The New York Times - As relevant today as they have always been!

Web site: The nature of physical science, The New York Times ^ | 1920 | New York Times Editorial

[70times7]

A Severe Strain on the Credulity

“As a method of sending a missile to the higher, and even to the highest parts of the earth's atmospheric envelope, Professor Goddard's rocket is a practicable and therefore promising device.

It is when one considers the multiple-charge rocket as a traveler to the moon that one begins to doubt ... for after the rocket quits our air and really starts on its journey, its flight would be neither accelerated nor maintained by the explosion of the charges it then might have left.

Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ... Of course he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools.”

-- New York Times Editorial, 1920

[70times7]

"A Severe Strain on the Credulity"... This should replace their current motto: "All the news that's fit to print" based on truth in advertising laws.

Certainly not to draw any parallels between myself and the writer (or the Author), but I also lament that there is “nothing new under the sun”.

[Brilliant]

That is a pretty amazing editorial. They are obviously a bunch of fools. I did not realize, though, that they'd always been a bunch of fools.

[facedown]

bump

[P-40]

I think this is the same paper that made the phrase "We don't want to upset Mr. Hitler" popular.

[The Great RJ]

History repeats itself ...read any NYT article on global warming to see pseudo-science and gross ignorance of the facts.

[Vision]

I am going to print out this article, frame it, and put it up on my wall.

[Anselma]

If only the NYT was a little more consistent in its smugness & lying- we could use them as a negative indicator, like Pravda.

How about, "All the 'news' we see fit to print."

[Vineyard]

The accurate and correct phrase is:

All the News that fit OUR VIEWS.

Mike

[Restorer]

Apparently the editorialists were unaware that the extra-atmosphere rocket carries along its own reactant, usually in the form of liquid oxygen.

Without it, of course, they would be absolutely right, as fuel won't "burn" in a vacuum.

[Roccus]

In all fairness to The Times, this was before "Science Tuesday."

};^)

[Son Of The Godfather]

Nah, that would have taken actual "research".

[martin_fierro]

That Times editorial is allegedly from 13 January, 1920, p. 12, col. 5. They finally got around to retracting it in 1969 (after we'd been to the moon).

[yldstrk]

They must never have been relevant -- something I learned the hard way.

[Polybius]

Apparently the editorialists were unaware that the extra-atmosphere rocket carries along its own reactant, usually in the form of liquid oxygen. Without it, of course, they would be absolutely right, as fuel won't "burn" in a vacuum.

Actually, it seems as if they thought that Newton's Third Law required something for the object to push against (such as the starting block at a foot race) in order to "react".

"..........and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react ...."

[dinasour]

And there objection is that something can't accelerate unless there is something to push against.

That is correct, and in fact, the "rocket", defined as the center of mass of "rocket+spent fuel" stays put (baring other sources of force, such as gravity).

This doesn't stop the payload from getting along quite nicely.

[Lekker 1]

I am going to print out this article, frame it, and put it up on my wall.

I have had this on my wall for quite sometime. The smugness that the NYT expresses with their "high school" quote just makes me smile (and roll my eyes a bit).

[Donald Rumsfeld Fan]

Professor Goddard, with his "chair" in Clark College and countenancing of the Smithsonian Institution, does not know the relation of action to re-action, and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react.”

-- New York Times Editorial, 1920