Ben Franklin: On Science

Special to FreeRepublis ^ | 12 December 2009 | John Armor (Congressman Billybob)

[Congressman Billybob]

This is a matter of common sense. Your average reporter or editor can't get his mind around that concept.

John / Billybob

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[GeronL]

heh.

I died in 1790

Direct quote there. haha.

Great column!

[Loud Mime]

“It is necessary to guard ourselves from thinking that the practice of the scientific method enlarges the powers of the human mind. Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man distinguished in one or even more departments of science, is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else.”
Wilfred Trotter
Noted Social Psychologist

This quote is taken from F.A. Hayek’s book “The Fatal Conceit - The Errors of Socialism”

[ru4liberty]

Bookmark for later

[Rudder]

Superb!

[allmendream]

It is a common misconception, originated by Washington Irving, that learned people in Columbus's time thought the world was flat. No doubt Ben Franklin was aware of this.

The “scientific” argument presented against Columbus, was the estimation of the diameter of the Earth made by Eratosthenes. And they were CORRECT, if he hadn't hit the islands off America, Columbus would have never made it to India - just as he was told by the learned men of his day.

[hellbender]

OK, I’m being picky, but here goes: First, the Leyden jar was a form of capacitor, not a battery. Second, I doubt that a silk thread would insulate you from lightning. With enough voltage, electricity can travel through things not normally considered good conductors.

[Bobalu]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztPAfovPrHQ

[Bobalu]

A capacitor is a type of battery.

[allmendream]

I always rejoice to hear of your being still employed in experimental researches into nature, and of the success you meet with. The rapid progress true science now makes, occasions my regretting sometimes that I was born so soon: it is impossible to imagine the height to which may be carried, in a thousand years, the power of man over matter; we may perhaps learn to deprive large masses of their gravity, and give them absolute levity for the sake of easy transport. Agriculture may diminish its labour and double its produce; all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured (not excepting even that of old age), and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. Oh! that moral science were in as fair a way of improvement; that men would cease to be wolves to one another; and that human beings would at length learn what they now improperly call humanity!

— Benjamin Franklin

Letter to Dr Priestley, 8 Feb 1780. In Memoirs of Benjamin Franklin (1845), Vol. 2, 152

[hellbender]

I think a battery involves a chemical reaction, not merely storing charge.

[Loud Mime]

It reads like Franklin believed true science would deliver utopia....well, we all have our faults.

[Congressman Billybob]

Franklin's write up of his own experiment noted that he was careful to keep the silk insulator dry, whereas the kite and string were thoroughly wet.

John

[allmendream]

Yeah, he sounds a bit more Gene Roddenberry than John Brunner, THAT is for sure. ;)

[null and void]

A capacitor is a type of battery.

Nope.

[null and void]

Ben, Ben, Ben. You blew it. Once. The fur gathers electrons, not the amber.

[hellbender]

Franklin may have thought that “dry” silk was an insulator, based on experience with puny voltages encountered indoors in the 18th c. However, the enormous voltages found in lightning could drive current through silk with ease, I suspect. Insulation and conduction are relative terms.

[hellbender]

Electricity: Cell [a battery is made up of several cells]. A device that generates electrical energy from chemical energy, usually consisting of two different conducting substances placed in an electrolyte.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/cell?db=luna

[HiTech RedNeck]

The first thing to break down would not be the silk, but the air. Franklin was still pretty lucky. The key was close enough to draw an arc to his knuckles when he reached out.