The Heretofore Unpublished Letters of Ernest Glitch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."

Re:Boondoggle or Foofoorah?

Okay, so you and some others missed the humor; the site is, after all, beautifully done, and convincing in tone and style (.e.g there are lots of well-documented stories about early chemists badly mistreating and maiming assistants exactly as Hodges was -- and worse).

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.

Can you say....

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.

Re:Can you say....

And the guy who invented to toilet was John Crapper. Doesn't make that fact any less true.

No he didn't. It ISN'T a fact. Although Thomas Crapper took out nine plumbing patents between 1881 and 1896, none of these patents was for the "valveless water-waste preventer" he is often credited with having invented.... Alexander Cummings is generally credited with inventing the first flush mechanism in 1775 (more than 50 years before Crapper was born). [snopes.com]

Re:Can you say....

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.

Re:Can you say....

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.

Now, *there's* a hoax - not by Gore...

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.

Re:Now, *there's* a hoax - not by Gore...

Yeah.

I spoke to David Farber a little after that whole thing got started. Dave Farber was involved in the invention of ethernet, and a number of other key technologies. He's been a well connected, well known geek for a very, very long time. I asked him what he thought of Gore's claim that he invented the internet, expecting to get a chuckle out of him, because he knew many of the people that might have actually been able to make that kind of claim.

Instead, he got kindof serious, and said, "Well, no, he didn't create the internet, and I think he's been quoted out of context, but he was absolutely responsible for creating the legislative environment that allowed that type of research to be done, and lead to the creation of the internet."

I felt like an idiot.

If only...

If Jules Verne or H.G. Wells had written comedy we probably would have gotten something like this

Gotta be a hoax

Just too funny though - very well done.

Poor Hodges.

Gimme a break

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

In other news...

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...

I know bullshit...

... when I see it. I am an American!

Remember this from Rozencrantz and Gildenstern?

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.

Kroto and C60

Kroto wasn't the first to see crystals of C60, Huffman [arizona.edu] was. Kroto only saw C60 as a peak in a mass spectrometer.

he also invented..

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.

This is a gem

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

The Secret Journals of Phineas J. Magnetron

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

the secret journals of Phineas J. Magnetron [earthlink.net]

• 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.

Glitch growing grass

He writes: [lateralscience.co.uk]

Later that day, Hodges arrived in my lab with Maud the maid. Both were in a dreadful funk. Hodges exclaiming that a volcano was erupting in the south pasture, Maud maintaining that the devil himself had arrived. My first thought was that the pair of them had been at my Indian hemp plantation again, however this would not have accounted for Maud`s clothing, which appeared to have large monoclinic sulphur crystals attached to the posterior regions.

Indian hemp? Become a scientist NOW! :-)

A little known fact

It is in memorium of him that we have the phrase "a glitch in the system". ;-)

-psy

Meep!

Remarkable! I see clear parallels between this pioneering Victorian scientist and the much later experiments chronicled in the televised documentaries of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew [muppets.com] and his faithful assistant Beaker [muppets.com].

This poor Hodges guy though...

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!

Hoax and funny too.

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.

Re:Meaningless

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?