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Benjamin Franklin'S Inventions: Rashaun Mikkel S. Mendoza T.Carl 6-Gratitude Science

Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor who created many innovations but never patented any of them, believing they should be shared freely. Some of his most significant inventions included the lightning rod, bifocals, swimming fins, the Franklin stove, a flexible urinary catheter, and the glass armonica musical instrument. Franklin made innovations in areas like electricity, optics, heating, medicine, and music.

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199 views7 pages

Benjamin Franklin'S Inventions: Rashaun Mikkel S. Mendoza T.Carl 6-Gratitude Science

Benjamin Franklin was a prolific inventor who created many innovations but never patented any of them, believing they should be shared freely. Some of his most significant inventions included the lightning rod, bifocals, swimming fins, the Franklin stove, a flexible urinary catheter, and the glass armonica musical instrument. Franklin made innovations in areas like electricity, optics, heating, medicine, and music.

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Rashaun Mikkel Mendoza
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RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.

CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN’S INVENTIONS

Benjamin Franklin was many things in his lifetime: a printer, a postmaster, an


ambassador, an author, a scientist, a Founding Father. Above all, he was an
inventor, creating solutions to common problems, innovating new technology, and
even making life a little more musical.

Despite creating some of the most successful and popular inventions of the
modern world, Franklin never patented a single one, believing that they
should be shared freely: "That as we enjoy great Advantages from the
Inventions of others, we should be glad of an Opportunity to serve others
by any Invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

Here are some of Benjamin Franklin’s most significant inventions:


RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE

Lightning Rod

Franklin is known for his experiments with electricity (most notably the kite
experiment), a fascination that began in earnest after he accidentally
shocked himself in 1746. By 1749, he had turned his attention to the
possibility of protecting buildings—and the people inside—from lightning
strikes. Having noticed that a sharp iron needle conducted electricity away
from a charged metal sphere, he theorized that such a design could be
useful:
"May not the knowledge of this power of points be of use to mankind, in
preserving houses, churches, ships, etc., from the stroke of lightning, by
directing us to fix, on the highest parts of those edifices, upright rods of
iron made sharp as a needle...Would not these pointed rods probably
draw the electrical fire silently out of a cloud before it came nigh enough
to strike, and thereby secure us from that most sudden and terrible
mischief!"
Franklin’s pointed lightning rod design proved effective and soon topped
buildings throughout the Colonies. (Learn more about the lightning rod.)
RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE
Bifocals

Like most of us, Franklin found that his eyesight was getting worse as he
got older, and he grew both near-sighted and far-sighted. Tired of switching
between two pairs of eyeglasses, he invented “double spectacles,” or what
we now call bifocals. He had the lenses from his two pairs of glasses (one
for reading and one for distance) sliced in half horizontally and then remade
into a single pair—with the lens for distance at the top and the one for
reading at the bottom.
RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE
SWIMMING FINS

An avid swimmer, Franklin was just 11 years old when he invented


swimming fins—two oval pieces of wood that, when grasped in the hands,
provided extra thrust through the water. (He also tried out fins for his feet,
but they weren’t as effective.) He wrote about his childhood invention in
1793 in an essay titled “On the Art of Swimming”:

“When I was a boy, I made two oval [palettes] each about 10 inches long
and six broad, with a hole for the thumb in order to retain it fast in the
palm of my hand. They much resembled a painter’s [palettes]. In
swimming, I pushed the edges of these forward and I struck the water
with their flat surfaces as I drew them back. I remember I swam faster by
means of these [palettes], but they fatigued my wrists.”
RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE

Franklin Stove

In 1742, Franklin—perhaps fed up with the cold Pennsylvania winters—


invented a better way to heat rooms. The Franklin stove, as it came to be
called, was a metal-lined fireplace designed to stand a few inches away
from the chimney. A hollow baffle at the rear let heat from the fire mix with
the air more quickly, and an inverted siphon helped to extract more heat.
His invention also produced less smoke than a traditional fireplace, making
it that much more desirable.

 
RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE

URINARY CATHETER

Library of
Congress

Franklin was inspired to invent a better catheter in 1752 when he saw what
his kidney (or bladder) stone-stricken brother had to go through. Catheters
at the time were simply rigid metal tubes—none too pleasant. So Franklin
devised a better solution: a flexible catheter made of hinged segments of
tubes. He had a silversmith make his design and he promptly mailed it off
to his brother with instructions and best wishes.
RASHAUN MIKKEL S. MENDOZA T.CARL
6-GRATITUDE SCIENCE
ARMONICA

"Of all my inventions, the glass armonica has given me the greatest
personal satisfaction." So wrote Franklin about the musical instrument he
designed in 1761. Inspired by English musicians who created sounds by
passing their fingers around the brims of glasses filled with water, Franklin
worked with a glassblower to re-create the music (“incomparably sweet
beyond those of any other”) in a less cumbersome way.

The armonica (the name is derived from the Italian for “harmony”) was
immediately popular, but by the 1820s it had been nearly forgotten.

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