> Behalf Of Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten
> It is merely a fact that those thousands of American
rocketscientists never
> would have gotten anywhere without the basic research done by
others. Or to
> keep with your analogies: To attribute the work of thousends of
biochemists to
> a handfull of Americans who *discovered* DNA, however influential,
is also
> shortsighted enough to be classified as stupid? :o)
>
> Or is this case different because the ground work this time was done
by
> Americans? :o)
>
> Sonja
1. DNA was discovered in either Oxford or Cambridge by two
scientists - one British, the other American, working in a British
lab. This would make it largely a British discovery in my book.
2. Much of the basic work on rocketry was done by Robert Goddard, an
American, who invented the liquid-fueled rocket. This to the extent
that when Werner von Braun was asked where he got the ideas behind the
V2, he replied, very much in shock "But we got them all from you -
from your Robert Goddard." Braun thought of Goddard, not himself, as
the inventor of the rocket. So, according to the best German rocket
scientist, the German rocket work was derivative of the work of an
American rocket scientist.
********************Gautam "Ulysses" Mukunda**********************
* Harvard College Class of '01 *He either fears his fate too much*
* www.fas.harvard.edu/~mukunda * Or his deserts are small, *
* [EMAIL PROTECTED] *Who dares not put it to the touch*
* "Freedom is not Free" * To win or lose it all. *
******************************************************************
