Prime Minister Churchill in 1941 (Credit: Wikimedia Commons)Sticky hand grenades to blow up enemy tanks, aircraft carriers made from icebergs called Project Habbakuk, and a rocket-propelled wheel called the Great Panjandrum?
They sound like the inventions of a slightly deranged science-fiction author, but they were actually ideas promoted, and sometimes proposed, by Sir Winston Churchill, Britain's great war-time prime minister.
And not all of his ideas, which he called 'funnies', were quite so mad. Among other things he championed the development of tanks when he was First Lord of the Admiralty, long before the Army became interested, which is why the First World War behemoths were originally called His Majesty's Land Ships.
He also campaigned for aerial mines, explosives dangling from parachutes that were dropped in a line in front of approaching German bombers. These worked, bringing down up to six of the Luftwaffe's finest during the Blitz, but were deemed to be of poor value.
More successful in that fight was the invention of radar, which allowed the RAF to spot incoming raids in time to scramble defending squadrons.
On the mathematical front, he ordered the creation of a statistical department that provided graphic information about everything from rations to shipping that helped him manage Britain during the conflict.
'Without Churchill, the country may never have moved to modern warfare techniques that helped win both the world wars,' wrote Sarah Knapton in The Sunday Telegraph.
Entities 0 Name: Britain Count: 2 1 Name: RAF Count: 1 2 Name: Churchill Count: 1 3 Name: Army Count: 1 4 Name: German Count: 1 5 Name: Luftwaffe Count: 1 6 Name: Winston Churchill Count: 1 7 Name: Sarah Knapton Count: 1 Related 0 Url: http://ift.tt/1z6q3FP Title: Winston Churchill: champion of science and inventor of the outlandish - Telegraph Description: He fostered an environment where the brightest scientists could build ground-breaking machines, such as the Bernard Lovell telescope, and make world-changing discoveries, in molecular genetics, radio astronomy, nuclear power, nerve and brain function and robotics. Churchill was the first prime minister to insist on a scientific adviser, and under his leadership, scientists were given unprecedented access to the government and funding.
Post a Comment for "Sir Winston Churchill's 'Funny' Science - Forbes"