Franklin's Glass Armonica

CoffeePlease writes "At the time of his death in 1790, when more than 5,000 of his glass armonicas had been built, Ben Franklin had collected no money from his glass armonica. He refused to patent any of his inventions, saying: '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, and this we should do freely and generously.' Read more here and here. A historical/sci-fi novel by Louise Marley has come out on the subject also. It would be interesting to find out if any other early inventors shared Franklin's generous views on patents." There's even a FAQ.

Comments

Something they didn't mention....

[Your_Mom]

Franklin suffered severe nerve damage in his hands playing this. The vibrations cause the neveres to goes nuts in his hand, and he basically told everyoe to stop playing these things. It wasn't until late 1790s when someone developed a piano like interface that these started bein used again...

Man, gotta love those 8th grade reports I did 8 years ago.

Re:Something they didn't mention....

[Dr. Ion]

Wow, that sure disagrees with the article:

No explanation or proof was ever really given to any of these claims. Franklin himself ignored all of the controversy and continued to play the instrument until the end of his life with none of the symptoms mentioned.

More practical inventions

[wormbin]

Franklin also invented a more efficient fireplace, which he also built and sold. He was offered a patent on this by the Governor of Pennsylvania but refused.

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, and this we should do freely and generously.
-BF

He thought the idea of intellectual property to be a bit kooky.

If you're curious, read more about Franklin in the excellent biography The First American

It can't be what it looks like...

[RomSteady]

Benjamin Franklin, inventor of the musical warp core.

Actually, I found it fascinating that people can and will find any means to musically express themselves. Enya has transformed her vocal cords into an instrument, Blue Man Group has turned PVC pipe into tunes, and Franklin used a combination of science and artistry to transform glass into music.

What next? "Tubular Waterfalls?"

Spinning Glass Spheres

[shmert]

Funny to see this on slashdot, I'm about 1/3 the way through Carl Van Doren's biography on Franklin. Right away I see the correlations between the armonica and his experiments with electricity, namely rubbing spinning glass (Leyden) jars with cloth. This is really a fabulous book, btw. It's amazing how active his mind was, and how un-pretentious he was, even after achieving fame. The fact that he didn't patent his inventions is, really stunning, especially given his thrift. This was not a man who cared nothing for wealth. He was just incredible well-scrupled, and early on devised a very involved person code which he lived by very well (although as I said I'm only 1/3 through the book). If you want to read about a truly great thinker, check out more on Benny.

Glass Armonica mp3

[Jeremi]

An mp3 of the Adagio in C for Glass Armonica can be found here. It is apparently being played by Klingons... :^)

It may not be patented, but it has copyright.

[KPU]

From the bottom of "Read more here": "Note: The objects pictured above are part of The Franklin Institute's protected collection of objects. The images are © The Franklin Institute. All rights are reserved." Franklin didn't patent his invention, but his heirs don't appear to share that sentiment.

Where are the Mp3's

[Treeluvinhippy]

I never even heard of an armonica before now. Can somebody please post a link to some MP3's, Vorbis or even some WMA files so I can hear for myself.

Even the names of Mozarts works written with the armonica in mind would be helpful.

BSD

[absurd_spork]

"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, and this we should do freely and generously."

They should make this the first line of The General Public License.

Is it just me, or does the quote sound more like a BSD license model? There is clearly no mention of requiring others to give derivative work away for free.

Of course, ethical considerations suggest that they do that, but these do not need to be codified in the license. In that way, Franklin's appears to be more in the BSD direction.

Working armonica played daily in Philadelphia

[MobileDude]

--Franklin suffered severe nerve damage in his --hands playing this. Not according to the Franklin Museum here in Philadelphia which has a working armonica on display. It is played daily by staff who also give a detailed history of Franklin and the armonica. What they do state is consideratation was given to the lead based components used in early armonicas coming into contact with the players fingers (and possibly entering thus slowly poisoning the individual). Museum is located behind the Franklin Post Office (between 3rd and 4th streets on Market) and is downstairs. It is required viewing for everyone that has come to visit my family in Philadelphia. Especially if you can find the staff member that can play "America the Beautiful".

Amorica type music still played

[puzzled]

A few years ago I came across a fellow named Harry Christian on the street in Haight Asbury, right across from the used book store.

Harry had about twenty glasses of various sizes, partially filled with water, sitting on a card table, along with copies of his new CD. I spent quite a bit of time talking to him - there are apparently about a dozen players worldwide that are active at the moment and he is the only one recording.

Sorry no web site that I can mention, but I did purchase his disk - shall I contact him and see if he wouldn't mind my putting up an MP3 of his stuff?