Harry Veeder wrote: > This might be an example of why credentials matter > when a significant discovery is made. Maybe Romagnosi was ignored > because his was viewed as an "amateur"??
It's from histories such as this one that I have finally come to the conclusion that really original discoveries are rarely attributed to the right people. I have quite a list of similar incidents, but I won't bore you Vorts with all of them. This particular historical error originates from typical French arrogance. The great Charles de Coulomb had "proven" mathematically that electricity and magnetism could not affect one another. This suppressed any notion that they might for some time, and any results to the contrary were ignored. Remember that Oersted's rediscovery of this principle occured after Coulomb was dead. Even the brilliant Ampère seems to have been diverted from discovering the reverse effect by Coulomb's reputation, though he had coils of wire and magnets right there on his work bench. Instead, the credit went to Faraday, although apparently William Henry made the discovery slightly before Faraday, but did not publish it. For a short period during that time you could actually be arrested in France for publishing anything suggesting electromagnetic induction, I suppose to protect Coulomb's reputation. Similarly, when Davy discovered chlorine, you could be arrested in France for publishing anything claiming that chlorine is an element, as this contradicted Lavoisier. On the other hand, maybe the whole thing could be attributed to the fact that Italian scientists just can't get no respect. Rhigi constructed the "Van de Graaff" generator a couple of hundred years before Van de Graaff. Olinto de Pretto published E=mc^2 a year or two before Einstein and so on. But really, I think that humans just can't accept the truth until they are ready. M. _______________________________________________ Join Excite! - http://www.excite.com The most personalized portal on the Web!
