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Message: [QUOTE="Rotwang, post: 3616476"] Good grief, you are dense. Yes, I know that Sir Isaac was dead before Priestley was born. Are you *still* under the impression that people who write books are unable to write about things which happened in the past? Look, here is a quote from the book: <quote> [...] no advances were made in electricity till the subject was undertaken by William Gilbert, a native of Colchester, and a physician at London; who, in his excellent Latin treatise /de magnete/, published in the year 1600, relates a great variety of electrical experiments. [...] To him we owe a great augmentation of the lift of electric bodies, as also the bodies on which electrics can act; and he has carefully noted several capital circumstances relating to the manner of their action, though his theory of electricity was very imperfect, as might be expected. Amber and jet were, as I observed before, the only substances which, before the time of Gilbert, were known to have the property of attracting light bodies when rubber; but he found the same property in the diamond, sapphire, carbuncle, iris, amethyst, opal, vincentina, Bristol stone, beryl, and crystal. He also observes that glass, especially that which is clear and transparent, has the same property; likewise all factitious gems, made of glass or crystal; glass of antimony most sparry substances, and belemnites. Lastly, he concludes his catalogue of electric substances with sulphur, mastic, sealing wax made of gum lac tinged with various colours, hard rosin, sla gem, talc, and roche alum. Rosin, he said, possessed this property but in a small degree, and the three last mentioned substances, only when the air was clear and free from moisture. All these substances, he observes, attracted not only straws, but all metals, all kinds of wood, stones, earth, water, oil; in short, whatever is solid, and the object of our senses. But he imagined that air, flame, bodies ignited, and all matter which was extremely rare was not subject ot this attraction. Gross smoke, he found, was attracted very sensibly, but that which was attenuated very little. [...and it goes on...] </quote> How about that? Even though Priestley wasn't even born in 1600 (and neither was Newton) he was nonetheless able to write about experiments that were carried out back then. Wait, I'm not done yet: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA Huh - in the space of a few lines you've gone from "I hope you are a liar" to outright claiming I'm lying. Care to back that claim up, or - a long shot, I know - apologise, assuming that the facts of the matter have finally penetrated that skull of yours? I gave a quote, and cited my source. Why not try to back up your version of history with some actual data? (Note to c.l.j.p regulars: in case you hadn't guessed, I'm one of the semi-regulars at sci.math, who came here to have a chuckle at JSH's latest round of "research". This newsgroup looks active enough that you can afford to host a few OT arguments, but if you'd like me to piss off back where I came from you need only ask.) [/QUOTE]

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