A physicist studied Ben Franklin’s clever tricks to foil currency counterfeiters | Hacker News Reader

A physicist studied Ben Franklin’s clever tricks to foil currency counterfeiters

arstechnica.com

103 pointsgumby33 comments

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.

Franklin was a pimp daddy player and a vegetarian too.

Edit: I also recommend Franklin's autobiography and associated correspondence.

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.

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.

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.

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.

That's amusing. It's analogous to the difference between paper money and specie at the time.

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.

> 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.

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.

Anyone on a surfboard would notice that the wind pushes them along, and a more creative person would think to amplify that with a sail.

Like what happened with boats => sailboats.

Heck, I noticed that the wind pushed me along on my bike. I rode without using my hands, and instead would hold my jacket open to catch more wind.

This sounds like the battery story. It used to be that batteries all came in cardboard casings. Then some clever fellow invented the metal battery casing like we use today and patented it. His patent was immediately infringed by all battery makers who claimed that the invention was "obvious." But they lost, because the judge rightly ruled that if it actually were obvious then why had everyone been encasing their battery cells in cardboard?

I take it you've never been on a surf board or a rowboat when the wind was up.

Take a watercraft ==> add a sail

Take a routine task ==> on a computer

and all that other patent nonsense.

I know a halyard from a sheet, thank you. But a better example is that I've run outdoors on a windy day, which virtually every person ever has done at least once. And yet the overwhelming majority never thought to use a spinnaker on a skateboard. All new inventions, every single one, are one or more old inventions composed together. The novelty lies in the composition, not the components.

I share your antipathy toward software patents though. Mathematical theorems aren't patentable, and programs are just gussied up theorems so they shouldn't be either.

I just don't see as patent-worthy the concept of sticking a sail on something to allow the wind to push it. Sails have been around for thousands of years.

It's as lame as adding a wheel to something so it will roll instead of slide. Or putting a sign on something with instructions. Or putting an ON button on a device.

> tribes around in Polynesia

Please refrain from this sort of imperialist language. Refer to the particular nations and peoples by their real names, not a catch-all concocted by a Frenchman.

This is the first time I hear about that people in Polynesia have something against the term "Polynesia". Do you have any resources where I can read more about how they feel about the term as when I've visited many of the islands, I've never come across this before.

His Autobiography[1] should be required reading for young persons. One of the more cutting insights is that freedom of the press doesn't mean a thing if you haven't got one. And so he got into printing. He also advises against drinking hard liquor, because everyone he knew who took to "dram drinking" never amounted to anything. It's a short and entertaining read.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Autobiography_of_Benjamin_...

What do you think is overrated about the story of John Adams? I find him to be quite compelling.

> I find him to be quite compelling.

I agree. I was moved by the eponymous HBO miniseries and strongly recommend it.

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?

On sites where there’s anything close to a formal editing structure, the title is often not selected by the author. Sometimes the author may not know the final title until they see it in print.

Ars also went downhill after the Condé Nast acquisition. The titles are more clickbait, there are more sponsored stories, the comments section was redesigned to amplify controversy and railroading, there are more virtue stories, ...

They even went as far as putting paid product placement for an expensive designer mask into one of their weekly early COVID19 updates, like it was some kind of lifestyle magazine and not ars/science.

> "Then you remove the coin from the mercury bath and heat it up to drive the mercury out," said Wiescher. This gives you a silver coin with a copper core, capable of passing the bite test.

I wonder how many merchants got mercury poisoning as a result of this technique

> Ben Franklin’s clever tricks to foil currency counterfeiters

It's like a double entendre, only boring.

Like everything else in physics, Newton got there first.

Except for the bits that Galileo did, and Archimedes, and Aristotle, etc.

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...

Sure, but to my knowledge they weren't employed to combat currency counterfeiting.

Maybe they weren't aware that Newton ran the Mint in his later life, so exactly the same issues with counterfeiting.

Yes -- Newton WAS employed to combat currency counterfeiting: https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2380.htm

Archimedes established the density principle to combat jewelry counterfeiting.

Excellent counterpoint. I hope you indecently exposed yourself in an urban area in celebration.

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