Ben Franklin's Ghost

215 years after his death, Ben Franklin comes to life again. 

 

What have you always wanted to know about Founding Father, scientist, printer,

inventor and American Icon Dr. Benjamin Franklin?

 

Well, now you can just ask him about his . . .

  • Parents and schooling

  • Family life

  • Life as a printer

  • Inventions and Science

  • Role in the community

  • Life as a diplomat

  • Late life

  • Opinion

You can also create your own questions . . . about anything!

 

Lights of Liberty and Carnegie Mellon University’s Entertainment Technology Center

have produced this landmark exhibit featuring the lifelike, real-time exchange called a

synthetic interview that captures information from a database so that the person

accessing it appears to have a natural conversation with a video persona.

 

The ghostly illusion is a visual trick called a Pepper’s Ghost that creates a 3D image,

seeming to float in space.  Ben Franklin’s Ghost is the first time that the

synthetic interview and Pepper’s Ghost technology have been combined.

 

Ben Franklin’s Ghost at the PECO Energy Liberty Center, 6th and Chestnut Streets, Philadelphia

Across the street from Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell

 

Free admission daily from 10am.  For information 215-LIBERTY or 1-877-GO-2-1776.

Ben Franklin’s Ghost was funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Community and

Economic Development managed through the Pittsburgh Film Office, Carnegie Mellon

University’s Entertainment Technology Center and Lights of Liberty, Inc.

 
 

     

J.A. Leo Lemay, H.F. du Pont Winterthur Professor of English at the University of Delaware, was the project historian for Ben Franklin's Ghost. Lemay is a noted Franklin scholar and biographer whose latest work, The Life of Benjamin Franklin, Volumes 1 and 2, were published by the University of Pennsylvania Press in October 2005.