5 facts about frivolous bets that led to unexpectedly large achievements Bashny.Net

The world may not be as we know it today, if someone said from time to time: "A little ...»

1. Establish a whole new otrasl

It would seem that those least suited to the role of a gambler - so it's a scientist. However, it turns out that the people we trust to us to invent medicines to launch satellites and to wield lasers easily to "weak».

In 1959, physicist Richard Feynman colleagues painted a wonderful future when scientists learn how to decrease the computers, medical devices and all sorts of other things to the size of the ciliary mite. Given that at that time, computers were the size of a house, this statement seemed to listeners too bold, not to say absurd.

Then Feynman decided to throw a symbolic scientific glove and announced the award of eight thousand of the then dollars that he is willing to pay someone who will be able to make a working motor, each side of which would not exceed 0, 04 cm. This is to make it easier to imagine around a crystal table salt.

About half of the premium hunters were observed. And then I turned up a man named Bill McLellan, who with the help of sophisticated scientific equipment, consisting of a pair of tweezers and toothpicks, built the same Feynman described motor. The mechanism made 2000 rpm, weighed 250 micrograms (mcg - one millionth of a gram, approx. Mixstuff.ru), was smaller than a pinhead, and consisted of 13 pieces.

Feynman paid the promised prize, but, nevertheless, was not very happy with the result. The fact that he expected that the emergence of a tiny motor would lead to a new technological breakthrough, but the inventor of the miracle, as it turned out, use only a hobby skills and excellent fine motor skills.

However, as it turned out, he frustrated Feynman prematurely. After this story countless real scientists began to take their own attempts to create different tiny structures, and in 1980, when Eric Drexler presented his concept of nanotechnology, Feynman once described his inspiration.

2 and 3. Write a book that will receive global izvestnost

As you know, some of the world-famous books were written not to bring to the world some important idea, but the most trivial reasons. We had something to eat and something to feed my family. That's all.

But sometimes masterpieces were born of entirely unexpected reasons - for example, just because someone has argued that it is impossible.

Take, for example, the story of the writer Theodor Gayzelya, who became famous under the pen name Dr. Seuss. By the end of the 1950s in his arsenal was already moving several children's books. A In 1960 he released a dispute with the publisher Bennett Cerf, about whether it is possible to write a decent book using only 50 different words. Cerf put 50 bucks on something that Dr. Seuss is not able to do.

Seuss took up the challenge and the moment nakropal story of a few tweets. So there was a book that read in childhood all for whom English is a native. It's called "green eggs and ham." In the book some pristavuchy Sam strongly persuades his unnamed friend to be treated with dubious food. He tries to get out, but to no avail.

In 2001, the book won the fourth place among the best-selling children's books in history!



If you think that this story could only happen with a children's writer, then here's another example - Ernest Hemingway. Once the writer went to the bar for a drink and met a fan argue that offered $ 10 bet that Hemingway would not be able to write a story that consists of just six words.

Hemingway took a napkin and wrote:

«For sale: Baby shoes, never worn». ("For sale: baby the shoes, not nadёvannye»)

Until now, this work inspires a huge number of imitators.

4. make a fortune on the film, to which you do not have the slightest otnosheniya

"Star Wars" were written virtually "on the fly". Many of the ideas of George Lucas (sometimes completely insane) have remained unimplemented. One of his friends - Steven Spielberg remembered as the creator of "Star Wars" often complained that his child goes confusing, and not the way it was originally envisioned.

Once Lucas visited the set of the movie "Close Encounters of the Third Kind," which filmed Spielberg has come to a complete delight, and then again began to complain about the fact that his "war" out useless, and does not pay back even the fact that they invested.

In the end it was decided to make a bet: if the "Wars" Lucas bypass the box office "Contacts" Spielberg is 2, 5 percent of all fees will last. And vice versa - if the more successful will be the "Contacts", then exactly the same percentage of them will get Lucas.



As a result, "Close Encounters of the Third Kind" earned $ 337 million - is very good. If you do not compare with the "Star Wars," which earned 65 times as much.

In general, Spielberg and still gets their legitimate interests.

5. Write one of the most important scientific works in the history of nauki

It was in 1683. Someone Christopher Wren spoke with one astronomer why the planets move in elliptical path strange and not at the right circle. Concluding the conversation the fact that Rehn has put 40 shillings (a few hundred dollars in terms of today's money) within two months, no one will find the answer to this question.

This controversy became known to Isaac Newton. Whether he really needed these 40 shillings, or simply out of scientific curiosity, but Newton was the beating of the puzzles and finally decided. However, it took him two months is not specified, but a few years, so that the money he did not see.

But this dispute has turned solid work entitled "Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy" which formulated the law of universal gravitation and the three laws of Newton, laid the foundations of classical mechanics.

So it happened that the dispute came from the usual one of the most significant scientific texts during the existence of science.

via factroom.ru