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William H. Pickering


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Another popular fallacy is to suppose that flying machines could be used to drop dynamite on an enemy in time of war.

William H. Pickering

Harvard astronomer, Aeronautics, 1908.

The story has been often told of a famous scientist who died some years ago, that he had declared it impossible for a steam-ship to carry enough coal to take it across the Atlantic. The story, I believe, is apocryphal, but it serves its purpose as a warning quite as well as if it were true. In spite of this warning, however, there are certain dynamical truths that we must no forget …

The popular mind often pictures gigantic flying machines speeding across the Atlantic, carrying innumerable passengers in a way analogous to our modern steamships … It seems safe to say that such ideas must be wholly visionary. Even if such a machine could get across with one or two passengers, it would be prohibitive to any but the capitalist who could own his own yacht.

Another popular fallacy is to expect enormous speed to be optained. It must be remembered that the resistance of the air increases as the square of the speed, and the work as the cube … it is clear that with our present devices there is no hope of competing for racing speed with either our locomotives or our automobiles.

William H. Pickering

Harvard professor and astronomer, The Future of Artificial Flight, Aeronautics, June 1908. .


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