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No one person can be credited for the invention of the automobile
that you are driving today. It has developed bit by bit from the
ideas, imagination, fantasy, and tinkering of hundreds of individuals
through hundreds of years.
In the 13th-century, the English philosopher-scientist, Roger Bacon,
said that "cars can be made so that without animals they will move
with unbelievable rapidity." Oh, Roger, if you only knew! Bacon was
positive that these vehicles had existed in ancient times, but he
didn't know what propelled them.
The Greeks apparently had their own Olympic assembly line. In the
"Iliad," Haephestus (the Roman "Vulcan"), was the god of fire and
invention. When he had time off from making thunder bolts and
beautiful jewelry for the vain goddesses, he built three-wheeled
vehicles, which moved from place to place under their own power.
Homer says they were "self-moved, obedient to the gods," and would
Homer lie? The really remarkable thing about this is that even as far
back as the Homeric era (8th-9th (?) century B.C.), man had already
imagined automobiles.
The motorized vehicle is, indeed, a prime example of creeping
development; i.e., invention through slow accumulation of bits and
pieces over a time so long that it is hard to pin down its origin.
Thomas Russell Ybarra, in this century, wrote rhyming doggerel which
pointed to the automobile as a Roman invention. Those who care to can
point to two 15th-century Italians: Francesco di Giorgio Martini
(whose concept has been presented in another section) and Leonardi Da
Vinci. Da Vinci conceived an armor-plated war vehicle, the propulsion
system of which is much like that of Martini's. This particular
concept of Da Vinci did not contribute anything of value, not even a
name, as did Martini's.
The important thing to remember is the automobile is not some recent
idea that popped up in the 19th-century, or the 18th, or even the
14th. It is a creation that has charmed imagination and inventiveness
before man was able to conceive how to make it go. Perhaps that is
why Homer placed it in the hands of the gods.
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