Filed under: reality oversteampunking fiction.
Today I saw a flogo-pneumatic gun (wikipedia article in italian only, but it has a picture) built by Volta in 1776. The museum guidebook mentions that he commented “feel free to laugh, but don't be afraid of that word”. There is no mention whether the phrase continued with “you fools! BUAHAHAHAH”.
Oh, and it was inside the Volta Temple, which was designed to be a (small) museum, but it's in the shape of a temple, inspired by the Pantheon (so, if this was the discworld, there would now be a god called Volta)
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Kermode
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •The gun elettroflogopneumatica is a device created by Alessandro Volta during his studies on "airs flammable", methane and hydrogen ~ 1776.
In January of 1777, being able to turn on the inflammable air with the spark caused by a flint stone, he thought, to build "a small bomb", in which to put it "inflammable air" mixed in the right dose with "air deflogisticata (oxygen) could push out a ball "with his "boom"
Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Kermode • •Christoph S
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Fabio
in reply to Elena ``of Valhalla'' • •Elena ``of Valhalla''
in reply to Fabio • •I think it is worth visiting, but you should either read up on Volta's activities (beyond the battery) in advance the visit or buy the guide when you get there and plan to have time to read it while you visit the museum.
It's full of interesting-looking devices, but the descriptions in the museum only give you their names, with very little hints on what they do. You can probably guess a lot (we did), but deeper explanations would be better.
Fabio likes this.