books

Reading now:

The Man who loved China- The Fantastic Story of the Eccentric Scientist Who Unlocked the Mysteries of the Middle Kingdom

by Simon Winchester. A pretty good book.

The subject-matter of the book, one Noël Joseph Terence Montgomery Needham. Papa steals from the prologue and inserts the first paragraph here.

Prologue
On Flying and Aerodynamics

Someone asked the Master [Ge Hong] about the principles of mounting to dangerous heights and travelling into the vast inane. The Master said: Some have made flying cars with wood from the inner part of a jujube tree, using ox or leather straps fastened to returning blades so as to set the machine in motion.

— FROM THE BAO PUZI , AD 320
From Science and Civilisation in China, Volume IV, Part 2

Hoowoudathot? Powered flighted was invented (not just dreamt up) before 320 AD, by some mad (chinaman) scientist. Not something dreamt up by Leonardo DV.

Also Papa is reading at the same time, from the other end, a contemporary commentary of China :

Invisible China: A Journey Through Ethnic Borderlands by Colin Legerton and Jacob Rawson.