Back a few years I recall it being said that it has never been less valuable to be ‘book smart’ than in the present times. I tend to agree with this sentiment because the access we all have to core knowledge is now unprecedented, if you want to know how to repair a lawn mower engine, or brew some beer, distill some whisky at home, if you need to know how to repair a household appliance, or fix your computer problem you have access to all of this knowledge using your mobile phone.

Certainly, the more extended and specialised forms of knowledge remain esoteric to the layman, but even here we all have the potential to discover the general gist of abstruse and recondite topics.

The Word Wide Web has definitely upped the game, it has smashed all previous attempts to render communications exclusive, it has destroyed the middle-man empires in a steady progression.

The library of Alexandria has always represented the idea that humanity has lost more wisdom and technical know-how than it has since gained, there are tantalizing anomalies which imply we have gone around the cosmic block more times than the academics would care to admit to, or are allowed to consider.

There have been many individuals who have inspired us, Isaac Newton, Carl Sagan, Albert Einstein, Nikola Tesla, for example, who have illuminated our path for a time or even provided meaningful intellectual infrastructure that has enabled humanity to progress, to lean further out into the deep mysteries of this universe. If you have a mind to, you can read all of these individual’s work, you can access materials that were once carefully concealed in dusty sections of the major universities, or quietly discussed behind the ivory towers of major league institutions – all openly presented on URL’s not commonly visited by the social media rabbles.

We can even discover people who are not broadly accepted into the polite circles of ‘consensus’ knowledge; the mavericks and brave souls who disagree with the erudite authorities, and the bastions  and gate keepers of professional discourse. 

Take Arthur M Young as one example.

If you are diligent, and like to delve a little deeper into the archives, if you are dissatisfied with the benign assurances and accepted wisdom of your college professors and other “experts”, you might discover that Arthur M Young is grudgingly acknowledged as being the key developer of the modern Helicopter.

We know that the concept of a helicopter was imagined long ago, we have all seen the sepia drawings of Leonardo Da Vinci for such a craft, and we also know that the helicopter was ‘invented’ quite some time ago, however what we probably do not know is that nobody could get the helicopter to work in the practical sense!

Sure, people could assemble a helicopter type craft, it could ascend and return to the ground – but prior to the persistent work of Arthur M Young these nascent designs were useless for any kind of applied navigation, you could not fine-tune your flight, or get the aeroplane to function in any meaningful way.

Arthur Young spent the main part of his young life building models, and revising designs, he invented the means for the revolving blades to be adjusted in real time, the means to stabilise and finely control the flight characteristics; Arthur Young developed the first workable, and practically useful design for a modern Helicopter. This became the BELL 47, the very first commercially licensed Helicopter to be used, prior to this no Helicopter-type craft was in regular useful service.

Very few of us are made aware of this man, the first man to fully develop the helicopter, enabling a military and domestic usage that we all take very much for granted today; this is because once Arthur Young had completed his helicopter, and sold the patent to BELL (making him very rich indeed) he pursued science in a very specific, unique way, a way that the established science people found disagreeable.

You can gain a good overview of Arthur Young’s ideas from this brilliant documentary, produced in the 1980’s.