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Benjamin Franklin

Theories And Innovations Of The First American

Benjamin Franklin, popularly known as The First American, is a multifaceted personality with experience as a post master, freemason, printer, author, scientist, statesman and even a diplomat. His findings in the field of electricity were unique and first-of-its-kind. His contributions include characterizing electrical fluids, concept of cooling and a lot more. Some of his inventions like lightning rod, bifocals, glass harmonica and Franklin Stove are known for its niche. He analyzed the population growth of America in 1750, which was by then an emerging topic and influenced many economists like Adam Smith and Thomas Malthus. It would take years to explain his theories and inventions as they are innumerable.

Characterizing Electrical Fluids 
Electricity is classified into vitreous and resinous. While the former is excited by rubbing glass with certain substances, the latter is exited by rubbing bodies of the same kind.  Franklin proposed that both are not different types, but the same electrical fluid under different pressures.  He also named them as positive and negative respectively. 

Conservation of Charge 
Electric Charge can neither be created nor be destroyed. The net quantity of electric charge, amount of positive and negative charge is always conserved. The first one to offer a written statement on this was by Franklin who in a letter to Cadwallader Colden said, "It is now discovered and demonstrated, both here and in Europe that the Electrical Fire is a real Element, or Species of Matter, not created by the Friction, but collected only.”

Kite Flying Experiment
Sounds weird, but that is the fact. In order to prove that lightning is electricity, he flew a kite during storm and saw it burning. This experiment of Franklin was also attempted by Thomas-François Dalibard of France conducted Franklin’s experiment using a 40-foot-tall iron rod instead of a kite and extracted electrical sparks from a cloud.

Concept of Cooling
Have you ever experimented wearing a wet shirt on a sunny day and stood cool. To get clarity on the same, he went to Cambridge and conducted an experiment along with John Hadley. Balls of the mercury thermometer were wetted with ether and were evaporated with bellows. When the ether was evaporated, temperature in the thermometer eventually reached -14 Degree Celsius.

Demographic Study
Well, if you feel he is just the one who invents and discovers scientific theories, you are wrong. This man as mentioned before has a niche of multi-tasking. This attitude led to analyze the population growth of the United States. An anonymously published in the mid-1750s in Boston titled "Observations concerning the Increase of Mankind and Peopling of Countries”— spoke about the rapid population growth of America. His analysis pointed to the population of America surging that of Britain. This created chaos in the British camp and led them to impose restrictions on the colonial economy.

Analyzing Ocean Currents As A Deputy Post-Master
Interests never stop you from doing things. And in case of Franklin, it is a big no. Even as a Deputy Postmaster in Britain, he was analyzing the pattern of Atlantic Ocean Currents. Hearing the complaint from Colonial Board of Customs on packet ships carrying mail taking several weeks longer to reach New York than it took an average merchant ship to reach Newport,  Rhode Island, he developed a Gulf Stream chart for the packet ships with inputs from his cousin Timothy Folger. Anyhow, the British had strongly ignored his ideas for long. But when they adopted the Gulf Stream Chart, they benefited by cutting down the travel time by two weeks. Still they said he only discovered and charted it.  Now, these are some of the discoveries and theories he had made. But this man also invented some that could address the basic domestic needs of an individual.

Lightning Rod
By mid-17th century, tall buildings became a common phenomenon  in America and so was the risk of lightning. In case of lightning, tall buildings were prone to risk of getting damaged. In order to overcome this, Franklin came forward with a proposal to place a lightning rod at the top of a building. Lightning conductors with sharp points can discharge silently at a far greater distance. He first experimented it on his own house and then in 1752, rods were placed in Pennsylvania State House (later Independence Hall) and Academy of Philadelphia.

Bifocals
Do you experience white lines while reading? Then equip your eyes with bifocals. A fact everybody knows.  But do you know Franklin was the one who invented it? Then keep reading to know more. 
These are basically glasses with two distinct optical powers and generally prescribed to people with presbyopia who also need a correction for myopia, hyperopia, and astigmatism. Originally it was built with most convex lenses in the lower part of the frame and less convex in the upper part, so that it would help one to have a closer view while reading. But anyhow it is considered to cause severe headache and make one feel dizzy. Research is going on to make it more comfortable as on date.

Franklin Stove
If you are in a hill station, you’d need a fireplace to warm up quite often and most importantly inside your house. People were burning wood with a fireplace inside their house for long until Franklin came up with a Stove with hollow baffles. These baffles transfer more heat from the fire to a room’s air. Hot fumes of fire were drawn from inverted siphons around the baffle. 

Glass Harmonica
Franklin’s inventions also retreat one’s ears. On the backdrop of Edmund Delaval’s water-filled wine glasses played in 1761, he invented a radically new arrangement of the glasses. 37 bowls were mounted horizontally by an iron spindle and were rotated using a foot pedal.  When the rims were touched with water moistened fingers, one can hear music. All the glass rims were painted in different colours and the accidentals were white marked.  

Some of his innovations and techniques were suppressed and criticized by many, but that never broke his spirit to find new things. Another impressive fact about him is that he never patented any of his theories and inventions. He said 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.”

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