Giving thanks for american ingenuity

[Jccarlton]

Nice piece from Michelle Malkin:
http://michellemalkin.com/2010/11/24/gi ... ingenuity/
We all too often forget how we got to where we are.

[chrismb]

What a weird article!

It is right and proper to not allow such a comment as that of Biden, quoted, to go without redress. What a ridiculous thing to say - for any country!

But then it goes on to glorify American ingenuity by discussing the electric knife!?

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

Incidentally, I searched for an hour yesterday to try to uncover the inventor of the electric knife and though it appears to, indeed, be an American it seems to be patent 2,781,578 of Leonard Guilfoyle on Feb 19th., 1957.

On USPTO, the earliest patent for the chap mentioned, Jerome L Murray, that I could find is for a Hygienic douche system , patent 3,965,899 of June 29th, 1976.

(Maybe he did apply for the electric knife, but was rejected for that prior art of Guilfoyle's?)

On the subject of Thanksgiving, I never quite understood that because it was explained to me in school that it celebrated the harvest of food and fish that the native Americans helped the settlers with and they all celebrated together. Then the settlers shot the natives for their land, so now it's only white Americans who celebrate it. Am I missing some piece of understanding on this one?

[Skipjack]

I also find Bidens statement rather weird. It might be out of context or grossly missrepresented.
Of course governments have been involved with quite a few inventions and innovations in one way or the other (war and the needs of wars always drove a lot of government investments, which then drove a lot of inventions). But broadly stating "every single", seems very strange and not very well thought out either.

[Ivy Matt]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

[KitemanSA]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

Nuclear power, the entire digital age...you know, minor things like that.

[Diogenes]

What a weird article!

It is right and proper to not allow such a comment as that of Biden, quoted, to go without redress. What a ridiculous thing to say - for any country!

But then it goes on to glorify American ingenuity by discussing the electric knife!?

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

Incidentally, I searched for an hour yesterday to try to uncover the inventor of the electric knife and though it appears to, indeed, be an American it seems to be patent 2,781,578 of Leonard Guilfoyle on Feb 19th., 1957.

On USPTO, the earliest patent for the chap mentioned, Jerome L Murray, that I could find is for a Hygienic douche system , patent 3,965,899 of June 29th, 1976.

(Maybe he did apply for the electric knife, but was rejected for that prior art of Guilfoyle's?)

On the subject of Thanksgiving, I never quite understood that because it was explained to me in school that it celebrated the harvest of food and fish that the native Americans helped the settlers with and they all celebrated together. Then the settlers shot the natives for their land, so now it's only white Americans who celebrate it. Am I missing some piece of understanding on this one?

The Pilgrim/Indian thing is an Idyllic representation of a wonderful utopian idea, but it doesn't really have a connection to WHY Thanksgiving is a holiday.

General Thanksgiving
By the PRESIDENT of the United States Of America
A PROCLAMATION

WHEREAS it is the duty of all nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favour; and Whereas both Houfes of Congress have, by their joint committee, requefted me "to recommend to the people of the United States a DAY OF PUBLICK THANSGIVING and PRAYER, to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God, especially by affording them an opportunity peaceably to eftablifh a form of government for their safety and happiness:"

NOW THEREFORE, I do recommend and affign THURSDAY, the TWENTY-SIXTH DAY of NOVEMBER next, to be devoted by the people of thefe States to the fervice of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our fincere and humble thanksfor His kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation; for the fignal and manifold mercies and the favorable interpofitions of His providence in the courfe and conclufion of the late war; for the great degree of tranquility, union, and plenty which we have fince enjoyed;-- for the peaceable and rational manner in which we have been enable to eftablish Conftitutions of government for our fafety and happinefs, and particularly the national one now lately instituted;-- for the civil and religious liberty with which we are bleffed, and the means we have of acquiring and diffufing useful knowledge;-- and, in general, for all the great and various favours which He has been pleafed to confer upon us.

And also, that we may then unite in moft humbly offering our prayers and fupplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and befeech Him to pardon our national and other tranfgreffions;-- to enable us all, whether in publick or private ftations, to perform our feveral and relative duties properly and punctually; to render our National Government a bleffing to all the people by conftantly being a Government of wife, juft, and conftitutional laws, difcreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed; to protect and guide all fovereigns and nations (especially fuch as have shewn kindnefs unto us); and to blefs them with good governments, peace, and concord; to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the increafe of fcience among them and us; and, generally to grant unto all mankind fuch a degree of temporal profperity as he alone knows to be beft.

GIVEN under my hand, at the city of New-York, the third day of October, in the year of our Lord, one thousand feven hundred and eighty-nine.

(signed) G. Washington

I actually love to shove stuff like this into the faces of all those "Separation of Church and State" types. It is fun watching them sputter as they try to square such documents with their distorted understanding of the establishment clause. (It simple doesn't fit their world view!)

Thanksgiving was established by an Official act by the US Federal Government with George Washington being both President of the Constitutional Convention (and therefore knowing EXACTLY what is meant by the establishment clause) and President of the new nation proclaiming it to be a day to give thanks to God for his blessings.

[Diogenes]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

I actually think it was a German who invented the Airplane first. It was just the Wright brothers who pushed it into an industry.

I recall reading years ago of a German Aristocrat that was towing a glider behind a powered boat on a lake, and had basically worked out all the necessary details for flight. If I recall properly, he was attempting to fit it with an engine so that it could fly by itself, but when the engine arrived, it was far too heavy for the aircraft. Apparently someone had misread his specifications at the factory where the engine was manufactured.

[chrismb]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

I actually think it was a German who invented the Airplane first.

I think you are thinking of Sir George Cayley. British (if it needed to be said! ).

He said something like "Flight shall be acheived by the application of power against the resistance of air", and that was in the 1700s. He went on to write a thesis of aeronautical navigation, most of which still hold true today.

Actually, I think the Wright Bros did a really neat thing and the credit for actual controlled flight should definitely go to them and to the US. Cayley invented the lifting wing, but Wright Bros invented 3 axis control. Force is nothing, if it cannot be vectored in the [W]right direction.

Incidentally, I think you will find that nuclear power was the invention of a Hungarian, numerical computer (mechanical) by a Brit and the transistor was invented by a German. But the first practical build of a language-programmable electronic device had its roots in Nazi tech, by Zuse, AFAIK. Please do correct and/or fill in the gaps if I have things wrong on that score.....

[D Tibbets]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

How about the peristaltic pump? It always amuses me how people will select one item out of a body of work to push their agenda. This individual had 75 patents. It sounds like a lot of them were for convenience items, but that does not detract from his inventive genius and persistence.

As far as Biden's comment, if it is accurate and not out of context, he is correct to a large extent, though he did over reach.
Lets see, some things created by government initiative/ management/ financing:

Internet - US Defense and Research establishments. Gore's claim was silly.
Transcontinental railroad.
Nuclear Power
Interstate highway system
Panama Canal
Eire Canal
CDC
Immunization programs
Public health and sanitation.
Corp of Engineer projects
Large componets of public education and higher education.
Funding of many research activities, including the Polywell.
Manned Moon landings
etc., etc., etc.

And don't forget the driver for a huge amount of technology development- Wars, the ultimate government undertaking!

Dan Tibbets

[D Tibbets]

...come on guys... there must be something more significant than that you've invented!?!?

The airplane, perhaps?

I actually think it was a German who invented the Airplane first. It was just the Wright brothers who pushed it into an industry.

I recall reading years ago of a German Aristocrat that was towing a glider behind a powered boat on a lake, and had basically worked out all the necessary details for flight. If I recall properly, he was attempting to fit it with an engine so that it could fly by itself, but when the engine arrived, it was far too heavy for the aircraft. Apparently someone had misread his specifications at the factory where the engine was manufactured.

I disagree. The evolution towards powered flight had a long and convoluted history. Gliders and lighter than air aircraft, of course, were present for decades. Various efforts were made to try to power these gliders. The prevailing consensus was that it was impossible. In large part it was the Wright brother's work with a wind tunnel (unique, I believe), and their critical study of propellers that lead to their breakthrough. It wasn't the engine per say that was the problem. It was the aerodynamically inefficient propellers. Surely someone else would have arrived there eventually, but they were first.

Dan Tibbets

[KitemanSA]

Incidentally, I think you will find that nuclear power was the invention of a Hungarian,

In the United States, where Fermi and Szilard had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942.

numerical computer (mechanical) by a Brit

But I said "digital" NOT analog.

The Atanasoff–Berry Computer (ABC) was among the first fully electronic digital binary computing devices. Conceived in 1937 by Iowa State College physics professor John Atanasoff, and built with the assistance of graduate student Clifford Berry[12], ...

The inventor of the program-controlled computer was Konrad Zuse, who built the first working computer in 1941 and later in 1955 the first computer based on magnetic storage.[13]

George Stibitz is internationally recognized as a father of the modern digital computer. While working at Bell Labs in November 1937, Stibitz invented and built a relay-based calculator he dubbed the "Model K" (for "kitchen table", on which he had assembled it), which was the first to use binary circuits to perform an arithmetic operation.

and the transistor was invented by a German. But the first practical build of a language-programmable electronic device had its roots in Nazi tech, by Zuse, AFAIK. Please do correct and/or fill in the gaps if I have things wrong on that score.....

Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed the first patent for a transistor in Canada in 1925, describing a device similar to a Field Effect Transistor or "FET".[1] However, Lilienfeld did not publish any research articles about his devices,[citation needed] nor did his patent cite any examples of devices actually constructed. In 1934, German inventor Oskar Heil patented a similar device.[2]

Ok so that goes to Canada, but they are PRACTICALLY Americans ( ) so there!

[CaptainBeowulf]

On the subject of Thanksgiving, I never quite understood that because it was explained to me in school that it celebrated the harvest of food and fish that the native Americans helped the settlers with and they all celebrated together. Then the settlers shot the natives for their land, so now it's only white Americans who celebrate it. Am I missing some piece of understanding on this one?

No, they just expelled them to Oklahoma. OK, so there were some wars between the natives and the whites first. That resulted in some of them getting shot. Then there was just pure nastiness, like "plague blankets" and leaving people to die of exposure or starvation along the "trail of tears." However, the Iroquois Confederacy moved to Ontario with many of the United Empire Loyalists after 1780, settling near the city of Brantford (named after Joseph Brant, the Christian name of the leader of the Confederacy at that time). The other natives were expelled according to the "Indian Removal Act" sometime around 1840-1850 (too lazy to find the exact date right now - just google it and you will probably get a wikipedia page or something).

As for American ingenuity, how about the final/practical push on atom bomb/nuclear power research? The Poles, Brits, Jewish-German scientists and so on started it, but the cumulative research was assembled in the U.S. in the early 1940s and then carried through to creation of the atom bomb in 1945... and from that followed nuclear power.

[chrismb]

As far as Biden's comment, if it is accurate and not out of context, he is correct to a large extent,

er.... I think not to a very large extent.

His reported comment was about ideas, not implementations.

Nuclear power - hungarian
autobahns - germans
canals.... c'mon.... some of these ideas you mentioned took a hold before America was even discovered!!

Biden needs to be shot down well and proper for discussing government's part in ideas. And these people need to be shot down for it, because some senior policy people in governments actually do think that useful ideas come out of government committees!

[chrismb]

Incidentally, I think you will find that nuclear power was the invention of a Hungarian,

In the United States, where Fermi and Szilard had both emigrated, this led to the creation of the first man-made reactor, known as Chicago Pile-1, which achieved criticality on December 2, 1942.

...but Slizard patented his reactor in the 1930's, in Hungary, before he came to the US, did he not??

But I said "digital" NOT analog.

You said the "digital age", and the digital age goes hand-in-hand with computer code and computer language (not just hardware), the first of which was from Zuse, working originally for the Nazi's.

If we were still soldering up a circuit, or setting dials, for each and every programme, then I don't think windows would have been possible!? The more critical key to the digital age is software, not hardware, as the IBM-microsoft saga should prove.

Physicist Julius Edgar Lilienfeld filed the first patent for a transistor in Canada in 1925

Ok so that goes to Canada, but they are PRACTICALLY Americans ( ) so there!

Does it? Wiki also says he became a US citizen in 1934, so presumably he was a Austro-hungarian who happened to be in Canada.

There are plenty of US patents that were filed by non-US inventors. Are you saying that 'a US patent' means it is always US ingenuity?... of course not!...


But you misunderstand my amusement on this. Are Americans ingenious? Of course they are! They take the craziest looking idea that no-one else will touch and turn it into reality. To do that requires an amazing level of ingenuity. They are merely lacking a small degree of...er...how to put it nicely... originality and European elan. That's why they've always been keen to collect European inventor-immigrants.

So where does European ingenuity end and American start, when it comes to all those immigrants? The reality is that Americans are a hot-pot of all nationalities, so let's just conclude that people are ingenious [and governments aren't].

[Diogenes]

The airplane, perhaps?

I actually think it was a German who invented the Airplane first.

I think you are thinking of Sir George Cayley. British (if it needed to be said! ).

He said something like "Flight shall be acheived by the application of power against the resistance of air", and that was in the 1700s. He went on to write a thesis of aeronautical navigation, most of which still hold true today.

Actually, I think the Wright Bros did a really neat thing and the credit for actual controlled flight should definitely go to them and to the US. Cayley invented the lifting wing, but Wright Bros invented 3 axis control. Force is nothing, if it cannot be vectored in the [W]right direction.

Incidentally, I think you will find that nuclear power was the invention of a Hungarian, numerical computer (mechanical) by a Brit and the transistor was invented by a German. But the first practical build of a language-programmable electronic device had its roots in Nazi tech, by Zuse, AFAIK. Please do correct and/or fill in the gaps if I have things wrong on that score.....

Yes, the control system is the most important contribution by the Wright brothers. Amusingly enough, the most important aspect of this is that they convinced others that a control system was needed. The Wright design didn't last very long till it was thrown out for the better more conventional design we've had ever since.

As for Nuclear Fission, I give Leó Szilárd the most credit for pushing the development of it. As for the transistor, I think you are talking about the field effect transistor which was invented back in the 20s or 30s. My recollection was that it was all theoretical and a practical device was not actually produced.
As for programmable electronic devices, James Burk of "Connections" fame tells us that they were derived from old fashion fancy weaving looms.