Frank Beacham's Journal

Benjamin Franklin was born 316 years ago today

In this painting by Jason Heuser, Franklin battles Zeus for lightning

Benjamin Franklin was born 316 years ago today.

One of the founding fathers of the United States and in many ways was "the First American," Franklin was a renowned polymath. He was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, inventor, civic activist, statesman and diplomat.

As a scientist, he was a major figure in the American Enlightenment and the history of physics for his discoveries and theories regarding electricity.

As an inventor, he is known for the lightning rod, bifocals and the Franklin stove, among other inventions.

Franklin facilitated many civic organizations, including Philadelphia's fire department and a university. He earned the title of "The First American" for his early and indefatigable campaigning for colonial unity. He was an author and spokesman in London for several colonies and the first United States Ambassador to France.

Franklin was foundational in defining the American ethos as a marriage of the practical values of thrift, hard work, education, community spirit, self-governing institutions and opposition to authoritarianism both political and religious, with the scientific and tolerant values of the Enlightenment.

In the words of historian Henry Steele Commager, "In Franklin could be merged the virtues of Puritanism without its defects, the illumination of the Enlightenment without its heat."

To Walter Isaacson, this makes Franklin "the most accomplished American of his age and the most influential in inventing the type of society America would become."

Franklin, always proud of his working class roots, became a successful newspaper editor and printer in Philadelphia, the leading city in the colonies. With two partners, he published the Pennsylvania Chronicle, a newspaper that was known for its revolutionary sentiments and criticisms of the British policies.

He became wealthy publishing Poor Richard's Almanack and The Pennsylvania Gazette. Franklin was also the printer of books for the Moravians of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania (1742 on).

Franklin's printed Moravian books (printed in German) are preserved, and can be viewed, at the Moravian Archives located in Bethlehem. Franklin visited Bethlehem many times and stayed at the Moravian Sun Inn. He played a major role in establishing the University of Pennsylvania and was elected the first president of the American Philosophical Society.

Franklin became a national hero in America when as agent for several colonies he spearheaded the effort to have Parliament in London repeal the unpopular Stamp Act.

An accomplished diplomat, he was widely admired among the French as American minister to Paris and was a major figure in the development of positive Franco-American relations. His efforts to secure support for the American Revolution by shipments of crucial munitions proved vital for the American war effort.

For many years, he was the British postmaster for the colonies, which enabled him to set up the first national communications network. From 1785 to 1788, he served as governor of Pennsylvania. Toward the end of his life, he freed his own slaves and became one of the most prominent abolitionists.

His colorful life and legacy of scientific and political achievement, and status as one of America's most influential founding fathers, have seen Franklin honored on coinage and the $100 bill; warships; the names of many towns; counties; educational institutions; corporations and countless cultural references.

Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer, was born 102 years ago today

Isaac Asimov, science fiction writer, was born 102 years ago today.

Asimov was an author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. He was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000 letters and postcards.

His books have been published in nine of the 10 major categories of the Dewey Decimal Classification.

Asimov is widely considered a master of hard science fiction. Along with Robert A. Heinlein and Arthur C. Clarke, he was considered one of the "Big Three" science fiction writers during his lifetime. His most famous work is the Foundation Series, and other major works are the Galactic Empire series and the Robot series.

The Galactic Empire novels are explicitly set in earlier history of the same fictional universe as the Foundation series. Later, beginning with Foundation's Edge, he linked this distant future to the Robot and Spacer stories, creating a unified "future history" for his stories much like those pioneered by Robert A. Heinlein and previously produced by Cordwainer Smith and Poul Anderson.

He wrote hundreds of short stories, including the social science fiction "Nightfall," which in 1964 was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America the best short science fiction story of all time.

Asimov wrote the Lucky Starr series of juvenile science-fiction novels using the pen name, Paul French. He also wrote mysteries and fantasy, as well as much nonfiction. Most of his popular science books explain scientific concepts in a historical way, going as far back as possible to a time when the science in question was at its simplest stage.

He often provides nationalities, birth dates and death dates for the scientists he mentions, as well as etymologies and pronunciation guides for technical terms.

Examples include Guide to Science, the three-volume set Understanding Physics, and Asimov's Chronology of Science and Discovery, as well as works on astronomy, mathematics, the Bible, William Shakespeare's writing and chemistry.

Asimov was a long-time member and vice president of Mensa International, albeit reluctantly. He described some members of that organization as "brain-proud and aggressive about their IQs."

He took more joy in being president of the American Humanist Association. The asteroid 5020 Asimov, a crater on the planet Mars, a Brooklyn, New York elementary school and a literary award are named in his honor.

Asimov died in 1992 at age 72.

Asimov, 1984

Above photo by Mario Suriani

Sir Isaac Newton was born 379 years ago today

Sir Isaac Newton was born 379 years ago today.

Newton was an English physicist and mathematician (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognized as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution.

His book, Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica ("Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy"), first published in 1687, laid the foundations for classical mechanics. Newton made seminal contributions to optics, and he shares credit with Gottfried Leibniz for the development of calculus.

Newton's Principia formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation, which dominated scientists' view of the physical universe for the next three centuries.

By deriving Kepler's laws of planetary motion from his mathematical description of gravity, and then using the same principles to account for the trajectories of comets, the tides, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, Newton removed the last doubts about the validity of the heliocentric model of the Solar System.

This work also demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and of celestial bodies could be described by the same principles. His prediction that Earth should be shaped as an oblate spheroid was later vindicated by the measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine and others. It helped convince most Continental European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over the earlier system of Descartes.

Newton built the first practical reflecting telescope and developed a theory of color based on the observation that a prism decomposes white light into the many colors of the visible spectrum. He formulated an empirical law of cooling, studied the speed of sound and introduced the notion of a Newtonian fluid.

In addition to his work on calculus, as a mathematician Newton contributed to the study of power series, generalized the binomial theorem to non-integer exponents, developed a method for approximating the roots of a function and classified most of the cubic plane curves.

Newton was a fellow of Trinity College and the second Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge. He was a devout, but unorthodox Christian, and, unusually for a member of the Cambridge faculty of the day, he refused to take holy orders in the Church of England, perhaps because he privately rejected the doctrine of the Trinity.

Beyond his work on the mathematical sciences, Newton dedicated much of his time to the study of biblical chronology and alchemy, but most of his work in those areas remained unpublished until long after his death.

On four consecutive Thursdays 106 years ago, Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity — which explains what gravity is — to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin

On four consecutive Thursdays 106 years ago, Albert Einstein presented his general theory of relativity — which explains what gravity is — to the Prussian Academy of Sciences in Berlin.

The final form of the equation that Einstein revealed in the last of those four lectures became one of science’s monumental achievements.

One of its proposals was that gravity, especially when strong, slows time and bends space. The amount of slowing and bending depends on how much matter and energy are present.

So watches run slightly faster on the top story of a building than at street level because they are farther from the center of the earth, in a weaker gravitational field. And the sun’s strong gravity bends space enough for stars to appear out of place from certain vantage points during an eclipse.

One unconfirmed anecdote says that Einstein told his secretary to tell this to callers asking what the theory means: “When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, you think it’s only a minute, but when you sit on a hot stove for a minute, you think it’s two hours. That’s relativity.”

But what Einstein really explained is that there is no fixed frame of reference in the universe and that everything is moving relative to everything else.

Thanks New York Times!

Stanford White, famed New York architect, was born 168 years ago today

Stanford White, famed New York architect, was born 168 years ago today.

White was a partner in the architectural firm of McKim, Mead & White, the frontrunner among Beaux-Arts firms. He designed a series of houses for the rich, and various public, institutional and religious buildings — many which still stand in New York City today.

His design principles embodied the "American Renaissance."

In 1906, White was murdered at age 52 by millionaire Harry Kendall Thaw over White's affair with Thaw's wife, actress Evelyn Nesbit, leading to a court case which was dubbed "The Trial of the Century" by contemporary reporters.

Margaret Sanger opened the first birth control clinic on this day 105 years ago

On this day in 1916 — 105 years ago — a nurse opened a small storefront office in Brownsville, Brooklyn. She and her assistants handed out fliers in English, Yiddish and Italian reading, “Mothers, do not kill, do not take life, but prevent.”

The nurse was Margaret Sanger. The office, at 46 Amboy Street, was the nation’s first birth-control clinic. It served more than a hundred women on opening day.

In those days, spreading contraceptive information was a crime. Ten days later, the police raided the office, confiscated condoms and pessaries, and arrested Ms. Sanger.

She eventually served 30 days in jail, but her case paved the way for rulings that loosened restrictions on contraception.

Thanks New York Times!

In 1895 — 126 years ago today — the New York Times reported a sighting of a giant sea serpent off the shore at Spring Lake, New Jersey

In 1895 — 126 years ago today — the New York Times reported a sighting of a giant sea serpent off the shore at Spring Lake, New Jersey.

There were other sightings too in the New York City area, including several at the Brooklyn Bridge.

Phillip N. Jackson, vice president of the Newark Electric Light and Power Co., said he saw the creature — which traveled through the water at great speed and was about 100 feet long.

A number of folds in the creature’s body were plainly seen as it rose and fell, Jackson said.

Another witness told Scientific American that the body of the long creature was as large around as a flour barrel. “The nose and mouth resembled those of an alligator, but there were no tentacles to be seen. The body was smooth and round and of dark color,” the witness, Willard P. Shaw of 41 Wall Street, said.

Shaw also said the creature was about 100 feet long and travelled about 50 miles an hour and jumped from the water several times.

The image above of the serpent was created by Currier & Ives.

Rube Goldberg was born 138 years ago

Rube Goldberg was born 138 years ago.

A cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer and inventor, Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons depicting complicated gadgets that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways.

Goldberg received many honors in his lifetime, including a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948 and the Banshees' Silver Lady Award in 1959. He was a founding member and the first president of the National Cartoonists Society, and he is the namesake of the Reuben Award, which the organization awards to the Cartoonist of the Year.

He is the inspiration for various international competitions, known as Rube Goldberg Machine Contests, which challenge participants to make a complicated machine to perform a simple task.

Here’s a video of a Rube Goldberg contraption

The most famous UFO sighting happened in Roswell, New Mexico 74 years ago

U.F.O. sightings have been reported around the world, but arguably none are more famous than one 74 years ago.

In June, 1947, W. W. Brazel, a rancher in New Mexico, came across some odd debris. A few days later, he whispered “kinda confidential-like” to the local sheriff that it might have been remnants of a “flying disk.”

A local military base, the Roswell Army Air Field, issued a news release about the debris, prompting a newspaper article with the headline “RAAF Captures Flying Saucer.”

Officials changed their story the next day, saying the debris came from a weather balloon, but Roswell has since been nearly synonymous with tales of alien visitations.

Almost 20 years ago, the Air Force tried to end the speculation. In “The Roswell Report: Case Closed,” officials wrote that any “aliens” spotted in the desert “were actually anthropomorphic test dummies” carried aloft by high-altitude Air Force balloons.

As for Mr. Brazel, he didn’t believe the debris was a weather balloon, but he regretted setting off the furor. In the future, he said, “If I find anything else besides a bomb, they are going to have a hard time getting me to say anything about it.”

Thanks, New York Times!

On this day in 1633, Galileo renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun. He was tried for challenging the status quo

The story of Galileo Galilei demonstrates many things, not least that science keeps evolving.

It was on this day in 1633 that the Italian scholar renounced what we now accept as fact: that the Earth orbits the sun, not the other way around.

Galileo’s discovery of Jupiter’s larger moons in 1610 made him question the prevailing assumption that the Earth was at the universe’s center. His advocacy of the heliocentric theory earned him mockery, censure and — in 1633 — a trial in Rome, at which he was forced to recant before a jury of cardinals. He vowed that he would “abjure, curse and detest” his findings.

The declaration saved him from being burned at the stake, but led to house arrest for the rest of his life. It took the Roman Catholic Church more than 350 years to acknowledge that Galileo had been wronged — though astronomers now tell us that the sun is not immobile, but orbits within the galaxy, pulling the planets along with it.

Today, Galileo’s discoveries seem obvious. But all things are easy to understand once they have been discovered, he wrote. “The point is in being able to discover them.”

Tell that to the deniers of climate change.

Thanks New York Times!

A bust of Galileo at a museum dedicated to him in Florence, Italy.

Photo by Kathryn Cook