Technical Journalism and the Windmill
Read Time:1 Minute, 38 Second
The history of technology—of invention and industry has always been a strong interest of mine. I live with a collection of old scientific instruments and books and artifacts and I have cleared out more than one room in a quixotic quest to clarify or contradict some popular or journalistic assertion about the Wright Brothers, or Thom Edison or the more-myth-than-man, Nicola Tesla.
Few people really want to hear however, about Lee DeForest taking credit for Edwin Armstrong’s great achievements or how Swan’s light bulb was all but useless and hardly something Edison stole. I’m betting you don’t care and don’t want to hear about Fessenden being given journalistic credit for the Alexanderson alternator either, but that brings me to technical journalism.
It’s remarkable how far over the heads of certain writers flies basic science and history. I’m looking just now at what purports to be a list of the worst inventions of all time. All time is a long time and many of them aren’t really inventions, but the one that got me back on my old rhetorical horse lance in hand, was labelled “Hydrogen Blimps.”
The Hindenburg was the snarky subject of course and of course it wasn’t a blimp but a dirigible and the successor company, Zeppelin Luftschifftechnik GmbH is still making them. The choice of hydrogen over Helium as a lift gas was not made by the Zeppelin engineering staff but by the US government who wouldn’t sell that strategic element to Nazi Germany.
It wasn’t a “bad invention” or invention at all, and those aircraft had a sterling safety record before that crash as do the current models. The exact cause of the Hindenburg fire isn’t certain but may have been a structural failure that punctured a gas bag. Had the airship used helium it would simply have settled gently to the ground.
Isn’t it interesting how often condescending snark and ignorance hang out together?
Happy
0 %
Sad
0 %
Excited
0 %
Sleepy
0 %
Angry
0 %
Surprise
0 %
0
0
Great read, thanks!
[…] believes an inept science writer gives the Hindenburg dirigible (“Oh, the humanity!”) a bad rap. […]
At this point I see more false claims about people who really did invent things or at least made the first one that worked. There seems to be an iconoclastic lust to tear down certain people and build up others and it’s all based on gross misunderstanding of basic science that would be unforgivable in a child. The manufactured dispute between Tesla and Edison still after a century for instance. All these experts who get all their expertise from stale propaganda. Of course the history of electronics is a list of bad court decisions by judges and juries who knew nothing about the technology and it continues today. We are a nation of technical ignoramuses and we love it.
But as I said, I’m a bore on the subject so I will spare you.
Interesting Glenn. I have always found it “illuminating” to find tidbits of information about many of the early inventors who, today, are given and enormous amount of credit for inventions that actually were derived from someone else. I wonder if historians will ever get things right.
Here endeth the lesson…and I learnt a lot!!! More please!!!
Here! Here! Loved it…