Last month, we acknowledged that we erred when we ran an article in our September issue pertaining to Samuel Adams. The article held that Adams, one of America's founding fathers, was the son of a Ukrainian immigrant who had Anglicized his name. We reported this myth as fact, and our readers deserve credit for having caught our lapse.
Just as there is no truth behind the story that Adams was Ukrainian, other "well known facts," disputed claims have been made by Ukrainians and others in the name of misplaced national pride. Have you heard the one about Paris' Orly airport being named after Ukrainian Hryhory Orly, who was supposedly the son of Hetman Pylup Orluk and a marshal in the French army? The airport was allegedly built on his estate, called Orly. Or that Ghengis Khan's mother was Ukrainian? Presumably, he rode roughshod over the Eurasian continent in the 13th century in the hope of finding long-lost kin.
Moving closer to the realm of credibility, we cannot help but touch upon the dispute over the invention of the radio. For decades, the Soviet establishment insisted that a fellow named Alexander Popov deserved the credit. Many who were taught this in school either still believe it or are equally skeptical of any similar claims. We in the West, of course, honor Guglielmo Marconi.
According to an article by James Rybak in the August 1992 issue of "Popular Electronics," Marconi indeed deserves the title, but Popov was so slouch either. On May 7, 1895 at a meeting of the Russian Physical and Chemical Society in St. Petersburg, Popov demonstrated a receiver that could detect electromagnetic waves produced by lightning discharges in the atmosphere several miles away.
A little over 10 months later, he supposedly demonstrated the transmission and reception of information by wireless telegraphy to the same society. "Unfortunately, no written record was made at the time of this wireless telegraphy demonstration to provide documentation for historical purposes," says Rybak. But around 30 years later, in Stalinist Russia, the second demonstration was recorded from the recollection of those who had witnessed it.
Marconi's first patent was filed in England on June 2, 1896 while the first public demonstration to a group of scientists took place the following July. Surely preliminary, informal experiments must have been made even earlier.
Soviet historians, however, cite documentation from the date the lightening detector was shown. Today, May 7, rather than March 24, is Radio Day in Russia.
Popov was a top-notch physicist and had done much work in the development of wireless communications. But, unlike Marconi, he was "first and foremost an academician, not an entrepreneur," writes Rybak. While Marconi was single-minded in his efforts to achieve recognition and profit from his research, Popov worked on several inventions at the same time.
"Unquestionably, Marconi knew nothing of Popov's work,"Rybak emphasizes, but he did eventually visit Russia, where the two men were reported to have had a cordial discussion. Popov himself had traveled to the U.S. More importantly, Popov never accused Marconi of stealing his research, which apparently had moving in the same direction.
According to Rybak, the key discovery by Marconi was that by connecting both his receiver and transmitter to earth grounds and wire antennas, the distances over which electromagnetic waves could be sent and detected could be greatly increased.
Another disputed invention is the television. Scotsman John Logie Baird is remembered as the inventor of "the mechanical television system." He and American Clarence W. Hansell patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images for television and facsimiles in the 1920s. Nevertheless, some of the technology used by Baird came from other scientists, says Mary Bellis, in an article on the Web site About.com.
And a television just wouldn't be a television without the cathode-ray tube, which Russian Vladimir Zvorykin invented in 1929. The kinescope tube, as it was called back then, was sorely needed for what has come to be known as the boob tube. Zvorykin was one of the first to demonstrate a television system with all the features of modern picture tubes. So in deciding who first invented the first one, we have to define what we mean by "television."
Another good example of Slavic ingenuity is the helicopter. Ukrainian born Igor Sikorsky began working on helicopters in 1910. Thirty years later, his VS-300 had become the model for all modern single-rotor helicopters. He also designed and built the first military helicopter, the XR-4, which was snatched up by the U.S. Army. First isn't important here. Frenchman Paul Cornu is credited with building the first piloted chopper in 1907, but his design wasn't very successful. Only Sikorsky's earned him the title of father of the modern helicopter.
Thus, Russians and Ukrainians already have many legitimate reasons to be proud of their scientific contributions, without having to exaggerate or take credit from others. Having said this, maybe they've been put on guard by a little injustice served up from the West. For example, how many know that Dmitri Mendeleev actually came up with the periodic table of elements in 1864? If everyone did know, then why didn't we call it Mendeleev's Chart, as they do in Russia. And for that matter, Yuriy Gagarin still hasn't been given the notoriety he deserved for being the first man in space. Popular Western culture seems to ignore him.
And what about our own fudging on the facts? Americans have been taught that Thomas Edison invented the light bulb. According to the USHistory.net Web site, he actually improved on earlier models, although significantly. Edison's real contribution was in developing a bulb that used lower current electricity, a small carbonized filament and an improved vacuum inside the globe. But even in this, he was aided by several anonymous colleagues. One of the main things he did invent on his own was the phonograph, which he probably didn't enjoy much, as he eventually went deaf.
If collaboration among scientists was common more than a century ago, it is even more common today due to inventions like the Internet. Interestingly, no one person seems to be credited with inventing the computer, although claims are probably numerous. It may be convenient for school children and nationalists to attribute inventions to readily identifiable people, but in reality, breakthroughs are usually not that simple. Thankfully, scientists continue to cooperate, even as the number of patents has far outstripped the count of useful gismos and gadgets.
John Marone alleges that he is a direct descendant of Marconi, but changed last name to avoid distraction from the fame he's already accumulated writing for the Observer.
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