Benjamin Franklin's Role In The Scientific Revolution

When people think of science during the revolution, they most likely think of Benjamin Franklin. Most people see Benjamin Franklin as the man with the kite and key discovering electricity. These people are only seeing a fraction of what Benjamin Franklin has done. They will not realize all of the other areas that Franklin helped contribute. When looking at Benjamin Franklin in his full glory, people can see how much of an important player he was, not only in the revolution, but in his lifetime. Everything that he did was for the good of those people around him. Benjamin Franklin did more than people could ever expect. People may only think of him of the electricity guy, while he did work a lot with electricity, he dealt with so much more than

Franklin was a very curious man, he studied or experimented whatever he found curious at the time. One such occasion was when franklin was returning to London in June of 1771. This letter that was written by Franklin to Thomas Percival. This is believed to be the beginning of Franklins interest in meteorology or, simpler put, the formation of raindrops. While he was not the first one to be interested in raindrops, as it was “discovered” two years in the past, Franklin had taken a keen interest it. As has been seen already, Franklin is working with another contemporary of his to work out this problem. Percival had written Franklin describing his theory about the formation and falling of raindrops. Franklin is than in this letter replying with a response to Percival’s theory along with his own. Franklin accepted Percival’s theory in the fact that rainfall amount depends on altitude because of the increasing size of rain drops. What he did disagree on though was how the rain drops got bigger. Percival believes that it has to do with positively and negatively charged water particles attracting while Franklin believes that it is due to water vapor being attracted to falling water droplets. Looking at this it is obvious that Franklin was not merely focused on electricity for two main reasons. He is interested in rain drops and their formation, secondly, he rejects Percival’s theory that water droplets are positively and negatively charged and that’s why they