Ben Franklin: Scientist or Magician?

zooba ^ | 1/28/2002 | Alison Freisinger

[Exigence]

Ben Franklin: Scientist or Magician?
by Alison Freisinger

Electricity was, for the most part, a useless parlor diversion in Benjamin Franklin's time. Men called "electricians" performed like magicians. Dr. Archibald Spencer, for example, would suspend a boy from the ceiling and coax static electric sparks from the child's limbs. Franklin, however, was one of the first people to realize that so-called "electrical fluid" might have practical uses.

Experiments, which ran from roasting a turkey with electricity to designing bells that heralded the presence of lightning (and irritated his wife to no end), helped Franklin define attributes of electricity. He recognized it as a potential source of energy, and was the first person to use terms like condenser, conductor, charge, battery, and electric shock. Franklin discovered the lightning rod, though some of his contemporaries refused to use it. They feared that it might cause earthquakes by drawing the violent power of electricity into the ground, and some believed that to avoid lightning was to deny the punishment or warnings of God.

Electricity was not Franklin's only scientific interest. He invented the Franklin stove, bifocals, plaster, a clothes-pressing machine, and an odometer. His studies of the world around him led to discoveries in meteorology, engineering, and other practical fields, eventually prompting Robert Millikan, who won the 1923 Nobel Prize for physics, to rank Franklin fifth among great scientists--after Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and Huygens. In a truly democratic gesture, Franklin refused to patent any of his inventions, believing they should be available to all.

A serious scientist, Franklin was not above using science to perform a little "magic" now and then. At an English estate in 1772, Franklin boasted that he could quiet the river. Walking to the water's edge, he made sweeping passes over the river with his bamboo cane, and the waters ran smooth. His astonished viewers didn't know his cane was filled with oil, which had coated the water.

[Exigence]

Now I suppose we'll have to avoid teaching our children about Benjamin Franklin lest they be ensnared by magic.

This article supports the premise that I have argued before: magic to science is often a continuum from what we don't yet understand to what we do.

[rmlew]

Franklin also created a musical, the armonica.
Noting the sounds created by rubbing water or wine along the edge of a crystal glass. He noted that different amounts of water int he glasses would creat different sounds.
Franklin created an instrument of interlocking glass cups of different sizes with a hole in the midle of each. A spindle is placed in this hole and hung horizontaly. The glasses are then spun slowly around using a mechanical devise. Water is rubbed on the glasses creating an etherial sound.

[another cricket]

The armonica. Wasn't that the instrument that was rumored to be cursed because all the musicians that played it got sick or died? Turned out that they were being poisoned by the lead in the glass.

A. Cricket

[modern_orthodox]

His astonished viewers didn't know his cane was filled with oil, which had coated the water.

good thing the EPA wasn't around back then. franklin could have ended up in jail for doing unspeakable harm to the ecosystem.

[lonestar]

Siegfrid or Roy?

[rmlew]

According to the History Channel.

[dead]

Ben Franklin turned me into a newt.

(I got better.)

[Exigence]

Boy are you fixated. Witchcraft, however, is not the topic I introduced. It's the concept of magic as yet-to-be-understood science.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe that Ben Franklin committed any murders -- voodoo or otherwise. Try to keep up, will ya?

[Exigence]

The armonica. Wasn't that the instrument that was rumored to be cursed because all the musicians that played it got sick or died? Turned out that they were being poisoned by the lead in the glass.

Shhhhh.... or you-know-who will read this and try to link Poor Ben to those voodoo murders after all.

[Exigence]

good thing the EPA wasn't around back then. franklin could have ended up in jail for doing unspeakable harm to the ecosystem.

Probably. Or, he could be booted out of the NJ history standards, along with George Washington. Nothing like a little history revisionism to set the world right. *tongue in cheek*

[monkey]

"Of those patriots who made independence possible, none mattered more than Franklin, and only Washington mattered as much"

H. W. Brands (Franklin Biographer)

[Exigence]

You've spent months posting threads looking for ways to make witchcraft look good. In some way, you are personally responsible for the murders that occur.

I guess you didn't "hear" me the first time, so I'll repeat myself. This thread is not about witchcraft. Quit trolling for trouble.

[Exigence]

In some way, you are personally responsible for the murders that occur.

BTW, you might want to reconsider such accusations. They are reckless and low class in the extremist sense of the definitions. You might also want to read the blurb on the posting screen about no personal attacks. Accusing someone of being a murderer qualifies as a personal attack, doncha think?

[Exigence]

You've trolled for me at least three times in the above thread.

Sweetie, I posted the original article. That's not "trolling" you. Get it? You responded to *my* post. LOL

Perhaps you misunderstand the word... or the world.