"To remove this obstacle I repeat or refer to such knowledge as has come under my notice, my own previously expressed views, and also describe and exhibit my last experiments and explain their novelty and utility"
About this Quote
Lawrence Hargrave speaks as an engineer intent on clearing a path through confusion. He identifies the blockage to progress not as a lack of genius, but as a failure of communication and proof. The remedy is methodological transparency: gather what is already known, state where one stands, then show new work plainly, including why it differs and how it can be used. The cadence of his sentence mirrors a research sequence that now feels familiar: literature review, statement of theory, experimental demonstration, articulation of novelty and utility. Long before phrases like open science and reproducibility were common, he describes their core.
Hargrave was an Australian pioneer of flight in the late 19th century, famous for the box kite and for rigorous, incremental tests of lifting surfaces, stability, and propulsion. He refused to patent his inventions, believing progress in aeronautics required that findings be freely shared. The field then was scattered between showmen, tinkerers, and scholars; rumors and isolated claims often outran careful documentation. By pledging to repeat and to refer, he insists on verification. By promising to describe and exhibit, he insists on public demonstration. By emphasizing novelty and utility, he demands that improvements be both original and useful, not merely clever.
This stance also shows a social vision of science. Knowledge advances when individuals connect their work to a common store, accept scrutiny, and make devices that others can replicate. It is no accident that Hargrave corresponded with and influenced figures like Octave Chanute, and that the Wright brothers studied photographs of his kites. The box kite was not just a breakthrough in lift and stability; it was a template for how to argue convincingly in a new field: assemble the record, show your reasoning, test in the wind, and let the results be seen. Progress, for Hargrave, is a public act.
Hargrave was an Australian pioneer of flight in the late 19th century, famous for the box kite and for rigorous, incremental tests of lifting surfaces, stability, and propulsion. He refused to patent his inventions, believing progress in aeronautics required that findings be freely shared. The field then was scattered between showmen, tinkerers, and scholars; rumors and isolated claims often outran careful documentation. By pledging to repeat and to refer, he insists on verification. By promising to describe and exhibit, he insists on public demonstration. By emphasizing novelty and utility, he demands that improvements be both original and useful, not merely clever.
This stance also shows a social vision of science. Knowledge advances when individuals connect their work to a common store, accept scrutiny, and make devices that others can replicate. It is no accident that Hargrave corresponded with and influenced figures like Octave Chanute, and that the Wright brothers studied photographs of his kites. The box kite was not just a breakthrough in lift and stability; it was a template for how to argue convincingly in a new field: assemble the record, show your reasoning, test in the wind, and let the results be seen. Progress, for Hargrave, is a public act.
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| Topic | Knowledge |
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