\n<\/p>\n
Scientists are trained to thoroughly investigate their new ideas. Sometimes, however, their preliminary research can go down strange rabbit holes, leading to interpretations of evidence that are, well, misguided. In reporting on emerging science for 180 years, Scientific American has published straight accounts that were considered legitimate at the time but today seem quaint, quizzical, ridiculous\u2014or, sometimes, prophetic. That\u2019s how science works. It evolves. As experts learn more in any given discipline, they revise theories, conduct new experiments and recast former conclusions. SciAm editors and writers have dutifully reported on it all, leaving us with some fun accounts from science history, here for you to enjoy.<\/p>\n
If you’re enjoying this article, consider supporting our award-winning journalism by subscribing. By purchasing a subscription you are helping to ensure the future of impactful stories about the discoveries and ideas shaping our world today.<\/p>\n
April 6, 1895<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the telephone was introduced to the attention of the world, and the human voice was made audible miles away, there were dreamy visions of other combinations of natural forces by which even sight of distant scenes might be obtained through inanimate wire. It may be claimed, now, that this same inanimate wire and electrical current will transmit and engrave a copy of a photograph miles away from the original. The electro-artograph, named by its inventor, Mr. N. S. Amstutz, will transmit copies of photographs to any distance, and reproduce the same at the other end of the wire, in line engraving, ready for press printing.\u201d \u2014\u201cThe Amstutz Electro-Artograph,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. LXXII, No. 14, page 215; April 6, 1895<\/p>\n
March 19, 1881<\/p>\n
\u201cThe records kept by the Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance Company show that 170 steam boilers exploded in the United States last year, killing 259 persons and injuring 555. The classified list shows the largest number of explosions in any class to have been 47, in sawing, planing and woodworking mills. The other principal classes were in order: paper, flouring, pulp and grist mills, and elevators, 19; railroad locomotives and fire engines, 18; steamboats, tugboats, yachts, steam barges, dredges and dry docks, 15; portable engines, hoisters, thrashers, piledrivers and cotton gins, 13; ironworks, rolling mills, furnaces, foundries, machine and boiler shops, 13; distilleries, breweries, malt and sugar houses, soap and chemical works, 10.\u201d \u2014\u201cWhose Boilers Explode,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. XLIV, No. 12, page 176; March 19, 1881<\/p>\n
January 27, 1906<\/p>\n
\u201cToday the safe-breaker no longer requires those beautifully fashioned, delicate yet powerful tools which were formerly both the admiration and the despair of the safe manufacturer. For the introduction of nitroglycerine, \u2018soup\u2019 in technical parlance, has not only obviated onerous labor, but has again enabled the safe-cracking industry to gain a step on the safe-making one. The modern \u2018yeggman,\u2019 however, is often an inartistic, untidy workman, for it frequently happens that when the door suddenly parts company with the safe it takes the front of the building with it. The bombardment of the surrounding territory with portions of the Farmers\u2019 National Bank seldom fails to rouse from slumber even the soundly-sleeping tillers of the soil.\u201d \u2014\u201cThe Ungentle Art of Burglary,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. XCIV, No. 4, page 88; January 27, 1906<\/p>\n
June 19, 1869<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Japanese dignitaries, says the Boston Journal of Chemistry, who recently visited this country under the direction of Mr. Burlingame, were observed to use pocket paper instead of pocket handkerchiefs, whenever they had occasion to remove perspiration from the forehead, or \u2018blow the nose.\u2019 The same piece is never used twice, but is thrown away after it is first taken in hand. We should suppose in time of general catarrh, the whole empire of Japan would be covered with bits of paper blowing about. The paper is quite peculiar, being soft, thin, and very tough.\u201d \u2014\u201cPocket Paper,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. XX, No. 25, page 391; June 19, 1869<\/p>\n
July 1950<\/p>\n
\u201cThe outermost planet of the solar system has a mass 10 times smaller than hitherto supposed, according to measurements made by Gerard P. Kuiper of Yerkes Observatory with the 200-inch telescope on Palomar Mountain. On the basis of deviations in the path of the planet Neptune, supposedly caused by Pluto\u2019s gravitational attraction, it used to be estimated that Pluto\u2019s mass was approximately that of the earth. Kuiper was the first human being to see the planet as anything more than a pinpoint of light. He calculated that Pluto\u2019s diameter is 3,600 miles, and its mass is one tenth of the earth\u2019s. It leaves unsolved the mystery of Neptune\u2019s perturbations, which are too great to be accounted for by so small a planet as Pluto.\u201d \u2014\u201cPluto\u2019s Mass,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. 183, No. 1, page 28; July 1950<\/p>\n
August 27, 1846<\/p>\n
\u201cBy means of a magnificent and powerful telescope, procured by Lord Ross, of Ireland, the moon has been subjected to a more critical examination than ever before. It is stated that there were no vestiges of architectural remains to show that the moon is or ever was inhabited by a race of mortals similar to ourselves. The moon presented no appearance that it contained anything like the green-field and lovely verdure of this beautiful world of ours. There was no water visible\u2014not a sea, or a river, or even the measure of a reservoir for supplying a factory\u2014all seemed desolate.\u201d \u2014\u201cThe Moon\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. I, No. 49, page 2; August 27, 1846<\/p>\n
November 22, 1919<\/p>\n
\u201cProfessional horse-breeders still boost for the business; but they are merely whistling to keep up their courage. The days of the horse as a beast of burden are numbered. The automobile is taking the place of the carriage horse; the truck is taking the place of the dray horse; and the farm tractor the place of the farm horse. Nor is there any cause to bemoan this state of affairs. We all admit that the horse is one of the noblest of animals; and that is a very good reason why we should rejoice at his prospective emancipation from a life of servitude and suffering. That, of course, is the humanitarian side of it; the business side is more to the point: the machine is going to do the hard work of the world much easier and much cheaper than it ever has been done. At least 50 percent of the horses will have been laid off by January 1st, 1920.\u201d \u2014\u201cThe Draft-Horse Situation,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. CXXI, No. 21, page 510; November 22, 1919<\/p>\n
January 15, 1898<\/p>\n
\u201cThe catalog of brilliant achievements of surgery must now include the operation performed by Dr. Carl Schlatter, of the University of Zurich, who has succeeded in extirpating the stomach of a woman. The patient is in good physical condition, having survived the operation three months. Anna Landis was a Swiss silk weaver, fifty-six years of age. She had abdominal pains, and on examination it was found that she had a large tumor, the whole stomach being hopelessly diseased. Dr. Schlatter conceived the daring and brilliant idea of removing the stomach and uniting the intestine with the oesophagus, forming a direct channel from the throat down through the intestines. The abdominal wound has healed rapidly and the woman\u2019s appetite is now good, but she does not eat much at a time.\u201d \u2014\u201cLiving without a Stomach,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 3, page 35; January 15, 1898<\/p>\n
January 1898<\/p>\n
\u201cThe remarkable process of crushing and magnetic separation of iron ore at Mr. Thomas Edison\u2019s works in New Jersey shows a characteristic originality and freedom from the trammels of tradition. The rocks of iron ore are fed through 70-ton \u2018giant rolls\u2019 that can seize a 5-ton rock and crunch it with less show of effort than a dog in crunching a bone. After passing through several rollers and mesh screens, the finely crushed material falls in a thin sheet in front of a series of magnets, which deflect the magnetic particles containing iron. This is the latest and most radical development in mining and metallurgy of iron.\u201d \u2014\u201cThe Edison Magnetic Concentrating Works,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. LXXVIII, No. 4, pages 55\u201357; January 22, 1898<\/p>\n
June 1959<\/p>\n
\u201cThe problems of eating and drinking under weightless conditions in space, long a topic of speculation among science-fiction writers, are now under investigation in a flying laboratory. Preliminary results indicate that space travelers will drink from plastic squeeze bottles and that space cooks will specialize in semiliquid preparations resembling baby food. According to a report in the Journal of Aviation Medicine, almost all the volunteers found that drinking from an open container was a frustrating and exceedingly messy process. Under weightless conditions even a slowly lifted glass of water was apt to project an amoeba-like mass of fluid onto the face. Drinking from a straw was hardly more satisfactory. Bubbles of air remained suspended in the weightless water, and the subjects ingested more air than water.\u201d \u2014\u201cSpace Menus,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. 200, No. 6, pages 82, 85; June 1959<\/p>\n
February 24, 1900<\/p>\n
\u201cDr. John D. Quackenbos, of Columbia University, has long been engaged in experiments in using hypnotic suggestion for the correction of moral infirmities and defects such as kleptomania, the drink habit, and in children habits of lying and petty thieving. Dr. Quackenbos says, \u2018I find out all I can about the extent of a patient\u2019s weakness. For each patient I have to find some ambition, some strong conscious tendency to appeal to, and then my suggestion, as an unconscious impulse, controls the moral weakness by inducing the patient to further his desires by honest means. Of course, if a man has, like one of my patients, no ambition in the world save to be a good billiard player, he can\u2019t be cured of the liquor habit, because his highest ambition takes him straight into danger.\u2019\u201d \u2014\u201cHypnotism in Practice,\u201d in Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XLIX, No. 1260, page 20192; February 24, 1900<\/p>\n
November 18, 1854<\/p>\n
\u201cSir David Brewster, who supposes the stars to be inhabited, as being \u2018the hope of the Christian,\u2019 asks, \u2018is it necessary that an immortal soul be hung upon a skeleton of bone; must it see with two eyes, and rest on a duality of limbs? May it not rest in a Polyphemus with one eye ball, or an Argus with a hundred? May it not reign in the giant forms of the Titans, and direct the hundred hands of Briareus?\u2019 Supposing it were true, what has that to do with the hope of the Christian? Nothing at all. This speculating in the physical sciences, independent of any solid proofs one way or the other, and dragging in religion into such controversies, neither honors the Author of religion, nor adds a single laurel to the chaplet of the sciences; nor will we ever be able to tell whether Mars or Jupiter contain a single living object.\u201d \u2014\u201cInhabitants in the Stars,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. X, No. 10, page 74; November 18, 1854<\/p>\n
February 2, 1907<\/p>\n
\u201cSmoke helmets, smoke jackets, and self-contained breathing apparatus generally are used in mines of all kinds, fire brigades, ammonia chambers of refrigerating factories and other industrial concerns. The curious gear is intended to supply the user with air for about four hours. Oxygen can be supplied from a steel cylinder. Some shipping companies absolutely refuse to carry compressed oxygen in steel cylinders, however. Now a new substance, known as \u2018oxylithe,\u2019 has come along. The stuff is prepared in small cakes ready for immediate use, and on coming in contact with water it gives off chemically pure oxygen.\u201d \u2014\u201cBreathing Masks and Helmets,\u201d by W. G. Fitz-Gerald, in Scientific American, Vol. XCVI, No. 5, pages 113\u2013114; February 2, 1907<\/p>\n
July 23, 1864<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is a popular belief that wheat found in the ancient sepulchres of Egypt will not only germinate after the lapse of 3,000 years, but produce ears of extraordinary size and beauty. The question is undecided; but Antonio Figari-Bey\u2019s paper, addressed to the Egyptian Institute at Alexandria, appears much against it. One kind of wheat which Figari-Bey employed for his experiments had been found in Upper Egypt, at the bottom of a tomb at Medinet-Aboo [Madīnat Hābū]. The form of the grains had not changed, but their color, both without and within, had become reddish, as if they had been exposed to smoke. On being sown in moist ground, on the ninth day their decomposition was complete. No trace of any germination could be discovered.\u201d \u2014\u201cMummy Wheat,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. XI, No. 4, page 49; July 23, 1864<\/p>\n
July 1964<\/p>\n
\u201cBy this month it should be possible for a New Yorker, a Chicagoan or a Washingtonian to communicate with someone in one of the other cities by televised telephoning. The device they would use is called a Picturephone and is described by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, which developed it, as \u2018the first dialable visual telephone system with an acceptable picture that has been brought within the range of economic feasibility.\u2019 A desktop unit includes a camera and a screen that is 43\u20448 inches wide and 53\u20444 inches high. AT&T says it cannot hope to provide the service to homes or offices at present, one reason being that the transmission of a picture requires a bandwidth that would accommodate 125 voice-only telephones.\u201d \u2014\u201cPicturephone,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. 211, No. 1, page 48; July 1964<\/p>\n
March 2, 1901<\/p>\n
\u201cA correspondent from the city of Boone, Iowa, sends $5 and some sketches of a table he is building, evidently intended for some gambling establishment. There is a plate of soft iron in the middle of a table under the cloth, which by an electric current may become magnetized. Loaded dice can thereby be manipulated at the will of the operator. He desires us to assist him in overcoming some defects in his design. We have returned the amount of the bribe offered, and take the opportunity of informing him that we do not care to become an accessory in his crime.\u201d \u2014\u201cA Disingenuous Request,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. LXXXIV, No. 9, page 135; March 2, 1901<\/p>\n
February 21, 1857<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been informed by a European acquaintance that the Maelstrom, that great whirlpool on the coast of Norway, has no existence. He told me that a nautical and scientific commission, appointed by the King of Denmark, was sent to approach as near as possible to the edge of the whirlpool, sail around it, measure its circumference, observe its action and make a report. They went out and sailed all around where the Maelstrom was said to be, but the sea was as smooth as any other part of the German ocean. I had been instructed to believe that the Maelstrom was a fixed fact, and that ships, and even huge whales, were sometimes dragged within its terrible liquid coils, and buried forever.\u201d \u2014\u201cMaelstrom\u2014The Great Whirlpool,\u201d in Scientific American, Vol. XII, No. 24, page 187; February 21, 1857<\/p>\n
March 1950<\/p>\n
\u201cNeurotic aberrations can be caused when patterns of behavior come into conflict either because they arise from incompatible needs, or because they cannot coexist in space and time. Cat neuroses were experimentally produced by first training animals to obtain food by manipulating a switch that deposited a pellet of food in the food-box. After a cat had become thoroughly accustomed to this procedure, a harmless jet of air was flicked across its nose as it lifted the lid of the food-box. The cats then showed neurotic indecision about approaching the switch. Some assumed neurotic attitudes. Others were uninterested in mice. One tried to shrink into the cage walls.\u201d \u2014\u201cExperimental Neuroses,\u201d by Jules H. Masserman, in Scientific American, Vol. 182, No. 3, pages 38\u201343; March 1950<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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