Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 226, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 October 1917 — Clever Scientists Have Often Proved Hopelessly Wrong in Their Conclusions. [ARTICLE]

Clever Scientists Have Often Proved Hopelessly Wrong in Their Conclusions.

Sir Humphrey Davy’s dogmatic’pronouncement against .gaslighting is not the only instance of a clever scientist being hoplqssly wrong. The early history of cabling furnishes two striking examples. Consulted on the scientific side of the project, Farraday asserted that the first cables were made too small. Then He said that “the larger the wire the more electricity would be required to charge it,” and in this quite Incorrect opinion he was supported by other eminent scientists. As a result of this dictum the current was increased until the operation “electrocuted” the wire and the cable broke down. It was Lord Kelvin who by sending messages through heavy cables with Incredibly weak electric current proved that Faraday was mistaken, says the Rehoboth Sunday Herald. Airy submitted the project to mathematics and arrived at the conclusion that a cable could not be submerged to the necessary depth anfi that if it could no recognizable signal could ever travel from Ireland to Nova Scotia. In aviation the late Doctor Newcomb, one of the most distinguished mathematicians the world has ever produced, declared that he had mathematically investigated all the conditions operating against the heavier-than-air machine and was convinced that the airplane would never be any more than a scientific toy, and the possibility of an airplane motor being reliable in the reduced atmospheric pressure above 3,000 feet was by several experts said to be out of the question.