Chain
pump
Chain pump as
known in 1618. A water wheel which is expected through a system of
gearing to operate a chain pump, which pump should raise the water
necessary to propel the wheel, and so on forever. It is probably
unnecessary to inform our readers that this fallacious principle has
been tried in various ways, and that there are occasionally yet to be
found those so unskilled in mechanical science, and incapable of seeing
the radical error of the device, as to waste their substance in a
repetition of this time-honored blunder.
(Subsection 950, from
p.380)
From: Gardner D. Hiscox, M.E., Mechanical Appliances and Novelties of Construction (1927), Norman W. Henley Publ. Co.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion. (1987) -- Carl Sagan
