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Franklin's Glass Armonica

Posted by michael on from the three-part-armony dept.

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.

5 of 189 comments (clear)

  1. Something they didn't mention.... by Your_Mom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
    1. Re:Something they didn't mention.... by Dr.+Ion · · Score: 4, Interesting
      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.
  2. More practical inventions by wormbin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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

  3. Spinning Glass Spheres by shmert · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

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    You drank my drink, you drunk!
  4. BSD by absurd_spork · · Score: 4, Interesting
    "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.

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