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charting the Gulf Stream; and securing the decisive support of the French in the Rev- T olutionary War, to name a few—reflect E the fact that he apparently did not rest be- L tween tasks. His voracious curiosity about E the world drove his mind to ceaseless ac- tivity. Franklin is also the only Founding V Father in an athletic hall of fame: an avid I swimmer, he taught himself the skill from S a French book. Franklin’s stature in the eighteenth I century was comparable to Einstein’s in O the twentieth, according to Herschbach. N Before his discoveries, lightning was widely considered to be a manifestation of the powers of darkness. “In Franklin’s Simon Callow as Galileo day, electricity was more of a mystery PUBLIC BROADCASTING SYSTEM than gravity was in Newton’s era. You have to be very impressed,” Herschbach who has published an edition of Franklin’s says. “The way he pursued science was Titans Televised letters on electricity. (In the eighteenth totally modern, but at that time, it was century, letters sometimes took the place the exception.” Two great scientists who could— of scholarly journals, and Franklin styled theoretically—have taught at Harvard himself a “natural philosopher” rather If franklin was almost ideally suited will be celebrated on television this fall than a scientist.) Several years later, Lopez to his century, Galileo was sometimes with help from Harvard experts. Galileo finally located a television production strikingly at odds with his own. He was a Galilei (1564-1642) and Benjamin Franklin team, Middlemarch Films, to create the man ahead of his time, perhaps the “one (1706-1790) both used systematic observa- series. On November 4, the producers will single person who could be said to have tion to overturn long-settled dogmas speak in the “Film in History/Film as His- created modern science,” according to the about how nature works. Yet truth needs tory” series at Harvard’s Charles Warren Nova program. Despite his famous conflict not only discovery, but marketing. Frank- Center for Studies in American History. In with the Inquisition, Galileo was a faithful lin’s formidable social and diplomatic addition to Herschbach and Cohen, CNN Catholic who thought the Bible was the skills allowed him to midwife not only chairman Walter Isaacson ’74 and histori- true word of God—just not a very good as- scientific breakthroughs, but a new na- ans Pauline Maier ’60, Ph.D. ’68, Edmund tronomy text. He enrolled his daughter tion. In contrast, Galileo—who lacked Morgan ’37, Ph.D. ’42, and Gordon Wood, Virginia, born outside of marriage, in a Franklin’s tact and salesmanship and was Ph.D. ’64, all appear on-screen. convent when she was 13. Their loving cor- born before the Enlightenment in an Italy Franklin had his own ties to the Uni- respondence, which continued until her where the Vatican wielded enormous versity, as the first person upon whom death at 33, is a theme of the television nar- power—spent his last eight years under Harvard conferred an honorary degree: a rative and takes its cues from the book house arrest. Now two Public Broadcast- master’s, in 1753—no mean feat for a man Galileo’s Daughter, by Dava Sobel (see “Suor ing System programs dramatize the men’s with only two years of formal education. Maria Celeste,” November-December personal and intellectual lives, as scripted But Franklin was a polymath and genius: 1999, page 60). from their own words. Nova broadcasts “Without a doubt the greatest scientist of When she took her vows at 16, Virginia “Galileo’s Battle for the Heavens,” starring the eighteenth century,’ says Herschbach. chose the name Maria Celeste, apparently Simon Callow, on October 29; the three- Franklin won his century’s highest sci- to honor her father’s fascination with the hour Benjamin Franklin miniseries, starring entific honor, the Copley Medal, equiva- stars. Although Galileo’s letters to her are Richard Easton, airs November 19 and 20. lent to today’s Nobel Prize. lost, the 124 surviving letters from Maria The Franklin series, in fact, was trig- The breathtaking range of Franklin’s ac- Celeste portray a humble, devoted daugh- gered by an article in this magazine, writ- complishments—starting Phildelphia’s ter who served her father in many ways ten by Baird research professor of science first hospital, lending library, and college and may even have copied the final (now Dudley Herschbach (see “Ben Franklin’s (now the University of Pennsylvania); in- missing) manuscript of his magnum opus, ‘Scientific Amusements,’” November-De- venting the e∞cient Franklin stove, a sim- Dialogue on the Two Chief Systems of the World. cember 1995, page 36). Yale historian plified clock, the lightning rod, and a mu- Her modest nature was certainly no Claude-Ann Lopez, a special consultant sical instrument, the glass armonica; patrimony. After teaching himself to grind on the Franklin papers there, saw the arti- launching a postal service, becoming a lenses, Galileo assembled a telescope cle and convened a meeting with Hersch- wealthy printer and bestselling author; powerful enough to probe the heavens, bach and her old friend I Bernard Cohen, writing the first great book of American and within a week had discovered the Thomas professor of the history of science literature, his Autobiography; plumbing the first new astronomical bodies since an- emeritus, an eminent Franklin scholar secrets of electricity, discovering and cient times—four moons of Jupiter.

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