Benjamin Franklin has influenced American technology, and indirectly, lifestyles by using his proficiencies and intelligence to conduct numerous experiments, arrive at theories, and produce several inventions. Franklin's scientific and analytical mind enabled him to generate many long lasting achievements which contributed to the development and refinement of modern technology. Few national heroes, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson, played a more significant role in shaping the American way of life than Franklin. According to Fowler, "He personified the ideal of the self-made man, and his rise from obscurity to eminence exemplified the American dream". Looby adds, "The study of Franklin's image for the past two centuries shows that his legacy had a distinctive place in American culture". It has been felt by many people over the years that there was no United States inventor as great as Franklin until the time of Thomas A. Edison. Franklin's words to a friend in Pennsylvania, Joseph Huey, best explain his attitude not only toward what he considered his civic duties, but also his investigations as a scientist or philosopher. He made some of the most famous and certa

Franklin redesigned the street lights to, as he said, have "four flat panes and a funnel on top to draw up the smoke". The globe-shaped lamps were replaced with Franklin's new ones so they stayed bright until morning. When Franklin noticed that criminals were getting away without punishment, he sought to reform the city police. He then formed the Union Fire Company in 1736. He helped to organize fire companies into the "Philadelphia Contibutionship", which is deemed the first insurance company in America. He set up premiums and payments as president of the company.

One of Franklin's most famous and notable experiments was his kite experiment. He first set out to establish if lightning was a form of electricity. With his kite, Franklin drew lightning down to the ground, thus determining that it was a form of electricity. The most important concepts of his experiments were the existence of positive and negative electricity, the fluidity of electricized particles and the identity of lightning and electricity. The experiment with the kite is taught in school to nearly every American child. It sparked the birth of lightning rods. The rods kept people's homes from getting hit by lightning and catching fire. House fires caused by lightning were one of the most dangerous problems colonists had to face. Soon after the rods were invented, all of Philadelphia, Boston, London, and Paris began using them. Some of the new electricity related words conceived by Franklin included the condenser, conductor, electric shock, positive and negative electricity, and plus and minus charges. He wrote Poor Richard's Almanack in 1732 to explain the practical application of electricity. Both Harvard and Yale gave Franklin honorary degrees of Master of Arts even though his formal education ended in the second grade. After Franklin's experiments were successfully performed by French and English scientists, the King of France sent Franklin his personal congratulations.

As a complement to his work, Franklin studied the sources of lead poisoning, causes and cures of smokey chimneys, relationship of tobacco to hand tremors, effects of diet and activity on general health, and the depth of water and speed of boats. He wrote copiously on gout, temperature of the blood, physiology of sleep, deafness, nyctalopia, infection from dead bodies, infant mortality, and medical education. Franklin bought a farm and experimented with grass culture. He advised the cultivation of native Indian corn and silkworms and introduced rhubarb to the colonies. His curiosity touched on nearly every part of eighteenth century intellectual pursuit. The

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