Talk:Mary Babnik Brown

Duplicated references
The references to the Desert News newspaper, Allegheny Times newspaper and Pacific Stars and Stripes appear to be to exactly the same (presumably syndicated) story. It would probably be a good idea to combine these references. Nick-D (talk) 07:34, 2 January 2014 (UTC)
 * ✅ Replaced Pacific Stars and Stripes with one from the Desert News newspaper. Cann't find Allegheny Times newspaper reference.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:23, 4 January 2014 (UTC)

Washington Institute of Technology
Just noting that I wasn't sure of the difference between the Washington Institute of Technology, which wrote to her asking for the hair (we can see that in the letter that has been uploaded), and the Air Force Institute of Technology that the article previously said she had sent the hair to. I therefore removed the latter, and stuck with the former, but if it's the same place perhaps that should be clarified. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:46, 5 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I have e-mailed the Air Force Institute of Technology and asked the question if they were called the Washington Institute of Technology durng WWII. Should hear from them soon.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 10:38, 6 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Sent off another e-mail to them on this concern - this time directly to the Air Force Institute of Technology library. Maybe we will get a quicker answer now.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 13:46, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Reply today from the Air Force Institute of Technology: I am not familiar with a Washington Institute of Technology, and AFIT was never called that. Based on this statement from them, I have concluded that the Washington Institute of Technology is NOT the same as the Air Force Institute of Technology. It appears that the Washington Institute of Technology was some sort of government consulting firm during WWII.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 18:50, 7 January 2014 (UTC)
 * Reply today from "Chief of Reader Services/ D'Azzo Research Library, Air Force Institute of Technology, WPAFB": I checked with our alumni office and the Air Force Institute of Technology was not known as the Washington Institute of Technology during World War II.--Doug Coldwell (talk) 19:49, 8 January 2014 (UTC)

See "Industrial Research Laboratories of the United States Including Consulting ": As of 1950 it was a rather small industrial research laboratory. And in 1940 - Altenmann >t 05:44, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Curiouslly, Sidney Mashbir is listed as its president in 1950. - Altenmann >t 05:54, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Here we go! - Altenmann >t 06:00, 13 February 2014 (UTC)
 * And finally. - Altenmann >t 06:08, 13 February 2014 (UTC)

Not all that it seems
Mrs. Brown donated her hair to the war effort not knowing where it was going or what it would be used for. There is no existing evidence that anyone ever officially told her. In truth, it probably was only ever used for hygrometers for weather reporting stations. If you'll search on the string wwii hygrometers human hair, you'll see the use of women's hair in WWII hygrometers is well-documented.

That alone puts the lie to claims that Mrs. Brown's hair was superior to a spider's silk because it was less affected by humidity. It wouldn't be much of a hygrometer if it weren't responsive to changes in humidity, would it?

Also, human hair is roughly 30x the thickness of a strand of spider's silk. Inducing so gross an aiming error at that point in the targeting process would have turned Carl Norden's coveted 23-metre CEP into something closer to a half mile.

The claim that there was any wide-spread effort to use women's hair in bomb sights is completely lacking in foundation. There is in fact no historical evidence that it occurred even once in the WWII era, much less on a routine basis. Although period accounts claimed that the technology to diamond-etch a reticle pattern on glass that would have been as fine and as crisp as a spider's silk crosshair did not yet exist, that probably was disinformation, which this story from the Defense Media Network supports. It states in part:

...While its use in meteorological instruments such as radiosonde hygrometers is acknowledged, there are disputed claims regarding human hair use in bombsight crosshairs, particularly the Norden bombsight. While anecdotal accounts of human hair in bombsights exist, verifiable accounts only indicate it was used in precision weather instruments. Surviving Norden bombsights reveal that the cross hairs were etched in glass by diamond cutters....

The same story also details the wartime collection of blonde hair to be used in hygrometers and other scientific instruments, specifically because "...blonde hair was particularly sensitive to changes in heat and cold...."

The whole "hair as reticle" story makes no sense because if human hair were superior in any characteristic to spider's silk, then why did telescopic sight manufacturers spend so many years operating spider farms when all they really needed to do was visit the local beauty parlor and pick up the sweepings off the floor?

Any surviving link between Mrs. Brown and the Norden bomb sight probably is down to active War Department disinformation efforts. The claim has never been subject to close scrutiny. All existing supporting evidence is explainable as defensive acts taken by a government still swaddled in wartime paranoia, looking to protect one of its most closely-guarded secrets on the cusp of still another (Cold) war. In all likelihood, either Mrs. Brown concocted the Norden story from whole cloth, or it was suggested to her by some friend or acquaintance with a hyperactive imagination. And flattered to think that she might have played such a significant role in the war effort, she was happy to perpetuate the myth. Understandably, once the government got wind of it, they were more than happy to accommodate Mrs. Brown's version of the "facts" because in the doing, they obfuscated the true nature of the Norden.

The Norden bomb sight boasted several notable breakthroughs in technology. Occam's razor says it's far more likely that while they were feeding their inventive bent, they'd have invested the extra resources to perfect a diamond-etching process, and in the doing divorce the Norden's construction from any single-source human-dependent resources (such as Mrs. Brown's ersatz hair) and replace it with materials and processes that were far more abundant and far less subject to being detected and exposed.

It's a great story but it's a hoax. The counterespionage story behind the hoax would be much more interesting. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.179.93.112 (talk) 01:03, 20 April 2015 (UTC)

Complete myth
"...It was my father, Charles [Carl] Hans, a diamond cutter from Germany who started a diamond tool company back in the early 40's, called Larco Diamond Tools. He invented many diamond tools to use in the boring of gun barrels, no matter what the size.  Also many grinding tools used to dress down other grinding wheels. He told me the story of the original bomb site that used spider webs and then human hair, all of which did not hold up very well.  He invented a diamond chisel that would do the job to perfection.  He never made time to become a citizen so he needed special clearance to enter the defense plants during the war to be able to show them how his tools would do the job better than what they were doing at that time...."

www.twinbeech.com


 * Carl Norden invented the bombsight for the Navy in the 1920s
 * The Army Air Corps obtained the bombsight in the 1930s with improvements
 * The Norden Bombsight was used in the bombing of Germany starting in 1941
 * Mary Babnik Brown did not enter the picture until she responded to a request for hair for weather instruments in 1943. The War Department had been getting its hair supply for weather instruments from Scandinavia. That supply source had been cut off because of the war and they had to look within the United States for people of Scandinavian descent
 * She donated her hair in 1944
 * According to Taigh Ramey, creator of The Norden Bombsight Web Page and Museum, he states “all of the Norden bombsights that I have looked at have had etched crosshairs.” (twinbeech.com)
 * The Bombardier’s Information File, a manual issued to bombardiers, has an illustration showing the schematic of the optical system. It states, “Crosshairs are etched on one of the lenses of the telescope.”

museumofaviation.wordpress.com

The Norden bomb sight already was in service in the European theater when DoD issued its first call for human hair (which was a further three years before Mary Babnik Brown donated her hair):

"...The call for human hair was announced by the War Department in July 1941...."

www.defensemedianetwork.com — Preceding unsigned comment added by 47.40.218.86 (talk) 20:26, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

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