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Ben Franklin 300Th Birthday emcsNL_fall06_2ndhalf.qxd 1/8/07 3:43 PM Page 87 Happy 300th Birthday, Ben Franklin! by Aziz S. Inan, 2006 IEEE International Symposium Committee Member Introduction remained there less than a year. Then, after a long sickness. Ben returned to Benjamin (Ben) Franklin was born in Ben was sent to Brownell’s English work for Samuel Keimer in the printing 1706 and this year marks his 300th School where he studied English, writing trade. In 1728, Ben resigned to form a birthday. Franklin is considered to be and mathematics. There, he acquired fair printing partnership with Hugh Mered- one of the first electrical engineers. He writing skills but failed in mathematics. ith in Philadelphia. In 1729, Ben and popularized the study of electrical sci- In 1716, Ben was removed from school Meredith purchased the failing Pennsyl- ence, performed an extremely dangerous by his father and became an assistant at vania Gazette from Keimer, and Ben kite experiment in 1752 to prove that his chandler’s shop. In 1718, Ben was immediately turned it into a success. In lightning is a form of electrical dis- apprenticed to his half-brother, James, a 1732, Ben published Poor Richard’s charge, and discovered the lightning newspaper printer. The printing job Almanac. Both of Ben’s publications, the rod. He laid the foundation of the dis- seemed like a good choice for Ben since Pennsylvania Gazette and Poor Richard’s tinction between conductors and insula- he enjoyed reading and writing. Ben read Almanac, became very popular and made tors, the action of pointed bodies and the as much as he could and also wrote arti- Ben a wealthy person. Ben retired from role of grounding in electrical experi- cles under a pen name for James’s news- his printing business in 1748, at age ments, the analysis of the Leyden jar, the paper. He also gained the habit of hard forty-two. design of parallel-plate capacitors, and work, perseverance, and self-discipline In 1730, Ben married his former the conservation of charge principle. He while working in the printing business. fiancée, Deborah Read, and they took Ben’s also coined terms such as positive (plus) illegitimate son William (who was born charge, negative (minus) charge, and about 1728) into their home as their son. electric battery, which we still use in In 1732, Ben had another son named Fran- electrical engineering. Franklin’s contri- cis Folger Franklin, but he died of small- butions to electrical science are consid- pox at age four. Ben’s third and last child ered to be a milestone in the history of Sarah (called Sally) was born in 1743. IEEE and the shape of his famous kite Ben was a person of multiple facets and led to IEEE’s diamond-shaped logo. interests in addition to his printing busi- Although there are hundreds of books ness. In 1727, he formed the Junto, a and book chapters written about group comprised mainly of young arti- Franklin’s life and his achievements sans, which combined sociability and self- (e.g., see references in [1]), the goal of education. The Junto met regularly on this article is to help us remember Young Ben reading books Friday nights until 1765. He founded the Franklin’s life, and especially some of his Library Company in Philadelphia in 1732. contributions to electrical science. Ben becomes a successful In 1736, he was elected clerk of the Penn- printer sylvania Assembly and also started the Ben and James did not get along, and in Union Fire Company. He was appointed Ben’s early life 1723 Ben left Boston and moved to postmaster of Philadelphia in 1737 and Ben Franklin was born in Boston, Mass- Philadelphia. There, he first worked for a held this position until 1753. He founded achusetts. His father, Josiah Franklin, printer named Samuel Keimer. In 1724, the American Philosophical Society in was a tallow chandler, a maker of candles he traveled to London, England, where he 1743, became a member of the Philadel- and soap, who emigrated from England found employment as a journeyman phia City Council in 1748, and a member and settled in Boston in 1683. He came printer. In this work, he met a number of of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1750. to America to practice his faith and to men who became influential in the pub- improve his finances. His mother Abiah, lishing world of the eighteenth century. Josiah’s second wife, was the daughter of After two years of experience in the print- The eighteenth century— Peter Folger, a schoolmaster and survey- ing business, Ben returned to Philadel- golden years for electrical or of Nantucket. Josiah’s two marriages phia in 1726 and began to work as a sales- science produced seventeen children; Ben was clerk for a merchant named Thomas Den- During the eighteenth century, signifi- the fifteenth child and the youngest son. ham. In 1727, Ben fell severely ill with cant progress was accomplished in the In 1714, Josiah sent Ben first to pleurisy and almost died. He recovered in study of electricity. This subject Boston Grammar School where tradition- about two months, but he then lost his intrigued many people, both in Europe al Latin education was offered, but he job because his employer Denham died and America. The accidental discovery of 87 emcsNL_fall06_2ndhalf.qxd 1/8/07 3:44 PM Page 88 the Leyden jar around 1745-1746 by Leyden jar through one hundred and sending Ben an annual parcel of books, Pieter van Musschenbroek and his pupil, eighty guardsmen with hands linked. and included any work or curious object Andreas Cunaeus, in Leyden, Holland The King was amused and impressed as that chanced to be in vogue in London at and independently by Ewald Georg von the guardsmen all jumped up and down the time. In 1746, he sent some appara- Kleist in Germany marked a great simultaneously. In another demonstra- tus including one of the new glass tubes advancement in electrical science. It tion, he formed over two hundred monks then commonly used to excite electricity, demonstrated that electrical charge connected by iron wires between every and directions on how to use it based on could not only be stored and built up, two persons and had a Leyden jar dis- an article published in The Gentleman’s but also carried from one place to anoth- charged through them all. The shrieking Magazine. These glass tubes were about er. In almost every country in Europe, monks leaped into the air simultaneously two and a half feet long, and as thick as a traveling performers amazed the public with finer timing than could be achieved man could conveniently grasp. They were by carrying out dazzling and mysterious by the most skilled group of ballet rubbed with a piece of cloth or buckskin, electrical experiments involving dis- dancers. Experimenters in France and and then held in contact with the object charging Leyden jars—people were eager elsewhere killed birds and other animals to be charged. Ben had already seen one to observe electrical shocks and feel their by the discharge of the Leyden jar; they of these tubes in Boston and was aston- effects. A standard trick during these sent Leyden jar discharges over long dis- ished by its properties. Ben wrote in his performances involved suspending a boy tances through water across rivers and autobiography, “I eagerly seized the from the ceiling with numerous insulat- lakes; they magnetized needles with it opportunity of repeating what I had seen ing silk threads, rubbing his feet with and melted thin wire. The Leyden jar cer- in Boston, and, by much practice, either an electrostatic machine or a glass tainly played a key role in all of these acquired great readiness in performing tube, and drawing electric sparks from explorations. those also which we had an account of his face or hands. From one end of the from England, adding a number of new world to the other, traveling electricians ones. I say with much practice, for my made fortunes with their performances. house was continually full, for some time, with people who came to see these new wonders.” Musschenbroek experimenting with a Leyden jar Glass tube sent to Ben by Collinson Ben around 1748 Ben joined forces with his colleagues Ben is introduced to electricity in Philadelphia, Ebenezer Kinnersley Ben became acquainted with the won- (Ben’s principal co-experimenter), ders of electrical science for the first time Thomas Hopkinson and Philip Syng, when he met a Scottish lecturer named forming a team to carry out electrical Dr. Archibald Spencer in Boston around experiments and research electrical sci- 1743 and later in Philadelphia in 1744. ence. Electrical phenomena became Ben’s Dr. Spencer traveled to different cities passion. In 1747, Ben wrote to Collinson, and offered courses including demonstra- “For my own part, I never was before tions on various scientific topics. Ben engaged in any study that so totally found Dr. Spencer’s lectures and demon- engrossed my attention and my time as strations on electrical phenomena to be this has lately done.” Ben described these intriguing and fascinating. This subject initial experiments performed by his captured his attention. team in a series of five letters that he During the next few years, Ben wrote to Collinson regularly from 1747 A suspended boy being charged via an queried Peter Collinson, a Fellow of the to 1750. With Ben’s approval, Collinson electrostatic machine Royal Society of London and the Library shared these letters with the Royal Soci- Company’s London agent, regarding the ety of London.
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