At the end of the 19th century, everything was already ready for the invention of the plane. Here's a theory about wing lift, here's a compact internal combustion engine. But no one succeeded - the vehicles in flight were uncontrollable and fell.
As a
result, a fully-fledged flying plane was assembled by two self-taught persons
from the American outback - Wilber and Orville Wright didn't even finish
school. Maybe they were rich oddballs? No, they only owned a bicycle shop and a
workshop.
The US
government awarded a $50000 grant to Samuel Langley to develop the plane, but
he never took off. And the Wright brothers built their Flyer I for just a
thousand dollars.
Well, maybe
it's the answer. When you have few resources, you need to discard all
unnecessary and focus on the most important. And the most important thing was
to solve the problem of controlling the aircraft in flight.
1896. The
brothers sit in their Ohio bike shop and read newspapers about flight
enthusiasts. The idea of a plane was already in the air.
A typical
way of inventing a plane at that time was:
1) Build a
more exotic glider. More surfaces, tails etc.
2) Put as
powerful engine as you can.
3) Try to
take off
4) Fall and
crash
The brothers thought - if you fall and break, then you may not live to see a successful prototype. A different solution is needed. It took them three years to think, and in 1900 they began to build models of gliders and test different methods of control.
Let's
imagine that we already have the engine. How to get the plane to fly where we
want? Let's practice on models and kites. And we will expand the control of the
aircraft along the axes.
· Roll
(longitudinal axis). For example, on a bicycle, we create a roll of the whole
body to turn at speed, right? Let's try. How to do it? They noticed that the
birds slightly bend their wings to turn, so brothers invented a scheme with
wing skewing. Suddenly it worked out. The glider changes its trajectory,
straightens out, and then flies straight again.
·
Pitch
(lateral axis). To gain or descend, you need to lift or lower your nose. Let's
put small wings in front and adjust the tilt with a handle.
·
Yaw
(vertical axis). The last thing - how to turn the nose of the plane to the left
or the right? Let's put the vertical tail at the back. During the tests, brothers
found that the nose can be turned left and right, but the direction of flight
does not change from this.
All these
discoveries Wilber and Orville Wright made in three years while training with
gliders without a motor. The pieces of training were carried out on the beaches
in Kitty Hawk (North Carolina) - such a place was specially chosen because of a
constant wind. The sand is useful for soft landings, in fact. First, they
dragged a simple kite with ballast on a cable. The ballast was a sandbag and
even a neighbours’ boy (true story).
Then they
started flying with a pilot on board. They made 2000 flights on average 30
seconds each.
Finally, in
1903, an engine was installed on the glider and the Flyer I aircraft was
obtained including also such things: a special wing shape with a bulge closer
to the leading edge, a propeller with two long and narrow blades, two
propellers turning in opposite directions to compensate for the sweeping effect
and its own light engine. The first flight with a motor lasted 12 seconds. A
year later, the Flyer II model flew in Ohio in about 5 minutes. In 1905 - Flyer
III. Then they dismantled the plane and did not fly for two years until they
resolved the patent issues and concluded contracts with the US and French
governments.
In 1908,
Wilbur Wright demonstrated an improved version of the Flyer in France. European
aviators were shocked - they were still struggling with the control puzzle -
and this thing was already flying.
The
brothers woke up famous all over the world. The glory was deserved. In theory,
their patent should protect the control scheme of the plane along three axes.
All modern aircraft are built on this principle, so the brothers had to receive
royalties from every aircraft produced since then. However, it didn't work out.
As soon as
the control principle was demonstrated, all the aviators realized that it was
very. All countries rushed to build their own aircraft. The patent-protected
idea did not take off. The Wright brothers watched jealously as the number and
quality of aircraft grew around the world with no chances to keep track of
everyone!
In America,
they started a trial against Curtis that lasted five years. They won, but they
never got paid from Curtis' company. Moreover, in Europe the judges didn't want
to do anything against their companies in favor of the Americans.
The Germans
completely refused to recognize their priority and to pay royalties. In France,
the trial dragged on until 1917, and there the patent expired.
In 1912,
Wilbur Wright died unexpectedly of typhus. Constant trips to the courts and
hassle did not affect his health in the best way. Orville no longer had the
strength to develop new models and run the business. By this time, Wright Company
aircraft were worse in quality than European ones. Orville Wright sold the
company in 1915.
All of this
negatively affected the US aircraft industry. By 1917, when America entered the
war, the Americans had no normal fighters planes. They urgently launched the
licensed production of French, British and Italian models.
1. How do you think the world would be
different without planes or if they were invented later?
2. What do you think about patents? Do
they slow the progress?
3. Do you know other inventors who
didn't get profit from their inventions?
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_brothers
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wright-brothers/Going-into-business
https://airandspace.si.edu/collection-objects/1903-wright-flyer/nasm_A19610048000
Pictures sources:
https://www.popmech.ru/science/632063-ne-raytami-edinymi-6-maloizvestnyh-pionerov-aviacii/
http://www.chrobotics.com/library/understanding-euler-angles
https://pastdaily.com/2015/12/17/remembering-kittyhawk-december-17-1957/
Comments
I think the world wouldn't be so globalized and interconnected as it is nowadays. Planes helped immensly to travel between continents or even among cities in a bigger country.
By airplanes we can get to remote places where at a time no other alternative method of transportation can even compete with. I guess the world wouldn't be as advanced as it is without air travel.
2.
It's a tricky thing with patents, in general they are okay if they in fact protect the owner from loosing it's idea for a revolutionery product by a bigger firm, but nowadays we can observe more and more patent trolls companies who specialize in only inventing rediculous patents of vague things and hoping that someone will by accident do something they have described just so they can earn money, that's very bad, and hinders progress.
3.
Probably the most known is the battle between Edison and Tesla regarding who invented electricity. In the end Tesla lost that battle even though he was the inventor of frequent electricity.
Honestly, I can't imagine a world without airplanes. They significantly accelerate journeys, shorten journeys to a maximum of 24 hours. Have you ever wondered what transatlantic travel would be like without planes? The boat trip would take at least 4 days. To travel internationally, you would have to travel by train. The journeys would be long, expensive, difficult and tiring.
2. What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
Certainly, patents limit development. A company that patented an invention prevents others from developing it. It is important to remember that it is not the case that a patent completely prevents the development of a given invention. There are exceptions that allow several companies to use a given solution.
3. Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
Honestly, I don't know anyone like that. I think someone like that could be Antonio Meucci, who invented the telephone and used it in his home. Unfortunately, Alexander Graham Bell is believed to be the legal inventor of the phone. Antonio Meucci has been forgotten.
In my opinion the world without planes would look so much different. New innovations could come to some places a few years later or in the worst case scenario - never. Probably the internet would not be so popular like nowadays. I can bet without it we could not even go to cosmos which is really important for our future.
2. What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
Probably it slows down progress but because of that inventors can sleep well. There is less likely that they will be robbed. To sum it up even if it slows the process they are really good and useful.
3. Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
I am sure there were a lot of situations like that but to be honest I do not have any example in my mind. Probably a lot of situations were not so popular in the media even if that happend.
Patents surely do slow down the progress. Probably with even more bureaucracy, it's slowed down even more, but it's necessary to keep the ideas with their inventors' names. Otherwise, it would be a total mess, people would steal each other's ideas and no one could earn their well-deserved money from selling the invention.
It's a well-known story, and an example to the third question, about how Joseph Swan invented the lightbulb, and Thomas Edison patented it, profited the most, and above others, gained popularity by it. In fact, Edison improved other projects of the lightbulb and patented the idea, so in my opinion, he did make his impact on the invention.
2. One could argue that patents slow down progress as they limit production potential of the given invention, making supply reliant only on the inventor. On the other hand, it gives incentives to assign funds for research and development, because as the inventor you know that you will be able to profit from your invention for several years, not afraid that some company with bigger funding will beat you to market.
3. I know someone who didn’t pay for his patents – Thomas Edison. It is commonly known that he would steal inventions that were not entirely his idea (to put it politely) and later his team of lawyers would make sure, that stolen inventions were patented under Edison’s name.
From my Movie Theory classes I remember that Edison had a big fight with Lumiere brothers over the movie projector that they constructed and patented in 1895, but they had a big problem with defeating Thomas (who had almost the same invention as them, if I’m not mistaken) as he stated, that his movie projector was purposed to be viewed by one person at the time (it was constructed inside huge, very heavy, wooden box) and their invention was intended for broader range of viewers.
We wouldn't be able to conveniently travel and prices would go up significantly, due to worse supply chains.
Certainly, there would be no military aviation either, but in the end, I believe it would be terrible.
Patents have their place, but I believe that the rules are abused too much.
In order to stimulate invention, we need to strike balance between protecting inventors and innovation freedom.
More simplicity in the regulations and shorter expiration would definitely benefit the progress.
The existence of patents already caused countless legal battles.
My favourite conflict on intellectual property background is the one between Newton and Leibniz about who invented calculus.
They accused each other of plagiarism and a heated argument ensued.
As a side note, I can understand the need for recognition.
I try as much as I can to publish what I do, even though, there is a risk of theft involved.
Sometimes I feel like I should contribute to the world and not expect anything back.
As I can see, a lot of you have mentioned that without planes travelling will be much more difficult, expensive and so on. Well, on the one hand it's true, but on the other... I really don't think that so a lot of people would be affected by this change. From my point of view, most people aren't used to frequent flights and once or twice a year it would be okay for them to travel to another country by boat or by plane. Maybe there would be less travellers because of this, but still. Also nowadays we still use plenty of ships to transport goods, which were mentioned by @Paweł Saniewski. The reasons for this is that a ship is definitely better than a plane if we talk about goods transportation in almost everything except speed. You know, capacity and ecology impact, for example.
The thought I liked was written by @Przemysław Witek and states that we would have problems with spacecraft and Internet as the result. Well, it seems realistic and also it seems to be have the bigger impact on everyday life, in my honest opinion. Also, @Olga Przytula has mentioned that we probably wouldn't have a pandemic without planes... Well, maybe yes. But also maybe no :) Just because we had a lot of pandemics and epidemics before. I think the point was that we wouldn't have covid pandemic and perhaps it's true. Also yeah, definitely no military aviation, as states @Krzysztof Kowalski answer. I don't know what would be exact consequence of it, but probably a good one.
The situation with inventors and patents is more interesting for me. First, we have a little bit funny statistics. There are 6 answers to this post, 4 of them contains examples of inventors who had problems with getting profit from their inventions and 3 of them have Thomas Edison as an antagonist. Moreover, all of them describe different situations: Edison and Tesla in @Viktor Ryś post, Edison and Joseph Swan in @Paweł Saniewski answer, and even Lumiere brothers were involved as was mentioned by @Olga Przytula. What was wrong with this man?)) At least, we have one story that doesn't include Edison - Alexander Graham Bell and that other man from @Daniel Trzaskoma post (Yeah, the other one is Antonio Meucci, but it's reference to the post (: ).
Also, after a couple of answers we have two sides of a patent question: it slows down progress, but it is necessary to give some financial profit as a reward to inventors. Well, it's true, but I just want to add the third side. Nils Bohlin was Volvo engineer who invented the V-type three-point safety belt in 1959 and it was allowed for everyone to use it in their cars. So it was an invention which could be protected by patent getting profits and so on, but it would definitely slow spreading of this belt so that cars of other companies would be less safe for years. In this situation the inventor (and company) decided that the need of humanity is more important that the need of a human. So what do you think, how to determine when it is true and should it be regulated by laws or not?
I guess other means of transport would be better developed. Lines of trains would be everywhere. Maybe more underwater tunnels.
But I guess even our history would be different. No one could probably throw bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Maybe even World Wars wouldn’t be as destructive. Amelia Earhart wouldn’t be first women to fly across the Atlantic.
2. Patents has their advantages and disadvantages. They provide for somebody to keep earning for their invention. It may lead for others to searching for a new way to develop. So it may drive progress. But when invention is indispensable, it may block development. So I would say that patents may be helpful, if used wisely. Not guided by greed.
3. Unfortunately, nothing like that comes to my mind
2. It depends. On the one hand, yes, because technologies are kept secret, and on the other hand, it fuels competition. It may be demotivating when trying to solve a problem for which a competitor has already found a solution, but inventors may find another solution to the same problem. This is the idea behind technological progress. DaVinci had a few ideas for flying machines. Groups of enthusiasts are still trying to recreate these vehicles using the materials known today. Just because these machines use different mechanisms than helicopters and airplanes, doesn't mean that they will not work. Aviation as a science will surprise us in future, I am sure.
3. I think the saddest stories of inventors who have not been recognized for their inventions are those, we have not heard of at all.
It's hard to even consider how the world would look without planes. As Internet and phones "made the world smaller", the same statement relates to planes. They allowed us to transport goods and people incredibly fast, even all across the globe. I think that creating planes later or even not at all, would move us back in time, not like in the moveis, like just living in 1920s.
Patents for sure may cause the progress to go slightly slower, nevertheless, they are required in the world we're living in. No one will work one's shoes off just to gain nothing. Other problem is creating new inventions, based on older patents. Now that may cause whole lots of problems. And just because of that, many inventions get's stuck or even dies, because of this law mumbo-jumbo.
I think that most popular inventor that didn't get any profit from his invention was Tesla. He not only didn't take any profit from he's inventions, he was cheated out of it. One can only be happy that after god know how many years his inventions were recognized as his, not Edison's. What makes this whole Tesla-Edison situation even more interesting is magnitude of that invention. Electification of the world allowe us to do all kinds of incredible inventions.
People for thousands of years have dreamt about being able to fly. I think that had to happen sooner or later and if Wright brothers didn't do it there would be someone else later with some kind of a different approach to the subject but with a similar outcome. The sooner something is invented the better because there is much more time to make it better. Maybe guns should be excluded from that rule because something much deadlier is not better at all.
2. What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
They might slow down the process but if an inventor knew that the invention of his/her lifetime might get stolen and he/she wouldn't get anything out of it then there wouldn't be that many inventions. You have to help the progress grow but you have to protect the inventor as well.
3. Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
I think that Kalashnikov was of those people. He was a high ranking soviet officer and we all know that his invention made him a very respected person in the soviet union but as far as I know he got no money out of the original AK-47. That was not his point at but we should take a look at the impact made by a single assault rifle. This gun was used in so many wars around the world that it even ended up on Mozambique's flag.
2. When it comes to making money from invention? Maybe. But usually you have a pretty significant level of development of your invention before you patent it. In today's world it's hard to come up with exactly same inventions in the means of "how it works" so that they will be similar and covered by the same patent.
3. The history is for winners as they say. So no, I can't recall anyone.
I think the world would be completely different if the planes hadn't been invented or invented noticeable time later. Planes helped a lot in transport sector, being very quick and reliable type of transport. In my opinion it would possibly slow down growth of overall development in order to problems with transport between continents - ships are way slower.
I'm sure that they slow the progress, but at the same time they can provide some sort of security to the author, and person who invented something new dont need to be afraid of some other people copying their project/idea instantly after realesing. Patent system is mandatory for me but people whose working in it should improve some procedures to make it easier and quickier.
I heard about Tim Berners-Lee. He wrote a proposal for a method to share documents over the internet, but didnt patent his idea.
I think that patents are a very good thing in general, especially for inventors, they protect them from stealing the idea by others and gives them time to work on the invention and not risking that someone else will release it earlier than them. The whole process of it might slow things down sometimes, but I think this is the best way and without patents, it would get really chaotic.
I think that the only one I’ve heard about is the invention of electricity. Nikola Tesla invented it, but Alexander Graham Bell is known for it.
I think the world would be definitely different, air travel would be unavailable, the same transit. This situation would causes huge traffic jams. I guess, it would also slow down overall development, i can't even imagine how present would looks like.
What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
Patents are very important, especially for inventors, people spent their time, money, whole process of inventing is often very tough, so inventors have to be sure that nobody can steal their idea, and that they can earn money.
Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
I have heard only about Nikola Tesla, nobody else comes to my mind. I'm sure that there were more situations like this, but it didn't gain publicity.
The development of aircraft has definitely not only revolutionised the way in which we travel but also how we view the relations between countries and the transportation between them. Without the Wright brothers, the progress of industrializing secluded places, that could only be reached by sea travel. It might have had an effect on the direction in which wars were won and places were conquered with the advantage of the air force.
• What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
Personally, I think patents are a good thing when executed properly. Creators should be able to protect their design and work from people who are just looking for easy income with no actual work included. This kind of security shouldn't badly influence people in their everyday lives, and what I mean by that is that it should not be possible to patent a thing that is commonly used or desperately needed like a vaccine in a time of a pandemic. Sometimes businesses go overboard with patenting things which usage should be restricted. One recent example would be the issue surrounding an American celebrity who wanted to name their clothing line Kimono and by doing so using copyrights on the name. Many people were offended by this, as the word kimono is a common Japanese phrase used to described clothing in general. In created a scandal around that, resulting in Japanese authorities directly contacting this person asking not to go with this idea. This not only showed insensibility to a different culture but also cultural appropriation.
• Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
One person that comes to mind is Thomas Sullivan, the inventor of teabags. He was a tea merchant in New York and started to send samples of tea in small silken packets. It seems that some customers thought of dunking the whole bag into boiling water instead of emptying the packet into the pot. And that is how teabags were popularised. He never patented the idea, but it would definitely bring him a fortune.
Patents slow progress as they hold of the development of the next ideas and inventions based on the patented one. I believe that ideas should be open, and patents do not make sense in today’s world. Most of the patents makes interested people not to focus on improving the idea but on thinking how to circumvent patents legal basis.
I think that the best example of inventors who didn’t get profit from their inventions is Tim Berners-Lee who invented the idea of Internet.
I guess people would focus more on land and naval types of transport. That means we could already have trains-like vehicles that move in the speed of around 1000 km/h. Elon Musk's company newest invention "HyperLoop" can reach the spead of 1,200 km/h, so maybe it could be achieved earlier if we focused more on this technology.
Other things that could change would be: less traveling around the world, more traffic jams, changes in the course of wars.
2. What do you think about patents? Do they slow the progress?
Naturally, they slow progress, because of all the paperwork involved in it, but I don't think patents are a bad thing. They can protect the inventor from stealing their invention. What happened to Wrights brothers was really unlucky, and in current age it probably wouldn't take place, because of all progress humanity made in this matter.
3. Do you know other inventors who didn't get profit from their inventions?
Mikhail Kalashnikov, the inventor of AK-47 assault rifle didn't want to patent his invention. He said he made it not for profit, but for the good of his country. He got a lot of rewards and gained respect of Russian authorities, so technically we can say he made some profit from his invention.
2. From my point of few patents serve the role to protect the inventor, not to slow the progress. The idea should remain in safety of the law. It’s not always about the money, but also about paying tributes to certain people.
3.I don’t know much about inventors in general. Nevertheless, Benjamin Eisenstadt could raise more attention about his invention(the designer of the modern sugar packet)
I think it would be in general much worse. First of all, without them globalization would happen more slowly and to a lessser degree. Of course, there are many drawbacks to globalization but so are benefits. Unified transport and political bodies would be hindered and many people would suffer from lack of e.g. western medicine. Secondly, in many areas planes are the only viable means of tranport and seeking medical help. There are numerous families in rural Australia hundreds of kilometers from any city, where in case of an emergency, air tranport is the only real possiblity.
2. Potentially yes. In my opinion they are still important. First of all, none of the patents are everlasting, so eventually every single one of us could duplicate its contents. Secondly, limiting access to certain solutions by patents could give other competitors additional incentive to come up with other, new and theoretically ingenious ways of achieving same result, therefore helping the progress.
3. There are many examples, e.g. Volvo were the inventors of seat belts and instead of patenting it, they gave it away for free in order to increase safety of all cars.