Oil on troubled waters: Benjamin Franklin and the Honor of Dutch seamen

Physics Today

Volumn 59, Issue 1, 2006, Pages 36-41

  Mertens, Joost ^a  

^a MAASTRICHT UNIVERSITY   (Netherlands)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

BAMBOO CANES; CAPILLARY WAVES; EFFECT OF OIL ON WATER; WAVE-STILLING EFFECTS;

CAPILLARY FLOW; CRUDE PETROLEUM; PORTS AND HARBORS; WATER; WIND;

OIL FIELDS;

EID: 29644441445     PISSN: 00319228     EISSN: None     Source Type: Trade Journal    
DOI: 10.1063/1.2180175     Document Type: Review

References (13)

1. B. Franklin, Philos. Trans. 64, 445 (1774). The letter is also available online at, for example, http://www.historycarper.com/resources/twobf3/letter12. htm.
2. For more information on Pringle, Brownrigg, and the Derwent Water experiment, and Franklin's theory of oil on water, see C. Tanford, Ben Franklin Stilled the Waves: An Informal History of Pouring Oil on Water with Reflections on the Ups and Downs of Scientific Life in General, Oxford U. Press, New York (2004).
3. Pliny the Elder, Natural History, vol. 1, H. Rackham, trans., Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, MA (1938), p. 361.
4. Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, E. P. Dutton, New York (1910), book 3, chap. 15, available at, for example, http://www.fordham. edu/halsall/basis/bede-book3.html.
5. W. B. Wilcox, ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 21, Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT (1998), p. 373.
6. F. van Lelyveld, Berichten en Prijs-vragen over het storten van olie, traan, teer, of andere dryvende stoffen, in zeegevaren, 2nd ed., Johannes le Mair, Leiden, the Netherlands (1776).
7. Plutarch, Moralia, vol. 11, L. Pearson, F. H. Sandbach, trans., Harvard U. Press, Cambridge, MA (1965), p. 177.
8. D. C. Hoogerduin, Singulieren of Byzonderen Historien, wegens het verongelukke van het Groenlands Schip, De Juffrouwen Anna Cornelia en Anna, W. A. Leeuwendaal, Amsterdam (1774).
9. A. R. Kool, Beschryving en Onderrichtingen behorende tot de Nieuwe Platte Paskaart der Hollandsche Stranden, Gerard Hulst van Keulen, Amsterdam (1773).
10. W. B. Wilcox, ed., The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, vol. 21, Yale U. Press, New Haven, CT (1998), p. 519.
11. A. J. van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden, vol. 5, J. J. van Brederode, Haarlem, the Netherlands (1859), p. 196.
12. I. P. Valeriani Bellunensis, Hieroglyphica sev De Sacris Aegyptiorum aliarumque gentium Literis Commentarii, Frelon, Lyons, France (1602) [reprinted by Garland, New York, 1976], p. 562.
13. G. Pancaldi, Volta: Science and Culture in the Age of Enlightenment, Princeton U. Press, Princeton, NJ (2003).