On Fri, Jun 3, 2011 at 3:25 PM, Jed Rothwell <jedrothw...@gmail.com> wrote:
> In the years before August 8, 1908, the Wrights often flew before large crowds of people in Dayton, OH, including leading citizens who signed affidavits saying they had seen the flights. The longest flight was 24 miles in 39 minutes. Yet no one outside of Dayton believed a word of it. > Not one newspaper or journal. Well, there must have been at least 2, because Science uses the plural in this report from 1904: "The newspapers of December 18 contained the announcement that Wilbur Wright had flown a distance of 3 miles with an aeroplane propeled by a 16-horse power, four-cylinder, gasoline motor, the whole weighing more than 700 pounds…." It's not the 24 mile flight, which presumably came later. Science went on to praise this accomplishment without skepticism: "But to the student of aeronautics, and particularly to those who had followed the careful scientific experiments with aeroplanes which were being made by Orville and Wilbur Wright, it meant an epoch in the progress of invention and achievement, perhaps as great as that when Stevenson first drove a locomotive along a railroad." They proceed to admit wide skepticism because of many failures, but then say (remember, in 1904): "Mr. Wright's success in rising and landing safely with a motor-driven aeroplane is a crowning achievement showing the possibility of human flight." Anything like that ever appear in Science about cold fusion? > The Scientific American attacked, ridiculed and belittled the Wrights, and continued to attack them at every opportunity, most recently in 2003. See: The Wrights avoided publicity and limited photography for fear of having their secrets stolen, until they had a firm offer of purchase. This resulted in skepticism about the Wright's claims, no doubt, but not about flying. There were certainly many skeptical scientists, most notably Lord Kelvin, but the general opinion of the scientific community was (and had been for some time) that heavier than air flight was inevitable. Two years before their infamous skeptical article, even Scientific American wrote of a much more modest demonstration of flight by the Wright brothers: "This is a decided step in advance in aerial navigation with aeroplanes". So they were not rejecting the idea, but merely accusing the Wrights of exaggeration. And if you believe their spin, they had good reason. Even your sentence admits it was (erroneous) skepticism of the Wrights, but not of the science in general; in 2003, I don't think SciAm denied that flight is possible. > People have not grown wiser since 1908. What is the lesson of 1908? That any conceivable phenomenon must be right if people are skeptical of it? > The arguments used against the Wrights were almost word-for-word the same as the ones you trot out against the cold fusion today. It is only your fantasy that the situation surrounding the development of aviation is similar to that of cold fusion. Some criticism of the Wrights may have been similar to some criticism of cold fusion, but note the lack of a parallel there. The Wrights are one team, cold fusion is a field. Moreover, the criticism or skepticism of the Wrights lasted a few years. The Wrights you see made progress. When they finally showed the simple and obvious demo, a few years later, they were catapulted onto the world stage. To counter the skepticism, the Wrights did not present charts and graphs, or refer to 16-year old papers, they showed the world how far they could jump. And both Science and Nature have multiple articles on aviation dating back to well before 1900. For example, in 1895, Nature wrote of a recent conference: "many of the problems of aeronautics and aviation are being treated scientifically". The 1896 issue contains letters from Langley and Bell about experiments in mechanical flight, with considerable optimism for the field. In 1902, Nature wrote in praise of Langley and his heavy machines that had "arisen and descended in safety", and quoting him that "the time is now very near when human beings will be transported at high velocities [in such machines]", In 1908 they wrote: "We had heard reports of the Wright Brothers' achievements in America in 1904 and 1905, but owing to the inventors' efforts to avoid publicity, the feat of Santos and Dumont on November 12, 1906 […] has been regarded by many people as the first … artificially propelled man-carrying machine…". So even if it took until 1908 to acknowledge the Wrights, they clearly accepted the possibility of flight before that. I quoted from Science above in one of many articles on the subject, none particularly dismissive of the field as it is of cold fusion. Even Scientific American, in October 1903, had two articles on aviation. So, the most prestigious journals of the time had, since before the Wrights, considered aviation as a credible area of investigation and seemed optimistic about its future. There is no resemblance to cold fusion. None of these journals, even now, 22 years later, publish papers on the subject of CF. The claim of an obvious phenomenon in CF came in 1989, and the world is still waiting for it to get off the ground. > As late as 1912, when aviators showed up in small American cities and towns to do demonstrations, crowds of people showed up to tar and feather them as scammers and frauds, and sheriffs ran them out of town, because everyone knew that people cannot fly. This history is well documented. I didn't have time to check this claim, but what people in the backwaters thought before TV and internet is not really a good reflection of the scientific attitude. It is clear that the major journals treated aviation seriously since before 1900, and no scientist doubted it after 1908. > It does not matter how much evidence is presented, or how convincing it is. People like those crowds back in 1912, and people like you, will not look. There are none so blind as those who will not see. No evidence? Really? So then there are still people who are skeptical of aviation? >> But running an ecat or an electrolysis experiment? There is no similar piano-playing type skill needed. > Again, you reveal that you have no idea what you are talking about. I have seen electrochemical experiments at Mizuno's lab which nearly killed some observers, even though Mizuno is one of the most skilled electrochemists in the world. See: That's not a contradiction. It's easy to drive a car, as you say later, but people are killed driving cars all the time. Tragic accidents happen in even the most mundane activity. > This is a lot like saying that if Orville Wright could fly in 1908, anyone could. No it's not. The two are not the same at all. It takes time to learn physical skills that rely on coordination, reflex, and reaction and so on. The act of flying is more like a sport than like a laboratory experiment. The experiment comes in the design and construction. It's much more like saying if Julia Childs can make Beef Bourguignon, almost anyone can. And in fact, with a little effort and care, anyone can. Julie Powell made one of Childs' recipe's per day, without any particular training. Sure, one can train to be innovative and creative and spontaneous as a chef, but to follow a recipe is not the same as following instructions on tennis from Nadal. And really, the procedure in an electrochemistry experiment is simpler than Beef Bourguignon. > Most of the first 100 people who took to the air after him were dead by 1912. Wilbur Wright was nearly killed in Washington, in September 1908, and his passenger Selfridge was killed. Sure, I get that flying was dangerous. But electrolysis is not. People are killed in lab accidents, yes, as they are in factory accidents and car accidents, but it's not like flying in 1912. You don't need the equivalent of a trained pilot to do electrolysis experiments. > People who demand that this be made "easy" or available to anyone at this stage do not understand technology. Whether setting up and doing the experiment is easy is not the point, though I still don't believe it's hard. The point is that if the claims are real, and obvious demo could be set up that would be *simple* to observe and interpret. An isolated thing that stays warmer (or heats up) than its surroundings for a really long time -- just like you said. >> But you said simple and obvious demonstrations have been done many times. > I said obvious. It is not simple. No. I said CF claims, if real, can be demonstrated in a simple and obvious way, and you said... > Such demonstrations have been done many times. > The first computers I operated and programmed in the 1960s and 70s were far beyond the ability of ordinary people to operate. There was no doubt the computers worked, and I could make them do things even the manufacturer did not know they could do, but it was not simple. It sure as hell wasn't easy. Very good. Congratulations. You were clearly skilled at computer programming. And it was hard. But when a computer program works, it is simple and obvious to show what it can do. You should have stuck with programming because your contributions to the world as a CF advocate are far less impressive.
