NationStates Jolt Archive

...and a rant about the italian research policies.

Last night I was reading an old encyclopedia, and found a thing that puzzled me a bit. I thought that Otto (Germany) was the inventor of the internal combustion engine; that encyclopedia, though, quoted the italians Matteucci and Barsanti as the first ones who built an internal combustion engine. That encyclopedia has a usually strong nationalistic bias, so I checked on Wikipedia some minutes ago and found that even that reports that, although Otto was the first to develop a light IC engine that could be used on vehicles, Matteucci and Barsanti, before Otto, built some non-transportable IC engines at a locomotive works in Belgium.

Wow.... looks like the basis of modern technology have been created by italians, we're not just the country of painting and sculpture and mafia... *national pride - I know it's stupid, but what the hell*... first Leonardo and his engineering, then Galileo and modern science, Volta and the electrical battery, Meucci and the telephone, Matteucci/Barsanti and the internal combustion engine, Marconi and the radio, Fermi and the nuclear reactor... and I know I've forgotten some... Italian nerds rule! B)

I like this picture of Italy, but I get angry seeing what a backwards country Italy has become in the last 80 years, with all our best scientists emigrating because of stupid policies about funding research. :mad: :(

I bet if you check the biographes of Matteucci/Barsanti, you'll find that their invention was little more than an imporvement of somebody else's invention, and this somebody imporved the invention of someone before him... and so on and so forth.
That's how invetions work, mostly. Stevenson didn't invent the steam engine, he just patented the one version of the steam engine that would be the breakthrough of steam engines.
Otto didn't invent to combustion engine, but he invented the version of the combustion engine that was the breakthrough leading from trains to cars...

I bet if you check the biographes of Matteucci/Barsanti, you'll find that their invention was little more than an imporvement of somebody else's invention, and this somebody imporved the invention of someone before him... and so on and so forth.
Actually, it looked like their idea was quite original - bringing the combustion from an high-T reservoir to the expansion chamber.

That's how invetions work, mostly.
Agreed: however someone actually does the qualifying step.

Stevenson didn't invent the steam engine, he just patented the one version of the steam engine that would be the breakthrough of steam engines.

I don't think that Stevenson ever claimed patent for the steam engine, expecially when the Watt engine was already used...;)

Wow.... looks like the basis of modern technology have been created by italians, we're not just the country of painting and sculpture and mafia... *national pride - I know it's stupid, but what the hell*... first Leonardo and his engineering, then Galileo and modern science, Volta and the electrical battery, Meucci and the telephone, Matteucci/Barsanti and the internal combustion engine, Marconi and the radio, Fermi and the nuclear reactor... and I know I've forgotten some... Italian nerds rule! B)


As long as we are on stupid national pride ;)

http://www.didyouknow.cd/music/radiohistory.htm
But Marconi's wireless telegraph transmitted only signals. Voice over the air, as we know radio today, came only in 1921. Marconi went on to introduce short wave transmission in 1922.

Marconi was not the first to invent the radio, however. Four years before Marconi started experimenting with wireless telegraph, Nikoli Tesla, a Croatian who moved to the USA in 1884, invented the theoretical model for radio. Tesla tried unsuccessful to obtain a court injunction against Marconi in 1915. In 1943 the US Supreme Court reviewed the decision. Tesla became acknowledged as the inventor of the radio - even though he did not build a working radio.

Who then, tell me?!
There are other claims to the throne of radio inventor.

Indian scientist Sir J.C. Bose demonstrated the radio transmission in 1896 in Calcutta in front of the British Governor General. The transmission was over a distance of three miles from the Presidency College and Science College in Calcutta. The instruments ('Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector') are still there in the science museum of the Calcutta University. Thus writes contributor Dipak Basu, referencing the Proceedings of the IEEE, January, 1998.

Bose repeated his demonstration in the Royal Society in London in 1899 in the presence of Lord Rayleigh (Nobel prize winner in Physics, 1904), Fleming (Professor at London university and later an advisor to the Marconi company), and Lord Lister (President of the Royal Society). As a result he was offered Professorship in Cambridge, but declined.

Bose had solved the problem of the Hertz not being able to penetrate walls, mountains or water. Marconi was present in the meeting of the Royal Society and it is thought that he stole the notetbook of Bose that included the drawing of the 'Mercuri Coherer with a telephone detector'. Marconi's Coherer, which he used in 1901, was the exact copy of that of Bose. Apparently Marcon was unable to explain how he got to the design. He said that an Italian Navy engineer called Solari had developed it, but Solari late denied it. Marconi then said that Italian Professor Timasina did, which later was exposed as a lie by another Italian professor, Banti.

Bose did not apply for a patent on his design because he believed in the free flow of inventions in science. But under pressure from American friends, he applied for the patent in September 1901. He was awarded the US patent for the invention of the radio in 1904. By that time Marconi had received his patent and international recognition.

"Hello Rainey!"
It is reputed that Nathan B. Stubblefield, a farmer from Murray, Kentucky, made a voice transmission four years before Marconi transmitted radio signals. in 1892, Stubblefield handed his friend Rainey T. Wells a box and told him to walk away some distance. Wells said later: "I had hardly reached my post.. when I heard I heard HELLO RAINEY come booming out of the receiver."

Stubblefield demonstrated his invention to the press in 1902 but, being afraid that his invention will be stolen, never marketed his wireless radio. When he was found dead in 1929, his radio equipment was gone. Nikoli Tesla remains to be acknowledged as the inventor of the radio.

As long as we are on stupid national pride ;)



Yep, I know that national pride is stupid (as I stated in my OP) but, you know, I'm tired of having my country always seen by stupid, degrading stereotypes like pizza-mandolino-mafioso and the like.
Also, about the radio, I must admit that I thought that the Nobel committee had done some research about it and so I went for Marconi's claim unquestioningly. However, wireless voice communication would be impossible had Meucci not invented the telephone in first place... eheheh...:D

added: not to diminish Nikola Tesla's work (he was a genius and gets all the credit for AC transformer etc), but I thought that an US decision against an italian inventor in 1943 might have carried some bias linked to a small thing called WW2...

...Meucci and the telephone...

To be fair, just about everybody in history has been credited with the invention of the telephone ;)

To be fair, just about everybody in history has been credited with the invention of the telephone ;)

But only one is acknowledged by ALL countries of the world, except Canada.

But only one is acknowledged by ALL countries of the world, except Canada.

Alexander Graham Bell?

¬_¬

Alexander Graham Bell?

¬_¬

Bell's claim is supported by Canada only. Meucci's is supported by everyone else.

Bell's claim is supported by Canada only. Meucci's is supported by everyone else.

The interesting thing is that - it seems - (at least) three people independently invented telephone-type things within a few years.
Well, I think it's interesting.

Bell's claim is supported by Canada only. Meucci's is supported by everyone else.

i always thought it was Bell. sounds better too, because here using a phone is called "bellen". (-en is comparable to 'to' in English)

i always thought it was Bell. sounds better too, because here using a phone is called "bellen". (-en is comparable to 'to' in English)

We have similar slang here; "to give someone a bell" is to telephone them. Probably because 'phones used to have bells in them for the ringer.