This is a little goofy and off the subject ( you would expect that by now!!!!)

I have always admired true genius. (We always want what we don't have! )

I would like to start a list of true genius! The criteria for this list is insight and basic understanding of the complex. This understanding is manifested by extreme simplicity...ie true genius makes the difficult easy. Not the other way around!

I will start with a man I think is truly a genius- John Moses Browning! The simplicity, strength, number and durability of his designs are without peer. ( There are others in this field.) But you see my criteria.

Another would be Mozart! His music was wonderful on all levels.

A collective group would be the 'Founding Fathers'. Such mastery of language, law, and faith! ( An aside note- JFK was addresssing, at the White House, a large collection of the finest minds of the day. He said it was the greatest collection of genius in the White House SINCE Thomas Jefferson dined there ALONE!)

One more to my list and I will raise shields and wait for the first 16 inch shells to arrive.

William Shakespeare. THE greatest writer of all time. Master wordsmith with an understanding of complex emotion and humor. Although his plays are 'wordy', each of those words is exactly the correct word. ( STILL CONSTANT IN A WONDEROUS EXCELLENCE. W.Shakespeare)


LORD, WHAT FOOLS THESE MORTALS BE. ( W. Shakespeare)

Ok, fire away! Dale

Guns/reloading: Richard Lee

Writing: F. Scott Fitzgerald

Music: Muddy Waters

Science: Watson/Crick

Interesting thread! Getting into our own pet area, let me nominate someone few of us have ever heard of: Walter Sutton. Who he??? Consider the following:

I have loaded for years using the Ideal and Lyman tong tools and have handled and studied many of their competitors, most recently the Modern-Bond and Belding & Mull "straightline" tools developed in the 1920's when the Ideal line was in temporary eclipse. These were all that most handloaders had access to or could afford. They worked OK, after a fashion, but were anything but rigorous about maintaining alignment, with many odd little pieces to adjust (or lose), swinging shell-holder or die-mounting bars, etc., small and far from rigid. Of course, there were the big bench-mounted "Armory" presses with massive castings and finely-machined, gibbed ways, etc., but these were for the most part the tools for police departmrents, National Guard Armories and the more affluent experimenters such as Dr. Mann (who made his "pile" from a machine for grinding bone from slaughterhouses as an animal feed supplement or farm soil amendment). Then, the Fall of 1930 at Camp Perry saw the unveiling and demonstration of the Pacific Gun Sight Company's original, line-bored "C" press and its interchangeable, standardized, multi-function 7/8" x 14 tpi dies, the ancestor of the majority of today's single station bench presses. If you've worked with the older tools, you'll appreciate the real brilliance and total simplicity of Mr. Sutton's invention, finally patented as No. 1,933,940 on Nov. 7, 1933 (look it up on www.uspto.gov/). Yes, there have been improvements - most notably the interchangeable shell holders (you had to swap rams with the original Pacifics) and RCBS's compound toggle linkage), but the basic Pacific "C" remains a functional and effective loading tool, even in its original "upstroke-only" form. Thanks, Walt! floodgate

I nominate Bill Clinton for inventing a nonpolluting, socially acceptable manner of reducing noice pollution by females.
Jim

Merle Haggard

True statesmanship: Winston Churchill
Musicianship: Warren Zevon
Firearms: (in no particular order)Browning, Luger, Colt, Garand, Winchester, Remington, Savage...

Winston Churchill! Wow! How could I forget him? Yes, incredible man.

Ditto on Warren Zevon. Add Frank Zappa.

God made Man;

"Sam Colt" made them equal!
(And he was a left-hander)

Genius, eh?

I got some unobvious ones to propose. In our line, Eli Whitney for the first interchangeable parts system for guns.

In music, Doc Watson for getting every single note just right and in exactly the right place. (He also gets special mention for wiring his own house despite being blind.)

Robert Anson Heinlein for teaching a generation of American boys to think. Along the way, he also invented the water bed, held a number of mining patents and did pioneering work in space flight.

Nikoli Tesla for enormous contributions to electricity and electronics.

Roger Bannister for athletics. He set the mark by which all athletes are judged. And he's a brain surgeon.

Robin

See! This list will make you think! I forgot about the science fiction ( future fact) guys! Yes,yes,yes! Robert Heinlein, and Asimov amd Clark!

I am going to show some of my ignorance- Robin- hello! Nice to meet you! Please explain about Roger Bannister. I know absolutely nothing about him. Thank You. Dale

( This is how I remember it)

I want to tell you guys a true story I read about finding a sunken American sub- was it the Scorpion... or the Thresher? ...Can't remember. Anyway, she was lost in parts unknown- somewhere in the Atlantic. All the main investigater had for clues was some recorded 'booms' from various underwater surveys. He assembled the finest and most experienced minds in all the fields related to ANYTHING that was connected with subs or oceans. The idea being that they were smarter collectively than individually.

He put them in a big room and told them the sub was overdue and these tapes were the clues.( These tapes came from 4 or 5 differet continents!)

Ocean experts came forward to state how fast sound would travel thru various temperatures, salinities, densities, etc. Using what they knew, they said the noises from all the different tapes were the same noises and determined locations for each of the major ones. These locations were on the estimated travel line of the sub.

Each expert told what he thought of the booms and they started a 'timeline'.

The munitions expert said the 1st noise was a torpedo 'running hot in the tube'.This was ok but the other powerful booms were triangulated to the east of the 1st boom and the sub was known to be traveling west. A senior sub captian spoke up and said that procedure called for a 180 degree turn to activate the safety in the runaway torpedo warhead. A competent sub skipper would have turned his sub east to prevent an explosion. They checked the time and the distance to the 2nd 'boom' was the distance a sub would be cruising in that time- accounting for the turn and rate of travel.

The next 'boom' was determined to be a topedo explosion ( not the warhead, but the propulsion part.... and flooding of the forward topedo room. Various experts came forward to tell what they knew if such a thing happened--- The sub was hopelessly heavy and would sink to crush depth. They determined the speed, damages, drag of the damages, and if part of the hull was still 'watertight 'up to now. The caption described emergency measures etc. They constructed a mental 'model' of this ships last few minutes. The timing of the last 'boom'( of the hull crushing in) was just a few seconds off of the tapes and in the correct location. They determined how fast the flooded ship would sink, the angle and speed it would attain and how long to hit the sea floor miles down. They described the damages and gave the navy a location to look for their missing nuclear sub.

Of course, the navy spent several months looking everywhere else. Underwater noises, indeed!How silly! They did finally have to look where they were told. They found her 1/4 mile from where the experts said she would be- just like the experts said she would be.
All this from triangulating some distant booms and using your heads.

Roger Bannister, now Sir Roger Bannister, was the first person to run a mile in under four minutes back in 1954. His time was 3:59.4. The preparation and training made quite an interesting story.

Robin

Hmmmm... I have heard of Warren Zevon but never listened to any..... Unless...."werewolves of London' is his. ???

Nikoli Tesla= he had to be a space alien! He was soooo far ahead of his time! Talk about casting pearls before swine!

Albert Einstein is one. But SOME of his therories are now questioned. But some are incredible! And he formulated them in his mind!

I have another collective group! The guys who moved about 1 million blocks of stone ( Some of which we cannot lift even today) 60 miles (?) across a river and assembled them into the pyramids! There was some pretty heavy duty intelligence on display then, let me tell you.

Another WW2 guy, General George C Marshall... makes the list. Eisnenhower, Churchill, and the heads of the combined forces ( no dummies here either!) all heap praise on this man.

Yeah, Werewolves of London is one of Warren Zevon's. Not necessarily his best, but probably best known as his. "Poor, Poor Pitiful Me" is his song, but Linda Ronstadt made it famous. I like many of his others, like "Excitable Boy," "I'll Sleep When I'm Dead," and my personal favorite, "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner."

Re: Warren Zevon. I saw him twice during his one-man-show tour, back in '92. An amazing guy. Why don't they re-release "Stand in the Fire" on CD? "Excitable Boy" was his most popular album, but his song writing genius is better appreciated on "Transverse City". Where else can you hear "shear and torsion" used in a song? His recent death was a tremendous loss to music. At least he passed away with dignity.

On a lighter note; how about comic genius? I nominate the Monty Python crew.

For a comedy series... "Black Adder", specially "Black Adder Goes Fourth". I love it when Rowan Atkinson tries to explain the political causes of the Great War, in the last episode, and sums up the whole pre-war mutually assured destruction theory as "Bollocks".

Modern writing genius: Joseph Heller, Thomas Berger, Martin Cruz Smith (will we be treated to any more adventures of Arkady Renko?).

More soon.

Yes, Monty Python was one of the best. Apparently Graham Chapman was the true genius of the bunch- that is what they say anyway. the tall blonde guy- usually in a British Army - Major's uniform. And he was 'Yellowbeard'

I would add 'benny Hill' what a character!

And Peter Cook! another comic genius!

Here's one that will make you say ---'yep! Of course!

Red Skelton!

and Jonathon Winters!

and another collective group- the boys who did 'The Looney Tunes'. Bugs, Sam, Daffy and all the rest. Dale

To take an aside, from your listing the Founding Fathers:
I'd like to specifically nominate Benjamin Franklin.
Not only did he display genius as a founding father, but, was a statesman; printer; newspaperman; author (Poor Richard's Almanac); was an accomplished musician (developing what was then known as the xylophone), quite a pioneer in electricity,and batteries (Leyden jar);author, and one of our most-revered historical figures.
And the best part... He maintained this sterling reputation while being a most-unrepentant rake! He sired several illegitimate children, and it was said nothing in a skirt was safe. If we're going to promote pervs, let's at least do it with someone deserving of the name!.....Bug.

Maxim; automatic feeding system. It has been used in automatic and semi automatic guns from end 18 century up to know

Elvis Presley.

Henry Ford, let billion people to have economic personal transportation

Ferdinand Porsche; Volkswagen Beetle designer and manufacturer

yep! The guy who designed the Volkswagen would make my list also!

hmmmm... help me out here- was it Doras (something) Duntov who designed the Corvette and some of the hotrod motor parts for it ( for example -the Duntov 30/30 cam that was in all 350 (?) horsepower 327 and the early Z28's? They would really go- ask me how I know!)(30/30 refered to the valve lash or setting... .030 on both intake and exhaust when hot)... hmmm... what was his name? Dale

Dale: It's just a vague memory, but I think it was Arkus (or Arkas?) Duntov. floodgate

Zora Arkus-Duntov

For the kids with the other flag;
Lee Iacocca created Ford Mustang, and Caroll Shelby Ford GT40 and Cobra

Regarding C. Shelby,
I think the AC company had a different opinion. AC manufactured racing cars long before Shelby showed up. Plus, the way Shelby has embarked on a campaign to sue manufacturers for making a likeness of the AC Cobra is pathetic, and bloody minded. I don't believe AC did this, and it was THEIR CAR! Shelby just (I don't mean to downplay his part) added the power and tweaked the suspension. I'm sure AC later raced 289 Cobras with success.
Imagine the outcry if Ford wanted to sue because people did engine swaps, or used Ford engines in other cars (deTomaso, later ACs, Saleen etc).
Sorry, I'm off on a tangent. For automotive genius, how about Wankel? Porsche? Diesel?
Back to shooting...Mauser?
It never ends.

Hi All!

After watching the funeral procession for President Reagon ( The Greatist President of my time- IMHO)and hearing all the marches, I listened to some of my Sousa music. Yep, I had forgot. John Phillip Sousa was a genius. Does anyone know if it is true that he finished the music in his head- like Mozart- and then just copied it to paper? I read that people could talk while he wrote- even had housefuls of people there- but no music- no hummming or anything like that.

Eventhough, I don�t really know if he was a genius...but he was for sure a great one,...in music.....I feel very sorry because we lost Ray Charles, ...I will miss his personal and special way of singing.


BA Shooter

One of my favorite Ray Charles moments was introducing a friend of mine to his rendering of "Elenor Rigby".

On the car scene I would like to add Colin Chapman.

My favorite Ray Charles moment was many years ago while dancing with a beautiful lady of the evening to his "I'm Gonna Move To The Outskirts Of Town." It's one of the best slow-dance songs ever recorded. It's right up there with Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On."

I much regret never meeting Ray Charles.

Music, Roy Orbison for a near perfect, four octave, voice and Roger Miller for song writing genius. Both died too young. Robert Ruark for "The Old Man and the Boy". Also died too young. Dick Feynman for "Lectures on Physics". Unknown, whoever first voiced the "superstring theory" as the building block of the universe. Stephen Hawking for his work on black holes. Time for a Nobel prize in one of those. Interesting thread.

We'll never know the name of the human who made the first bow, but when one considers that prior to that the best thing going was the atlattl, a short stick about 24" long held over the shoulder with a small "hook" on one end for flinging a short spear about 3' in length, (for those who may not have known). To have the genius to percieve the energy transfer from line drawn taut against a flexible rod with nothing existing to suggest it was a step of light years in thinking. (Of course we don't know when the first sapling was used to to power a snare for trapping rabbit and such, this is the only thing I can think of which suggests a bow, but even a snare is a big leap of insight)

That thought dominated hunting and warfare untill a scant 500 years ago. The bow is old enough that it was known by every group of people on the earth which suggests its invention predated the migration of humans out of Africa, some 150,000 years ago. The concept of the gun, much less working models, is only some 700 years old. Think that through for a moment.......

It's genius is eclipsed only by the flaking of flint and obsidian for cutting and scraping tools.