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People who think that conspiracy theories are cool definitely should read Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. Twice. It's not the conspiracies that are dangerous.

And on that subject, do have a look at his latest, The Prague Cemetery. Very scary stuff.

(Speaking of FP, if your trip takes you anywhere near Paris, make sure to visit the Musée des Arts et Métiers! You can see the working Pendulum in the church next door; plus, the museum itself is Nerd Heaven, and the nearby Métro station is a brilliant bit of steampunk décor.)

Actually, you can see a pendulum in the church of the museum, with demonstration of it. The site of the museum is great, sadly it is only in french.

It was even done before that. Nicolas-Joseph Cugnot completed the first self-propelled car using a steam engine in 1771. This page http://www.arts-et-metiers.net/nofm/nofm.php?lang= fra&domnum=7&epok=2&obj=2 is in French, but it has a picture of (I think) the original vehicle.

It's interesting that the idea didn't catch on until much later, when Benz and others got the idea working with gasoline combustion. Cugnot's vehicle was really just a very early proof of concept.

Another interesting note is that Stanley Steamers were much faster than the road-going gasoline cars of the same era.

Actually, in France (been living there for a while, talked to more of them than you could throw a frog at), if you ask anyone who the 'father' of the plane would be, most of them don't know much at all of Santos-Dumont. However, that Clement Ader invented the plane is questioned by none (and it is hard to question when the plane in question is still in the CNAM museum for all to see...). This thing actually flew in 1890, a whole decade and a half before other widely recorded successes such as Santos-Dumont's, and first proved the possibility for heavier-than-air flight.

Which, of course, doesn't diminish in any way the extraordinary feat that the Wright brothers pulled, please don't take me wrong: no matter whose shoulders they were or weren't standing on, they're the ones who saw farther, and there is no questioning it their place in history for it. They didn't give up where others did.

It's just that Santos-Dumont was never a contender for the title of first man to fly, and not even the French claim so (although I can see people pretending that they do, for the sole sake of pointing out that the Wright brothers came before Santos-Dumont, and thus "Go us we invented the plane!", I suppose... but thankfully the average enlightened geek here on /. seems more interested in the engineering history than national dick contests, which is good).

If you're ever in Paris you may want to go see this thing in the CNAM museum. It's hanging from the ceiling over a large stairway. Extremely impressive sight.

1890.

For some reason it was decided that only the Wright brothers' attempt really counted and was worth teaching in schools, however. Go us, we invented the plane, etc.

Not that this one wasn't overly dependant on weather conditions either, of course (the plane exposed in this museum crashed in 1897 after a flight in bad weather conditions).

Eole was destroyed, but its immediate successor is displayed in full view in the CNAM museum in Paris. A heck of an impressive sight, I can tell you. :)

The blurb seems to say Eole was built between 1882 and 1889 and first flew in 1890, so if true that puts it slightly ahead of the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk Flyer, but it's not like it matters much, for what we care. :)

Eole was destroyed, but its immediate successor is displayed in full view in the CNAM museum in Paris. A heck of an impressive sight, I can tell you. :)

The blurb seems to say Eole was built between 1882 and 1889 and first flew in 1890, so if true that puts it slightly ahead of the Wright brothers' Kitty Hawk Flyer, but it's not like it matters much, for what we care. :)