Trials and Errors Issue #51: Where is American Pride? Let's Celebrate Mahlon Loomis

Hi Don, thanks for the comment. I'm sure that all countries, and not just the USA, are full of almost inventors. But I think they are still cause to celebrate. They didn't have to build something of success in the marketplace, as they built up a pile of data that other (innovators) could use to build that commercial product. Take one of the greatest of all time, Michael Faraday. He wasn't even a PhD, but he was a whiz at developing concepts, proving theories, and setting up innovators to take that information and run with it to the commercial product stage. Dave, W7DGJ

 

Hi Dave,

It is only right to celebrate the innovators of the past. For me, personally, Lee DeForest is a particular icon for developing the Audion. American Pride is still there in some sectors, but I see a pattern of it declining over the years (and that is not just in the United States). I think that this may be that curiosity is waning in technical fields. I could be wrong, but my impression is that most do not want to invent or even try to repair their equipment or want to have at least a basic understanding on how it works, they just want something new and shiny out of the box and when it fails, out it goes into the rubbish and time for something new. No thinking involved there.

Invention and the passion to innovate grows out of either curiosity or necessity, or both. I highly respect those of the past that did so. Now, it seems that all many want to do is have an AI programme do the thinking for them. There is no invention there. It is almost a type of blindness. When we lose curiosity, we lose our ability to invent. I tip my hat to those in the past that made what we have now possible (well, except for the one that invented mobile phones that make our children mindless, but I digress).

Excellent article as always, Dave.
73
Tony AA7FR

 

Thanks Tony. I think there is something to your comment about how we have lost our sense of technical curiosity. I think that's right. We allow others to bring remarkable changes to our lives via innovations, and we don't celebrate them. We just buy their products and expect that it is almost just like a schedule - that new things happen automatically somehow and we are the recipients. In the ham radio world, it's moved many to the appliance operator category. While I am not handy with a soldering iron due to macular degeneration, I still try to appreciate what goes into the products I buy and there is nothing more fascinating to me than to see rapid change and improvement. Unfortunately, in a small marketplace like consumer radios, it is all too slow.
Dave W7DGJ

 

Good article Dave,
After reading the article, it seems I had heard of him in passing...

Here's a rabbit hole you should explore: Alfred Larson, founder of the University of Lawsonomy.
Quite a successful character History books never mention.
Here's a link you might enjoy: https://chicagoreader.com/arts-culture/mission-implausible/

I can honestly say I am proud of where I live.
Wisconsin is a State with a history in not only farming, logging, mining, ship building, but has a University system that serves the community at large.
Cray computers is based Eau Claire. Rayovac Batteries was founded in Madison. So many household brand names are/were based in Wisconsin or had manufacturing facilities here.

Nationally, though I acknowledge that invention has been done other places, since the industrial revolution though the 90's we led in technological break throughs. Unfortunately, we teach our competitors how to best us at our own game. And we have lost much of our industrial might. The 70's shut many factories and farms as manufacturing was able to be done cheaper over seas.
The companies that are still around have either diversified, been bought out but remain here, or manufacture elsewhere.

Regarding who got here ""First"": It doesn't matter a fig.
As a species we have proven again and again that we are the most dangerous animal on the planet interested in only one thing - passing down our DNA.
Conquest, enslavement, and gynecide of other peoples/civilizations is as old as Adam and Eve. We've just become more ""Civilized"" about it and use power and wealth instead of swords and axes.

 

I don't think we have lost our thirst for innovation.
You just don't see monumental changes like the invention of Radio or the Automobile, but rapid refinements on refinements.

For example:
The same technology that enabled dot matrix printers 30 years ago has been expanded to 3 axis and gives us 3D printing.
2D axis stepping and improvements in the laser have enabled precise cutting of materials and has all but eliminated stamping flat parts.
The world of CAD to Worktable design is literally within reach of the average Joe/Jessica. This is what the Maker movement is all about.

People exploring the extremes of this idea look for an increasing variety of materials to print with. Can you imagine the CA wildfire houses all replaced by 3D printed houses in months instead of years?

AI is the latest code word, but scientists have been working on AI for many many decades. But it has only been recently with the proliferation of server farms and the expansion of the internet, that the hardware now exists - due to incremental changes - to run programs of that complexity.

Dave, do you remember a book called "Future Shock"?

 

Hi Ron, sure . . . that was a huge bestseller, by "futurist" Alvin Toffler! I agree but what you describe is our continued innovation of existing inventions. We live with it and almost expect it to happen on a regular basis. The CEO of the big chip maker who told us that the speed and processing power of chips will change on a regular basis . . . this just leads to more innovations. What has slowed down, in my opinion, is what you call the monumental inventions. Things we have no idea about today -- no idea that they are even possible. Just the way that radio waves came about in the 1860's and no one had ANY idea that they could be used and become a part of our lives. Maybe we'll sometime see an anti-gravity device that allows for free space travel, or some kind of power source that isn't a battery but which opens up a whole new category of later innovation. Those are the true inventions.

 

One reason Loomis tends not to be included among "inventors of radio" is that his experiments may not have involved radio per se, but rather only induction and/or conduction. That's my impression of his experiments after having done some reading on the details years ago.

Other than that, I keep wondering when George Harrison licensed up as a ham:

 

Thanks David -- that was supposed to be an "early radio inventor" type . . . a photo of me in 1976 . . . Dave

 

BTW, this is handily proven or disproven with modern metrology: Merely exactly duplicate L's "communications at a distance" experiment with a probe-equipped spectrum analyzer operating at the "transmitting" end of the circuit.

No resulting radiofrequency/ac SA spike/region with the key held down, no radio.

 

Native Peoples were in the Americas tens of thousands of years before ANY Europeans got here. New archeological discoveries keep pushing back the dates, too - they were hear at least 14,000 years ago, and the new finds push the date back about 10,000 more years - or more.

The Vikings don't get much credit because they came, stayed in a tiny bit of North America for a short time, and then left, never to return. Columbus gets credit only because other Europeans followed him.

 

Exactly!

Marconi didn't "invent radio". What he did was to turn what had been a laboratory curiousity into a practical system that had real-world uses.

Edison didn't "invent the light bulb". What Edison (actually, his development team) did was to develop an entire system of practical electric lighting - bulbs that lasted a reasonable length of time and could be mass produced, wiring, generators, switches, fuses, sockets, etc., etc., all of which were practical and economical.

Henry Ford didn't invent the automobile or the assembly line. What he did was.....you get the idea.

73 de Jim, N2EY

 

Jim, all of that is pure innovation. Taking something theoretical but real, and then building on it to include a market that reaches actual humans. Dave, W7DGJ

 

Of course.

The challenge is to "recognize" them for what they really were, not what some people want them to be. Doing that can make some people uncomfortable.

 

We also have the example of Father Roberto Landell de Moura.

A great scientific researcher, who carried out voice transmission via radio in 1899, some say he was the pioneer in the modality.

However, he was unable to obtain financial support to commercially develop his invention.

Below is the Wikipedia link about him, and a link that tells a little more about the history of the patron saint of Brazilian amateur radio.

https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roberto_Landell_de_Moura

https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/ge...rasil-o-padre-brasileiro-que-inventou-o-radio

 

You might also want to add Alfred Vail to your list of people who have been written out of mainstream history. It is said that Morse did everything he could to discredit Vail and his work on keys and what eventually became known as "Morse" code.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Vail

Dave (G0DJA)