-
Asked by Vimal on 30 Dec 2014.
Question: Great first lecture. Well done Danielle and RI. One small note regarding your next lecture. The telephone was not invented by Alexander Graham Bell. It is now well documented that he stole the patent from Elisha Gray, who could not afford the legal fees to defend his claim against the far more wealthy and better connected (through his double-dealing solicitor) Bell. In any case, Antonio Meucci's invention pre-dates both Gray and Gray's claim, and as I understand the USA government now recognises him as the inventor of the telephone. As the lectures as broadcast nearly live, I would be delighted if Ms George mentioned or eluded to this tomorrow. Does the RI not exist to, inter alia, dispel commonly believed untruths?
- Keywords:
-
Fiona Dickinson answered on 30 Dec 2014:
Unfortunately the lectures were recorded a couple of weeks ago.
It is important to note as scientists and engineers that often (usually) more than one person is interested in the same thing at the same time. Unfortunately sometimes it doesn’t matter who was right, or who was first, just who became famous for it… there was a lot of interest in improving the telegraph in the late 19th century and many people were working on it. More than one person can have the same breakthrough completely independently, and this is often the case for some variation and confusion in science.
Liebniz and Newton both ‘invented’ calculus at the same time leading to two different notations for calculus (dy/dx and f'(x)), in the UK most people just know of Newton and calculus, on the continent Liebniz gets a lot more recognition.
Priestly, Lavoisier and Scheele are all credited with discovery of oxygen, Scheele found it first, but didn’t publish until after Priestly found it, but it was Lavoisier that found it was an element based on Priestly’s work.
Watson & Crick are widely held as the two great mavericks who elucidated the structure of DNA effectively from nothing, but they wouldn’t have had the rosetta stone of ‘double helix’ without the work of Rosalind Franklin.
Perhaps the most one sided ‘memory’ in science is the theory of natural selection which was published independently by two people Charles Darwin (who everyone has heard of) and Alfred Russel Wallace (who hardly anyone has heard of). Indeed, as far as my understanding goes, Wallace sent Darwin a large number of samples to help Darwin formulate ideas and even shared his ideas on natural selection before the publication of ‘On the Origin of Species’. This was the great collection days of the Victorians though, where the Natural History museum was built as a temple to science and was being filled with catalogues of insects, birds, everything… somebody was bound to have come up with a theory eventually. Now both Darwin and Wallace are recognised together in the main hall of the Natural History Museum.
There is a great quote from Newton ‘if I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants’, everything we know and find is based upon what has come before, and rarely are inventors solely responsible for what they invent.
Comments
vimal-mehta commented on :
Apologies for the delay in my response. This is not because of passive-aggression or similar, but simply because of the UK holiday period and, as it happens, my birthday.
You make some valid points, but much of what you write is quite simply incorrect.
I know many postgrad mathematicians and they call credit Liebniz and not Newton with the “invention” of calculus. Franklin’s x-ray crystallographies were vital to the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA but helped in no way to the much more important understanding of base pairs (which were discovered by Linus Pauling, Crick, Cochran and others and not the self-promoter Francis).
Most importantly, after the recent programming by the BBC, I believe many have heard of Wallace’s contribution to the theory of evolution. But to be clear, Charles Darwin’s grandfather first suggested the theory of evolution for which his grandson took credit. And, in close parallel to my original point, Lamark’s theory of evolution which was long discredited because he suggested that acquired characterists could be inherited (in contradiction to the Darwinian theory of evolution) now appears to be relatively true, i.e. epigenetics.
Whether you agree with the above or not, I believe you have missed the point I tried to make in my original post.
There is a difference between scientists and engineers such as Meucci and Grays and thiefs such as Bell> Bell made no contribution to the invention of the modern telephone. He stole the patent from Gray. And I do not understand why any of your comments about dual discovery are relevant. The RI, if a true scientific institution should solely be concerned with evidence and fact, as much as it can be determined historically
vimal-mehta commented on :
One final point – most now accept that Einstein’s theory of gravity is more accurate/complete than Newton’s. But if that is the case, then why must physicists invent terms such as as “dark matter” and “dark energy”, which appear to poke large holes in Einstein’s theory. We must be careful when using the terms invention and discovery in science. Precision and accuracy are far more important than convenience and ease of understanding/explanation
vimal-mehta commented on :
Sorry, my last point was not final. The most interesting story that your readers should think about is that of the “invention” of the television. John Logie Baird is most often credited with its invention. However his MECHANICAL system in no way resembles the ELECTRICAL system in current use and invented by Marconi-EMI. In turn, Marconi, who is most often credited with the invention of the Radio, stole the idea from many of his contemporaries. The story of dramatic invention is more often littered with thieves than dual-discovery