Even geniuses sometimes come up with ideas that would hardly do credit to a monkey.
Robert Fulton invented the steamship, revolutionizing transportation. But he also came up with this turkey–and spent half a million tax dollars, a staggering sum in 1814, to do it.
Let’s see if I can get you a picture of this baby.
That tiny little thing in the middle is the paddle wheel. There is no steering gear. You’d think at least someone would have noticed these defects, somewhere along the way. Maybe no one dared say anything.
They actually built this floating funhouse.
Then there was the Soviet “land battleship,” but that’s another story.
I assume there’s a connection to leftists here, but leftists have yet to expose something brilliant while hiding something stupid. It’s the other way around. Their stupidity stands out and their wisdom is missing – like a steering wheel. Great story -enjoyed it much. I never knew…
It’s not the kind of thing that makes it into public school history books.
And given the intensity of an idiot savant, I believe being a leftist precludes being an idiot savant because they are completely unable to focus on any one thing, at any one time. It’s why they begin to babel (babble) when the issues pile up.
Any leftid can always be half an idiot savant.
LOL!!
People get caught up in their own notions and end up losing sight of everything else. Fulton probably fell into this trap.
Him and dozens of other experts working on the same project. How does that happen–everybody goes simple at the same time?
Devotion to a flawed concept.
Maybe Fulton was so pressed for time he got ahead of himself, but no excuse for not providing a motor powerful enough to enter battle. Fulton’s steam propulsion changed a trip across the Atlantic that was taking 30-40 days into 10, helping to increase the speed of information which in our day is now at the speed of light.
It might’ve been nice if he’d included a steering mechanism.