Yesterday’s innovations: the aerostatic balloon and the paper bag

Today we are going to talk about an innovation from the past, specifically from the hot air balloon , that transport method that still fascinates us today.
It is said that in reality the inventor of the hot air balloon was the Brazilian Bartolomeu when he made a public demonstration in 1709 in the court of King Juan V of Portugal and raised the globe 4 meters, at that time the invention received the precious name of ‘ Passarola ‘ . Rumors tell us that this idea was created when Bartolomeu watched a soap bubble rise thanks to a lit candle. This chance was taken advantage of by Bartolomeu, would you have taken this opportunity to create something so innovative? As we always comment, you have to be keen eye since inspiration is born of anything. I will finish the story by telling you that Bartolomeu was subsequently persecuted by the Inquisition and forced to flee to Spain since there was a danger of fire (the fire to heat the air was made in the wooden basket itself with all the danger involved) saying at that time that Bartolomeu was ‘partner of the devil’. In this case, innovation won him enemies everywhere but finally today he is recognized as one of the aviation parents.

The other story we would like to talk today is the way in which years later, the same invention was conceived by the brothers Joseph and Jacques Montgolfier in France. We do not know for sure if they would know the invention of Portuguese-Brazilian or it really was a parallel innovation, but its history deserves some lines. These two innovators were children of a paper manufacturer and one day while playing with paper bags they realized that when placed in an inverted way they climbed the chimney. Later, they continued to innovate with larger bags and lighter materials. In 1782 they threw a silk bag that reached 250 m and in 1783 with a linen bag lined with paper of about 226 kg full of hot air they reached 1600-2000 m. The following essay in Versailles before Louis XVI of France where they first made living beings fly to know the effects of altitude. The lucky passengers were a sheep, a duck and a rooster and reached 26 m. Later in 1783 the flights of people would begin, but that is another story … These brothers took advantage of an everyday object such as their father’s paper bags to play, experiment and gradually improve an observation that would become an invention.
We have to take advantage of the opportunities, mature and improve them until we make them ours. Any event can give us the key, the way forward, we just have to be very, very attentive.
Until the next post!