After sixteen hours of bouncing disorder, Ireland miraculously appeared beneath them, and Alcock crash-landed in a boggy field. They had flown 1,890 miles, only slightly more than half the distance from New York to Paris, but it was still an astounding achievement. They emerged unhurt from their mangled plane but struggled to get anyone to grasp quite what they had just done. Word of their departure from Newfoundland had been delayed, so no one in Ireland was expecting their arrival, removing all sense of excitement and anticipation. The telegraph girl in Clifden, the nearest town, was not terribly good at her job, it seems, and could only manage to transmit short, mildly befuddled messages, adding to the confusion.
Bryson, Bill (2013-10-01). One Summer: America, 1927 (Kindle Locations 152-157). Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. Kindle Edition
I used to teach a 5th grade social studies unit on the history of transportation. We used to show a Disney film on the history of the dream of flight. The Kitty Hawk flew with the Wright Brothers in 1908 and that was the climax of many centuries of dreaming and trying ways to travel through the air. The hot-air balloon predated the Kitty Hawk with its first flight in 1783.
The famous and important flight by Charles Lindbergh in 1927 across the Atlantic is described in Bryson's book mentioned above. The little celebrated flight mentioned above from Newfoundland to Ireland in 1919 was a very big achievement. But it is the comment by Bryson on the difficulty of getting anyone to understand what they had done that catches my attention.
Whether it was Franklin's demonstration that lightning was electrical, or Edison's invention of electrical lighting or the more recent landing men on the moon, some things are difficult to describe. I have heard Pasteur shocked Parisians with his information that there were many forms of life that affected us and our health that were too small to see.
Of course, we evidently have people today that are unconvinced that there were Americans who walked on the moon.
Elizabeth Eisenstein's "Divine Art, Infernal Machine: The Reception of Printing in the West…." reports that Gutenberg and his partner printed and sold Bibles in Paris of such quality at such relatively affordable prices that some people reported the pair to the police as being in league with the Devil. It was easier to believe in some sort of evil magic than that a new achievement had been accomplished.
Just expect it: if something new and important comes along, the first few attempts to explain will be met with disbelief or complete lack of comprehension. Such reactions are the first step in humanity's learning about new achievements. It takes a while for us to understand, believe, [and these days, verify] new and surprising claims.
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Bill
Main blog: Fear, Fun and Filoz
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