Book Description
“Dray captures the genius and ingenuity of Franklin’s scientific thinking and then does something even more fascinating: He shows how science shaped his diplomacy, politics, and Enlightenment philosophy.”
–Walter Isaacson, author of Benjamin Franklin: An American Life
Today we think of Benjamin Franklin as a founder of American independence who also dabbled in science. But in Franklin’s day, the era of Enlightenment, long before he was an eminent statesman, he was famous for his revolutionary scientific work. Pulitzer Prize finalist Philip Dray uses the evolution of Franklin’s scientific curiosity and empirical thinking as a metaphor for America’s struggle to establish its fundamental values. He recounts how Franklin unlocked one of the greatest natural mysteries of his day, the seemingly unknowable powers of lightning and electricity. Rich in historical detail and based on numerous primary sources, Stealing God’s Thunder is a fascinating original look at one of our most beloved and complex founding fathers.
Customer Reviews:
Patents and Franklin.......2007-08-24
A recently published book may be of some interest to the intellectual property community. "Stealing God's Thunder" details the history of Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod, and goes on to sketch Ben's role in the invention of the United States' system of government.
In a few places, the book touches on subjects which are of particular interest to the intellectual property professional.
Eschewing a patent, Franklin published a complete description of his lightning rod invention in "Poor Richard's Almanac" in November 1753. Much to our delight, the author includes the entire text of the article in his book, on page 91. The Poor Richard article is entitled, "How to Secure Houses, etc., from Lightning."
In his "Epilogue," the author makes the following statement:
"Benjamin Franklin's refusal to patent his `instrument so new' likely contributed to the competitive free-for-all that began to characterize lightening rod design, manufacture, and sales within a few decades of his death."
This is so wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. Dray seems to say that because Franklin did not obtain a patent on his invention, the market forces did not apply to Franklin's invention. Why is this the case? Also, why "a few decades" when a patent's term was generally limited at the time to 14 years. And what does his death have do with it when the rod was published in 1753 and Franklin lived until 1790?
However, Dray does not confine himself to the lightning rod. He also discusses the invention of the famous "Franklin stove." In discussing the stove the author describes Franklin's philosophy toward patents: "As he would with all his inventions, Franklin, although he stood to profit from the sales of the stove, did not apply for a patent. He believed that products of the human imagination belonged to no one person, and should be shared by all."
In this we are reminded of the comments of Rosalyn Yalow, a physicist who, together with Soloman A. Berson, a physician, developed radioimmunassay (RIA). On receiving the Nobel Prize, Yalow said, "In my day scientists did not always think of things as being patentable. We made a scientific discovery. Once it was published it was open to the world." Fortunately, today's scientists may take advantage of the statutory invention
Registration (SIR). For further details, see, "Rosalyn Yalow's Patent and H.R. 1127" in "The Law Works," January, 1996, at page 17 (the predecessor to the present publication.)
Page 1
One further aspect of the book may be of particular interest to the intellectual property community, and that is the aspect of the patents of the colonies and the States. Remember, Franklin's rod was published in 1753 and the United States Constitution was not ratified until 1789 and the first federal patent law was not enacted until 1790. As Dray notes about Franklin's refusal to patent his inventions, on page 37 "Besides its commendable altruism, this philosophy probably saved him from a tremendous amount of aggravation. Anyone seeking to patent a new mechanical innovation in the New World would need to secure it in each colony individually..."
This is further complicated by the fact that after the Revolution and before the adoption of the Constitution the government took the form of the Confederation, turning the colonies into States. A number of patents were issued both by the colonies and the States. Some examples of these appear in the Twelfth Census of the United States in 1900 Vol. X, Part IV, page 75 and is quoted in Deller's Walker on Patent's 2nd Ed at pages 53 through 58:
Year Inventor Invention Term
CONNECTICUT
1717 Edward Hinman Making molasses from cornstalks 10 years
1783 Benjamin Hanks Self-winding clock 14 years
NEW YORK
1787 John Fitch Steam Boat
NEW HAMPSHIRE
1786 Benj. Dearborn Printing Press 14 years
1789 Oliver Evans Elevator 7 years
PENNSYLVANIA
1717 Thomas Masters Cleaning, curing, and refining Indian corn 14 years
MARYLAND
1787 Oliver Evans Steam Carriage 14 years
In conclusion, "Stealing God's Thunder" is an interesting light read for the technically and historically minded intellectual property professional.
Benjamin Franklin, the scientist.......2006-04-20
Stealing God's Thunder by Philip Dray is extremely well-written. Unlike many biographies of Franklin, it focuses on his science first and his role as a founding father second. This way of characterizing Franklin's life was more interesting than writing about him as a politician first and scientist second. What is most interesting is the influence that Franklin's science had on his politics and on his philosophy. Dray wrote about complex subjects without ever becoming too wordy and overall the book was extremely readable.
Some of Franklin's most interesting work was put into small inventions rather than large ideas. Franklin said that the armonica, a device that spun glass to make music, was his favorite invention. Although Franklin did important work linking lightning and electricity, and as a proponent of lightning rods, his small inventions were extremely interesting as well. Franklin learned a great deal about electricity during his life and this allowed the next generation of scientists to build on his discoveries. He also challenged the views of Christianity, while still believing in God and remaining religious throughout his life. Franklin believed in the power of reason and he thought that this did not conflict with belief in God. Franklin is one of the most interesting characters of the American Revolution and the Enlightenment.
A Patent Lawyer Speaks.......2006-02-09
I am a registered patent agent and a retired patent attorney, so this review is slanted from the view of the patent professional. "Stealing God's Thunder" details the history of Benjamin Franklin's invention of the lightning rod, and goes on to sketch Ben's role in the invention of the United States' system of government.
In a few places, the book touches on subjects which are of particular interest to the intellectual property professional.
Eschewing a patent, Franklin published a complete description of his lightning rod invention in "Poor Richard's Almanac" in November 1753. Much to our delight, the author includes the entire text of the article in his book, on page 91. The Poor Richard article is entitled, "How to Secure Houses, etc., from Lightning."
Further, in his "Epilogue," the author makes the following statement: "Benjamin Franklin's refusal to patent his `instrument so new' likely contributed to the competitive free-for-all that began to characterize lightening rod design, manufacture, and sales within a few decades of his death."
This is so wrong on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. Dray seems to say that because Franklin did not obtain a patent on his invention, the market forces did not apply to Franklin's invention. Why is this the case? Also, why "a few decades" when a patent's term was generally limited at the time to 14 years. You will see evidence of this later on in the review. And what does his death have do with it when the rod was published in 1753 and Franklin lived until 1790?
However, Dray does not confine himself to the lightning rod. He also discusses the invention of the famous "Franklin stove," inter alia. In discussing the stove the author describes Franklin's philosophy toward patents: "As he would with all his inventions, Franklin, although he stood to profit from the sales of the stove, did not apply for a patent. He believed that products of the human imagination belonged to no one person, and should be shared by all."
In this we are reminded of the comments of Rosalyn Yalow, a physicist who, together with Soloman A. Berson, a physician, developed radioimmunassay (RIA). On receiving the Nobel Prize, Yalow said, "In my day scientists did not always think of things as being patentable. We made a scientific discovery. Once it was published it was open to the world." Fortunately, today's scientists may take advantage of the Statutory Invention
Registration (SIR). For further details, see, "Rosalyn Yalow's Patent and H.R. 1127" in "The Law Works," January, 1996, at page 17.
One further aspect of the book may be of particular interest to the intellectual property community, and that is the aspect of the patents of the colonies and the States. Remember, Franklin's rod was published in 1753 and the United States Constitution was not ratified until 1789 and the first federal patent law was not enacted until 1790. As Dray notes about Franklin's refusal to patent his inventions, on page 37 "Besides its commendable altruism, this philosophy probably saved him from a tremendous amount of aggravation. Anyone seeking to patent a new mechanical innovation in the New World would need to secure it in each colony individually..."
This is further complicated by the fact that after the Revolution and before the adoption of the Constitution the government took the form of the Confederation, turning the colonies into States. A number of patents were issued both by the colonies and the States. Some examples of these appear in the Twelfth Census of the United States in 1900 Vol. X, Part IV, page 75 and is quoted in Deller's Walker on Patent's 2nd Ed at pages 53 through 58:
Year Inventor Invention Term
CONNECTICUT
1717 Edward Hinman Making molasses from cornstalks 10 years
1783 Benjamin Hanks Self-winding clock 14 years
NEW YORK
1787 John Fitch Steam Boat
NEW HAMPSHIRE
1786 Benj. Dearborn Printing Press 14 years
1789 Oliver Evans Elevator 7 years
PENNSYLVANIA
1717 Thomas Masters Cleaning, curing, and refining Indian corn 14 years
MARYLAND
1787 Oliver Evans Steam Carriage 14 years
In conclusion, "Stealing God's Thunder" is an interesting light read for the technically and historically minded intellectual property professional.
Ben Franklin's Favorite Invention, the Armonica........2006-01-12
From 1760 to 1766, Ben Franklin lived in England as a gentleman scholar with his son, William, who studied law. While there, he invented "a homespun musical instrument" he called 'armonica.' which he always claimed to be his favorite invention. It was a stand-alone contraption in which glass disks were turned in a treadle and rubbed gently with the performer's fingers, which he kept moistened with a damp sponge. "The musical method of rubbing fingers on the rims of glasses or bowls filled with water appeared in Europe in the late Middle Ages; Galileo, himself the son of a musician, experimented with it."
This era also produced the piano. The armonica could be the primitive precursor to the organ (a drawing of which is shown in this book); it had such soft, subtle tones it could not compete with the piano and was never used in an orchestra. "Its haunting tone and deep sustain did have a numbing effect on listeners, so much so that it was later used by Franz Mesmer and other healers to put patients into a trance." Mozart wrote an armonica composition called "Adagio for Glass Harmonica, Flute, Oboe, Viola and Cello' which he even performed in Vienna, playing the Viola. Franklin wrote one musical composition, "Quartet in F Major" (also known as "The Open String Quarter") for the violin.
He was a music enthusiast with a music room at his Philadelphia home which held his daughter's harpsichord. "He and Sally played duets [he on the armonica], some classical pieces, but mostly the Scottish folk ballads Franklin liked." Thousands of armonicas were built and sold, but its popularity was of brief duration. Thomas Penn, one of William Penn's sons who had control over the state of Pennsylvania at that time, was heard to complain that Franklin was wasting his time on "philosophical matters and musical performances on glasses."
Not only was he famous for his "revolutionary scientific work, especially his experiments with lightning rods and electricity," he stirred up a controvrsy about evolution. "In Franklin's time, the study of the earth's oldest living things, later known as paleontology, was just emerging as an area of scientific inquiry" when he became involved in 1764 concerning a salt marsh called Big Bone Lick on the Ohio River, forty miles south of present-day Cincinnati. Bones were found there of "mastodons, elephant-like creatures with heavy coats and huge upward-curving tusks that are said to have appeared anywhere between about 20 million and 3.5 million years ago, and survived until as recently as 10,000 years ago." This new curiosity raised the question of extinction, "the most disturbing discovery which upset even the "Newtonian universe."
He explains the legacy of the mythical creatures, the cyclops and the unicorn. 'The cyclops' solitary eye was suggested by the gaping proboscis cavity of extinct dwarf elephants; the unicorn legend arose from the fossilized tusks of elephants and rhinoceroses, which, prized for their magical and medicinal virtues, were traded both by the ancients and in medieval Europe."
Franklin was involved in this scientific debate "that was one of the most stimulating of the Enlightenment" the question of the age of earth and of living things, including man. Like the arguments about lightning rods "presumption," this inquiry challenged long-received ideas about the relationship between God and man, and went so far as to call into question the biblical version of Genesis and Creation." Extinction was a heavy concept "and to pursue it brought one square against not only prevailing views of God's kingdom but the accepted wisdom about the age of earth itself."
Franklin published in his 'Poor Richard's Almanac' "some excerpts from a popular chronology of the history of commerce that dated the [Biblical] Flood at 2348 B.C.,...likely reprinted the material chiefly for its comical fastidiousness about a number of pseudo-momentous dates in human history, such as the invention of playing cards (1391) and the first silk stockings worn by a king (1547).
In 1712, Cotton Mather reported to the Royal Society that a tooth weighing more than four pounds and a thigh bone seventeen feet in length had been unearthed near Albany, New York; he asssumed that the remains were those of a giant man who had perished in the Great Flood. African slaves in America were likely the first to point out that the bones unearthed at sites in New York and Virginia resembled those of the elephant." In the nineteenth century Georges Cuvier would lay the formal groundwork for paleontology, and Charles Darwin's therories of evolution and natural selection. "America's first museum of fossils and paleontological curiosities, including mastodon relics, would be operated by the Philadelphia artist Charles Willson Peale, in conjunction with the American Philosophical Society."
In 1774, Franklin was publicly accused of revealing to his contacts in Boston that "Britain would likely need to dispatch troops to North America" and was stripped of his office of postmaster general of the colonies. His reputation tarnished, and his usefulness in London, now weakened, he sailed home in March 1775.
In 1806, Thomas Jefferson (then President of the United States), "upon the return of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark from exploring the Louisiana Territory ...dispatched Clark to Big Bone Lick to collect additional relics, which he then stored in the East Room of the White House."
Philip Dray previously wrote the multi-award winning AT THE HANDS OF PERSONS UNKNOWN: THE LYNCHING OF BLACK AMERICA which also was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize.
Franklin the Scientist Enables Franklin the Founder.......2005-10-25
Surely the most lovable of all the rebels who founded our nation was Benjamin Franklin. And indeed, most people think of him as a statesman and founding father who dabbled with some genius in other arenas as well, as a printer, inventor, chess player, satirist, autobiographer, and scientist. It is, however, as scientist he got his initial fame, for his investigations of electricity and his invention of the lightning rod. In _Stealing God's Thunder: Benjamin Franklin's Lightning Rod and the Invention of America_ (Random House), Philip Dray has drawn attention specifically to Franklin the scientist. We hardly think about using electricity every day, except if the power is somehow cut, and no one thinks too much about lightning rods any more, and everyone can see that lightning is a big electrical spark, so why make a fuss about Franklin's risky experiment of flying a kite in a storm that proved it so? What is important, what made Franklin an international celebrity, is that no one else in his time had much of an idea about what electricity was, and he gave us the terms and means with which we could continue an investigation of a primal and useful force, as well as keep it from harming us. Franklin's scientific reasoning resulted in the fame that allowed him to bring such reasoning to the cause of liberty.
Having turned over his lucrative publishing business to agents who would work for him, Franklin had time to tinker with wires and Leyden jars that could store electricity. He enjoyed making demonstrations of his experiments to his friends; he was always one for attempts to improve others. For most of his researches, Franklin was doing pure science. This would not bother most scientists today, but Franklin wanted electricity not only to be understood, but to be useful; he was only partially successful in this, but he was hugely successful in his invention of the lightning rod, which was a product of his electrical experimentation. He must have been dismayed that there were religious objections to his invention. Franklin certainly did not believe that any god sent thunderbolts down to destroy and instruct us, but many divines did. Lightning had the interesting quality of seeming directed; a lightning bolt might take out one particular sinner, whereupon all remaining could speculate why God had chosen that one rather than others for such a spectacular display of divine displeasure. In 1755 when a powerful earthquake struck New England, clergymen argued that God was taking revenge for having his power of lightning stolen from him. It was not the first time or the last that the church would show its resentment over the encroachments of science. It was Franklin's scientific work that ingratiated him to the Frenchmen he had to win over to the American cause and made his tour there such a success. It was a Frenchman who captured Franklin's legacy in the motto: "He snatched lightning from the sky and the scepter from tyrants." Franklin modestly said that actually, lightning was right where it had always been, and it was his countrymen who had done the fighting for the scepter.
It was Franklin the scientist who suggested a slight change in his friend Thomas Jefferson's wording in the Declaration of Independence. Where Jefferson was going to write about human equality, "We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable," Franklin suggested merely "self-evident," invoking a term that Newton had applied to scientific truth, and which had as a foundation the axioms of Euclid. "Sacred" smacked of religion, but "self-evident" relied on human reason. Franklin thought that the proposition that all men are created equal was an observable fact. Such laws of nature indicated to him and his fellows how government ought to work. In his scientific effort, Franklin advocated objectivity, pragmatism, self-criticism, and free inquiry, Enlightenment ideals that the founders thought could be translated into governmental effort as well. Dray's delightful book is not only a catalogue of Franklin's scientific thinking in many realms, but also an illustration of how his scientific optimism, reason, and self-confidence were incorporated into our founding philosophy.
Average customer rating:
- My ASVAB Test Results: 99...they don't give 100's
- I Expected Better
- I expected better
- great choice
- Arco Everything You Need to Score High On the ASVAB (16th Ed
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Arco Everything You Need to Score High on the Asvab (Master the Asvab (Book Only))
Solomon Wiener , and
E. P. Steinberg
Manufacturer: Arco Pub
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Customer Reviews:
My ASVAB Test Results: 99...they don't give 100's.......2002-10-04
I used this review book exclusively to study for the ASVAB exam and I was well pleased with the scores I received. I had been out of school for more than ten years and it was what I needed to get refreshed on so much subject matter.
I Expected Better.......2001-09-18
I was a bit disappointed with the workbook, in that I found several typo's, as well as blatenly WRONG answers to some of the practice test answer keys. I interprit this as a lack of quality. Also I was remiss to find out that my ASVAB was to be computerized, not scantron. This was never mentioned as a possible test medium, but this is no big deal.
To the books credit....I found practicing the coding section extremely invaluable. And there was alot of good general information. So all in all, it helped....but I expected a better quality book.
I expected better.......2001-09-15
I found the book an easy read, covering a wide range of general information. I beleive that too much time was wasted explaining the basic priciples of taking a scantron exam, when in fact anyone who is human and has attended high school at time or another will know this rudimentary information. I was pretty disappointed to find a couple typo's in the text also. I was REALLY disappointed to find that some of the answers they provided in the key were straight up WRONG! But I will say this, buying to book was better than not buying it...but I hoped for a better tool.
great choice.......2000-06-10
I bought this book to help my son prepare for the ASVAB. There are not only multiple tests for each subject area, but practice exams that can pinpoint what your focus in a certain area needs to be. An example of this is in the word knowledge section, it explains about looking for similar words, looking at paragraph content, and looking at the root words to help find the correct answer. The answers for each section and practice section are provided and explanations accompany them. This is a very thorough exam prep book.
Arco Everything You Need to Score High On the ASVAB (16th Ed.......2000-04-06
I found this book to be a great help in taking the ASVAB test. There are four sample tests in this book and I took all of them. They do not ask the same questions in each test, and I found my practice grades getting higher with each test. I was especially worried about my math score, because I hadn't taken a math course in a few years. I found it covered everything I remember, and a few things I'd never seen before. It also showed me how to do the problems and explained them thouroughly. The only problem I had with the book is it stated to give in-depth profiles on 130 military careers, and there civilian counterparts to not go into very much detail. The descriptions were, at most, half a page long, and very general in description. I thought the job descriptions would be more involved. I've already taken the ASVAB test and my scores were higher because of this book. I recommend this book to anyone wanting to higher there scores.
Book Description
Extra back-to-basics practice that has helped thousands of recruits to qualify for the armed forces.Thousands of military recruits need extra help to pass the ASVAB, or Armed Forces Testand here's where they can find it! ARCO's ASVAB Basics offers intensive practice in reading, vocabulary, and mathematicsthe subjects covered in the four ASVAB subtests that determine whether a recruit qualifies for enlistment. (The other ASVAB subtests determine occupational placement.) For every recruit who needs special practice in these basic subjectsand for the thousands who fail the ASVAB on their first attemptthis unique guide can sharpen skills and build the confidence needed for success. Now updated, it features:c Full-length ASVAB subtests for practicec Drills to improve basic academic skillsc Complete explanatory answers for all questionsRonald Kappraff teaches high school science and mathematics in New York City. Ronald
Customer Reviews:
This Book is Awesome.......2006-01-24
I bought this book along with the book "30 days to the ASVAB" and it was a tremendous help. I have been trying to get into offcier candidate school (OCS) for sometime now. In oreder to get into OCS you need a GT score of 110. I studied from another book then took a practice test to see how well I would do and ended up getting an 84! I then decided to buy this book. I found that this book cover everything you need to know about the exam in great detail. The exams in this book are much harder then what you will actually find on the real exam but if you can master the questions in this book you will master the ASVAB. Don't waste your time on silly online programs offering "Secrets to Passing the ASVAB" just study this book (along with the other book) for about a month and you will do just find on the ASVAB. I actually found questions in this book to be on the real ASVAB! Tha was a suprising bonus to studying with this book. Needless to say, I ended up scoring a GT score of 120! And an AFQT score of 88! With these two scores I will be able to go to OCS and pick almost any military work field I would like to work in! Don't sleep on buying this book and preparing for the ASVAB. I recommend this book to anyone who has struggled with the ASVAB in the past or who just need a refresher on math and english...you will NOT regret it!
Excellent book for test preperation.......2001-10-27
This is an excellent book for learning the specifics required to pass and do well on the ASVAB. If you can pass or excel on the practice tests in this book, you will do even better on the real test.
Average customer rating:
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Everything You Need to Score High on the Asvab (Master the Asvab (Book Only))
Solomon Wiener , and
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Manufacturer: John Wiley & Sons Inc
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30 Days to the ASVAB, (Arco Military Test Tutor)
ASIN: 0028619331 |
Book Description
Revised and updated! The all-time bestseller that has prepared more than two million recruitsThe first choice of military recruits for more than fifty years, ARCO's ASVAB has helped more than two million young men and women prepare for rewarding careers in the Army, Navy, Air Force Marines, and Coast Guard. It's the best, most authoritative guide to the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery, the armed forces' admission and placement test. Now updated, this outstanding reference is ARCO's all-time top bestseller.Solomon Wiener, Colonel, AUS--Ret., is a former military personnel officer and infantry division staff officer.
Book Description
The life and work of those who guard our borders
As the 110,000 residents of McAllen, Texas, sleep soundly, a small number of U.S. Border Patrol agents wait in dark shadows on the northern bank of the Rio Grande. Those thinly spread watchers are the first line of defense against a chaotic tide of undocumented workers struggling to cross the river to El Norte and small, fiercely determined groups of drug smugglers with huge sums of money at stake.
Patrolling Chaos is based on extensive ethnographic field work focusing on one station of three hundred agents over a two-year period. It follows twelve typical agents, men and women, as they go about their regular ten-hour patrols along the border. It describes the daily challenges and risks they face and the perspectives and insights they hold as a result of their extensive, first-hand experience with the hard realities of immigration policy, the war on drugs, and the threat of terrorist infiltration.
Robert Lee Maril writes about the surveillance and apprehension of thousands of undocumented workers, drug interdictions involving huge quantities of marijuana and cocaine, the deaths of illegal immigrants by drowning and as a result of high-speed chases, corruption among law enforcers, and other events that shape the work lives of agents. The book also describes the impact of the 9/11 attacks on border security and on the personal lives of the agents and their families.
This account of the world of U.S. Border Patrol agents will contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of our border with Mexico, the people and the resources of the borderlands, the constant flow of illegal immigrants and drugs, and new challenges confronting the enforcement of laws and policy in light of international terrorism.
Customer Reviews:
The insights are clear, hard-hitting and document border patrol encounters and issues alike........2006-12-14
Any interested in border issues, especially since it's been in the newspapers as headlines lately, must have PATROLLING CHAOS: THE U.S. BORDER PATROL IN DEEP SOUTH TEXAS. An initial glance might deem it a specialty item for either college-level holdings or Southern libraries - but it's also a recommended pick for any general-interest collection strong in immigration issues. Chapters focus on one station of the three hundred Border Patrol agents over a tw--year period, following twelve typical men and women as they conduct their ten-hour border patrols. The insights are clear, hard-hitting and document border patrol encounters and issues alike.
Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch
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