The_navigator© wrote in message ...
How about this;

Boston 1873:

A man about forty-six years of age, giving the name of Joshua
Coppersmith, has been arrested in New York for attempting to extort
funds from ignorant and superstitious people by exhibiting a device
which he says will convey the human voice over metallic wires, so that
it will be heard by the listener at the other end. He calls the
instrument a "telephone", which is obviously intended to imitate the
word "telegraph", and win the confidence of those who know of the
success of the latter instrument without understanding the principles on
which it is based. Well-informed people know that it is impossible to
transmit the human voice over wires as may be done with dots and dashes
and signals of the Morse Code, and that were it possible to do so, the
thing would be of no practical value. The authorities who apprehended
this criminal are to be congratulated, and it is to be hoped that it may
serve as an example to other conscienceless schemers who enrich
themselves at the expense of their fellow creatures.

Cheers MC

Bobsprit wrote:

Congrats, MC!!!

You just won the Nobel prize for DULLEST POST EVER ON THE INTERNET.

RB

As far as I know, the brits did invent the cavity magnetron. Many ppl
think that the atom bomb was the most significant hi-tech invention
during ww2 but it was really the cavity magnetron which really made
radar (and micro-wave ovens) practical.

HOWEVER, I will sorta put up two quotes from the eminent brit
physicist Lord Kelvin of the 1890's.

"These so-called X-rays will be shown to be a fraud"
this is my fav since I make x-ray optics.

Kelvin also reccomended that young men not enter physics as "all
important physics has been done except for a few minor problems in
electromagnetic theory" (or something like that). It was those few
problems in E&M theory that led to relativity theory (Equations for
E&M waves were not invariant under Galilean transformation. Einstein
used the Lorentz transform that had been suggested to explain the
Michelson Morley experiment to make them invariant).

In both cases, the Brit (Kelvin) was trumped by Germans. Kelvin was
still one of the greats, in spite of being wrong.

Now, how does this apply to sailing?