Talk:Benjamin Franklin

Template:V0.5

Birthday?

Look at the first sentence: "Benjamin Franklin (January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705] – April 17, 1790) was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States of America." Shouldn't the O.S. date be 1706 too? 199.164.167.161 (talk) 20:06, 27 January 2009 (UTC) Yes, of course it should. Someone please change it. The change from Old Style to New Style only involved 11 DAYS, not a whole year. 69.151.11.242 (talk) 14:43, 7 May 2009 (UTC)EGAD

The Lighting Rod

Benjamin Franklin wasn't the only inventor of the lighting rod. In the same age, it was invented by Czech priest Prokop Diviš. I think it should be written in the page. --Zik2 (talk) 23:59, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

The lightning rod topic deals with this, as well as other sources. Tedickey (talk) 00:28, 7 December 2008 (UTC)

Value of Trust

Franklin bequeathed £1,000 (about $4,400 at the time) each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia

Could we give a rough estimate on how the amount of $4,400 in 1790 translates into today's dollars, accounting for inflation? Is it the price of a house, or the annual salary of a lawyer, or...? AxelBoldt (talk) 17:12, 31 December 2008 (UTC)

Illegitimate Son ?

Wikipedia says: In 1730, at the age of 24, Franklin publicly acknowledged an illegitimate son named William. But this contradicts William's birthdate of 1731. Wikipedia is way too much in a hurry to accuse Franklin of having a supposedly illegitimate son. Many think he was not illegitimate and simply a son of Franklin's common law wife. Wikipedia needs make this clear and stop pointing fingers irresponsibly. 65.32.128.178 (talk) 13:57, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

It is also possible Franklin adopted William, or that Franklin had a previous common law marriage which left in those frontier days little or no papers. At any rate simply calling William 'illegitimate' is very irresponsible of Wikipedia. 65.32.128.178 (talk) 14:42, 8 January 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Osrevad

Osrevad's edits were quite good as it meant removal of fancruft. Most of those things were nothing more than distracting tangents that shift the focus of the article away and weren't helping. Quality improves with Osrevad's deletions. Comments?
⋙–Berean–Hunter—► ((⊕)) 23:28, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

My acid test for trivia (and if it passes, it isn't trivial) is whether this tells me something I needed to know about Franklin (even by way of interpretation) that helps me understand him. And the answer is: "No". Good call. --Rodhullandemu 23:51, 23 January 2009 (UTC)

Would it not be better to move the material to a minor article about BF in popular culture? I mean... BF "fans" may have compiled the list, but in the Real World people make use of BF in popular entertainment quite a lot. I don't think such a list is "unencyclopaedic". It might not tell you about BF, but it does tell about his influence. -- Evertype·✆ 09:38, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Much of the removed material was trivia, but the ones that were retained aren't that different from the removed material (and some such as Neal Stephenson's book) are relatively nonnotable even within the previous list. Tedickey (talk) 13:01, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

Suggestion for clarity in a sentence in the article referencing "Franklin Institute of Boston" (should actually be "Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology")

Where it says the following in the article,

"Franklin's Boston trust fund accumulated almost $5,000,000 during that same time, and was used to establish a trade school that became the Franklin Institute of Boston.[64]"

there isn't a "Franklin Institute of Boston" but rather what is now called "Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology" (a technical tranining institute that grants Bachelors and Associate Degrees as well as Certificates in varied technical and engineering fields). The article **DOES** have a hyperlink for "Franklin Institute of Boston" which jumps to an article on the "Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology" (which is good) but this article may be better to INSTEAD say the following in the above paragraph (for the sake of clarity):

"Franklin's Boston trust fund accumulated almost $5,000,000 during that same time, and was used to establish a trade school that became the Franklin Institute of Boston (actually now called the Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology)."

. . . and where it says "Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology" in my suggested paragraph replacement, you can make that school's present-day name hyperlinked to jump to the Wikipedia article by the exact same name. That Wikipedia article on "Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology" does not even reference anything about "Franklin Institute of Boston" and neither does that school's own web site.

Signed, MENSwikiman (MENSwikiman (talk) 08:53, 7 March 2009 (UTC))

typesetter/compositor

Since I didn't know what a compositor was, I clicked on compositor and it redirected to compositing, which I am sure is not what Franklin did for a living. I have changed the wording to typesetter, which makes sense to me. If I am wrong please correct it and tell me why I am wrong on my talk page. Thank You. Griffinofwales (talk) 05:08, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Date of birth?

January 17, 1706 [O.S. January 6, 1705]

Shouldn't both years be 1706? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.237.138.44 (talk) 02:53, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Under the old dating style, the new year began on March 25th - so January was still in 1705. See Old Style and New Style dates. Shimgray | talk | 12:26, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

New file File:Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis.jpg

Recently the file File:Benjamin Franklin by Joseph Siffred Duplessis.jpg (right) was uploaded and it appears to be relevant to this article and not currently used by it. If you're interested and think it would be a useful addition, please feel free to include it. Dcoetzee 23:46, 1 April 2009 (UTC)

Marvellous, thanks! Shimgray | talk | 22:02, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

Franklin invented the first medical catheter? Not exactly true!

See this page http://www.udel.edu/PR/UDaily/2005/mar/franklin061605.html there are some thingth you would find out the are not corect in wiki I hope it helps —Preceding unsigned comment added by 192.114.91.226 (talk) 07:33, 6 May 2009 (UTC)