The meeting of two of
the most inventive minds in the world at the beginning of last century showed
great promise, however proved to be somewhat inconclusive.
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| Emmanuel Aime - Santos=Dumont - Chapin |
I believe the main
point of divergence between these two geniuses was that Santos=Dumont made
his inventions in order to create global integration, with a certain "Wiki"
approach , inspiring the next inventors to use their ideas free of patent
(mankind took almost 100 years to understand the concept of unpatented
inventions and open source software as a source of prosperity).
In other hand, Thomas
Edison had great commercial interest in their inventions and not devoted his
time to anything that could not be patented and have some financial result.
Hope you enjoy this American
article. - May 1902
(Copyright 1902 by
Herbert Wallace)
THOMAS A. EDISON
believes that mankind ought to be ashamed of itself because the problem of
aerial navigation by human beings was not solved years ago. He also makes the
rather remarkable statement that, while Santos-Dumont has done a great thing in
steering airships about through the air, it will be a long time before any
contrivance for air navigation is commercially possible, because no inventor
will be able to secure any reward for his labor in this line of work under the
present patent laws. To make this great possibility practical, it seems that we
shall have to establish a sort of protective academy of invention, which shall
reward the successful inventor of the commercial airship.
“I was down in Florida
recently and one day I watched a big bird – I think it was a vulture – that
floated about in the air a whole hour without moving its wings perceptibly.
When God made that bird He gave it a machine to fly with, but He didn’t give it
much else. He gave the bird a very small brain with which to direct the
movements of the machine, but He gave to a man a much larger brain in
proportion to that of the bird.”
Mr. Edison is not the
first to make such a comparison, but when he talked this way the other day to
Santos-Dumont, the Brazilian aeronaut, there was a world of meaning in the
words. The wizard of the laboratory was much interested in the young man who
had wondered Paris and the world by steering an airship over the city, not once
but several times.
“You are the only man
who has done such a thing.”
Exclaimed Mr. Edson.
“I am sure you have
never worked on the problem of aerial navigation,” replied Santos-Dumont, “or
you would have accomplished years ago more than I have done now”. The aeronaut
was not trying to be complimentary; he has this biggest admiration for Mr.
Edison and his inventive genius.
“I don’t know about
that,” said Edison. “I did take it up once several years ago and built a
specially light motor to be operated by exploding gunpowder, I experienced a
lot in lifting weights with it, but I worked with a small model and did not
attempt to fly. I gave it all up because I had a number of other things to do
which were far more profitable.”
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Santos-Dumont Finds a
Supporter in Edison.
New York Journal –
April 14th, 1902
“I took so much
interest in Dumont’s flying machine scheme that I suggested to him an aerial
club in this country. There are plenty of men to be interested in such an
enterprise, and I will probably join myself
Famous aerial
navigator greatly pleased with his reception at Orange house NJ – He will go to
Washington tomorrow.”
“His miniature model
still in customhouse.”
“Proposed exhibition
of little flying machine, which was to have been given today, is therefore
postponed.”
The article emphasizes
the importance of meeting of the two great men (yesterday) when “the Wizard”
acquainted with the “King of the Air”.
Santos-Dumont spent
the whole of the afternoon with Thomas Edison at the latter’s home in Orange,
N. J. and was greatly impressed with the great investor’s workshops.
At the end, Emma
Kaufman article “Santos-Dumont as a woman sees him”
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_______________________________________________________________________________
“I’ll tell you,” he
went on earnestly, “If the patent office only protected the inventor
sufficiently the problem of aerial navigation would have been solved thirty
years ago.”
Must Discard the Balloon.
Santos-Dumont looked
at Edison with some surprise and turned to M. Aime, his companion, to remark
that had the laws been right the thing would have been done before he was
borne, Mr. Edison saw the discomfiture of his guest and remarked:
“But you are all
right. You are on the right track. You have made an airship and you have steered
it and you have made a step toward the final solution of the problem. Keep at
it. But get rid of your balloon. Make it smaller all the time.”
“Have you noticed, Mr.
Edison,” inquired the aeronaut, “that I am making the balloon smaller every
time I build a new airship?”.
“Yes, and that’s
right,” replied Edison, “but make it smaller Yet. You are doing well, but it
will take a long time to make the thing commercially possible. When you get
your balloon part smaller and yet smaller until it is so small that you cannot
see it with a microscope then you solved the problem.”
Here, in a nutshell,
Is Mr. Edison’s solution of the problem of aerial navigation. He believes
firmly it can be solved. But he believes just as firmly that the solution must
be reached by means of the flying machine and not by the airship. Only with the
machine, he says, can air navigation ever be made either safe or commercially
profitable. This will be clear to the reader when it is explained the term
“airship” applies to a contrivance that, being lighter than the air, floats in
it as a ship floats on the water. The term “flying machine,” on the other hand,
refers as he uses it, to a contrivance heavier than the air it is intended to
navigate. At rest such an apparatus would not float at all, the high speed at
which it moves. In Edison’s mind, then, aerial navigation is simply a question
of sufficient motive power, properly applied, to overcome the lack of buoyancy
necessary to make the machine rise and to keep it in sufficient motion to hold
it in position a certain number of feet above the earth. He constantly refers
to the figure of the bird which anyone may see rise and fly at will.
“Take the case of the
vulture,” he said “here is a natural flying machine which is a thousand times as
heavy as the air it displaces. In a few seconds of leisure flight it can sweep
over a distance which man finds encumbered with all sorts of obstacles and
there is scarcely a flutter of its wings in the operation. There is nothing
there but a machine and a small brain and it is not a very remarkable machine
either. Why is it that a man cannot make a flying machine as efficient as the
bird? A lot of people say that it was never meant that a man should fly; that
if nature had intended such a thing, man would have been provided with the
necessary machinery in his body, such as is now possessed by the bird. But you
might just as well say that it was never intended that man should have any
light aside from the sun and the moon and stars which were originally provided
for him, or that he should not move about faster with the aid of wheels because
no wheels were supplied to him by nature.
No Electric Flying Machine
Someone asked Mr.
Edison whether his new storage battery would be of service in solving the problem
of aerial navigation.
“Oh, no, of course
not,” he replied, “It would be too heavy. We must get the lightest possible
motive power. Thus the greatest factor of this problem is to get a very light
motor, which will be powerful enough to operate the flying machine properly.
The best thing now in sight for this purpose is a gasoline or gunpowder motor,
something that will get up power quickly and which, at the same time, weights
little. Santos-Dumont is on the right track in this regard, but of his gasbag. You
cannot control a balloon in a gale of wind. In order to make a commercial
possibility of the airship it will be necessary to make its operation
absolutely sure and its use safe. The flying machine is bound to come, but it
will take some time at the rate we are progressing now.”
It was suggested to
Mr. Edison that perhaps he might take up the problem again himself and assist
in the final solution.
“No, I will not go
into anything which cannot be protected from the pirates who live off the work
of inventions, and I do not believe it would be possible to secure a patent on
other a flying machine or an airship or any part of one that would stand the
test of the courts. If someone should make a commercially successful flying
machine dozens would at once copy the models and take away the fruits of the
original inventor’s labor. There isn’t a judge in the country who would hold
that there was really any invention in such an apparatus, because so much has
been done and written about it that the only difference between the successful
machine, which have been, will be very alight. I doubt whether any new
principle will be discovered on which even a claim for a patent may be made.
“The man or men who
really solve the problem of flying through the air will find out nothing new.
Powerful motors of wonderful compactness will be applied to a framework of
extreme lightness and that will be all there will be to it. Doubtless this
framework will be something similar to physical structure of a bird. I do not
believe it will be difficult, because we have many mechanical devices now,
which are superior to the devices used by nature in human beings and animals,
and I do not see why we may not put together a contrivance which will be at
least equal to the machine and brain of the bird.”
Prof. Langley’s Efforts
Professor S. P.
Langley of the Smithsonian Institute, Washington, was on of the first men in
this country to experiment with flying machines – machines Heavier than the air
– unless we admit the Immortal Darius Green ("Darius Green and His Flying
Machine" is a famous story poem written in 1869 by John Townsend
Trowbridge) and his far-farmed flying machine into our chronology of scientific
experiments. Professor Langley had a theory to prove and proved it. He did not
accompany his aerodrome in its flights, but he demonstrated beyond a shadow of
doubt that mechanical flight is possible. Sir Hiram Maxim showed this also with
his aeroplane. As a man of science, who had much work to do, Langley proved all
he wanted to. It is time now for others to make the flying machine commercially
available. It took Prof. Langley several years to develop his main idea as to
flying, but during those years he reached many interesting conclusions which
will doubtless be taken into account by the inventors who attempt to follow him
and carry on the idea of Edison as to navigate the air.
In his preliminary
experiments, Prof. Langley a bowed that, disregarding the friction, which is
slight, a 200-pound plate could be moved through the air at a rate of fifty
miles an hour with the expenditure of one horse power energy. That is a ton of
weight could be drown horizontally through space and upon the air with an
engine of only ten-horse power. In his airship No. 7, Santos-Dumont will have
engines of ninety aggregated horse power sufficient to move a flat plate
weighting nine tons through the air at the rate of fifty miles an hour. As a
mater of fact, the Santos-Dumont No. 7 will weight when collapsed less than a
ton and when the gas bag is filled with hydrogen the whole machine will have a
lifting power of 2.500 pounds. With this equipment the young man hopes to speed
through the air at the rate of forty-five miles an hour.
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| Thomas Edison card to Santos=Dumont |
It must be clearly
understood, however that Santos-Dumont type of airship cannot be operated in a
stiff breeze or in changeable winds; indeed, the aeronaut does not make any
claim that he can navigate the air in all kinds of weather. Given fair weather
Santos-Dumont will not beallain to launch his craft and fly away over cities
and seas; the sensation of fear seems to be entirely absent from his make-up.
“I always have a good
deal to do when I am in my ship,” he explains, “and I do not have time to think
about being afraid. I don’t know what it is to be afraid of falling.”
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| Langley Experiments |
Interesting Experiments
It seems an almost
universal belief that the air itself offers tremendous resistance to the
passage of any body through it. As a matter of fact, it doesn’t. the bird in
its flight has been both a constant wonder to man and as unending promoter of
hope that some day he may equal its aerial movements, but if the air resisted
flight, according to the computations.
(Continued on Seventh
Page.)
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