Benjamin Franklin

(January 17, 1706 - April 17, 1790)

(Lightning Rod and Glasses)

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Benjamin Franklin is the author, politician, scientist, diplomat and inventor of the invention opens a deeper understanding in the field of electricity. He found a lightning rod, glasses, the odometer (mileage gauges on the vehicle) and music equipment.Franklin is also known as one of the Founding Fathers (Founding Father) of the United States. Benjamin Franklin is considered as being an important role in the founding of the United States, because Benjamin is one of the designers of the declaration of American independence and signed the declaration.

Benjamin Franklin was born in Boston, Massachusetts, the 15th child of 17 brothers.His father worked as a soap and candle maker. He learned to read in a very young age and attended normal school for one year and studied under private teachers for one year. Franklin only attended for two years. At the age of 12 years, Franklin worked in the printing of his brother. When Ben (Benjamin's nickname) was 15 years old, Ben scored the newspaper "New England Courant," the first newspaper that is independent from British colonization.

At the age of 17 years, Franklin went to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to seek new experiences in new cities. At that time he worked in a shop that sells printing machines. After several months, the governor of Pennsylvania, Benjamin advocated for opening the newspaper printing business in Pennsylvania and committed to helping business printing Benjamin. Governor Benjamin suggested to go to London and bought the necessary equipment printing machine. But after Benjamin arrived in London, Benjamin realized that the promise of the governor to help him just nonsense, a letter of introduction from the governor was never sent to London. In London, Franklin quickly able to find a job. In 1726 Franklin was bored living in London, and coincidentally was a grain trader offers him a job in Philadelphia with a large commission. For that Ben decided to return to the American continent.

In 1740, electricity was a novelty. Benjamin Franklin and his friends began to investigate the phenomenon of electricity. 1750, Benjamin was first who discovered the principles of electricity and also provide positive and negative sign for electric. He then publishes his experiments which proved that lightning was actually electricity by flying a kite during a storm. In his writings, Benjamin Franklin wrote that he was aware of the dangers that can be generated from the experiments and offer an alternative that proved that lightning is electricity, which later in the show by using the concept of electrical ground. Unlike the experiment described people that Benjamin is done by flying the kite and wait until the kite was struck by lightning. Benjamin uses kite-layangnya just to collect electricity from the storm cloud.

Experiments on electricity made by Benjamin, directing him to the discovery, which is a lightning rod. He wrote that the conductor (electrical conductor) with sharp edges have the ability to pull an electrical charge and has a range of further withdrawals compared with conductor with a blunt tip. He concluded that knowledge of this can be used to protect homes from lightning hazard, by installing an iron bar seruncing pointy needle and given anti-rust coating, which is directed into the sky, and the iron legs, tied with a cable leading to the ground. This will attract lightning electric charge exist in the cloud toward the ground so that cargo is in the cloud is not enough to cause thunder and lightning.

Benjamin Discovery as lightning rods, goggles, and the other had not been patented by him. In his biography, Benjamin wrote: ".. the same as when we enjoy the advantages of the invention of others, we should be glad to get the opportunity to provide service to others with our inventions, for this, we must give it freely and wholeheartedly. "

To honor Benjamin Franklin on the field of electricity, its name immortalized as the unit of physics franklin (Fr) or statcoulomb (statC) or electrostatic unit of charge (ESU). Fr is a unit of electrical charge in the centimeter-gram-seconds (cgs). SI system as we use, wear Coulomb force.