It is not the first time the Wright brothers have been accused of dishonesty. In 1906, an editorial in Paris Herald famously wondered if the brothers were "flyers or liars". To this day, some reject the American duo's 1903 flight for relying on a catapult and believe that a Brazilian aviator, Alberto Santos-Dumont, was the first to prove that a heavier-than-air machine could take off on its own. Another aviator, Gustave Whitehead, later argued he had tested powered machines as early as 1901. But assertions that an Indian by the name Shivkar Bapuji Talpade had invented the modern aircraft eight years before the Wright brothers, as recently brought into discussion by a controversial paper presented at the Indian Science Congress in Mumbai, seem rather off course.
The facts remain cloaked in mystery, but the legend goes that Talpade had created a flying machine powered by mercury and solar energy, and based on ideas outlined in Vedic texts. He ostensibly named it Marutsakha (friend of the air) and flew it at the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai in 1895. While hinting that Talpade's work should be recognised, Anand Bodas, who presented a thinly-substantiated paper at the Science Congress, also spoke of ancient Sanskrit descriptions of vimanas that were 60X60 feet in size and travelled across countries, continents and even planets. Various alloys for aircraft manufacturing are mentioned in Maharishi Bharadwaj's Vimana Samhita, he claimed, adding that "the young generation should study the alloys and make them here".
Over the years, the truth about Talpade is indistinguishable from layers of jingoistic embellishment that unofficially call him the "first man to fly an aircraft". A quick search online shows that the event is most often discussed in forums on nationalism and pride routinely outweighs research in these posts. One Hindi news channel even ran a segment recently declaring, "Wright brothers wrong thhe" (the Wright brothers were wrong.) Such claims may be doing more damage than service to what were seemingly humble efforts by the inquisitive Talpade, reckons city historian Deepak Rao. In fact, the two inventions are not comparable because unlike in the American aviators' case, Talpade's machine is said to have been unmanned.Besides, the first recorded instance of an unmanned flying machine is of John Stringfellow's steam-driven one in 1848.
10/01/15 Ranjita Ganesan/Business Standard
The facts remain cloaked in mystery, but the legend goes that Talpade had created a flying machine powered by mercury and solar energy, and based on ideas outlined in Vedic texts. He ostensibly named it Marutsakha (friend of the air) and flew it at the Chowpatty beach in Mumbai in 1895. While hinting that Talpade's work should be recognised, Anand Bodas, who presented a thinly-substantiated paper at the Science Congress, also spoke of ancient Sanskrit descriptions of vimanas that were 60X60 feet in size and travelled across countries, continents and even planets. Various alloys for aircraft manufacturing are mentioned in Maharishi Bharadwaj's Vimana Samhita, he claimed, adding that "the young generation should study the alloys and make them here".
Over the years, the truth about Talpade is indistinguishable from layers of jingoistic embellishment that unofficially call him the "first man to fly an aircraft". A quick search online shows that the event is most often discussed in forums on nationalism and pride routinely outweighs research in these posts. One Hindi news channel even ran a segment recently declaring, "Wright brothers wrong thhe" (the Wright brothers were wrong.) Such claims may be doing more damage than service to what were seemingly humble efforts by the inquisitive Talpade, reckons city historian Deepak Rao. In fact, the two inventions are not comparable because unlike in the American aviators' case, Talpade's machine is said to have been unmanned.Besides, the first recorded instance of an unmanned flying machine is of John Stringfellow's steam-driven one in 1848.
10/01/15 Ranjita Ganesan/Business Standard
No comments:
Post a Comment