Franklin on Electricity
Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
"Queries from Dr. Ingenhousz,
with my Answers, B.F."
Holograph report with
annotations, n.d.
(ca. 1780)
Manuscript Division
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Though now he is renowned as an experimentalist,
Benjamin Franklin's formulation of a general theory of electrical
"action" won him an international reputation in pure science in
his own day. Writing to Dutch physician and scientist Jan Ingenhousz,
Franklin responds to a number of his friend's questions about
electricity and the Leyden jar, an early form of electrical condenser.
In a document that is more a draft scientific
report than a letter, it appears that Franklin wrote his answers
first using dark ink, leaving room (but clearly not enough) for
the questions, which he wrote in red ink.
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