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The Heretofore Unpublished Letters of Ernest Glitch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."
hoax? Get it, get it, the "It's Funny, Laugh" icon should be a hint. The guy's name is "Glitch" for crying out loud.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
... of "HOAX". This is the homepage:
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/
Back to your lives citizens.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
nothing exceptional about that, hot air balloons have been around since the early 1800's.
They were even used in the civil war.
The Wright brothers invented heavier than air/powered flight.
Kroto wasn't the first to see crystals of C60, Huffman was. Kroto only saw C60 as a peak in a mass spectrometer.
This reminded me at once of "The Difference Engine" by Sterling and Gibson.
Synopsis: A collaborative novel from the premier cyberpunk authors, William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. Part detective story, part historical thriller, The Difference Engine takes us not forward but back, to an imagined 1885: the Industrial Revolution is in full and inexorable swing, powered by steam-driven, cybernetic engines. Charles Babbage perfects his Analytical Engine, and the computer age arrives a century ahead of its time.
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Yes, loved it. Steam engines, Newton's laws ... all so close.
Minor nitpick -- the movie isn't merely set in the time of Hamlet, it's set in the play Hamlet; Rozencrantz and Gildenstern are minor characters in that play, but this movie focuses on them (with a lot of action beyond what Shakespeare wrote) rather than on the Prince of Denmark. Which is also amusing.
-- Alastair
Ahhhh Top Stoppard... I sure do love good old Top... Actually though he's really cool. R&G Are Dead is a good movie (and who coudln't love Gary Oldman!) and a good book, too. He also I believe had a hand in my favorite movie of all time, the Terry Gilliam film "Brazil". Hmmmm.... heads again.
This is one of the great hoaxes put on the American people, and it's gained a life of its own. Gore correctly took credit - in a casual comment in an interview - for taking the initiative in Congress in creating what we consider to be the Internet (increasing funding and taking it from a military to a commercial and academic network). Some weeks later, Republicans started using the false "invented" claim.
as he was pleading to go to the horse doctor.
The site is an excellent joke. The author obviously knows quite a bit about science today as well as in the 19th century.
But the reference to a "horse doctor" is a slip-up. In the mid 19th century, the word "doctor" when applied to a medical man could only mean a highly educated physician.
A person who treats animals would not be called a doctor. (Surgeons were not considered doctors either.)
Yes, it's almost as bad as the distortion that Bush was "appointed" President.
That is not a distortion. It is a fact. Florida's own laws regarding election recounts were broken in order to assure Bush's "victory." Kathleen Harris, Florida's then Secretary of State, was G.W. Bush's Campaign Chairman in Florida. Jeb, as we all know, is the President's brother. Both of them should have recused themselves from the debacle. Instead, Harris ordered a stop to the recounts in order to assure victory for her candidate.
Jeb did stay out of the issue. Don't let the facts get in the way of your arguments, however; I find it so amusing!
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
No, just that time of isn't very specific. For one thing, like many of Shakespeare's plays, things are sometimes anachronistic -- clocks in Julius Caesar, for example. Hamlet is based on a 12th century Danish story, but the play (and movie) are more contemporaneous with Shakespeare's 16th.
Given that range, the movie The Emperor's New Groove set (loosely and anachronistically) in the pre-Columbian Incan empire could be said to be "in the time of Hamlet" -- but it wouldn't be in the play.
-- Alastair
Of course it's a hoax, the whole thing reads like a comedy of errors where the poor servant Hodges is subjected to various nasty injuries as a result of Glitch's experiments.