Yes, come tell me stories about how the Montgolfier brothers figured out, looking at their fireplace, that something that could retain hot air, could also rise up into the skies a given weight...

Bartolomeu de Gusmão have discovered it more that seventy years before... it was suficient to read his writings on the subject. Even if the Passarola gadget could never work, it launched the basic elements for a manned hot air baloon to be able to fly, once built.