OT The inventions of Daedalus

I picked mine up from a charity shop, and it is on my coffee table at the moment. I bought it because I remembered reading the columns in The New Scientist, a few decades ago.

Maybe I'll take a leaf out of Max Bialystock's playbook and use them as a basis for some kickstarters.

t.

Apparently He's still writing a column in Nature, read down here, editorial reviews,

(hmmm sorry, 'further inventions' amazon link.)

Anyway I'm certainly looking forward to my next dose.

George H.

As a long-term reader and subscriber to NS and reader of Daedalus' columns I was startled by that because I thought he had died years ago. A search of the NS archive confirms that, though I was not able to find the date. I must visit charity shops more often!

Mike.

I now see that Daedalus has his own Wikipedia page that gives his life as 20 April 1938 ? 19 July 2017:

Mike.

Right, I found that today too. RIP.

I must have picked this book up in the late 80's. (there's a penciled $2 in the corner. PB) I remember reading and enjoying it. And it's sat on my shelf since. I'm enjoying it (maybe) more now. It's a book to be sipped, a few pages/ ideas at a time.

So many fun ideas, Let me copy this snippet, The page in the book (168) is titled: 'Per funicula ad astra'

Daeadalus, who started the whole aerospace business, has not lost interest in the field. He has been considering alternatives to launching satellites by rocket, which he thinks inelegant and wasteful. He currently has a scheme to erect on the Equator a tower 22 300 miles high. Such a tower, rotating with the Earth, would move with orbital velocity at it's top; so you merely carry your satellite up and push it off. In case of opposition he has a cheaper plan which uses a single rocket to launch a satellite into a slightly higher orbit than this, while paying out say 24 00 miles of cable. The cable would then be anchored on the Equator and the satellite would hold it taut. Further small satellites could then be hoisted up the cable. Regrettably, Coriolis forces would tend to make the whole thing lag behind the Earth's rotation during this operation, but Daedalus reckons that ultimately the cable tension would bring it back ready for the next launch.

(New Scientist, 24 December 1964)

George H. (who loves to reckon things :^)

My lab is fairly full of consulting jokes, for instance these mugs:

and .

The consulting ones go into a cupboard when clients visit. ;)

I also have the original of this one:

However the most satisfying is Breughel's "Landscape with the fall of Icarus",

Icarus was a client of the greatest consultant of antiquity: his father Daedalus. He crashed into the sea because he didn't follow advice, but as you can see from the picture, everybody else's life went on uninterrupted. ;)

Cheers

Phil Hobbs

I have a different interpretation. The firm of Daedalus and Son failed to negotiate an NDA (non-disclosure agreement) for the labyrinth construction project with King Minos. Justifiably considering the contractors to be a security risk, King Minos imprisoned them for an unspecified period, or until the Minotaur died, whichever came first. Having limited resources available while imprisoned, Daedalus macgyvered a flying contrivance from was on hand, which was a feather comforter and candle wax. His instructions to his son were vague and not very useful. Icarus was warned not to fly too high or the wax would melt, or too low lest the feathers get wet. No doubt, he questioned his father asking how high and how low. He received no usable answer probably because no test pilot was available to establish performance limits, and they had no altimeter available for the instrument console. Icarus possibly volunteered to test the limits with his father flying nearby to record the results. Unfortunately, the performance data was lost with Icarus as he was also substituting as the flight recorder.

There are quite a few lessons to be learned from the story. Safety should have been a higher priority. Material properties should have been better tested. There should have been a test flight. Flying at night would have eliminated the solar heating problem. Inventing a parachute might also have helped.

As a whole, the story is an example of what can happen if one fails to obtain proper legal advice, doesn't read the fine print on the NDA, attempts damage control using a solution built from salvaged parts, fails to accurately determine key performance and operational parameters, and totally ignores safety concerns by failing to perform a test flight. Had they not built their flying machines and remained as guests of King Minos, I'm sure the king could have found good use for their engineering talents in other projects.

While no druid, I certainly cavorted there as a kid.

There was something both exciting and relaxing about climbing over those stones and eating picnics on them.

No more, alas: you can't get to the stones, let alone touch them, and the concept of climbing on them provokes bewilderment.

Fortunately there are still far more relaxed places, e.g Silbury Hill, Avebury, Long Barrow, Stanton Drew Ring, and Hetty Pegler's Tump. /Those/ are worth going to see.

Nice plow! Icarus is the guy with his legs wiggling out of the water? (You'd have thunk he could have swum to the shore or boat.)

"Three Worlds" by MC Escher is one of my favorite prints

George H.