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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.
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.
Objects in the blog are closer then they ap
... that Franklin didn't patent his techniques involving lightning. Without a doubt, this would have greatly distressed Doctor Emmet Brown.
"Derp de derp."
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
But, contrary to belief, not everything I do is for profit, or if so, very indirectly.
You see, I place value of the general welfare of my fellow person. I contribute to charties, and donate things I no longer need that are in good repair, so that they can either be given to the poor, or sold, and the proceeds used to help them. I've gone so far as to donate running cars.
Yes, either I benefit, or my descendents will benefit, in some small way, from these acts, so a Randian might consider them quite rational. But, and this is the important thing, the general welfare of "clan Hollan" was not in my mind when I undertook these acts.
While it is all fine and good to be able to participate in a free market, we are not without compassion for those less fortunate than ourselves, whatever the reason. I, for example, had the good fortune to study a field (Computer Science) that has blossemed to fill an as unquenched thirst for skill in the market place. However, to argue that this was a calculated optimal decision on my part, as opposed to a calculated risk would be arrogance. In fact, I chose it becase I liked it and was good at it.
So, I can certainly empathize with those who's fortunes have not been as good as mine, though I do not feel a particular obligation to help the less fortunate.
Nevertheless, parting with that for which one feels no desire to exploit, so that the lives of others can be, in some small way, enriched, is no great misery, and in the minds of the recipients, might translate into the most wonderful gift of all.
You could've hired me.
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.
You drank my drink, you drunk!
An mp3 of the Adagio in C for Glass Armonica can be found here. It is apparently being played by Klingons... :^)
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I don't remember any Beethoven compositions for glass harmonica but am not at all sure there weren't any. Glass Harmonica was very popular for a while. More recently composers including possibly Stravinsky and Hindemith (from vague memory, don't hold me to that) have composed for it as well.
"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.
http://www.kubuntu.org/
Money was so scarce that George Washington
had to pose separately for each dollar bill
That was nothing! The reason he wore wooden teeth was because his real ones got knocked out when they stamped his head to make all the quarters!
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
There are many intelligent people out there who are not motivated purely by greed. You might want to look "Richard Stallman" up on the internet. Do you think the greed of others has kept his inventions from having a profound effect on the world? Sure, he may not be rich, but I think he is getting just about everything he wants from life.
They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security
Inventors contemporary to Franklin may have had similar feelings about patents for a variety of reasons. First, the patent process that they knew of in England may have been unfair and/or corrupt (sound familiar?). From what I've heard, English IP laws of that era bore little resemblance to the IP law envisioned by the founders. They were more about aristocratic control. Many argue that our IP laws have been corrupted in a similar fashion; just substitute "aristocrats" with "corporations".
Secondly, it was easier to dismiss the value of IP in Franklin's time because mass production and interchangeable parts were not generally available. Post-revolution, Eli Whitney and others developed the mass production techniques. As the industrial revolution progressed, the quantity and quality of labor required to make physical copies of a device shrank dramaticly in proportion to the labor required to invent a device.
Thus, it seemed a folly to Franklin to patent his stove when the idea took 1 man-week to sketch, and perhaps 2 man-weeks *per unit* to produce.
On the other hand, Edison's lightbulb and the ribbon machines used to manufacture them took years to develop. Once this was done, each lightbulb took only a fraction of a second to produce. Therefore, it now makes perfect sense that the knowledge of how to make the bulbs is far more valuable than even a truckload of the bulbs themselves.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
That's because Bill Gates wasn't born yet.
-- if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be; but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic - Lewis Carrol
I've written this before but it's worth repeating.
Intellectual property laws exist only because we have a slavery system. Our livelihood depends on working for others so we can pay our taxes. The reason that we have to work for others is that 99% of people have been deprived of an inheritance in the wealth of the land. Income property is owned by a few and the state. The others are slaves. Artists, programmers and inventors depend on their work to make a living. Can we blame them? We all depend on our labor because we are all slaves. So now we are swimming in a ocean of laws and rules that take away our remaining liberties, one by one.
Let's face it, if you cannot put a fence around it or put chains on it, it does not belong to you. Makes no difference whether it is ideas, writings, software, music or what have you. Once you've released it, like the air, it belongs to nobody and everybody.
Intellectual property owners (such as Microsoft, Adobe, the music industry, and yes, even that Segway inventor Karmen) will fight freedom with everything they've got. They have to because it's the system. Right now they have two formidable weapons: IP laws and powerful police states to enforce them. But those who yearn to be free also have a formidable weapon, the internet.
The internet and other communication technologies (e.g., file sharing systems) are the first major kinks in the armor of a sick system. As technology progresses, the system will eventually collapse. What will happen to a slave-based economy when robots and advanced artificial intelligences replace everybody, i. e., when human labor, knowledge and expertise become worthless?
And don't think for a minute this won't happen in your lifetime. The internet is the latest giant leap in human communication. Before that came mass telecommunication technologies and before that was the movable press. If history is any indication, we can expect a giant leap in technological progress and scientific knowledge. In fact, it is happening before our very eyes.
We should all demand a system where everybody is guaranteed income property, a piece of the pie, an estate if you will. There is plenty for everybody.
Communism confiscates all property and enslaves everybody. Capitalism gives property to a few and enslaves the rest. It's sad. The land should not be divided for a price. It should be an inheritance for us and our children and their children. It's the only way to guarantee freedom and a truly free market in a world where human labor is about to go the way of the dinosaurs.
If you don't own income property. You are a slave. If you have to work for someone else for a living, you are a slave. And don't think that just because you can quit and go to work for someone else, that this makes you free. It does not matter where you go or who you work for. Wherever you go, you are a slave. They know the fear of hunger will keep you working.
Demand liberty! Nothing less.
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.
>
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.
There is absolutely no reason to panic.
--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".
10 MD