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The Heretofore Unpublished Letters of Ernest Glitch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.
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
If Jules Verne or H.G. Wells had written comedy we probably would have gotten something like this
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
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
Sierra has known about this for some time now.
That's not a soda... it's a caffeine delivery device!
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
Yeah, and Hugo Gernsback invented TV, Radar, yadda yadda in 1911.
... when I see it. I am an American!
It might be devoid of meaning, but it's full of funny! Some people just don't recognize humor, I suppose. Did you even read the articles?
... of "HOAX". This is the homepage:
http://www.lateralscience.co.uk/
Back to your lives citizens.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.
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?"
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.
is how he slips in a advertisement for the book he sells on his main page within the articles...
:-)
Man... this is bad science at its absolute worst. (I hope enough people notice the "it's funny... laugh" and don't think it's the "science" section one.) Considering that the only site google has that refers to this particular Glitch <laugh> is this site. Science ain't changing anytime soon.
Oh, but if you do think this is for real, I have a beautiful bridge I am selling...
~ kjrose
"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"
Kroto wasn't the first to see crystals of C60, Huffman was. Kroto only saw C60 as a peak in a mass spectrometer.
Notice how he never mentioned that everyone will have a flying car by the year 2000? Puts the 50's science writers to shame..
Trolling is a art,
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...
"Weapons should be hardy rather than decorative" - Miyamoto Musashi
I think that goes for OS's too
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.
nicely done.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.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
He writes:
Indian hemp? Become a scientist NOW! :-)
42. Easy. What is 32 + 8 + 2?
I have to agree. It's almost as absurd as this guy I heard about -- a son of Bach who remained unknown for over 150 years? Laughable!
Daniel
Hurry up and jump on the individualist bandwagon!
What I don't understand is why anyone would complain about this if it were real news.
I mean, this would be an earth-shattering change to the history of science -- the biggest ever! But you say "ho hum, who cares, why are boring stories getting posted"????!!!
That's much sadder than merely missing that it's humor.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
Slashdot.org: Al Gore accused as[*] patent infringement
[*] sic
42. Easy. What is 32 + 8 + 2?
It is in memorium of him that we have the phrase "a glitch in the system". ;-)
-psy
Ernest Glitch ??? how about Genuine Hoax....
Medievil electricty ummm...yeah right...
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
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
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.
I was telling someone about that book today - I read it about ten years ago - but couldn't remember the title. A fortunate coincidence.
"some 150 years" should be read as "approximately 150 years", not "exactly 150 years".
I've gotten so tired of the Rush Limbaugh drones and their guffaws whenever this distortion is repeated. The Internet, and the technology sector in general, would be in a lot better shape today if we had Al Gore in office rather than the guy that was appointed President.
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!
I missed the 'funny' icon but I couldn't help laughing as soon as I read the exploits of poor Hodges. Whomever wrote this should turn it into a weekly cartoon. Some of us that have been zapped, blown up, suffered chemical burns, etc in our path of discovery can't help but feel for this guy. :)
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
...made in the 1970's and re-runs played on PBS stations here in the states afterwards. Leonard Rossiter could've played the perfect Glitch.
There they go again. Trying to take credit for someone else's work.
...it was *Mrs. Glitch* who should really get the credit.
Supposing that you're correct, what then would be the point of putting in "some" if it's supposed to be completely ignored?
I forgot to mention that what they believe is a mechanical calculator was an ancient greek artifact. That was really the whole point. Jesus, I don't even have the "coffee" excuse.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
I'm not sure which is more indicative of Slashdot's editorial decline -- this story, or the rash of duplicates.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
That works for "howsomeever", but m-w.com doesn't think that's a word.
It doesn't seem to work for awe-, grue-, hand-, whole-, worri-, etc.
"...some X years" -- seems like an adjective there. Dictionary.com says "some: adj. 1. Being an unspecified number or quantity". Works for me.
Professional Wild-Eyed Visionary
These letters are a classic. Probably should be ran thru Victoriantalk though. The parent site has some of the coolest stuff I've seen in a while. I hope somebody mirrors it before the ARM shuts it down.
Here is a modern description. You can put one together for a few dollars. It delivers nanosecond pulses of UV laser light that you can use to excite dye lasers and do other neat stuff with.
make wonderful earrings...
Cake or Death? Cake Please!
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.
Delightfully done! Toodle pip! Cheerio!
:P
All I can keep thinking is: Poor Hodges. I can imagine who he must have been cursing...
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
How is the parent a "troll"? How can providing providing factual information regarding an interview be considered trolling?
"Troll" does not mean something that you don't want to hear.
If you honestly thought "Ernest Glitch" was a real Victorian scientist you need to have your brain replaced.
Clear, Dark Skies