Ben Franklin Essay Research Paper

“If you would not be forgotten, as soon as you are dead and rotten,

either write things worth reading, or do things worth the writing”. America

has never forgotten Benjamin Franklin because he did both. He lived these

words of wisdom by writing as much as he could and by doing even more.

He became famous for being a scientist, an inventor, a statesman, a printer, a

philosopher, a musician, and an economist. Benjamin Franklin is most

famous for his experiment and research in the field of electricity. He also

observed and made discoveries in storms and weather.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston on Jan. 17, 1706. His father,

Josiah, was a poor soap & candlemaker. His mother, Abiah, was Josiah’s

second wife. Benjamin was the youngest son and the

15th of 17 children.

At the age of 10 Benjamin began to help in his father’s shop, cutting

candlewicks and filling molds. Although he went to school only two years,

Ben was fond of books and spent much of his spare time reading. He also

became an expert swimmer. One of his first inventions was a set of paddles to

give him greater swimming speed.

Benjamin Franklin was an active inventor all his life. One of his most

famous inventions was the Franklin stove. In his time houses were poorly

heated by open fireplaces. Franklin s stove was put in the fireplace, but its

grate extended out into the room. This heater cast warmth in all directions. As

Franklin said, the stove prevented a person “being scorched before, and, as it

were, froze behind”.

The Governor of Pennsylvania wanted Ben Franklin to patent his

invention, but Ben Franklin refused. He wanted the stoves to be cheap and

inexpensive so even poor people could afford to purchase

and use his stoves. For more than a hundred years the Franklin stove brought

comfort to thousands of families. Franklin didn t even patent any of his

inventions.

Benjamin Franklin made many scientific discoveries in his time. Ben

Franklin was what some would call an out doors man that s why most of his

discoveries had to do with nature.

In 1743, Ben observed that northeast storms begin in the southwest. He

thought it was odd that storms travel in an opposite direction to their winds.

He predicted that a storm’s course could be plotted. Ben rode a horse through

a storm and chased a whirlwind three-quarters of a mile in order to learn more

about storms. So, in a way, Ben was a weatherman. He even printed weather

forecasts in his almanac. Today s meteorologists don’t chase storms on

horseback, but they do continue to plot the course of storms.

Ben Franklin spent a lot of his time sailing to Europe across the

Atlantic Ocean, he became very interested in ocean currents. Ben was one of

the first people to chart the Gulf Stream. He measured its temperature on each

of his eight voyages and was able to chart the Stream in detail.

Whenever people hear the name Benjamin Franklin the first thing that

usually comes to mind is his famous lightning experiment with the kite and

the key. Ben suspected that lightning was an electrical current in nature, and

he wanted to see if he was right. One way to test his idea would be to see if

the lightning would pass through metal. He decided to use a metal key and a

child s kite to get the key up near the lightning. His experiment proved that

lightning is really a stream of electrified air, known today as plasma.

In conclusion Benjamin Franklin was a man who changed the world of

science and the way people think about it. He accomplished many feats and

invented things to help the average person, this makes Mr. Benjamin Franklin

one most important scientists in history.