Very rarely is there one, lone genius who comes up with brilliant theories or great inventions on his own, or in a vacuum. More often, there are a lot of capable people working on a problem or idea. Usually, just one of them earns the glory or credit… but there are several other people who were either a LITTLE bit too late, or who were overshadowed by somebody else.
I’m looking for as many of these un(der)publicized geniuses. Examples:
In the field of aviation, there are people like Richard Pearse and Albert Santos-Dumont (who MAY have flown before the Wright brothers).
“The Great Radio Controversy” (did TEsla really invent the radio, rather than Marconi).
Antonio Meucci is often cited as the “real” inventor of the telephone.
Rosalind Franklin was working on the structure of DNA at the same time as Watson and Crick, and was probably close to cracking the problem, but didn’t get there in time (hence, Watson and Crick got Nobels, while Franklin died a relative unknown).
So, who are some other folks who either came up with big discoveries a little too late to become famous, or who lost their battles for recognition?
Aside from a reference in The Sopranos, I’ve never heard about this guy. I’ve always heard about Elisha Grey, who invented the telephone concurrently with (and separately from) Alexander Bell, but got to the patent office just a few hours too late…
Heh, I guess you’re a Tesla fan…the band, not the inventor. Well, probably both…
I’m sure there are a number of modern computer inventions that were “invented” by smaller people but were taken over by Microsoft…can’t think of any obvious examples at the moment, though…
One genius who may get too much credit for his discoveries is Karl Gauss, “The Prince of Mathematicians.” Like Newton, he had an annoying habit of keeping his discoveries to himself until someone else independently developted the idea–and sometimes not even then.
I was about to ask what the hell you were talking about until I realized that in a world with only one Marconi device no one can listen to a back to back Van Halen block.
The Wright’s claim to have been first is subject to several qualificaions as they were most certainly not the first to fly. I’m sure it’s stil open to debate but they were the first to have a powered aircraft in sustained and fully controlled flight and to consistently repeat the process. Lillenthal and Chanute flew hang gliders but without aerodynamic controls. Langley didn’t fly long enough to be sustained or controlled but this near fraud was supported by the Smithsonian for decades.
What about CP/M-86, which was ripped off wholesale to create MS-DOS? Then, of course, Microsoft killed DR-DOS, the descendant of the CP/M line, by breaking Windows 3 so it would only work with MS-DOS. Gary Kildall died broke and largely forgotten.
How about the sandwich? Every Earl is implicitly given credit for the invention that, as Woody Allen said, “freed mankind from the hot lunch.” And yet it was only the Ninth Earl, John Montague, who came up with the idea.
“fully controlled” is the key phrase here, and about this there isn’t much debate. There were plenty who flew before the Wrights, but few were even working on the problem of control, and none made much progress before O&W.
Note that their essential developments were made in their gliders. The 1902 machine was the key step - it was the one that featured 3-axis control. Early on, they saw that once you’d figured out a controllable flying machine, building a motorized version was a relatively straightforward enhancement.
Even worse, IBM went to Kildall first and asked him to create a new OS for them. He apparently told them to take CP/M because he didn’t have any interest in creating a new OS. Then Microsoft stepped in with their DOS.
There are a lot of inventions in the computer field which were invented by secretive government agencies who didn’t publish their work. According to Simon Singh’s The Code Book, public key encryption was really invented by someone working for British military intelligence research. There were a lot of disputes about which was the first computer, because a number devices were developed during World War 2 in high secrecy.
> 4) Rosalind Franklin was working on the structure of DNA at the
> same time as Watson and Crick, and was probably close to
> cracking the problem, but didn’t get there in time (hence,
> Watson and Crick got Nobels, while Franklin died a relative
> unknown).
It’s more complicated than that. The 1962 Nobel Prize for Medicine was awarded to Watson, Crick, and Wilkins for their work in the early '50’s to understand the structure of DNA. Those three, as well as Franklin, were all working at Cambridge on research into DNA at that time. All of these people, as well as a number of others at Cambridge and around the world, contributed to the research on DNA. The Nobel Prize committee didn’t get around to giving the prize for the discovery of DNA till ten years later. That’s typical, actually. It often takes decades till the importance of a discovery becomes clear enough that a Nobel Prize is warranted.
Unfortunately, in the meantime, Franklin died. Nobel Prizes are never given posthumously. Nobody can say who would have been given the prize if she had lived. The Nobel committee has to look at each discovery (often from a perspective of decades later) and decide who were the main people responsible for the discovery. In general, they don’t want to split the prize between more than three people. The problem is that scientific discoveries aren’t generally made by isolated scientists working with no one else. They are usually made by people working with, talking with, and exchanging ideas with others. It’s often very difficult for the committee to limit the prize to just a few people.
I’ve frequently heard it claimed that Watson was dismissive of Franklin’s contributions to the discovery of DNA in his book The Double Helix. But I’ve read the book. In fact, I would say that while Watson was often annoyed by Franklin, he was glad that she was there to force him and Crick to prove some of their claims.
Tesla invented the AC generator, the AC induction motor, the auto speedometer, and the virtually everything connected with AM radio. Most of his inventions were stolen by Edison and the GE Company. In fact, Tesla was forced to assign his patents to Westinhouse Electric (in order to keep George Westinghouse from receivership).
Poor Tesla…he died broke and forgotten!
I don’t think there is anyone whop disputes John Stringfellow’s achievement of heavier-than-air flight using a steam engine a full fifty years before the Wright Brothers. But there’s also no doubt that his machine wasn’t controllable – he always flew inside a building or tent in still air, because he had no lateral stability whateber. The idea of using a tail to control this seems absurdly obvious – in hindsight. Stringfellow’s monoplane looks so much like a modern plane, with its wing cross-section, rounded wing design, paired counter-rotating propellors, etc., that it’s surprising that he never made what look like the few changes that would be needed to make flight stable and controllable. He ran out of funds, which is why he didn’t upsize to a manned flying machine, but when he did get more funds about twenty years later, his design changed radically, and the result never flew. Too bad.
As for the business about the first heavier-than-air flight, I have to admit that through the years I’ve always heard it that way, and that now that there are some possible serious contenders the proponents of the Wrights seem to have shifted the goalposts by saying that the Wrights had the first controllable and sustained flight. It seems a little dishonest to me – kinda like the way the discovery of Aux Anse Meadows forced some historians to admit that, indeed, the Vikings had come to America be\fore Columbus, but they gelt they had to add "…but they didn’t make any lasting settlement. Yeah, but that wasn’t the point.
As for Langley, my understanding is not that his flight wasn’t “sustained and cointrolled enoufgh”, but that it wasn’t sustained or controlled at all. Contemporary reports were that it dropped from its houseboat launcher “like a stone”.
Well, those “few” changes proved enormously difficult to sort out and get right. Only in hindsight could this look easy.
Some there may be who have “shifted the goalposts,” but they had to be ignorant of history. The Wrights never for a moment claimed to have made the first manned heavier-than-air flight. They made much use of Lilienthal’s work - they knew he made about 2000 flights, totaling about 5 hours and fully acknowledged what he’d done. They were friendly with Octave Chanute and knew what he had accomplished in Indiana in 1896.
Who are the “possible serious contenders” whose efforts have not been known for quite some time?
True of the first flight. The second hung in the air briefly before sliding tail-first into the Potomac River. These efforts were certainly manned and heavier-than-air, but you’d have to be mighty generous to call them flights.
Well, probably both…