Customer Reviews

100 more great books: Synopses, quizzes, & tests

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My greatest hero of all time is Leonardo Da Vinci for the tremendous breadth and depth of his accomplishments. However, one thing that Da Vinci was not was a government figure and expert diplomat, one of the greatest accomplishments of Benjamin Franklin. As can be seen from the content of these letters, the breadth and depth of Franklin's interests in science were extraordinary. Among other things, he wrote about electricity, the effect of oil on water, his inventions of the stove and bifocals, currents in the ocean, the structure of tornadoes, hot air balloons and the propagation of sound.
Franklin's curiosity was immense, there seems to be nothing that fell beyond his blanket of interest. He was also very learned; many of the letters are a response to a scientific paper that he read. It is clear from their content that Franklin thought deeply about the subjects and was able to express himself very well. While Leonardo Da Vinci will always remain number one on my list of heroes, Benjamin Franklin is one of the few people that could mount a realistic challenge to that position. As you can see from this collection of his correspondence, he was an amazing man and the United States was very lucky to have had him when the country was being created.

This marvelous collection of science-themed letters written by Benjamin Franklin will surely dazzle the contemporary reader with their insight & ingenuity. What a brilliant, ahead-of-his-time genius was this man!

I think the Amazon asking price seems a bit high for this paperback, and one could probably find this same collection online to peruse. However, I'm glad I own a copy. It was great fun to read his thoughts on so many scientific principles that still intrigue us today.