From a fireplace that uniformly heated rooms (which eventually became the Franklin stove we still know today) to discovering the idea of positive and negative electrical charges to mapping the Gulf Stream to inventing lightning rods to inventing bifocals to flying a kite in a thunderstorm to prove atmospheric electricity - once Franklin's accomplishments were known in Europe he quickly dwarfed the other learned society members and became the most famous of them all.

It is interesting to note that Franklin came to be loved by many but also feared by some who believed he had something akin to supernatural powers - an ability to harness nature and do with it what he would. One fan wrote to Franklin telling him his next duty was to secure us from the "Power of Death." A 1779 painting in France shows the elderly Franklin clothed in robes, looking absolutely godlike as he repels both natural and man-made dangers while seated on a cloud. The guy was a freaking superstar.

It was this superstardom that made Franklin the perfect ambassador to France, a country that made the new America possible by its massive assistance in the Revolution. It's fair to say that America would not have come to be without France, France would not have given the help it did without Franklin's credibility, and Franklin would not have had that credibility if not for his huge contribution in the sciences. If we think today of Franklin as a charming political mastermind, we need to remember that his scientific genius was the leverage that gave him the opportunity to have such an impact.

Chaplin makes the argument in The First Scientific American that Franklin was also in the right place at the right time. During his lifetime, one could be respected as a scientist while maintaining other careers and unrelated interests.

Later, scientists became specialists, and were no longer able to be well-rounded individuals making contributions across many walks of life. (Chaplin sees Einstein as perhaps the lone exception to this rule, the only other scientific superstar since Franklin.) Perhaps this is why Franklin's name still has such meaning for people today - he was a man who could do it all, and people like that don't come along very often.