[ih] what's an invention, was Review: Yasha Levine's "Surveillance Valley"

[Wayne Hathaway]

Along this line, I once heard a great quote about the Wright brothers:

Everyone else was trying to learn how to build an airplane.
The Wright brothers were trying to learn how to fly.


wayne

 
On 4 Jul 2018 21:25:08 -0500, "John Levine"  wrote:

>> In article <46ec716cb643a587bb3aabccaebf6537.squirrel at webmail.ic.unicamp.br> you write:
>> >
>> >regarding innovation and airplanes I recommend reading
>> >
>> >https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Santos-Dumont
>> 
>> Santos-Dumont did some interesting stuff but he didn't build a heavier
>> than air plane as opposed to a balloon until 1906.  A good biography
>> in English is "Wings of Madness" by Paul Hoffman (not the one we
>> know.)
>> 
>> The Wrights were excellent engineers, who solved a bunch of
>> engineering problems to create a working plane.  They invented the
>> wind tunnel and used it to test airfoils and propellers, having found
>> that the existing tables for airfoils were wrong.  Their engine was
>> the first to have an aluminum crankcase, which made it much lighter.
>> There were a lot of people working on airplanes in the early 1900s but
>> it's clear enough that the Wrights were the first to put the pieces
>> together and build planes that flew and had controls that worked.
>> 
>> Unfortunately they were also control freaks who wanted to control
>> everything about their airplanes.  They got into huge patent fights
>> with Glenn Curtis whose planes worked better.  (He used ailerons,
>> the Wrights twisted the wings.)  If they had more sense they would
>> have formed a patent pool with Curtis and made a lot more money
>> from better planes.
>> 
>> There is surely a lesson here about innovation and invention.  The
>> technology was simple enough in 1903 that a pair of gifted mechanics
>> could self-fund to build and fly a plane.  But as the technology
>> progressed, I doubt that anyone could have done a self-funded jet
>> engine in the 1940s.
>> 
>> ObComputer: Konrad Zuse built his mechanical Z1 and relay Z2 on his
>> own, in his parents' apartment but I don't think there's been any
>> significant solo work since then.  The Apple ][ was a tour de force of
>> assembling parts made by other larger companies.  Wozniak created an
>> excellent design using low cost parts, but Jobs bamboozled Intel
>> into providing them with enough 2K RAMs to build it.
>> 
>> 
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