Real Discoveries Dismissed as Hoaxes

[kmarinas86]

http://www.museumofhoaxes.com/hoax/weblog/comments/4037/<br /><br />Old peeps.<br /><br /><font color="yellow">Status: Not Hoaxes<br />A few days ago the Financial Times ran a brief list of major technological breakthroughs that were either ignored or ridiculed. This raises an interesting issue: the danger of over-skepticism, or dismissing startling new discoveries as hoaxes simply because one refuses to believe that anything new or out-of-the-ordinary can be real. I can't find a link to the FT story, but here's a summary of their list:<br /><br />The Wright Brothers' discovery of flight: "When two American bicycle repairmen claimed to have built the world's firstaircraft in 1903, they were dismissed as cranks. Newspapers refused to send reporters or photographers to witness any of the flights. More than two years later, Scientific American magazine was still insisting that the story was a hoax. By that time, the Wright brothers had completed a half-hour flight covering 24 miles."<br /><br />Steam Turbine Propulsion: "The claim of Irish engineer Charles Parsons to have developed a radically new form of marine propulsion was scorned by the Admiralty, until his steam turbine vessel made an unauthorised appearance at the 1897 Spithead naval review going at 37 knots - faster than any other vessel in the fleet."<br /><br />Atoms as a source of energy: "The idea that atoms could be a source of energy millions of times more potent than coal or oil was dismissed by the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Ernest Rutherford as "moonshine"."<br /><br />Amorphous semiconductor materials: "During the 1950s, self-taught American physicist Stanford Ovshinsky found a way of creating materials lacking a regular crystal structure - an achievement dismissed as impossible by scientists. They are now standard components in devices ranging from flat-panel displays to solar cells."<br /><br />Lasers: "While developing the techn</font>

 

[qso1]

They were ignored or ridiculed because we knew less as a general population then and there will always be critics.<br /><br />Flight for example:<br />Flight has progressed. Today, I do not have to spend my life waiting to see a 747 to know it exists and does what its claimed to be able to do. I do not have to look at dubious evidence to know 747s exist. I can go to an airport and see 747s all day long. The point here by comparison. In 1903 flight was about where UFO sightings could be said to have been in 1947. 2006, flight has progressed to something everyone interacts with. Do you know anyone today who does not believe we fly in aircraft thats not a crackpot? Flight has reached a point long ago where its no longer controversial in the general sense. UFO sightings as an example, have not progressed in a meaningful way. The sightings are fleeting, government coverups cannot be proven or have not been proven...same story in 2006 as it was in 1947 just different players and evidence techniques. Until this changes, there will be skeptics and critics.<br /><br />Kmarinas86:<br />Of course, all these real discoveries that were regarded as hoaxes provide an endless source of encouragement to all the crackpots who are convinced that their devices for extracting infinite energy from magnets, or using water as a fuel, are similarly misunderstood.<br /><br />Me:<br />Here you already made my other point but to add to it, not every discovery has the success the ones mentioned did.<br /><br />How bout atomic power too cheap to meter, said by someone in the 1960s promoting atomic power over coal.<br /><br />How bout regular comfortable supersonic passenger flights by 1976 as predicted in 1966 during the race to build an SST?<br /><br />Man on Mars in 1982 as planned in the 1969 report to the Nixon Administration on the subject of human spaceflight on and beyond the moon.<br /><br />Point being, there is just as large a list of things not accomplished as there are of things accomplished once poo <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><strong>My borrowed quote for the time being:</strong></p><p><em>There are three kinds of people in life. Those who make it happen, those who watch it happen...and those who do not know what happened.</em></p> </div>

 

[tomnackid]

Every example that you cite was met with initial skepticism but ultimately the inventors proved themselves. That just shows that the scientific method and skepticism work! Contrast that with unscientific ideas like Lysenkoism and eugenics that were promoted and supported by the powers that be for political reasons. These ideas--protected from skepticism and scientific accountability by the power elite--lead societies down dead end paths for decades. Even into genocide and war. <br /><br />You have just proven that skepticism is essential to modern society.<br /><br />

 

[vogon13]

How many religious pronouncements and relevations have been dismissed by the majority?<br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[vogon13]

Hmmmmmmm.<br /><br />I'm guessing all of them.<br /><br /><br /><br /> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p><font color="#ff0000"><strong>TPTB went to Dallas and all I got was Plucked !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#339966"><strong>So many people, so few recipes !!</strong></font></p><p><font color="#0000ff"><strong>Let's clean up this stinkhole !!</strong></font> </p> </div>

 

[spacelifejunkie]

I am going to include space elevators on this prestigious list of ridiculed ideas and accomplishments. The "giggle factor" is over and the engineering has begun. I'll keep my fingers crossed for April of 2018.<br /><br />SLJ

 

[spacefire]

what's in 2018? <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>http://asteroid-invasion.blogspot.com</p><p>http://www.solvengineer.com/asteroid-invasion.html </p><p> </p> </div>

 

[pizzaguy]

Click here. <br /><br /><i>NASA releases plans for a new spacecraft that would replace the space shuttle. The vehicle is part of a system that will be capable of putting astronauts on the moon by 2018, laying the groundwork for space travel to Mars. NASA says the new system is designed to be 10 times safer than the space shuttle.</i> <br /><br />That means we'll likely loose 1 ship in 500 missions instead of the current 1 in 50. <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <font size="1"><em>Note to Dr. Henry:  The testosterone shots are working!</em></font> </div>

 

[spacelifejunkie]

http://www.liftport.com/<br /><br />My personal belief is that it will take a little longer even if the ribbon and propulsion technologies are worked out within five years. It ALWAYS takes longer than initially proposed. <br /><br />SLJ

 

[CalliArcale]

Douglas Hofstadter codified that statement into Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p> </p><p><font color="#666699"><em>"People assume that time is a strict progression of cause to effect, but actually from a non-linear, non-subjective viewpoint it's more like a big ball of wibbly wobbly . . . timey wimey . . . stuff."</em>  -- The Tenth Doctor, "Blink"</font></p> </div>