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The Heretofore Unpublished Letters of Ernest Glitch
Roger Curry writes "Letters to Michael Faraday in 1856 from previously unknown victorian experimentalist Ernest Glitch have recently been discovered. The history of science may need to be revised. His letters, and accounts of his work, would appear to indicate the observation of laser action in air, a Victorian Nitrogen Laser, more than a century before Maiman first demonstrated his ruby laser. Also, in a letter dated 8th July 1856 he notes the crystallisation of the fullerene C60 some 150 years before Kroto. Amazingly, there are also accounts of a Liquid-Fuel Rocket Engine detailing the use of hypergolic propellants and deLaval nozzles, a Victorian Tesla Coil, with reference to a possible medieval Coil, and Manned Flight achieved long before the Wright Bros., using Multiple Valve-less Pulse Jets."
What about the Internet? Al Gore still invented that, didn't he? I hope so.
For someone writing letters in the 19th century, his signature Looks disturbingly like typeface....
0110100100100000011000010110110100100000011000100
Just too funny though - very well done.
Poor Hodges.
Ok, now we know who to blame when there is a serious glitch.
"I have opinions of my own, strong opinions, but I don't always agree with them." -- George H. W. Bush
This isn't even a good hoax. The letters sound like they were writen by the same guy who wrote the dialog for Resident Evil 1.
Barry, you saved me!
NAAAAAGGHHH
It turns out that Aristotle pioneered the use of hyperthreading in x86 microprocessors way back in ancient Greece. Only problem was he couldn't get any decent uptime, what with the lack of electricity and all...
"In a 32-bit world, you're a 2-bit user. You've got your own newsgroup, alt.total.loser." -Weird Al
Glitch to Hodges: "You knew this job was dangerous when you took it, Fred".
-jhon
... when I see it. I am an American!
Clearly a hoax, but very funny:
"As an interesting sidenote, Hodges has sustained peculiar fern like scarring and ramifications on his skin where he touched the prime discharge brass. I have endeavored to draw these for you Faraday, please forgive the penmanship. Hodges` hand was still smoking when I started the sketch, I hurried somewhat, as he was pleading to go to the horse doctor."
"The position of the gap is critical to these phenomena, and afforded me much experimentation, apparently to the detriment of Hodges. Just as I was observing a continuous luminous glow appearing between the top conductors, upon each discharge, Hodges couldn`t go on. His arm had seized and his whole frame was shaking as though palsied. At first I thought he had received another shock, but he maintained fatigue and virtually demanded a rest!
Sensing a shirker as well as you can Faraday, I took over turning the machine and with some merriment demanded he take observations of the expanded spark. The dolt actually had the audacity to assume a proprietorial stance next to the plates, Faraday! When the prime started sparking over, Hodges emitted a scream the like of which I hadn`t heard since his scrotum was burned off during my experiment with fluorine gas last year. Hodges staggered back from the plates, covering his right eye and uttering blasphemities which would have themselves led to his dismissal, even had he not been blinded. But what had happened Faraday?"
"It's Funny, Laugh" icon. But when I got to the part about poor ole Hodges "emitted a scream the like of which I hadn`t heard since his scrotum was burned off during my experiment with fluorine gas last year", a suspected that this page was out about truth but about entertainment. And it is!
I still don't see that icon at http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/VicN2/vicN2.html. Where is it?
The do a sthick like this in "Rozencrantz and Gildenstern are Dead", a fantastic movie with Gary Oldman based on the Top Stoppard favorite.
One of them keeps discovering advanced concepts of physics (the movie is set in the time of Hamlet) playing with potted plants and bowling balls and feathers, but is never able to fully expand on them as he is repeatedly distracted by plot advancement.
Its pretty funny, and this kinda reminded me of that.
"Old man yells at systemd"
the ernestglitch machine which was rediscovered by one Mr. Turing.
Poor Glitch also forgot to patent a device in later incarnation called paladin or palladium something.
On the home page:
Experimenting with Weapons-Grade Fissile Material in the Home.
A Method of Electro-Plating Lizards
Atomic Hydrogen Blowtorch.
Any they just keep geting better
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/
Can't wait for the Victorian Cyclotron
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
It is in memorium of him that we have the phrase "a glitch in the system". ;-)
-psy
Poor Hodges is now famous as the first person to receive laser eye surgery.
The abuse that the poor guy received was astounding. Dig this:
Hodges emitted a scream the like of which I hadn`t heard since his scrotum was burned off during my experiment with fluorine gas last year.
Table-ized A.I.
Remarkable! I see clear parallels between this pioneering Victorian scientist and the much later experiments chronicled in the televised documentaries of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew and his faithful assistant Beaker.
From this page on his website-
My own experience with fluorine has been solely with its compounds. In particular, natural calcium fluoride crystals (fluorite or fluorspar). Also hydrofluoric acid, during a highly ill-advised "experiment" conducted in the clean room of a semiconductor manufacturer unwise enough to employ me.... The glass and quartz-ware used in diffusion furnaces must be kept scrupulously clean to avoid contamination of the silicon wafers being processed. Consequently it is periodically bathed in a mixture of hydrofluoric and nitric acids. Full protection clothing was donned over normal clean room eyes-only-exposed garb, and a large silicon wafer (complete with defective 4Mb DRAMs) was "carefully" thrown into the acid bath. Nothing happened for about twenty seconds, as the HF attacked the silicon, heating up the wafer until a runaway reaction started. The acid bath then erupted into a frightening boiling maelstrom, with the violent evolution of copious amounts of red and brown fumes of nitrogen oxides. The complete destruction of high technology by the tiger of chemistry.
Splendid.
Now we know why they're shunning away geeks
- mritunjai
I think it would really be cool if Hodges had a crystal eye due to eyeball loss in a prior experiment. Then during a later electricution phase, his crystal eye shoots a laser beam strait out. The first borg!
Table-ized A.I.
Sir Ernest is actually a distant uncle of mine. Instead of the usual transcriptions and whatnot, he convinced Queen Victoria to record his knighting solely using his Numerical Optico-Magnetron. This 3 tonne mechanism transferred images onto a decorative ribbon coated in ferrous suspension.
Because Sir Ernest died soon thereafter (while tearing the warning label from a new mattress), he was unable to invent a playback device for the ribbon, and he and his accomplishments languished in the gloom of commoner history.
Luckily, I stumbled upon the ribbon last year up in the attic (quite literally!) and, to my great surprise, found myself driven to spool same into a MiniDV cassette. The resulting images of a Victorian knighting left me at once startled, and somewhat disappointed: Queen Victoria was indeed much homlier than even her most daring caricaturists had suggested.
Nonetheless, this find at least allowed Sir Ernest to be elevated to the ranks of the historically recognized.
Machines take me by surprise with great frequency. -A. Turing
So, what they're saying is that the toilet was more a collabortaive effort, but for some reason Mr. Crapper has floated to the top.
I never would have wanted to be THIS guy's assistant! First he makes him sick from inhaling quicksilver (Mercury) vapor (very poisonous), then he fries (electrocutes) his hand so bad that he can't use his arm for a month, then the poor guy loses his sight in one eye thanks to the discovery of the laser. How does this guy reward his assistant for giving (literally) so much of himself? He CANS him! And we thought that our employers were assholes! Jeesh!
...it was *Mrs. Glitch* who should really get the credit.