By John Wund / Chronicle contributor
When people were setting lighter than air altitude records, the payload was always tiny compared to the size of the balloon, so it seemed immediately odd that the Heeney family balloon was suspected of carrying off a six-year-old boy. From the “takeoff” pictures, one could tell the balloon was only about 20 feet in diameter and 5 feet high. The shape of the balloon was similar to two wide cones with their bases glued together. A sloppy calculation indicated that the Heeney balloon probably had a volume of about 600 cubic feet (plus or minus, maybe, 200 or so).
A quick Internet search shows that at sea level, it takes a little over a quart of helium to balance one gram of balloon “payload” (even more helium per gram in Colorado). The average weight of a six-year-old boy is a little over 46 pounds, so the balloon plus boy would probably weigh about 50 pounds (plus or minus 5). A little conversion shows that just to balance the boy, the balloon would have to contain about 800 cubic feet of helium. But the balloon didn’t simply balance the payload at takeoff, it shot up like a skylark! Clearly, the boy wasn’t in the balloon.
In hindsight, we now know that Falcon Heeney’s flight was a family hoax, but why were so many fooled at the time? Perhaps television viewers who were allowed to avoid high school geometry and physics could be excused for their naiveté, but the major television networks shouldn’t get off the hook so easily. Our “modern” news machines seem to have forgotten what Archimedes knew over two thousand years ago.
News corporations are supposed to report the important truth. They failed, miserably, despite their “educated” editors and their in-house science “experts.” Their gullibility (or deliberate dishonesty) should be seen as proof positive that TV’s talking heads are empty and the company management is only interested in sensationalism-driven profit.
There was a time when an educated person was expected to understand science and mathematics as well as writing and oratory. This “liberal education” immunized people against much of the claptrap by which their money could be extracted and they could be controlled by the “powers that be.” Therefore, in our current capitalist plutocracy, an education requiring mastery in both arts and sciences has been replaced by job training. Now, to be regarded as educated someone must merely be glib and capable of making money for an employer.
Any detailed study of natural philosophy (scientific methodology and logic) has been largely removed from the curriculum of all but a very few specialties. In most courses of study, this grand system of thought that spearheaded the transformation of Western societies from medieval feudalism into modern industrial and democratic nations has been reduced to the memorization and regurgitation of “accepted facts.” Unlike Jefferson and Franklin, we are no longer equipped to reasonably evaluate statements and observations involving the natural world. As a consequence, we are prey to ignorant hucksters who control us with anxiety-inducing nonsense and superstition. News has been replaced by entertainment, and the line between reality and fantasy has been erased. Welcome to postmodern society, folks, and good luck!
