Ludwig Wittgenstein

From Inventing aviation
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Ludwig Wittgenstein was an engineering student, an aero inventor, and later a famous philosopher. He worked in aeronautics from 1907 to at least 1911. A book called Wittgenstein Flies a Kite relates his experience with engineering and aeronautics to his later philosophy of mathematics and the relations of "facts" to "things."

In 1907, while at the Berlin Technische Hochschule (Institute of Technology), Wittgenstein developed an interest in aeronautics.[1]

. . . He arrived at the Victoria University of Manchester in the spring of 1908 to study for a doctorate, full of plans for aeronautical projects, including designing and flying his own plane.[1]
Wittgenstein with Eccles at the kite-flying station in Glossop

Wittgenstein spent the summer of 1908 in the north of England "designing, building, and flying kites at an experimental kite-flying station."[2]

He conducted research into the behavior of kites in the upper atmosphere, experimenting at a meteorological observation site near Glossop [near Sheffield, England). . [At this time] the Royal Meteorological Society . . . investigated the ionization of the upper atmosphere by suspending instruments on balloons or kites. At Glossop Wittgenstein worked under [physics professor] Arthur Schuster.[1]
[Wittgenstein] also worked on the design of a propeller with small jet engines on the end of its blades. [He] patented [this] in 1911, and [it] earned him a research studentship from the university in the autumn of 1908. [It was not feasible yet to] put Wittgenstein’s [design] into practice, and it would be years before a blade design that could support Wittgenstein’s innovative design was created. Wittgenstein’s design required air and gas to be forced along the propeller arms to combustion chambers on the end of each blade, where it was then compressed by the centrifugal force exerted by the revolving arms and ignited. Propellers of the time were typically wood, whereas modern blades are made from pressed steel laminates as separate halves, which are then welded together. This gives the blade a hollow interior [which gives a] pathway for the air and gas.[1]

Patents whose inventor or applicant is Ludwig Wittgenstein


References


Names Ludwig Wittgenstein
Birth date 1889-04-29
Death date 1951-
Countries AT, DE, GB
Locations Cambridge; Glossop
Occupations mechanical engineering student, philosopher
Tech areas Propellers
Affiliations
Wikidata id