Man on Bridges <manonbrid...@aim.com> wrote:
> In 1906, the Wrights knew *far* more about aerodynamics and the physics of > flight than anyone else in the world. They should have concentrated on what > they knew best, leaving other details to other experts. It was a waste of > time for them to work on engines at that stage in the development. > > > True, but you have to admit, those other engineers could have done a better > job then the Wright brothers, but those other engineers didn't for whatever > reason do it. > I know the reason why. It was the same reason Rossi has not gotten professional assistance. Experts offered to help, but the Wrights refused. As Harry Combs said, it was a "tragic" waste of their time. I know experts who have offered to help Rossi at no cost, with no strings attached. He has turned them down. Combs described the situation in 1907. It sounds familiar: "The potential contracts were battered and bruised but obstinacy on both sides -- the Wrights, and the men and groups with whom they were dealing. The brothers seemed unable to come to an agreement with anyone, and even as they stumbled from one collapsing deal to another in Europe, back in the United States, through the continuing interest and efforts of Samuel Cabot and his brother Godfrey, the capabilities of the rights flying machine were brought directly to the attention of President Theodore Roosevelt . . ." (Roosevelt's intervention is what finally turned the situation around.) Robert Goddard did the same thing, by the way. He spent years of his time and lots of Guggenheim's money trying to solve engineering problems that the people at the University of California could have easily solved. They told him they could. He ignored them. Actually, I think he blew them off, which is what Rossi has done. There is an important lesson in this. People here who think that Rossi is some sort of loser or fake because he acts strange or because he has a bad temper should read history. Read about Goddard, the Wrights, Edison, Harrison, Davy (and the way he treated Faraday), Oppenheimer's behavior in his rental house in the Virgin Islands, or Einstein's sex life. You will see that these people acted abominably. They were as flaky as Rossi is, or worse. You may suspect that Rossi is a thief and a double-dealer, but you can be sure that Edison was. You may suspect Rossi puts on a fake demos and hides the weaknesses of his device. Maybe he does, and maybe he does not. There is no question that Edison did that, often, with panache. You need to stop trying to judge this discovery based on the personality or morality of the discover. That never works. I could give dozens more examples. The converse is also true. Upstanding, honest, reliable, well-educated, highly recommended, top-notch mainstream scientists -- the kind of people who are appointed to important boards and high positions in academia -- often make stupid mistakes. In some cases during their entire career they do not come up with a single important breakthrough. Any number of such people have made idiotic assertions about cold fusion. In 1907 dozens of them made similar idiotic assertions that airplanes cannot exist. In 1879 many of them went on record in major journals and top newspapers asserting that Edison could not possibly have a subdivided incandescent light -- such a thing is inherently impossible. (No expert disputed that incandescent lights are possible. They had been demonstrated for 20 years.) These were considered the top experts. They thought they were experts. Actually, they had no idea what they were talking about, but the journals and newspapers thought they did, just as nowadays reporters think that Robert Park knows something about cold fusion. - Jed
