On Sat, 8 Jul 2006 11:42:50 -0500 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: >Ah... what we need is transparent aluminum. But, of course we don't >have such a thing..... at least..... not officially....
In the interests of academic integrity, I gotta come clean :^)) In his book "The Wizard War" Prof. R. V. Jones, soon to become Britain's director of scientific intelligence during WW2, relates how he spoofed an overly inquisitive Admiraty Research Lab staffer who had had suggested the value of a substance that was both a good conductor of electricity and also tranparent to light. "But we haven't got transparent metal, have we Doctor?" the staffer asked. "No," Jones replied, then paused conspiritorially , "Well, no, not officially." Jones was such an accomplished master of the art of spoof that he soon convinced the staffer that the admiralty was trying to build an invisible battleship, but had only been able to produce enough of the metal to build an invisible topedo boat, which was still troubled by the fact that the wake was visible, as was the crew. If you've never read it... get "The Wizard War" by R. V. Jones., ISBN 0-698-10896-5 published in Britain as "Most Secret War" There is a passage where he credits the contributions of Britain's ham radio enthusiasts in providing a cadre of sorely needed radio and electronics savvy personnel out the onset of the war. And points out how Germany's supression of hams had deprived them of a similar resource. Hence Germany had to bring a device nearly to the point of fool-proof perfection before releasing it for use, whereas the British could put systems barely past the prototype stage into operations, knowing they had enough "tinkerers" who could make it work. Jones also relates that as a boy he had built a SW receiver that could pick up Australia, and had received from Radio Australia a QSL card signed by the English Test Team (cricket, for us yanks) 73 Jim N5IB _______________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Post to: Elecraft@mailman.qth.net You must be a subscriber to post to the list. Subscriber Info (Addr. Change, sub, unsub etc.): http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/subscribers.htm Elecraft web page: http://www.elecraft.com
