Category: Weird Science

An Ideal Landscape

On: By: Romeyn

An Ideal Landscape on Mars According to Prof. Lowell. (1855-1916)

In this picture an attempt is made to visualize Professor Lowell’s ideas as to the condition of the planet. The general desert character of the surface is shown, with the dust storms that frequently arise. The canals are filled by the melting of the now at the poles, which is followed by the growth of vegetation in their vicinity. The canals are here shown filled, with the vegetation in vigorous growth.

Painted by H. Seppings Wright (1850-1937)

The Matrix, 1935

On: By: Romeyn

SCIENTIST SAYS UNIVERSE FAKE

Dr. L. B. Tuckerman Makes Attempt to “Debunk” Savants’ Theory

By F. B. COLTON

(Associated Press Leased Wire)

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18.–The universe was shown up as a fake by a scientist who “debunked” it. and revealed it as a fool’s’ paradise for people – including some scientists – who really thought they knew what it was like.

The fake universe is the universe we know, and probably we’ll always have to get along the best we can with it, because the real one is likely to be a will o‘ the wisp just beyond our reach. We can’t measure the real world, time it, or take its temperature with anything like real accuracy, Dr. L. B. Tuckerman told the Washington Academy of Sciences recently.

Paradox

Paradoxically he is an expert measurer himself. He’s on the seat of the national bureau of standards. where the nation’s most accurate measuring is done.

There’s no cause to worry, for our “fake universe” isn’t different enough from the real one to cause inconvenience. We can get along with our foot rules that don’t really measure a foot, clocks that don’t measure an hour and thermometers that don’t actually tell how cold it is.

“Facts Fictions”

Many of our facts are fictions. Doctor Tuckerman said. For example under certain conditions there are right different ways of defining a straight line. It isn’t always just the shortest distance between two points. Nobody really knows the height of any mountain because heights are measured from sea level, and sea level at different points on earth is not the same.

There isn’t any such things as “absolutely zero,” the coldest possible cold, though recently some scientists succeeded in producing a temperature only 18 one-hundredths of a degree above this fictional point.

Time doesn’t actually flow on at an even, unchanging pace. There’s only a convenient fiction too.

Shoot the Moon, 1920

On: By: Romeyn

The Washington Times, January 25, 1920

If you pointed your cannon straight up toward the moon, or aimed at the moon your rocket, as Professor Goddard is preparing to do, you would hit the moon if your projectile left the earth at a speed equal to six and seventy-seven-hundreths miles per second. This rate of speed would take the projectile up through the earth’s little air cushion, about two hundred and thirty miles thick, and on beyond to a point in space where the earth’s power of gravitation would end and the moon’s power would begin. The projectile would shoot up the first part of the journey, “fall down” the second part, landing on the moon inevitably. The plan is to charge part of Professor Goddard s rocket with some brilliantly inflammable and explosive stuff, aim it at a dark moon, then watch with telescope and see by the flash that the messenger had struck the moon’s surface and exploded. Continue reading “Shoot the Moon, 1920” →

Gilderfluke Perfected Locomotive, 1897

On: By: Romeyn

A spoof article written in the December issue of Locomotive Engineering, A Practical Journal of Railway Motive Power and Rolling Stock, by Eli Gilderfluke

The scope of this elaborate joke can be seen in the various components described below, Ive highlighted just a few of the many jokes, not to mention, the machine in the engraving would not be able to move thanks to the configuration of the wheels (52-57). Continue reading “Gilderfluke Perfected Locomotive, 1897” →