French Inventions (answers)

INVENTIONS

Here are the answers, to the best of my knowledge:


PHOTOGRAPHY
TRUE: Most of the pioneering work in photography happened in France, and
almost no matter which process you consider to be the first true
photograph, it is likely to be French.

MOTION PICTURES
TRUE: The anteriority (and veracity) of the claim by the French Louis
Lumière is contested today - but the other contenders are all French
anyway. Many spectacular developments throughout motion picture history
were actually American applications of French inventions.
Not quite so many as the French claim, but many. . .

AVIATION
The French claim to the invention of aviation goes back to the frères
Mongolfier, who pioneered balloon flight. Depending on how you choose to
define aviation, the claim may have some legitimacy. The French have
always been important aviation pioneers, yet few specific breakthrough
inventions can be attributed directly to them. Powered flight is
generally attributed to the Wright Bros, though New Zealanders claim it
for their own Richard Pearse. The French claim the invention of the
airplane as well, however the assertion that any of Clement Ader's
pre-Wright devices actually flew has been largely discredited.

THE AUTOMOBILE
MAYBE: There were so many inventions, of so many different types over so
many years it is difficult to determine which is rightfully the precursor
of today's BMW 850. Benz is often cited, but the French Cugnot a century
earlier had a steam-driven machine that looks a lot like a car to me.

THE BICYCLE
FALSE: The French claim that their "Celerifere" from 1791 was the first
bicycle - an assertion particularly difficult to entertain, when one sees
Leonardo's 15th century drawings clearly depicting modem-looking
bicycles. Some Egyptologists even claim there may have been bicycles in
ancient Egypt - depictions are thought to be seen in some carvings.

SOUND RECORDING

TRUE : Charles Cros deposited a sealed letter to the French Académie des
Sciences in advance of Edison's own patent, and the letter was presented
in public session. Though he never built a machine, the anteriority of
the invention appears without serious contention today. Despite the
remarkable similarity of principles, it also appears highly unlikely that
Edison had any knowledge of Charles Cros or of his invention prior to
patenting and successfully building his own Phonograph. If Cros is the
inventor, the "Henry Ford" of the early audio industry is unquestionably
Emile Berliner, who created the first disc, the "Grammophone" (Cros and
Edison were using cylinders). Berliner created the Grammophon Company in
Germany (today Deutsche Grammophon). Not content with this trifling
experience, he moved to the US where he founded the immensely successful
Victor Talking Machine company, much later to merge with RCA to form the
illustrious moniker: RCA Victor.

RADIOACTIVITY (discovery of)
FALSE: The word "radioactivité" comes from Marie Curie, whose pioneering
work is of paramount importance, but of course it is subsequent to the
breakthrough discovery of X- Rays, by the German Roentgen in 1895.

IMMUNOLOGY
FALSE: Jenner (English) developed the smallpox vaccine a full century
before Pasteur's breakthrough work. And the ensuing century was also rife
with invention and discovery in the field, much of it occurring in
Germany. Since Pasteur, the French have been leaders though in immunology
research, and they first isolated the AIDS virus and its antibodies in
the 1980's. The Americans attempted disingenuously to usurp this
research, but the French anteriority was established. This did not
prevent the French nationalized blood bank from knowingly distributing
AIDS tainted blood, administered to hundreds of hemophiliacs and accident
victims over a two-year period, in order to avoid yielding market share
to safe products and methods available from the US.



BONUS QUESTION:
What nationality can legitimately claim Radio broadcasting, the Internal
Combustion Engine, and the Telephone? (ITALY)

Greg Farris wrote:
AVIATION
The French claim to the invention of aviation goes back to the frères
Mongolfier, who pioneered balloon flight. Depending on how you choose
to define aviation, the claim may have some legitimacy. The French
have always been important aviation pioneers, yet few specific
breakthrough inventions can be attributed directly to them. Powered
flight is generally attributed to the Wright Bros, though New
Zealanders claim it for their own Richard Pearse. The French claim the
invention of the airplane as well, however the assertion that any of
Clement Ader's pre-Wright devices actually flew has been largely
discredited.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine

In article ,
says...


Greg Farris wrote:
AVIATION
The French claim to the invention of aviation goes back to the frères
Mongolfier, who pioneered balloon flight. Depending on how you choose
to define aviation, the claim may have some legitimacy. The French
have always been important aviation pioneers, yet few specific
breakthrough inventions can be attributed directly to them. Powered
flight is generally attributed to the Wright Bros, though New
Zealanders claim it for their own Richard Pearse. The French claim the
invention of the airplane as well, however the assertion that any of
Clement Ader's pre-Wright devices actually flew has been largely
discredited.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine

I guess the fact that the word "Montgolfier" is not mentioned in the
otherwise well-prepared article pretty much sends them back to the books
to try again . . .

"Greg Farris" wrote in message
...

BONUS QUESTION:
What nationality can legitimately claim Radio broadcasting, the Internal
Combustion Engine, and the Telephone? (ITALY)


Bell was a Scot.

Greg Farris wrote:
In article ,
says...
Here's the Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine

I guess the fact that the word "Montgolfier" is not mentioned in the
otherwise well-prepared article pretty much sends them back to the
books to try again . . .

Seems that only heavier-than-air flight (powered and unpowered) makes their
list. If gliders qualify, then manned flight first appears to have occurred
over a thousand years ago - either on the Iberian Peninsula or in China,
depending on ones confidence level requirements.

In article ,
says...


On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 21:12:38 +0200, Greg Farris
wrote:



BONUS QUESTION:
What nationality can legitimately claim Radio broadcasting, the Internal
Combustion Engine, and the Telephone? (ITALY)

Radio broadcasting?

Surely you aren't crediting Marconi with Tesla's invention.

Who are you thinking invented the internal combustion engine?

1680 - Dutch physicist, Christian Huygens designed (but never built)
an internal combustion engine that was to be fueled with gunpowder.
1807 - Francois Isaac de Rivaz of Switzerland invented an internal
combustion engine that used a mixture of hydrogen and oxygen for fuel.
1824 - English engineer, Samuel Brown adapted an old Newcomen steam
engine to burn gas
1858 - Belgian-born engineer, Jean Joseph Étienne Lenoir invented and
patented (1860) a double-acting, electric spark-ignition internal
combustion engine fueled by coal gas.
1862 - Alphonse Beau de Rochas, a French civil engineer, patented but
did not build a four-stroke engine (French patent #52,593, January 16,
1862).
1864 - Austrian engineer, Siegfried Marcus, built a one-cylinder
engine with a crude carburetor, and attached his engine to a cart for
a rocky 500-foot drive.
1873 - George Brayton, an American engineer, developed an unsuccessful
two-stroke kerosene engine (it used two external pumping cylinders).
1876 - Nikolaus August Otto invented and later patented a successful
four-stroke engine, known as the "Otto cycle".
1876 - The first successful two-stroke engine was invented by Sir
Dougald Clerk.

Not an Italian among them.



It is indeed astonishing that most succinct historical accounts mention
Christiaan Huygens, who never made a working model, but fail to mention
Barsanti and Matteucci, to whom the credit may fittingly belong.



As for the Telephone, if we don't accept the conventional wisdom that
Bell (a Scott living in Boston) invented it, the honor probably goes
to Elisha Gray, a Quaker from Ohio that started Western Electric
Manufacturing. Prior to him it would have to be Philipp Reis, a
German - though his device couldn't transmit recognisable speech.

Meucci has been recognized by the US House of Representatives, in House
Resolution 269, dated 11 June 2002, as stated, "Expresses the sense of the
House of Representatives that the life and achievements of Antonio Meucci
should be recognized, and his work in the invention of the telephone should
be acknowledged."


Bell was Canadian.

Greg Farris wrote:

BONUS QUESTION:
What nationality can legitimately claim Radio broadcasting, the
Internal Combustion Engine, and the Telephone? (ITALY)

These inventions were in development by many people, and some may have
built on ideas from others.

The light bulb is a good example. Edison is credited by many, but in
looking at the issue in more detail, you will find that he bought a
patent from a Canadian inventor, who had the essential idea, and was
perhaps 90 percent of the way to a practical product. Edison then
perfected the filament and gas in the container. So who was the inventor?
The one with the original idea, or the one who finally made a saleable
product?

What Edison excelled at, was making practical use of his inventions, and
in marketing.

The radio is another example. A number of people were working on various
designs, and Nicola Tesla is the one who holds the first patent for a
tuneable circuit, which he used to wirelessly transmit information from
one place to another in expositions. Tesla was not good at marketing his
inventions, unlike Edison, or Marconi, so even though he has claim to the
technology, he really didn't do anything practical with it.

Since the question about radio was related to "broadcasting", the credit
generally goes to Reginald Fessenden, a Canadian, who did much of his
experimental work near Kitty Hawk. (Had to get an oblique reference to
aviation in my post) While Marconi believed code was transmitted through
ether, and marketed point-to-point communication, Fessenden understood
radio waves, and developed the first transmitter for voice. He made the
first "broadcast", using his designs, and intended for more than one
receiver, in 1906.

http://www.radiocom.net/Fessenden/

Greg Farris writes:

RADIOACTIVITY (discovery of)
FALSE: The word "radioactivité" comes from Marie Curie, whose pioneering
work is of paramount importance, but of course it is subsequent to the
breakthrough discovery of X- Rays, by the German Roentgen in 1895.

This is a misconception. Radioactivity is nuclear decay. The
production of x-rays has nothing to do with radioactive decay.
Roentgen discovered the properties of a specific range of frequencies
of electromagnetic radiation, but this is completely unrelated to the
phenomenon of nuclear decay, which produces radioactivity (emission of
subatomic particles and certain frequencies of electromagnetic
radiation associated with the spontaneous reconfiguration or mutation
of atomic nuclei).

--
Transpose mxsmanic and gmail to reach me by e-mail.

Well, technically ballooning is not aviation, since the word aviation
comes from the Latin avis which means bird.
--
Gene Seibel
Gene & Sue's Aeroplanes - http://pad39a.com/gene/planes.html
Because we fly, we envy no one.



Greg Farris wrote:
In article ,
says...


Greg Farris wrote:
AVIATION
The French claim to the invention of aviation goes back to the frères
Mongolfier, who pioneered balloon flight. Depending on how you choose
to define aviation, the claim may have some legitimacy. The French
have always been important aviation pioneers, yet few specific
breakthrough inventions can be attributed directly to them. Powered
flight is generally attributed to the Wright Bros, though New
Zealanders claim it for their own Richard Pearse. The French claim the
invention of the airplane as well, however the assertion that any of
Clement Ader's pre-Wright devices actually flew has been largely
discredited.

Here's the Wikipedia article on the subject:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_flying_machine

I guess the fact that the word "Montgolfier" is not mentioned in the
otherwise well-prepared article pretty much sends them back to the books
to try again . . .

"Gene Seibel" wrote:
Well, technically ballooning is not aviation, since the word aviation
comes from the Latin avis which means bird.

How many planes flap their wings to take off and drop poop on newly washed
cars?

:-)