DIY History | Transcribe | Hevelin Fanzines | Jupiter, v. 1, issue 1, May 1946

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Jupiter, v. 1, issue 1, May 1946

Page 9

on them. Many, like our Brazilian friend, believed in keeping the air filled with shot during a raid, so that no plane would get thru. Scores proposed gathering light
guns into clumps to be fired all at once in order to cover a large area, like buckshot.
   This inattention to mathematics showed a more subtle way, too. Somebody told us he had thot of a new chemical compound, and gave the ingredients. "Please try it sir, because how do you know, it might be a very important discovery." It was obvious that he had never tested it and had basis for thinking it was anything, but was just hoping that it might be. Certes he never acquainted himself with the formula to figure the number of possible combinations of several elements. It was as if a man should stop off the public highway and dig in the ground because for all he knew, there might be a treasure buried there.  So, many people prefaced their letters with the statement that in these crucial war times, everybody who had an idea the he thot might possibly be of value, should send it to the government and let them decide. Which sounds plausible, but in fact resulted in a flood of correspondence, in which the chance of finding something of value was little better than the chance that the five monkeys at typewriters would produce Invictus in the first five years.
   But, you say, there must have been some worthwhile inventions out of all these if only by pure chance? I can say, so some authority, that there were practically none. Perhaps a handful of unknowns contributed ideas of the same degree of usefulness as suggestions for increasing war production which labor-management committees encouraged. Nothing you may be sure, that changed the progress of the war. You see no man with the education, training, and experience necessary to produce something new in this day and age was neglected by the government. He was called on and set to work. The lesser technicians were also at work in his specialty, and any ideas they got would be acted on directly within that industry. This left little except incompetents and monomaniacs to write directly to the President or War Department.
   I don't mean to disparage the spirit which actuated many of these simple, patriotic people. The world, and man's knowledge, is simply bigger than they realize. I don't decry the study of science by non-geniuses, nor puttering around in a home workshop. It's essential that the common man get some understanding of what makes the wheels go around, and it would be of untold benefit it he could learn a little of scientific thinking. Moreover, serious work in the library or workshop is a necessary step for those who will be the technicians of the future, and its pursuit by anyone should at least give him a healthy respect for the extent to which our knowledge and craft have developed. All too often, however, it is apparent that would-be inventors are unwilling to undergo the education and hard work necessary to add a mite to our science.
   The time is past when the normal experience of the layman hold elements sufficient to produce new and worthwhile inventions. After two centuries of the machine age, they obvious has all been discovered. Specialization is now essential. A decent respect for what has been accomplished, and realization that there are two hundred million people in the English-speaking world, most of them able and willing to write the government on slight provocation, should make you hesitate before rushing into Washington with your idea.
                    -- Jack Speer
Boob's Book Nook (con't from page   )
   In the resultant pitched battle a good nine-tenths of the ship's crew were slaughtered (Meanwhile, of course, causing little short of wholesale massacre among the women warriors) and our hero along with the remaining three or four other men are carted away to the dungeons to be sacrificed to the sun god. ("Why is it, that if these people live on the dark side, where the sun is never seen, they worship the sun god? Ed:)
   But aha! All is not lost. Remember the patch over our hero's eye? Just at the almost-fata moment when our upstanding young man is about to be staked and gutted on the altar, he whips off the black patch and there is his strange eye, gleaming with a fierce purple light it its own, actually shining like a flashlight on a dark night! The assembled ladies are stunned. There is a moment's tense silence. And then, as one, they become enmeshed in the power of the eye and hurl themselves at his feet, tearing off their clothes as they do so. (concluded on page [illegible])
                   (9)

Saving...

on them. Many, like our Brazilian friend, believed in keeping the air filled with shot during a raid, so that no plane would get thru. Scores proposed gathering light guns into clumps to be fired all at once in order to cover a large area, like buckshot. This inattention to mathematics showed a more subtle way, too. Somebody told us he had thot of a new chemical compound, and gave the ingredients. "Please try it sir, because how do you know, it might be a very important discovery." It was obvious that he had never tested it and had basis for thinking it was anything, but was just hoping that it might be. Certes he never acquainted himself with the formula to figure the number of possible combinations of several elements. It was as if a man should stop off the public highway and dig in the ground because for all he knew, there might be a treasure buried there. So, many people prefaced their letters with the statement that in these crucial war times, everybody who had an idea the he thot might possibly be of value, should send it to the government and let them decide. Which sounds plausible, but in fact resulted in a flood of correspondence, in which the chance of finding something of value was little better than the chance that the five monkeys at typewriters would produce Invictus in the first five years. But, you say, there must have been some worthwhile inventions out of all these if only by pure chance? I can say, so some authority, that there were practically none. Perhaps a handful of unknowns contributed ideas of the same degree of usefulness as suggestions for increasing war production which labor-management committees encouraged. Nothing you may be sure, that changed the progress of the war. You see no man with the education, training, and experience necessary to produce something new in this day and age was neglected by the government. He was called on and set to work. The lesser technicians were also at work in his specialty, and any ideas they got would be acted on directly within that industry. This left little except incompetents and monomaniacs to write directly to the President or War Department. I don't mean to disparage the spirit which actuated many of these simple, patriotic people. The world, and man's knowledge, is simply bigger than they realize. I don't decry the study of science by non-geniuses, nor puttering around in a home workshop. It's essential that the common man get some understanding of what makes the wheels go around, and it would be of untold benefit it he could learn a little of scientific thinking. Moreover, serious work in the library or workshop is a necessary step for those who will be the technicians of the future, and its pursuit by anyone should at least give him a healthy respect for the extent to which our knowledge and craft have developed. All too often, however, it is apparent that would-be inventors are unwilling to undergo the education and hard work necessary to add a mite to our science. The time is past when the normal experience of the layman hold elements sufficient to produce new and worthwhile inventions. After two centuries of the machine age, they obvious has all been discovered. Specialization is now essential. A decent respect for what has been accomplished, and realization that there are two hundred million people in the English-speaking world, most of them able and willing to write the government on slight provocation, should make you hesitate before rushing into Washington with your idea. -- Jack Speer Boob's Book Nook (con't from page ) In the resultant pitched battle a good nine-tenths of the ship's crew were slaughtered (Meanwhile, of course, causing little short of wholesale massacre among the women warriors) and our hero along with the remaining three or four other men are carted away to the dungeons to be sacrificed to the sun god. ("Why is it, that if these people live on the dark side, where the sun is never seen, they worship the sun god? Ed:) But aha! All is not lost. Remember the patch over our hero's eye? Just at the almost-fata moment when our upstanding young man is about to be staked and gutted on the altar, he whips off the black patch and there is his strange eye, gleaming with a fierce purple light it its own, actually shining like a flashlight on a dark night! The assembled ladies are stunned. There is a moment's tense silence. And then, as one, they become enmeshed in the power of the eye and hurl themselves at his feet, tearing off their clothes as they do so. (concluded on page [illegible]) (9)