Ben Franklin didn't actually invent electricity. People get that wrong all the time. He wasn't some wizard pulling power out of thin air, but he was arguably the first person to figure out how to keep it from burning your house down. If you've ever looked at a pair of bifocals or sat by a cast-iron furnace, you’ve interacted with the mind of a guy who basically couldn't stop tinkering. Honestly, he was more of a "problem solver" than a "scientist" in the way we think of researchers today. He saw a nuisance and fixed it.
It’s kind of wild when you think about the sheer volume of what was invented by Benjamin Franklin. We're talking about a man who stopped going to school at age ten. Ten! Yet, he ended up being the guy who tamed lightning and redesigned how we see the world—literally.
The Lightning Rod: Saving the World from God's Wrath
Back in the 1700s, if your house got hit by lightning, it didn't just break the chimney. It burned the whole neighborhood to the ground. People thought lightning was divine punishment. They’d ring church bells to try and "disrupt" the air during storms, which mostly just resulted in bell ringers getting electrocuted. Franklin thought that was ridiculous. He had this hunch that lightning was just electricity, not a grumpy deity.
He did the famous kite experiment in 1752, which, let’s be clear, was incredibly dangerous. If the kite had been struck directly, he likely would have died instantly. Instead, he drew sparks from a key attached to the string. This led to the lightning rod.
The design was deceptively simple: a pointed iron rod attached to the top of a building, connected to a wire that ran down into the ground. It didn't "attract" lightning so much as it provided a path of least resistance. Instead of the electricity exploding through the wooden frame of a house, it followed the wire safely into the dirt.
Why the Pointed Tip Mattered
Franklin had a bit of a spat with the British King about this. Franklin insisted on pointed tips because they "bled off" the electrical charge from the clouds. The King, being annoyed with the American rebels, insisted on blunt tips just to be contrary. Franklin was right. The points worked better. It’s one of those rare moments in history where physics and politics collided over the shape of a piece of metal.
Bifocals: Because Getting Old Sucks
You’ve probably seen the classic "Franklin glasses." They look like two different lenses sliced in half and glued together. That’s exactly what they are.
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By the time he was in his late 70s, Franklin was sick of carrying two pairs of glasses. He had one for reading and one for distance. He’d be at a dinner party, trying to see who was talking across the table, then fumbling to switch glasses just to see what was on his plate. It was a massive pain.
He wrote to his friend George Whatley in 1785, explaining that he’d had his lenses cut and half of each associated in the same circle. This way, he could just shift his eyes up or down. He called them "double spectacles." We call them bifocals. He didn't patent them. He never patented anything. He felt that since we benefit from the inventions of others, we should be happy to give our own for free. That's a level of "open source" mentality that would make modern tech CEOs sweat.
The Franklin Stove and the Physics of Not Freezing
Fireplaces in the 18th century were terrible. They were drafty, they used a mountain of wood, and most of the heat went straight up the chimney while you sat there shivering. Franklin decided to wrap the fire in a box.
The Franklin Stove (or the "Pennsylvania Fireplace") was a cast-iron enclosure that sat in the middle of the room. It used a "labyrinth" of baffles to keep the hot air circulating longer before it escaped.
- It produced more heat with less wood.
- It radiated warmth from all four sides.
- It featured an "inverted siphon" that was supposed to pull smoke down and out, though that part didn't actually work very well until later inventors tweaked the design.
The real genius here wasn't just the heat; it was the efficiency. In a time when hauling wood was a backbreaking daily chore, a stove that used 30% less fuel was a life-changer for the average family.
The Glass Armonica: The Instrument That Went Viral (and then got banned)
This is the weird one. If you’ve ever rubbed your finger around the rim of a wine glass to make it sing, you’ve done a "low-tech" version of the Glass Armonica. Franklin saw a musician doing this in London and thought, "I can make this a real instrument."
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He took 37 glass bowls of different sizes, poked holes in the middle, and ran a iron spindle through them. He hooked it up to a foot pedal, like a sewing machine. As the bowls spun through a trough of water, you’d touch the rims with your fingers.
The sound was haunting. It was ethereal. Mozart and Beethoven actually wrote music for it. But then, things got weird. People started claiming the instrument caused "nervous disorders" or made listeners go crazy. There were rumors the lead in the glass was seeping into the players' fingers. It fell out of fashion, but for a while, it was the coolest piece of tech in Europe.
Mapping the Gulf Stream
Franklin wasn't just a tinkerer on land; he was a nerd about the ocean. While he was crossing the Atlantic (which he did eight times), he noticed that the mail ships coming from England took weeks longer than the ones going to England.
He started dipping thermometers into the ocean.
He realized there was a "river" of warm water moving through the Atlantic. He worked with his cousin, Timothy Folger—a Nantucket sea captain—to map it out. This was the first time the Gulf Stream was scientifically charted. By following this "river" or avoiding it, captains could shave two weeks off their travel time. It was a massive win for global trade and basically the 18th-century version of optimizing a GPS route.
The Odds and Ends: Fins, Odometers, and Flexible Catheters
Franklin’s brain didn't have an "off" switch.
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When he was a kid, he loved swimming, so he made swim fins. But they weren't for your feet; they were palette-shaped pieces of wood you held in your hands to displace more water. They worked, but they made his wrists ache. He’s actually in the International Swimming Hall of Fame for this.
He also invented the odometer. As the Postmaster General, he wanted to know the shortest routes for mail delivery. He attached a system of gears to his carriage wheel that clicked every time the wheel completed a certain number of rotations.
Then there’s the flexible urinary catheter. His brother John suffered from kidney stones and the catheters of the time were rigid, painful tubes of silver or wood. Ben thought that was barbaric. He went to a silversmith and designed a catheter made of small, jointed links covered in a "gut" casing. It was the first flexible version of its kind. It’s a bit of a grim invention, but if you needed one in 1752, Ben Franklin was your best friend.
Why What Was Invented By Benjamin Franklin Still Matters Today
It's easy to look at a lightning rod and think "big deal," but Franklin's work represents a shift in how humans interact with the world. He moved us away from superstition and toward empirical observation.
He didn't just invent things; he invented the "American" style of innovation—practical, messy, and focused on the common good. He refused to patent his work because he believed that "as we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours."
Practical Takeaways from Franklin's Life
If you want to channel your inner Franklin, look at the frustrations in your daily life. He didn't set out to "change history." He set out to stop his glasses from falling off and his house from burning down.
- Observe the Mundane: The Gulf Stream was "discovered" because Franklin was bored on a boat and had a thermometer. Pay attention to the things everyone else ignores.
- Iterate Constantly: The Franklin Stove was a bit of a failure in its first version. It took years of others tweaking it to become the "Potbelly Stove" we know today.
- Cross-Pollinate: He used his knowledge of music to build the Armonica and his knowledge of printing to help organize the first public libraries.
To dig deeper into the actual mechanics of his work, the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia holds many of his original papers and models. Reading his autobiography is also a trip—it’s less of a dry history book and more of a "how-to" guide on being a productive human being. He was flawed, sure, but his relentless curiosity is why we aren't all still sitting in drafty rooms, reading by candlelight with one eye closed.
Check your local library for "The Compleated Autobiography by Benjamin Franklin," which compiles his various writings into a single narrative. It's the best way to see the "why" behind the "what."