5 Doing Good

Chapter 5 Doing Good "What is serving God?" Poor Richard asked in 1747. His answer: "Doing good to Man." After retiring from printing, Ben Franklin tried to do just that. He had always liked science. Electricity fascinated him. Besides doing his kite experiment, Ben made an early electric battery. In fact, he coined the terms electric battery, electric shock, and conductor.

EARLY BATTERY-MAKING ELECTROSTATIC MACHINE A REVOLVING GLASS GLOBE RUBS A PIECE OF SOFT LEATHER CALLED A CHAMOIS TO PRODUCE STATIC ELECTRICITY. SEWING NEEDLES TRANSFER THE ELECTRIC CHARGE FROM THE GLOBE TO THE LEYDEN JARS.

THE CHARGE IS CARRIED DOWN INTO THE JAR THROUGH A ROD AND WIRES TO THE WATER AND METAL FOIL INSIDE. THIS CAUSES AN OPPOSITE CHARGE TO FORM ON A BAND OF METAL FOIL ON THE OUTSIDE OF THE JAR. LEYDEN JAR MULTIPLE LEYDEN JARS ARE CONNECTED TO PRODUCE THIS 18-THCENTURY ELECTRICAL CHARGE STORAGE DEVICE.

Ben once tried to cook a turkey using electricity from Leyden jars. Unfortunately he touched the wires and knocked himself out. "I wanted to cook a turkey but I nearly killed a goose," he joked. Still, he believed that one day people would cook and do other daily tasks with electricity. He was right, of course!

On his voyages, Franklin became the first scientist to study a powerful ocean current. He named it the Gulf Stream. Ben found that it could slow down or speed up ships. The Gulf Stream was warmer than the water around it, Franklin learned. To find the Gulf Stream, sailors just had to dip a thermometer into the ocean. Franklin did a clever experiment with heat. He got many cloth patches from a tailor. They were different colors—black, blue, green, purple, red, yellow, and white. On a sunny winter morning he laid the patches on the snow. After a while, he saw that the black patch had sunk the deepest into the snow. The white patch had sunk the least. Why? Dark colors take in more heat from the sun than light ones. Therefore the black cloth had melted more snow than any of the other colored cloths. To this day, people take Franklin's advice. On hot, sunny days they wear light colors to stay cool.

Ben's ideas about health were very modern. At the time, people thought that strange vapors in the air caused illness. Although germs weren't yet known, Franklin said that many diseases were spread from person to person. Fresh air was healthy, he argued. People should sleep with an open window. And they should take a daily "air bath." This meant sitting naked with the windows open—as Ben did for an hour each day. He also told people to exercise. Besides swimming and walking, he lifted dumbbells until he was in his eighties.