Francesco Lana de Terzi
Francesco Lana de Terzi (1631 in
Airship design
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In the year 1670, Francesco Lana de Terzi published a book titled Prodromo, including a chapter titled saggio di alcune invenzioni nuove premesso all'arte maestra ("Essay on new inventions premised on the master art"), which contained the description of a “flying ship”. Encouraged by the experiments of
His design had a central mast to which a sail was attached, and four masts which had thin copper foil spheres attached to them: the air would be pumped out of the spheres, leaving a vacuum inside, and so being lighter than the surrounding air, would provide lift. The airship would be steered like a sailing boat. Each sphere would have had a diameter of 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in). Terzi calculated that the weight of a sphere would be 180 kg (396 lb). He also calculated that the air in the sphere would weigh 290 kg (638 lb), and would provide enough lift to carry 6 passengers. At the time no one could manufacture such thin copper foil and the pressure of the surrounding air would have collapsed the spheres. In addition, Francesco Lana de Terzi was aware that one could use such a vehicle as a weapon of war, and attack cities from the air. He wrote: “God will never allow that such a machine be built…because everybody realises that no city would be safe from raids…iron weights, fireballs and bombs could be hurled from a great height".
The fact that these vacuum spheres were physically impossible was proven in 1710 by
Lana de Terzi's idea was discussed in Leibniz's Hypothesis physica nova (1671). In 1671, a review by
Blind writing alphabet
In his book Prodromo, he introduced an entirely new alphabet for
Prodomo also contains a music cipher in which letters of the alphabet are translated into musical notes. Although primarily intended for sending secret messages hidden via sheet music, the resulting melody could be transmitted by ear, and thus would also be accessible to the blind.
Works
- Lana de Terzi, Francesco (1672). "Reflections Made by P. Francisco Lana S. F. upon an Observation of Signor M. Antonio Castagna, Super Intendent of Some Mines in Italy, Concerning the Formation of Crystals: English'd Out of the XI. Venetian Giornale de Letterati". JSTOR 100935.
- Francesco Lana de Terzi (1670). Prodromo ovvero saggio di alcune inventione nuove premesso all'arte Maestra Opera che prepara il P. Francesco Lana, Bresciano della Compagnia di Giesu. Per mostrare li più reconditi proncipij della Naturale Filosofia, riconosciuti con accurata Teorica nelle più segnalate inventioni, ed isperienze fin'hora ritrovate da gli scrittori di questa materia & altre nuove dell'autore medesimo. Brescia: Rizzardi. (Ristampa: Milano, Longanesi, 1977)
- Francesco Lana de Terzi (1684). Magisterium naturae, et artis. Opus physico-mathematicum (in Latin). Vol. 1. Brescia: per Io. Mariam Ricciardum.
- Francesco Lana de Terzi (1686). Magisterium naturae, et artis. Opus physico-mathematicum (in Latin). Vol. 2. Brescia: per Io. Mariam Ricciardum.
- Francesco Lana de Terzi (1692). Magisterium naturae, et artis. Opus physico-mathematicum (in Latin). Vol. 3. Parma: Typis Hyppoliti Rosati ac sumptibus Iosephi ab Oleo.
See also
- List of Roman Catholic scientist-clerics
References
- ^ "Francesco Lana-Terzi, S.J. (1631-1687); The Father of Aeronautics". Archived from the original on 24 April 2021. Retrieved 1 May 2010.
- JSTOR 101056.
- ^ Hooke, Robert (1679). "P. Fran. Lana's Way of Making a Flying Chariot; with an Examination of the Grounds and Principles thereof". Philosophical Collections. 1: 18–29.
- ^ Tkaczyk, Viktoria (2007). "Ready for Takeoff. Robert Hooke's flying experiments". Cabinet Magazine (27): 44–49.
- ^ Francesco Lana, visionario tra velivoli e l'alfabeto dei ciechi, by E. Raggi, Giornale di Brescia, 30 December 2011.
External links
- This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Francesco Lana". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.
- Preti, Cesare (2004). "LANA TERZI, Francesco". ISBN 978-8-81200032-6.
- Eug. Shikhovtsev. "How I would rewrite article on Lana in Wikipedia". Retrieved 2016-11-02.