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Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers on the United
States and an inventor credited with creating the lightning rod,
glass harmonica, urinary catheter, bifocal glasses and Franklin
stove. Even though Benjamin Franklin never patented any of his
own inventions, he was an advocate for inventor's rights and was
responsible for seeing to it that a passage was inserted into
the U. S. Constitution guaranteeing limited terms for patents
and copyrights.
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Ben Franklin |
Benjamin Franklin was the first to document electrical properties
as positive and negative. After Franklin's famous experiment of
flying a kite during a lightening storm, he documented that lightening
is in fact electricity.
Franklin was insulated from the charge or else he would have been
electrocuted as were other scientists who followed with similar
experiments. This "go fly a kite" incident lead to Benjamin
Franklin's theories of grounding the electrical charge which lead
to the invention of the lightning rod.
Because of Benjamin Franklin's work with the lightning rod, he
received the Copley Medal from the Royal Society on London in 1753.
Franklin also conducted other experiments in meteorology including
noting that storms do not always follow the prevailing winds and
that evaporation helps in the cooling process.
When Ben Franklin was 15-years-old he began writing for the first
newspaper in Boston, the New England Currant, started by his brother.
Ben Franklin used a pen name since he knew his brother would never
publish his younger brother's letters. Franklin's most famous printing
endeavors would come later with his publication of "Poor Richard's
Almanac" in 1733. Benjamin Franklin was born on January 17,
1706 and died on April 17, 1790.
Rumor Has It …
Rumor has it that along with inventing the Franklin pot belly stove,
Benjamin Franklin also invented the pot belly pig as well. With
a combination of genetic engineering and mechanical engineering,
Franklin developed a pig that could eat its own weight in bacon
just for the sheer joy of inventing a cannibalistic vertebrate.
Another rumor has it that Ben Franklin, not be silenced, this do-gooder
used to help little old ladies across the street and then host them
for tea and crumpets. In a totally unreliable and conflicting account,
it is dubiously documented that Franklin would help little old ladies
across the street, but then kick them into the mud and run like
a little schoolgirl screaming "You're it! You're it!"
Written by Kevin Lepton
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