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Father of the Frisbee Dies At 90
theodp writes "Walter Fredrick Morrison, whose post-World War II invention of a 'flying' plastic disc became the American recreational icon known as the Frisbee, has died at age 90 of age-related causes (great obit pic). Wham-O Inc. has sold more than 200 million Frisbees since Morrison sold the company the rights to what he called the Pluto Platter in 1957. The roots of today's aerodynamic Frisbees go back to 1937, when Morrison and his future wife tossed a large popcorn can lid back and forth for fun during a Thanksgiving party."
Yeah but ten years ago we were younger and not as sentimental.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Aerobies are waaay more fun. To take mine away, you'll have to pry it from my cold, dead, ...oh wait.
http://www.aerobie.com/Products/Sprint.htm
"The farthest object thrown by man"
That's sad.
I have a Wham-O Pluto Platter I found in the attic of my Grandpa's house - it's not the original Bakelite Morrison Pluto Platter, but the plastic version, looks very similar. Mine says "WHAM-O" on the top, but the word "Frisbee" is not on it, from what I can tell mine was made in 1957.
I seem to recall watching a documentary that showed the frisbee being invented some time back in 1885 or 1886.
The Frisbie was originally the pie plate used by the Frisbie Pie Company to bake and sell its pies in. Yale students were throwing them around in games since the late 1800's, well before Fred Morrison came up with his "Pluto Platter". Wham-O decided to re-name the Pluto Platter to the Frisbie because that's what it was already widely called, then they had to re-name it again to "Frisbee" in order to avoid trademark infringement.
Sapere aude!
Uh, actually, no airfoil, either fixed or rotary, generates lift. For example, the wing of an airplane sitting on the ground generates no lift unless air is flowing over it. A frisbee sitting on the ground is just the same. Only when the person flying it imparts a force to it does it "fly". Another way of looking at this is to hold a frisbee at shoulder height in a horizontal position and then drop it. It will float in a semi-stable position down to the ground, because it has a large cross-sectional area WRT its mass. Do the same thing, but give it a bit of spin, and it will float down very smoothly. It's behavior is no different from a parachute, with the exceptions that parachutes aren't designed to spin, and you don't strap it on!