Article published in the newspaper “NATIONAL” on Friday, 17 August 2001, page 5

A Foreman in Bucharest Wants to Overthrow Copernicus' Theories
By Viorel ILISOI

When they have nothing else to do, the Romanians are geniuses. There is no jumble in the Universe for which they cannot find its reason, although nobody notices them, and they pass away unknown and anonymous. From the cigarettes for no smokers, that die down automatically when lighting them, and up to the sophisticated “flying objects”, from the TV set that shuts down by itself when you start snoring, and up to the devices that forecast the earthquakes, in our country everything has been invented. That is the reason why it does not seem sensational any more when a car mechanic in Bucharest conceives an apparatus that highlights the “natural and astronomic phenomena”, a project laid down under the number 2001-00249/07.03.2001 with the State Office for Inventions and Trademarks.

THE APPARATUS
The foreman Alexandru Leorda, the intellectual and manual author of the nine-day’s wonder, wants by all means to overthrow the fundamentals of astronomy known since Copernicus on. He can prove with his apparatus, “an absolute world premiere”, that since 500 years the mankind lives with a colossal scientific error. It is a wooden frame, having in its middle an iron cement circle (the orbit of Terra) and in the centre of the circle a night-lamp bulb in the position of the Sun; and on the round rod, two plastic silvery little globes are fastened, representing the Earth at aphelion and perihelion. By rotating the circle, the light of the little bulb falls now on the poles, now on the equator, showing in this way how the seasons come in turn, and how the marine currents, the winds are formed, how the rains appear, etc. The apparatus is not yet named. The cost of the construction was 300,000 Lei, and SOIT (State Office for Inventions and Trademarks) requires exactly 29,302,408 Lei to patent it. It happens that the inventor of the astral billiards has this money, but what about so many other geniuses that are not so lucky to have the funds to be patented, and there are others that take the bread out of their mouths! Its conception took about 50 years, as its author claims, while its construction can be finished in only a few days.

THE REVOLUTION
The cyclopaedic, let us call it like that, is not only a trick that moves, lighted by a bulb, but also an apparatus that revolutionizes our knowledge about the Universe, sustains Leorda. On turning with the finger the approximate circle of iron cement and calculating the angle under which light touches the plastic little globes, the foreman Alexandru Leorda kicks Nicolas Copernicus three smart blows in the bottom:

1. The axle of the Earth is not inclined by 66 degrees and 33 minutes, as believed up to now, but it is either vertical, or horizontal, or at 45 degrees (and it is true that the little balls, as they are fastened with thread, keep those angles);
2. The revolution movement of the Earth is not helicoidally.
3. The Earth moves on a perfectly round orbit, and not on an ellipse, as believed up to now, like a ladybird crawling on an egg. In the car mechanic’s workshop, seeing how the apparatus reproduces the movement of the Earth, you understand why Copernicus’ book, “About the revolution movements of the heavenly bodies” (1543) has been put on the black list by the Church between 1616 and 1822: because its assertions were not true! Starting with the age of 9 on to 61, Alexandru Leorda, who is being concerned all day long with scientific curiosities, conceived this apparatus, with which he hopes to revolutionize human knowledge.

THE GENIUS
Until finishing the respective apparatus, which shows the creation mechanisms of the “natural phenomena as whole and the astronomic ones”, Leorda invented other oddities too: in 1975 he introduced the method for repairing through welding the car radiators (until then only the soldering bit was used exclusively), then he finished an engine that functions even if petrol is mixed with water, a method to turn to good account rivers without erecting dams, an anti-drift ship, a multi-functional table for entertainment (a table like the billiards one, on which about fifteen interactive games can be played), an air conditioning installation based on tap water: if you turn on the hot water, it is warm in the house; if you turn on the cold water, it gets cool, based on the principle of the car radiator), and many others – that function, but are not patented. As he has no health problems in his 61st year, Alexandru Leorda hopes to live long enough to invent also other useful pranks, may be even more revolutionary than his anti-Copernicus apparatus.