Gravity tamer brought down to earth

Herald Sun ^ | Mar 14, 2007 | terry brown

[Kiss Me Hardy]

ROBERT Hooper's anti-gravity machine is a huge weight on his mind, and on that of his wife Pat. The part-time inventor is almost certain it can sort out the world's woes. He says the machine's free, clean and endless power could end global warming -- or it would if only someone would take him seriously and build the damn thing. "It's driving me up the bloody wall," he says.

[aruanan]

wasn't edison actually known for stealing ideas from others? I thought I had read that back in highschool or somewhere or another.

From Wikipedia:

The large research group, which included engineers and other workers, based much of their research on work done by others before them.

Many other inventors had worked on the development of an incandescent light bulb and some had even patented it before Edison. Edison's own inventions are often mistakenly credited as Edison's work alone, when in fact a number of employees actually worked under his direction. Many people refer to Edison's work as the first incandescent light bulb with high resistance, a small radiating area, and a commercially and uninhibitally but still useful lifetime. In other words his application for patent was presented as the only design suitable for use by large energy companies like the one he owned and ran. However, the US Patent Office ruled on October 8, 1883 that Edison's design was based on the prior work of William Sawyer and his application was thus invalid. Edison had already lost an earlier patent dispute in British court when it was found that Joseph Swan received a patent in 1878 for the same bulb that Edison tried to claim as his own in the US in 1879. [2]

Of course, it was Edison's bulb that actually worked.

[ThomasThomas]

This is a not true repensitation of Caractacus Potts work. He did make a flying car and is not fair to associate him with common nuts. When I think of common nuts Jimmy Carter comes to mind.

[camle]

LOL~! and he gave Rube Goldberg a run for his money with his breakfast making contraption, too!

the haircutter didn't turn out so well tho...


(LOVED the movie!)

[null and void]

[Redleg Duke]

And your point is?

[Redleg Duke]

My point exactly! Man's greatest handicap is the inability to extract himself or herself from the present frame of reference.

The best way to solve a problem is to look at it from different directions, or frames of reference. Question the limitations in each frame of reference. A because of B is only true if B is really true. Sometimes B isn't an established fact and hence, all suppositions based on B may be erroneous. I say "may be" because even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while.

[spacewarp]

There was a gentleman by the name of Nicolai Tesla who would probably agree with you.

I believe I speeled Mr. Tesla's name right.

One of the 80's-90's hair bands called Tesla had an album out called "The Great Radio Controversy". Apperently, they'd done their research pretty well (I cross checked it and believe that they were right) that basically Edison stole at least one of Tesla's major inventions.

Paul

[Kenny Bunk]

Edison actually known for stealing

Edison, a true genius, actually ran a highly successful "idea factory." While true that he and his backers were not all that fussy about where the original ideas came from, one could hardly call it "stealing." This was a time of such incredible electro-mechanical ferment, that many people in many countries were working on the same stuff at the same time. Edison's particular genius was in his method of systematically exploiting knowledge from many sources and turning it into useful stuff. At that, he (and a devoted staff) was brilliant.

Edison was, as Nicolai Tesla always enjoyed pointing out, not much of a scientist, but a really great manager, marketer, and businessman. A far more fearless appropriator of other people's ideas was Alexander Graham Bell. When caught,(frequently) he cheerfully paid to keep the other guy quiet ... and kept the credit! BTW, he was an absolute genius, and a pretty good scientist.

[ctdonath2]

Unfortunately, most of these principles are just a gross misunderstanding of reality coupled with fantasy.

On two occasions I have been asked, 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question.
- Charles Babbage

[who_would_fardels_bear]

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
haired man.

Apologies to William Carlos Williams.

[-YYZ-]

My point would be that despite various "authorities" saying so at the time, they could not point to any theoretical reaons why those things were impossible, just practical ones. Neither flying nor long-distance radio required breaking any known laws of physics - heavier than air flight was obviously possible, as can be seen simply by observing birds, and Maxwell's equations had provided an explanation of electromagnetic phenomena.

All perpetual motion machines (and that IS what we're talking about here) inevitably involve breaking at least one of the laws of physics or chemistry, and also the laws of thermodynamics. Am I saying those laws are immutable and written in stone? No, someday they may have to be altered to account for new information. For example, classical thermodynamics and chemistry could not explain how the sun works. And, some day, we may discover something like "zero point" energy or something else that violates the known laws of physics. Heck, it's even possible someone will or has stumbled across it by accident, but I'm highly doubtful that anyone has run into it by chance with some gimcrack collection of gears, tubes, pipes, and so on.

[Redleg Duke]

True, but I hope those gimcrack engineers keep on trying.

[windcliff]

ping

[mjp]

I have tamed gravity. I can switch it on and off!"

So gravitons do exist then.