Art & Inspiration Do you ever wonder about really smart guys?

Every once in a while I think about how the really smart guys come up with their ideas. Most recent one was while working with fiberglass for my Mysterion reproduction. Some guy thought, "My son just threw a baseball through our bedroom window, destroying the extremely brittle and fragile pane, casing my wife to cur her bare foot on a shard of glass hiding in the carpet. I think I will take this material, form it into a filament finer than a human hair, weave it into a fabric that will be pound-for-pound stronger than steel". When he finished this little project he said, "John, go make me some polyester liquid resin. Of course the resin will be way too viscous so you will need to add some styrene monomer as a diluent. Then mix up some ethyl methyl ketone peroxide to catalyze the goo into a solid so we can soak it into my new glass cloth and make rigid objects. Be careful with the MEKP because it is very unstable and will explode if hit with a shock. Mix up a solution that wont explode.".


Then you have the guys who come up with a plan to seal a couple guys in an aluminum can, toss them off the earth on top of a cylinder that will expend more energy that a small nuclear bomb, and be confident they will hit a target 248,000 miles away, both the starting and destination points hurtling through space/time in wildly different trajectories. Oh, and for toppers, land them safely on the target then reverse the process to bring them home again.


Then you have the case of , who thought eating a cashew would ever be a good idea, seeing that in its raw form it is lethal. https://nutgourmet.wordpress.com/tag/cashew-harvesting/


These are things that I ponder occasionally.

 

Chemical fumes can do strange things to a brain.

Things that make you go "hmmmmmm"

 

Nope.

 

I don't care what you other guys think of me.

 

Yeah... Kinda like smoking some scranus...

 

Google the process by which nitromethane is manufactured. Who the $%^# came up with that idea?

 

Stubborn determination can be a stand-in for smart.

I am currently successfully building that which I am told is impossible, or decades away, and many of you here have called me an idiot.

 

Quite often those smart guys were trying to make something else and they ended up with other results that made them famous.

I think there is a fine line sometimes between really smart guys and guys that say Hold my beer and watch this!

 

In some cases it's a matter of trial and error such as Ben Franklin and the light bulb. Lots of patience with numerous failures.

 

Yeh, so many processes were invented in the last hundred years and now look, seems that not all that many new ideas are being germinated, I think we have gotten lazy from all the technology of today.
Thinking about some of our recent inventions about the only groundbreaking development has been the cel phone, well there is Viagra but I don't need either one............yet.

 

Yeah... the guys who know how molecules and stuff work.

Definitely some trial and error even in scientific endeavors. Microwave ovens were accidental. Some drugs too.

Sometimes I think about early man. They got up one chilly morning looking for food and for the first time came across a wild watermelon patch. Mmm mmm!
Or foods that are poison...
Who wants to try this?
Orc?
Oops... he died.
Who wants to try this root?
Nobody?...

Good thing hot rodding isn't rocket surgery.

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Still plenty of trial-and-error though LOL. But as always, we learn from each other.
Such as...
Danny's hood latch stuck. Okay... everybody who owns shoebox Fords, put an emergency cable to your latches!

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Did Ben try to create a light bulb? I thought he was dead long before the light bulb came into being.

 

Everybody
have a good day,
have a good day,
have a good day!

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I made this and this. Dumb guys can do stuff too.

 

When I worked for Owens Corning we were told that fiberglas came from an attempt to spray glass as a tank lining.

 

Its never really bothered me that I was smarter than everyone else....

 

Ben Franklin screwed up the lightbulb so many times that Thomas Edison finally made one

 

I can relate more to "Smart Ass" moniker

 

Teflon was discovered by a mistake while trying to invent something else. But you have to admire those who invent because they see a very specific need. It was once thought aluminum was so rare it was more valuable then gold. So much that the very tip of the Washington Monument is a pure aluminum pyramid. Now you can’t go though a day with out using or touching something made from aluminum. Who hasn’t had one of those “ Why didn't I think of this” moments.

 

That was Thomas A Edison...

 

...After a million times...

 

You too?

 

So a little throttle makes the bucket in the backround levitate? DOH!

 

Oh yeh, the motorized margarita mixer too, that was a biggie, gonna have to put one of my spare engines on one.

 

I work with aluminum castings all the time......

 

I designed machine-tools for 25 years.
I thought I invented something a couple of times.
How 'bout an infinitely-variable transmission? Just slide one gear along the length of a long, cone-shaped gear.
Ummmm...no...lol.

 

I spend a lot of days hanging out with a smart guy ... I work alone !!

 

Would it be traditional if a SBC is used? Or does it have to be a Y-block or Flathead?