On Tue, Dec 31, 2013 at 2:36 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote:
> > Wilbur was quick to dismiss the suggestion of his friend and correspondent > Octave Chanute, a civil engineer and aeronautical experimenter, that raw > genius might be the only explanation. > > *Do you not insist too strongly upon the single point of mental ability? > To me it seems that a thousand other factors, each rather insignificant in > itself, in the aggregate influence the event ten times more than mere > mental ability or inventiveness.... If the wheels of time could be turned > back six years, it is not at all probable that we would do again what we > have done.... It was due to peculiar combinations of circumstances which > might never occur again.* > Human intuition is a remarkable trait. Nikola Tesla attributed many of his inventions to the ability to see the workings of the machine in his mind's eye. In the AC motor, his biography describes visualizing the fields chasing each other between the stator and the rotor. I would not be surprised if the Wrights "saw" the laminar air flows between the upper and lower surfaces of the wing in order to visualize lift. HG Wells wrote of many things which became true. Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" and follow on movies and series have predicted things which have come and are yet to come. Whether foresight or a guide to inventive paths, intuition is a remarkable trait. Happy New Year, Vorts!
