The 1871 Samuel Morse Statue (2014) | Hacker News Reader

The 1871 Samuel Morse Statue (2014)

daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com

81 pointsgoles20 comments

The story of the Telegraph is mind blowing. It was such a revolution, it changed our world. I can't recommend that book enough: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Victorian_Internet

> His son would explain “Morse himself refused to attend the ceremonies of the unveiling of his counterfeit presentment, as being too great a strain on his innate modesty.”

That is a hell of a way to bow out of an event you dont want to attend. Way better than my standard "I dont feel like it"

"counterfeit presentment" is an interesting phrase to use to refer to a statue. I see there's a play by that same name written the same decade but it was actually written six years later.

> Her return message was “What hath God wrought.”

I had a vaguely similar feeling going from a 56k dial up modem to a campus 10mbps connection.

That’s great - for me that was probably one of the most mind blowing tech things I’ve experienced in my lifetime, but in my case I went from 56k dialup modem to DSL (still phone line) that I think capped at 1mb/second but it absolutely rocked my world.

Not me. My area was the first area in France to be set up with ADSL. The problem is that they only upgraded the last mile (local exchange->home) but not the pipes from the local exchange to the internet. So you were connected at 8mbit but in practice it was slower than a 56k. I think it took at least 6m to fix it.

Was the same by the way on the introduction of the iphone. Wireless data networks were flooded by smartphones. You couldn't connect to the internet from a phone in certain parts of London.

Or seeing WiFi for the first time. It was Internet . . . with no cables!

>> the disconsolate artist focused on discovering a process of rapid long distance communication.

Very small point, but there were fast means of communication prior to Morse. His invention certainly democratized such communication, but a semaphore system was speeding government messages across France decades before the telegraph.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optical_telegraph

This is played up as the Clacks in Pratchett's work, and is an interesting look into non-electrical long-distance communication possibilities.

https://wiki.lspace.org/Clacks

Likewise "Pavane", an alternative history science fiction novel by British writer Keith Roberts.

If they erected a statue of Steve Jobs across the pathway I bet it would be pretty well travelled again :) I'll have to check this out on my next visit, I don't think I've ever noted it before, central park has a ton of little discoveries to make.

It's "inventor's gate" not "shrewd businessman's gate".

Woz, then?

Al Gore

You jest, but we praise Cern for inventing the web, not the millions of people who actually built websites and uploaded content. Someone who kicked things off via directing funding gets zero credit.

Which explains the politicians we end up with, it’s really kind of depressing.

This guys blog is pretty neat, he's written about thousands of different buildings and statues in NYC, past and present.

Sort by neighborhood on the left and you can probably find a bunch of fun places to see on your next trip!

Another interesting one - John Seward Johnson II's "Double Check" https://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2012/03/john-seward-j...

What about a statue for Vint Cerf, one of the inventors of tcp/ip? In its era just as important imho as morse code. I say that as a ham who has used morse code for over a half century.

"The man whose invention was so important that a memorial was erected while he was still living is little noticed by passersby who do not look up from their cell phones."

Shame really, perhaps the trees should be thinned out around the area or the statue moved.

Trouble is, these days many of the younger generation of smartphone users don't even know what Morse Code is let alone recognize it.

It seems to me local engineers and engineering history people should get involved to make the statue more prominent. New sineage explaining its historical background would help.

It's not only Morse who's fallen by the historical wayside, there are many others in science and engineering that students of their discoveries and inventions know little about or that they have never heard of.

I blame both teachers and curricula for this oversight (I recall being taught stuff out of textbooks without any reference to its historical past only to learn the details decades later—often by accident or chance).

Ah, the passage of time.

I don't specifically remember it though I'm sure I've seen it. I'll maybe take a look when I'm in Manhattan in a bit over a week. It's actually in a pretty trafficked area near the model boat pond and a Fifth Avenue entrance.

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