you likely think of Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the lightning rod, bifocal glasses, and even the glass harmonica. He and his son are the subject of the play “Franklinland.” It explores their ...

In the public’s mind, Benjamin Franklin’s scientific work has largely been reduced to this one experiment, in which Franklin demonstrated that discharges from thunderstorms are electric in nature (SN: ...

He’s a real lightning rod!” Is a colloquialism that today would probably evoke blank stares and early judgement of the speaker. But in my younger days, it was commonly used ...

Benjamin Franklin and the Pursuit of Genius by Joyce Chaplin Stealing God’s Thunder: Benjamin Franklin’s Lightning Rod and the Invention of America by Philip Dray ...

Ever prescient, John Adams rightly predicted that Benjamin Franklin ... the Franklin stove (a wood burning stove that made home heating safer); and, of course, the lightning rod.