[HN Gopher] A physicist studied Ben Franklin's clever tricks to ...
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A physicist studied Ben Franklin's clever tricks to foil currency
counterfeiters
Author : gumby
Score : 68 points
Date : 2021-11-18 17:16 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| zetazzed wrote:
| I can't recommend Walter Isaacson's biography of Ben Franklin
| enough. While some founding fathers turn out to be less
| interesting than expected (anyone with Adams in their name,
| e.g.), Franklin's life is legitimately bonkers and would not be
| believed if written as fiction. Between business, science,
| politics, and just life (family + friends), it could easily have
| been 8 or 9 interesting lives added together.
| errcorrectcode wrote:
| Franklin was a pimp daddy player and a vegetarian too.
|
| Edit: I also recommend Franklin's autobiography and associated
| correspondence.
| kaesar14 wrote:
| What do you think is overrated about the story of John Adams? I
| find him to be quite compelling.
| nwiswell wrote:
| > I find him to be quite compelling.
|
| I agree. I was moved by the eponymous HBO miniseries and
| strongly recommend it.
| jaclaz wrote:
| A lesser known episode about Benjamin Franklin is when the
| British failed to respect the "paroles", to exchange prisoners,
| I use it to put a date to when honour ceased to exist, 5th
| November 1781:
| http://books.google.com/books?id=LaFYAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA87
|
| Briefly privateers were engaged for capturing British vessels.
|
| When they made prisoners they had them sign a paper in which
| they self-certified their status of prisoners, and were quickly
| released, by landing them on the nearest French or British
| land.
|
| When Benjamin Franklin tried to use these "paroles" to exchange
| them against American prisoners (as if they were actual English
| prisoners), the English had what must have been some of the
| best laughter they ever had.
| dkonofalski wrote:
| This sounds interesting to me but, for some reason, I'm not
| understanding what the English would have been laughing
| about. Were they lying on the certificates? I assume that
| that's what you mean since they were self-certified but I
| feel like I might just be missing something here.
| canniballectern wrote:
| Sounds like the privateers promised on paper to hold
| British prisoners for a certain amount of time, but
| actually set them free at the first convenient opportunity.
| Franklin didn't know this, and tried to set up an exchange
| of on-paper British prisoners for real American ones. The
| British were laughing because Franklin didn't know that
| he'd been ripped off by the privateers.
| jaclaz wrote:
| The idea was that if you (British) had a (American)
| prisoner, you would release him in exchange for another
| (British) prisoner and - viceversa - if you (American)
| had a (British) prisoner you would release it in exchnage
| for a (American) prisoner.
|
| A simple exchange.
|
| The Americans had not the means (jails/prisons) to keep
| the prisoners in, so (evidently initially agreed with the
| British or anyway a comnmon at the time rule of honour in
| war times) they had the prisoner sign this "parole"
| document which amounted to an admission that the person
| had been captured in an action of war and that he was
| "virtually" a prisoner of the opposite army, even if
| actually set free, all in all not much different from a
| "I owe you ..." paper.
|
| So, in theory, one parole=one prisoner, and periodically
| the British and the American would settle the balance by
| releasing prisoners (in exchange for a same amount of
| prisoners or paroles).
|
| That until the British (to the utter Benjamin Franklin
| incredulity/astonishment) decided unilaterally that the
| "parole" was nothing but a piece of paper.
|
| In the letter Franklin says that he has 500 paroles (up
| to then "worth" 500 prisoners) that suddenly were worth
| nothing.
| kmtrowbr wrote:
| I adore Benjamin Franklin and I've read many many books about
| him.
|
| This is my favorite biography of Franklin:
| https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0300095325/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b...
|
| It is also very worth reading _his actual writing_ -- one
| anthology is "The Portable Benjamin Franklin" -- it's quite
| long, but it gives you a much better sense of who he was.
| Benjamin Franklin himself was a better writer than ANY of his
| biographers: https://www.amazon.com/Portable-Benjamin-Franklin-
| Penguin-Cl...
|
| Ultimately he is a very amorphous, playful, and loving
| individual. In some ways you might think of him as being like
| David Bowie or the Beatles. A person, who having achieved
| wealth and fame, used it in the best possible way. If you have
| read the book "Finite and Infinite Games," he was playing the
| Infinite Game.
|
| Not that he needs more adulation! But as you dig deeper in
| Franklin becomes more mysterious & that part of him is not
| appreciated enough. The icon is not the man, if that makes
| sense.
|
| My favorite Franklin anecdote: "Did you know that Benjamin
| Franklin invented windsurfing?" It's not strictly true, but he
| loved kites, and loved swimming (he was one of the first
| swimming educators as, in the 18th century many people had a
| deathly fear of water and many many people drowned) and one
| day, he was swimming on his back, while flying a kite, and he
| noticed it dragged him through the water very quickly. "I
| believe this could be a mode of transport, or of recreation,"
| (paraphrased) he wrote in a letter.
| capableweb wrote:
| > My favorite Franklin anecdote: "Did you know that Benjamin
| Franklin invented windsurfing?" It's not strictly true
|
| I don't think it comes anywhere near to being true. While
| he's surely an interesting man, there is no need to attribute
| him as the discoverer of something that many tribes around in
| Polynesia have been doing for centuries.
| kmtrowbr wrote:
| Well, thank you -- I shall endeavor to better contain my
| enthusiasm in the future, and also to correctly attribute
| the invention of windsurfing to Polynesian tribes.
| Y_Y wrote:
| Like everything else in physics, Newton got there first.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| Except for the bits that Galileo did, and Archimedes, and
| Aristotle, etc.
| jaclaz wrote:
| Yep, but, to be fair, he admitted to be standing on the
| shoulders of giants.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standing_on_the_shoulders_of_g.
| ..
| Y_Y wrote:
| Sure, but to my knowledge they weren't employed to combat
| currency counterfeiting.
| snovv_crash wrote:
| Maybe they weren't aware that Newton ran the Mint in his
| later life, so exactly the same issues with counterfeiting.
| kmtrowbr wrote:
| Yes -- Newton WAS employed to combat currency
| counterfeiting: https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2380.htm
| excalibur wrote:
| > Ben Franklin's clever tricks to foil currency counterfeiters
|
| It's like a double entendre, only boring.
| alliao wrote:
| content aside, this title is a bit of a new low for me from
| arstechnica. author probably fed the clickbait title of "You
| won't believe this amazing trick..." into quillbot and just
| called it a day. Man I remember when jon stokes was around or
| maybe I was younger, arstechnica felt so serious?
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