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Yes, they were making their predictions based on physics, math, and experimental evidence. One thing you have to keep in mind is that in most cases science tend

Yes, they were making their predictions based on physics, math, and experimental evidence. One thing you have to keep in mind is that in most cases science tends to follow discovery, rather than vice versa. Here [1] is a random selection of great quotes from the time. If you're not familiar with the names, feel free to Wiki them. It is about as credentialed a list of scientific experts as one might imagine possible: -------- Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible? — Joseph LeConte, November 1888 It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere. — Thomas Edison, November 1895 I can state flatly that heavier than air flying machines are impossible. — Lord Kelvin, 1895 I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society. — Lord Kelvin, 1896 The present generation will not [fly in the next century], and no practical engineer would devote himself to the problem now. — William Worby Beaumont, January 1900 There is no basis for the ardent hopes and positive statements made as to the safe and successful use of the dirigible balloon or flying machine, or both, for commercial transportation or as weapons of war. — George Melville, December 1901 The demonstration that no possible combination of known substances, known forms of machinery and known forms of force, can be united in a practical machine by which men shall fly along distances through the air, seems to the writer as complete as it is possible for the demonstration to be. — Simon Newcomb, 1900 Flight by machines heavier than air is unpractical and insignificant, if not utterly impossible. — Simon Newcomb, 1902 It is complete nonsense to believe flying machines will ever work. — Stanley Mosley, 1905 The aeroplane will never fly. — Lord Haldane, 1907 -------- I'm sure one can dig up plenty more. Mathematicians and physicists simply thought it impossible. You could have asked the question on stock overflow math/physics of the time and gotten plenty of well informed and accurate (by the standards of the times) explaining exactly why it was impossible. It just so turns out that everybody was wrong, as was about to be demonstrated by a couple of high school drop-out bike shop repairmen. As the article mentions, one noteworthy thing is that the final quote is even after the Wright Bros succeeded. So absurd was the concept to many, that most people still did not believe it happened, even after it did. [1] https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/heavier-than-air-flight-impossible-ra%C3%A9d-alexander-ayyad https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/heavier-than-air-flight-impos...

kiba 2y ago
Just because they thought it was impossible doesn't mean they actually well reasoned their way using the known physics of the day. All you have are quotes from people who say it's impossible or that they think the problem is too intractable that it won't be done, not actual papers on why they think it's impossible. The Wright Brothers succeeded, but they also rely on the works of people before them, and observing nature. They were not even the first to achieve powered flight nor the first to study rigorously how the physics of flight works.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  Yes, they did. For instance here is the source of the first quote from Joseph Le Conte - a paper from 1888 in Popular Science with him elaborating on why a flying machine would be physically impossible. [1] And indeed his article is in response to another trying to argue for the viability of flying machines, failing, but then holding out some "hopium" (to use the term preferred by our antagonistic poster earlier on in this thread) by appealing to the birds, which Le Conte set out to snuff. The other quotes are likely to have similarly rich results. It was a widely discussed, debated, and trialed topic. Everybody wanted flying machines, but centuries of practice, science, research, experience, and evidence had demonstrated they were plainly impossible. Until a couple of bicycle mechanics, of no formal education of note, demonstrated otherwise. [1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_34/November_1888/The_Problem_of_a_Flying-Machine https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...
  - kiba 2y ago
    Fine. But they are still mistaken in their understanding of physics. Ultimately, physics is what determined what is not possible and possible. Also, your source provide a figure of 300-400 pounds to be the limit. So clearly, he didn't actually say it's impossible if someone somehow manages to get under the weight limit. The Wright Flyer actually weigh more than that, around 600 to 750 pounds depending on if you include a person, which is in the right order of magnitude. Nonetheless, the author contradict himself by saying it's impossible.

kiba 2y ago

Just because they thought it was impossible doesn't mean they actually well reasoned their way using the known physics of the day. All you have are quotes from people who say it's impossible or that they think the problem is too intractable that it won't be done, not actual papers on why they think it's impossible. The Wright Brothers succeeded, but they also rely on the works of people before them, and observing nature. They were not even the first to achieve powered flight nor the first to study rigorously how the physics of flight works.

somenameforme 2y ago
Yes, they did. For instance here is the source of the first quote from Joseph Le Conte - a paper from 1888 in Popular Science with him elaborating on why a flying machine would be physically impossible. [1] And indeed his article is in response to another trying to argue for the viability of flying machines, failing, but then holding out some "hopium" (to use the term preferred by our antagonistic poster earlier on in this thread) by appealing to the birds, which Le Conte set out to snuff. The other quotes are likely to have similarly rich results. It was a widely discussed, debated, and trialed topic. Everybody wanted flying machines, but centuries of practice, science, research, experience, and evidence had demonstrated they were plainly impossible. Until a couple of bicycle mechanics, of no formal education of note, demonstrated otherwise. [1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volume_34/November_1888/The_Problem_of_a_Flying-Machine https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Popular_Science_Monthly/Volum...
- kiba 2y ago
  Fine. But they are still mistaken in their understanding of physics. Ultimately, physics is what determined what is not possible and possible. Also, your source provide a figure of 300-400 pounds to be the limit. So clearly, he didn't actually say it's impossible if someone somehow manages to get under the weight limit. The Wright Flyer actually weigh more than that, around 600 to 750 pounds depending on if you include a person, which is in the right order of magnitude. Nonetheless, the author contradict himself by saying it's impossible.