From: bob golding
Date: Mon, 25 Dec 2000 02:36:10 +0000
Subject: Re: [TSSP] pn2511 is baloney
Hi Paul,
I have been sitting on the sidelines of this list mainly because I am
not good at the maths. I can follow some of it, but not all. However I now
have my big coil set up at the local museum on a semi permanent basis so I
can go and play with it on Sundays and Weds evenings. This being Cambridge
it is generating a lot of interest among the local electronics community.
I have people offering to bring all kinds of test gear down to measure
things. I have access to a 5 gig spectrum analyser and someone who knows
how to use it. I am going to get terries probes finished and build the
plane wave antennas sometime. basically if someone tells me what to
measure I should be able to get it done and any results chewed over by
professional scientists. Only last Weds someone came down and was
inquiring about the black body radiation? I don't know why, he went off on
a tangent. Tell be what is needed and I will try and get it measured. I
have tried to download pn2511 but only get the first page? Most of the
people coming to the museum are unix programmers so they should be able to
help on the software side if needed. Thanks for all your efforts so far, I
will stick to making long sparks and photographing them!
cheers
bob golding
Paul wrote:
> Terry wrote (in another thread):
>
> > Your work and your new paper will define coiling for decades if not
> > centuries!! I am still dog paddling through your big paper but your
> > work is obviously defining the art by many orders of magnitude over
> > what has been!!
>
> Kind words, thanks. But I prefer to call it 'our' work - there's no
> way I'd get this done alone. And whether it's right or not remains to
> be seen, although I don't believe the material in pn2511 is far off
> the mark. I've called it secondary 'basics' because it's just a
> summary of everything we can write down about the secondary using
> straightforward circuit theory, ie the easy stuff. Everything in
> pn2511 comes from the differential equs for the coupling derived in
> section 4. tsim is based on these too, and its comparison with
> measurement is the only basis we have for the correctness of sect 4.
> Measurements made to test the relations given in sections 6 to 9
> (which all follow from sect 4), will add further weight, which is why
> I've put up a things-to-do list. Ultimately whether or not this work
> has any long term value depends utterly on the efforts of the list
> members to a) scrutinise the theory, and b) supporting measurements.
> In both these respect this is very much a group effort and my part in
> typing up the docs and maintaining the code is a minimal contribution.
>
> I'd just like to say a few things on the subject of 'getting things
> right'.
>
> Terry wrote (a week or so ago):
>
> > ... So don't screw up!
>
> I'll try not to, but...
>
> Sometimes I get 70, 80, maybe even 90% marks when I take exams, but
> never 100%. When I write a computer program, I always get some bugs -
> even after 20 odd years practice I can't do better than one mistake
> per 20 lines average, and thats probably considered a good score. On
> that basis you should assume that any work that I report is probably
> between 5% and 30% wrong! Pretty bad eh? By this argument I shift the
> responsibility for correctness to the group as a whole, along with any
> credit for results. Like most amateurs, my knowledge of physics,
> maths, and electronics is patchy at best, so I'm counting on members
> of the tssp list to be super-critical of anything that comes across
> it, because by myself, there's no way I could safely contribute
> anything to a reliable body of knowledge in such a tricky field as
> this.
>
> Professional scientists know only too well how easy it is to be
> fooled. It's not without good reason that they have to jump through
> hoops to get work published. If their results or ideas survive a
> grilling by colleagues and professors, they may then submit a paper.
> This will only be published after a stiff review by independent
> workers in the field. Even then, eventual publication is not a stamp
> of correctness, merely an indication that the work is not obviously
> wrong. Only after publication does a theory begin the long process
> towards becoming accepted knowledge.
>
> The amateur scientist is at a severe disadvantage in this respect. It
> is extremely, frighteningly, easy for the amateur, working in relative
> isolation, to become self-convinced of an idea which would, in an
> academic environment, not survive through a tea break with colleagues.
> Admittedly, an amateur may occasionally achieve a breakthrough simply
> through being unfettered by a particular academic dogma, but this is
> very rare.
>
> When it comes to tesla coiling, we are all amateurs - I've not yet
> come across an academic department involved in this subject. Like the
> early days of radio, the field is dominated by amateurs like
> ourselves, and the situation is ripe for myths and errors to take root
> and propagate.
>
> Typically, ideas put forward are insufficiently challenged by argument
> or experiment and by this means faulty notions can all too easily
> become established. We looked at some examples of this in the tesla
> community a few months back. The situation is made worse by the WWW -
> anyone can post anything they like and are quite at liberty to ignore
> critisicm - a far cry from the academic, whose career may depend on
> how well an idea can be defended in front of a stern audience.
>
> So, to members of the list, please consider this an appeal for greater
> skepticism. Be tough on project material, because our mutual criticism
> is the only means available to us with which to filter out the dross
> and hopefully leave behind some worthwhile enduring knowledge. If you
> approach pn2511, etc, with the attitude given in the subject line,
> then we'll have less chance of collectively screwing up.
>
> Some random thoughts:
>
> -I make mistakes-
>
> -You make mistakes-
>
> -Just because its a nice idea, doesn't make it correct-
>
> -Just because its your idea, doesn't make it correct-
>
> -If an idea is correct, it will remain correct after an arbitrary
> amount of scrutiny-
>
> -If it's mathematically inconsistent - its wrong-
>
> -If it disagrees with experiment - its wrong-
>
> Above all, equip yourselves with a Baloney Detection Kit. See
>
> http://www.uiowa.edu/~anthro/webcourse/lost/sagan.htm
> http://www.noah.org/science/reason.html
>
> and buy Carl's awesome book!
>
> http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/
> 0345409469/csicop/107-4789342-9206937
>
> Another fascinating read is
>
> http://www.bestsellerreviews.com/p/Robert_Park/
> Voodoo_Science_The_Road_from_Foolishness_to_Fraud_0195135156.htm
>
> Regards,
> --
> Paul Nicholson,
> Manchester, UK.
> --
Maintainer Paul Nicholson, paul@abelian.demon.co.uk.