Francesco Lana de Terzi
Francesco Lana Terzi ( born December 10, 1631 Brescia, † February 22, 1687 ) was a Catholic priest of the Jesuit order, who designed an airship in the 17th century and developed the idea for a Braille.
Design of an airship
In 1670 the Jesuit Francesco Lana Terzi published a book entitled Prodromo ovvero saggio di alcune INVENZIONI nuove premesso all'arte maestra (German: " harbinger or attempt [ essay ] about some new inventions in advance of the main art" ) and described in a " flying boat ", the wooden hull reminiscent in shape to a dugout. Inspired by the experiments of Otto von Guericke with the Magdeburg hemispheres in 1663 had set up a balloon theory Lana (de) Terzi.
His - but never built - flying boat had a mast in the middle of the hull to which a sail was attached. The airship should be order to move like a sailing ship. Furthermore, it should have four masts to which balls were attached copper get. The balls should be made of very thin copper sheet and have a diameter of 7,5 meters. Terzi had calculated that the weight of a sphere amounts to 180 kg, the air is located in the balls but would weigh 290 kg. The copper balls should be pumped empty of air, and thus, as they would be lighter than the surrounding air, provide buoyancy and even allow 6 people could ride in the airship.
To this time it did not have the facilities to produce such thin copper sheet, also the pressure of the ambient air would have squeezed the balls, what Lana de Terzi was not yet known. His idea was therefore never put into practice. Francesco Lana de Terzi was also aware that you could use such a vehicle as a weapon of war, and thus to attack cities from the air and as he himself wrote: " God will not accept that such a machine is put into action to prevent government and the policy is recirculated ".
The fact that the idea of such working with vacuum balls airship is not purely physically realizable, pointed in 1710 by Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, and to this day is one such was not built. A replica of Lana de Terzis invention is in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC issued.
Draft of a script for the blind
Also in his book mentioned above Prodromo ... is the chapter " How a man born blind learn not only write, but to hide his secrets, even under a cipher and understand the answers in the same ciphers can ": Francesco Lana de Terzi considered various options, for example, a string or Knüpfschrift, but also a secret writing. This secret writing should consist of a flat writing, at the be translated into a system of lines and points provided with the letter. These lines and points would be, as they show on the paper raised structures, be palpable. He further recommended that blind people when they want to write the script of the sighted should use strings or wires so that they could follow the lines. He is the inventor of the "manual guide" that still today - to be used when the blind write a short message for the sighted or make a signature - but in a modified form.
Works
- Prodromo ovvero saggio di alcune inventione nuove premesso all'arte Maestra Opera surface prepara il P. Francesco Lana, Bresciano della Compagnia di Giesu. Per mostrare li più reconditi proncipij Naturale della Filosofia, riconosciuti con Accurata Teorica nelle più segnalate INVENTIONI, ed isperienze fin'hora ritrovate gli scrittori di questa materia & altre nuove dell'autore medesimo there. - Brescia: Rizzardi, 1670 (new edition: Milan: Longanesi, 1977)
- Magisterium naturae et artis opus physicale matematicum. - Brescia: Jo. Maria Ricciardi, 1684-86 [ Volume 1 & 2 ] & Parma: H. Rosati, 1692 [ Volume 3 ]