The Heretofore Unpublished Letters of Ernest Glitch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."

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The Secret Journals of Phineas J. Magnetron

[Alien54]

In the line of something in the flavor of Jules Verne, people should also check out:

the secret journals of Phineas J. Magnetron

• I received these unusual documents from my uncle who -- perhaps inadvertently -- willed them to me along with an attic full of junk and dusty memorabilia. There were twenty-four books in all, every one of them labeled with a year on the spine and front cover. What captured my attention -- besides the mysterious code -- was that the years began with 1877.

  Magnetron's books appeared to be a journal of some kind, as each entry was preceded by a date written in a bold block lettering. Below each date were as many as 4,408 small numbers and letters, packed 64 characters per square inch with no spaces or identifiable punctuation. The only characters used were the numerals 0 through 9 and the letters A through F, leading the cryptographers to deduce that the code utilized a hexadecimal, or base 16 numbering system.

nicely done.