benjamin franklin is said to be the isaac newton of electricity, an enormously prominent scientist in his day before the 13 colony-type thing and before signing the declaration of independence. ben franklin, he did a lot in electrostatics. so this then is negatively charged and the cat's fur then would be? positive. positive. which, by the way, underlies a very important principle called the conservation of charge. and the conservation of charge simply says that, "hey, gang, whatever charge you got, "it's what you got. "you don't make any more, you don't make any less. all you do is transfer it from one place to another." it's like maybe a brick road. there's so many bricks in the road. now, you take some of the bricks off the road and put them on the sidewalk. what's the total number of bricks i have before and after? same. the same. i've just put them from one place to another. and every brick in the sidewalk is matched by a hole in the road. do you see that? so we just take it from place and put another. so if i put a certain charge on here-- let's say a millionth of a coulomb-- co

. >> simon: there were remarkable documents-- letters signed by mark twain, sir isaac newton, charlespenned by lorenzo de medici 533 years ago; an epitaph written by benjamin franklin for himself... and he wrote, "lies here food for the worms, yet the work shall not be lost." pretty good stuff. ...a letter written by john hancock with a real john hancock signature. and for 20th century buffs, there was the original reading copy of fdr's 1937 inaugural address-- this one... >> president franklin roosevelt: one third of a nation, ill housed, ill clad, ill nourished... >> rosenstein: it was a rainy day. in fact, the reading copy of the speech, the document the president read from that day was waterlogged. and you can see that on the document that we seized from mr. landau. >> simon: and landau didn't just steal from historical libraries. he had taken his campaign of kindness all the way to the white house, befriending president clinton's former secretary, betty currie, who made the mistake of inviting landau to her house. landau was pretty good at making friends with people who could hel

playing a little bit of a roll but friedman always said that he stood on the shoulders of giants as isaac newton said and i feel the same way. i have then affected so much from all of the great economists who have come before me. >> mark skousen you said you teach. where you currently teaching at? >> at? >> i am actually teaching at mercy college at the penitentiary believe it or not. i was teaching at columbia university and teaching the best and the brightest but i will tell you what, i teach in a maximum-security prison. they are all males, 25 students in economics and business and they have incredible thirst for knowledge. it's unbelievable how these men who been in prison, who have committed serious crimes in their youth, now i've tried have tried to turn their lives around. i have had students at sing sing who have read the entire textbook before coming to class and i couldn't say that -- some of my students at columbia but certainly not all of them. so i'm teaching that. my wife teaches english literature at sing sing. it is a four-year college degree program, all privately funded except

he has reflections by sir isaac newton on how newton still believed in god, even though people were persuadedm believing in god after newton published his findings. >> norah? >>> you focus on barry landau, this con man, he was also able to get his picture taken with a number of presidents. who is he? >> he's a fraud. he's a super fraud. he convinced presidents, everyone, he was an expert, that he knew everything about presidents and presidents consulted him when they had a big affair coming up, some kind of royal wedding or whatever. they would go to him for advice on how to do it. and he wrote a coffee table book on presidential memorabilia. it was endorsed, incidentally, among other people, by mike wallace, who wasn't a guy who got conned very often. >> go ahead, sorry, norah. >> i was going to say, it really is incredible what a con man this man, barry landau, is. it's not just him, these documents were stolen by many other people too, right? >> he's just the biggest so far. they don't know what's been stolen. the records are so antiquated and no security, virtually no security in these pl