We know that human societies, politics, agriculture, manufacturing, technology, economics and other fields have changed enormously in the past century.  But only in the last decade has a significant percentage of the thinking population come to recognize that many of the changes initially seen as good are now seen as bad, because of the irreparably damaging effects they have had on our planet’s environment and resources.  Collectively, these damages are so great that if there is to be a future for mankind, the sacred words “progress” and “growth” must now be exchanged for the words, “repair” and “sustainability”.

Francis D. Reynolds, the originator of this website, is a retired ninety-year-old aerospace executive, professional engineer, inventor, scientist, teacher, writer, husband, father, grandfather, and loyal U. S. citizen.  Out of natural curiosities and concerns he has attentively observed both the good and the bad sides of humanity and its works in many fields.

Feeling that he had some thoughts worth offering, he has written several books.  The first of these, “Crackpot or Genius, A complete Guide to the Uncommon Art of Inventing”, published in both paperback and hardcover, is now out of print.

His other books have never been published on paper, partly because they tend to be so controversial, revolutionary, and frightening that conventional publishers are afraid to publish them.  These books are un-copyrighted and in the public domain, therefore they may be freely published, copied, or quoted by others.  The author requests only that the usual credits be given.  His objectives here are to pass on some ideas that may be of value to his fellow humans. You will find these short unpublished works by clicking on the following links.

He recommends The Rise and Fall of the Human Empire be read first.  Read it and weep.

Next he hopes you will read Nutopia.  Through a simple lighthearted ruse he analyses, very basically, our historical and present practices and habits in many fields of human life.  He knows that a high percentage of the semi-tongue-in-cheek suggestions he offers as solutions are too oversimplified to be adopted.  However, he feels that looking at things as a discerning child might see them is of value in understanding how far off of logical tracks modern society has strayed.  Hopefully some of his observations may lead the more intelligent of our leaders and activists to propose some valuable doable changes.

Finally, The Revolutionary Dualmode Transportation System. The concept of Dualmode transportation is felt by hundreds of experts worldwide to be the most promising one for a future standardized global land-transportation system.  This book is also online at the University of Washington website of Professor Emeritus Jerry B. Schneider.  Dr. Schneider’s basic website, Innovative Transportation Technologies, contains a wealth of information in semi-technical papers on all types of advanced transportation.

If economic growth could be sustained, and resources sufficient, dualmode transportation would be the way to go, but if the predictions in The Rise and Fall of the Human Empire are correct, it is already too late.  If the Human Empire is already on the decline, any attempts to authorize, fund, design and construct a major revolutionary transportation system would likely fail.

In these books, Reynolds has attempted to write for a broad spectrum of audiences, using a minimum of technical terms, while defining and explaining subjects unlikely to be known by all readers.  In these writings he has pulled no punches, he tells it like he sees it, because collectively we can no longer pretend that all of the world’s problems will somehow work themselves out.  To a degree there is still hope, but only if we get our heads out of the sand in dozens of areas very soon.

Into Space

If the sad old world should jump a cog
Some time, in its dizzy spinning,
And go off the track with a sudden jog,
What an end would come to the sinning.
What a rest from strife and the burdens of life
For the millions of people in it,
What a way out of care, and worry and wear,
All in a beautiful minute.
As 'round the sun with a curving sweep
It hurries and runs and races,
Should it lose its balance, and go with a leap
Into the vast sea-spaces,
What a blest relief it would bring to the grief,
And the trouble and toil about us,
To be suddenly hurled from the solar world
And let it go on without us.

With not a sigh or a sad good-bye
For loved ones left behind us,
We would go with a lunge and a mighty plunge
Where never a grave should find us.
What a wild mad thrill our veins would fill
As the great earth, like a feather,
Should float through the air to God knows where,
And carry us all together.

No dark, damp tomb and no mourner's gloom
No tolling bell in the steeple,
But in one swift breath a painless death
For a million billion people.
What greater bliss could we ask than this,
To sweep with a bird's free motion
Through leagues of space to a resting-place
In a vast and vapory ocean—
To pass away from this life for aye
With never a dear tie sundered,
And a world on fire for a funeral pyre,
While the stars looked on and wondered?

Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1917