Benjamin Franklin Biography Essay

Kevin Hu

Mrs. Baylis

2 September 2014

Benjamin Franklin by Walter Isaacson

“Franklin was a great genius, original, sagacious, and inventive, capable of discoveries in science no less than of improvements in the fine arts and the mechanical arts….His reputation was more universal than that of Leibnitz or Newton, Frederick or Voltaire.” These were the words how Founding Father of America, John Adams, described Benjamin Franklin. Benjamin Franklin, as one of the greatest men in history, devoted himself to his nation. Although, he was never a president, Franklin contributed more than a president could do for America. He kept looking for a way to inspire people and eventually make America as one of the strongest countries in the world. In Walter

It was imparted in the book that Benjamin Franklin’s flair for writing demonstrated his creativity and brilliance. He was highly dedicated to his works. For example, the first pseudonym that Franklin used was Silence Dogood and it was showed up in James Franklin’s New England Courant when Franklin was only aged sixteen. Silence Dogood was created as a middle-aged widow who viewed the world with sarcasm. Franklin used this pen name to reflect the cruel and harsh social realities that people had no choice but to bear. With humor and irony, love, relationships, and education were set as the topics of the fifteen letters Dogood had

In his period of time, people had misconceptions of lightning, thinking that it was some kind of supernatural existence (many people thought that it was the “wrath of god”). Despite all the superstition, Benjamin Franklin had always believed that lightning was a special form of electricity. In 1749 he explained the similarities between lightning and electricity: color of light, crooked direction, and crackling noise. There were other scientists who also believed that lightning is electricity, but Franklin was the only one who was determined to prove it. By 1750, believing that lightning was electricity; Franklin began to think about how to protect people and houses from lightning (knowing that its damage was disastrous). This developed into his idea of a sharp-ended lightning