0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
Another interesting case, when solar cell (or photo-voltaic) was first discovered during the 1800s, majority of the scientific community dismissed it due to no one knew how it worked and because the discovery goes against what they knew the science of that time. But of course there will always have minority supporting the discovery, and continue with experiment & demonstration. Although this time, majority of the science community dismissed it with the lack of being a potential energy source.It was only after the rise of the material silicon, then came to what we know today of the solar energy. I'm curious what were the arguments and debates (or the theory and thesis) whose 1800s scientists used for dismissing the solar discovery.
"The Wright brothers did not work in isolation. Aerodynamics was already a subject of study. This prior work was the basis of some of their work..."Yes, indeed, this is so! The Wrights did not work in isolation - far from it. The Wright brothers utilized information and the rarely lauded successes of their predecessors and contemporaries to develop their version of a flying machine. Then they proceeded to attempt control of world aviation. Popular, carefully constructed legends about the Wrights' work fall short when inspecting long-buried primary source materials from their era. Scholars should learn the truth by inspecting these previously unavailable documents. I have written a book on this subject, Gustave Whitehead: First in Flight (2015).