PrintAugust 7, 2008
Defeating deflation
Once again, brilliant minds have arrived at an earthshaking discovery simultaneously.
History is replete with such coincidences.
Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Wilheim Leibniz, for example, hit upon the calculus independently near the beginning of the 18th century, and three centuries later it is still confounding college students.
In the mid-19th century, John Couch Adams and Urbain Le Verrier both were convinced that another planet was present in our solar system. The argument about which one deserves the credit for actually discovering Neptune continues today, but Le Verrier seems to have the edge.
Only a few decades later, Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, although he had to prove his claim to that invention was better than Elisha Gray's. Both had gotten to the patent office on the same day, and lawyers had to fight it out in court.
That brings us to the current day, when the noted scientist and presidential aspirant Barack Obama recently shocked the world by announcing his tire inflation solution to the vexing energy crisis.
But, wouldn't you know it, Obama's announcement comes at a time when a new magazine from the publisher of Consumer Reports, called ShopSmart, is on the newsstands. On Page 92, it notes that properly inflating your car's tires can save gasoline!
As in the previous examples, history will have to be the judge of who deserves credit for this astounding breakthrough.
Meanwhile, voters eagerly are awaiting the Obama Plan to have the government provide every American with a free tire gauge, a vital tool in the effort to save the planet.
