may sometimes be wrong, indeed they are nearly always so,” I assured him.
“Now any kid operator knows,” continued Jack, “that electric waves are radiated to every point of the compass around an aerial and hence even if the waves sent out by it had enough power to go around the world they would meet on the opposite side of the earth and neutralize each other.
“What do you think about signaling from the earth to Mars, Mr. Collins?”
“Not very much. It is never safe to predict, especially to make a negative prediction, by which I mean to say that a thing can’t be done. Simon Newcomb, the great astronomer and mathematician, proved by figures and the known laws of nature, to his own satisfaction and a good many others, that it was a physical impossibility to build a man-carrying airplane.
“Langley who was just as big a figure in the world of science believed that the thing could be done, built model after model that flew but when he built his big machine to be piloted by a man it fell before it got fairly into the air. Yet the same year that he failed, the Wright Brothers, a couple of bicycle mechanics,