Collinsion in London.

Soon, Franklin was spending much of his time studying electricity. He wrote: “For my own part, I never was before engaged in any study that so totally engrossed my attention and my time as this has lately done.” Shaping our understanding of electricity Franklin’s observations soon began to shape the world’s understanding of electricity and shape the language we use even today when we talk about it. He identified that there was an electrical fluid that could flow from A to B. To describe the process he coined the terms positive and negative to describe the difference between A and B after the electrical fluid had flowed. Of course, today we would call the electrical fluid electrons, but remember: this was 1747; J.J. Thomson’s discovery of the electron lay 150 years in the future! Franklin found that an excess of fluid led to positive charge (okay, we’ll have to pretend that electrons are positively charged for this) and a deficit of fluid led to negative charge. Franklin was the first to write that electric charge cannot be created; it can only be ‘collected.’ This is a fundamental law of physics – the Law of Conservation of Electric Charge. It means that you cannot create (or destroy) electric charge.

Franklin was also the first person to use the words electrical battery. His meaning was not the same as ours though. His battery was made of capacitors (known as Leyden jars) wired together in series to store more charge than one alone could. This enabled Franklin to produce a bigger discharge of static electricity in his experiments. In 1751, Franklin published the fruits of his labors in a book called Experiments and Observations on Electricity, which was widely read in Britain and then Europe, shaping a new understanding of electricity. In 1752 Franklin’s most famous scientific work was carried out – the proof that lightning is electricity. Franklin had an idea for an experiment to prove that lightning is electricity, making use of another of his own discoveries in electricity: that static electricity discharges to a sharp, pointed object more readily than to a blunt object.

And now here are Benjamin Franklin’s own words on the subject: From Benjamin Franklin’s Experiments and Observations on Electricity Benjamin Franklin “As electrified clouds pass over a country, high hills and high trees, lofty towers, spires, masts of ships, chimneys, etc, as so many prominences and points, draw the electrical fire, and the whole cloud discharges there… “If these things are so, may not the power of points be of use to mankind, in preserving houses, churches,… from the stroke of lightning, by directing us to fix on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of iron made sharp as a needle… and from the foot of those rods a wire down the outside of the building into the ground…? Benjamin Franklin’s Proposed Sentry Box “I would propose an experiment… On the top of some high tower or steeple, place a kind of sentry-box big enough to contain a man and an electrical stand. From the middle of the stand, let an iron rod rise and pass bending out of the door, and then upright 20 or 30 feet, pointed very sharp at the end.

If the electrical stand be kept clean and dry, a man standing on it when such clouds are passing low might be electrified and afford sparks, the rod drawing fire to him from a cloud. If any danger to the man should be apprehended (although I think there would be none) let him stand on the floor of his box, and now and then bring near to the rod a loop of wire that has one end fastened to the leads he his holding by a wax handle; so the sparks, if the rod is electrified, will strike from the rod to the wire and not affect him.” King Louis XV saw a translation of Experiments and Observations on Electricity, and he asked French scientists to test Franklin’s lightning rod concept. Jean Francois Dalibard used Franklin’s idea to confirm by experiment that lightning was indeed electrical in Paris in May 1752. Franklin himself carried out similar work in 1752, using a kite with a metal key connected to a Leyden Jar to prove his own theory. He didn’t write about his own experiment, however, until 1772. The significance of the experiment was that it established the study of electricity as a serious scientific discipline.

Franklin had shown how to prove that electrical phenomena were a fundamental force of nature. Electricity would never again be thought of as just an interesting plaything for scientists and showmen to conjure up using glass rods. Very soon, in 1753, when he was aged 47, the transformation in science that Franklin had brought about was recognized. Britain’s Royal Society honored his electrical work with its highest award, the Copley Medal – the equivalent of a modern Nobel Prize. The Lightning Rod A building protected by a lightning rod. A cable carries electricity from lightning to ground. Even today, we still use Benjamin Franklin’s lightning rod. Like his other ideas, he did not patent it: he profited from the lightning rod intellectually, not financially. Since the time he invented it, it has saved societies all over the world great amounts of time and money by protecting buildings from damage. It has also, of course, saved countless lives. Refrigeration In 1758, working with John Hadley in Cambridge, England, Franklin investigated the principle of refrigeration by evaporation.

In a room at 18 °C (65 °F) , the scientists repeatedly wetted a thermometer with ether, then used bellows to quickly evaporate the ether. They were finally able to achieve a temperature reading on the thermometer of -14 °C (7 °F). We now know the reason for the refrigeration effect. We have learned that molecules in a liquid have a range of energies. Some have high energy, and some have low energy. Molecules carrying the most energy escape from the liquid most easily – they evaporate. This leaves the lower energy, colder molecules in the liquid. The result is that the temperature of the liquid falls. Of his discovery, Franklin said: “One may see the possibility of freezing a man to death on a warm summer’s day.” In fact, the principle of cooling by evaporation had been publicly demonstrated by William Cullen in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1756. Cullen had used a pump to lower the pressure above ether in a container. The reduced pressure caused the ether to evaporate rapidly through boiling, absorbing heat from the air around it, and causing some ice to form on the container sides.

Meteorology By observation of storms and winds, Franklin discovered that storms do not always travel in the direction of the prevailing wind. This was an important discovery in the development of the scientific discipline of meteorology. More than a Scientist and Inventor Franklin lived in turbulent times, which culminated in the United States’ Declaration of Independence in 1776: Franklin was one of the five men who drafted it. He had previously acted as British postmaster for the colonies; he was the American Ambassador in France from 1776 – 1785; and the governor of Pennsylvania from 1785 – 1788. The End Benjamin Franklin died on April 17, 1790, at the age of 84. He was killed by pleurisy – a lung inflammation. His wife, Deborah, had died sixteen years earlier. Franklin was survived by his daughter, Sarah, who looked after him in his later years and his son, William. William left America to live in Britain in 1782. Today, the Benjamin Franklin Medal, named in Franklin’s honor, is one of the most prestigious awards in science.

Its winners include Alexander Graham Bell, Marie and Pierre Curie, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking. Advertisements Author of this page: The Doc © All rights reserved. Please use the following MLA compliant citation: "Benjamin Franklin." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 1 Jul. 2014. Web. < 12 scientists and their brilliant inventions 11 great scientists who were part-timers Rosalind Franklin

Question: Which 18th Century scientist and politician invented a glass harmonica (or ‘armonica) in 1761?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin