The above are only a few of the many like instances recorded in
scientific progress. While not accurately true, and while less true
during the last two decades than formerly, it is, nevertheless, a
general truth that scientific progress has been made in spite of, and
in the face of discouragement and ridicule from the multitudes who were
destined to be benefited by the discoveries made by the persistent
so-called cranks.
These facts are all well known to the Perpetual Motion enthusiast. It
is, therefore, of no avail to tell him that the scientific world has
pronounced his aspirations and attempts but dreams, and that Perpetual
Motion workers are by the scientific world denominated cranks.
If it be admitted that Perpetual Motion is, as scientific men tell
us, a chimerical dream, it is still to be very greatly doubted if the
world at large is to be benefited by dissuading minds from working
on the problem. There is no doubt that many persons who have become
more intensely interested in mechanics by thinking and working on the
problem of Perpetual Motion, have thereby been lead to study more
and more generally into mechanical subjects, and became not merely
tyros, but useful men in various mechanical pursuits. Many doubtless
have followed mechanical subjects to which they were introduced by
labors toward Perpetual Motion, to the making of useful and valuable
inventions and discoveries.
Notwithstanding the fact that a countless number of devices for the
attainment of Perpetual Motion have been proclaimed and exhibited, it
is to be supposed that those actually proclaimed and brought to light
constitute but an infinitesimally small proportion of those actually
made. It is to be supposed that the Perpetual Motion worker has some
sense, and that the great majority of them before proclaiming his
apparatus would want to know himself that it was not a failure, and
would not, when ushered before the public, bring upon him humiliation
and jeers. It is to be believed that in nearly every instance the
produced device was tested before being proclaimed and ushered into the
light of day. It goes without saying that all that were so tested were
failures, and were never heard of except by the inventor and a very few
intimate friends or co-laborers. Those that have been heralded to the
world represent only that small proportion where over-confidence in the
operation, or a disregard for the truth, or some other unexplainable
something caused the inventor and his friends to make the announcement
and disclosure of the device before the test.
It is almost impossible to conceive of a person of any intelligence
exposing himself to the ridicule resulting from the failure of a
pompously heralded device, when a simple test would have saved the
exposure, and yet the civilized world has been filled with Perpetual
Motion devices proclaimed and heralded with trumpet blast, which, when
tested, "didn't work."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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