Is it just me...
Science is hard. Engineering/technology is harder.As another example for slow developments, I am wondering though, why super conductor reasearch has been so dreadfully slow? Again, first read about the potential 30 years ago and while there has been progress, there is still noone who can store the power for a city like Frankfurt in a 3 m^3 room as was predicted by some scientists back then. Not even close...
But think of it. The fundamental laws of electricity were known as early as 1843. Maxwell found them again in the 1860s. Electricity didn't really begin to take off until the 1890s.
We are just to the point where Km long strands of SCs are being manufactured. FM radio was developed in the 1920s. It didn't start being deployed until the 1950s. After the band used was changed from 50 MHz to 100 MHz.
I was just reading Feynman on the subject. He talks about all the trial and error that goes into electric components. Improvements tend to be incremental and slow. The same will be true of Polywell.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Yeah, I know that science and engineering is hard. But have we come to a point of development that does not allow for fast growth anymore (diminishing returns), like some are suggesting? I do think that this is one possibility.
Or is it politics that are slowing things down (e.g. there are people that think that politics have slowed down NASAs LV developments in the past).
Or is it that we are missing a hand full of key, enabling developments that is slowing us down (e.g. fusion energy, room temperature super conductors)?
Or is it that we are not able to intelectually keep up with ourselves?
Or is there some corporate low risk mentality that keeps things slowed down?
Or is it politics that are slowing things down (e.g. there are people that think that politics have slowed down NASAs LV developments in the past).
Or is it that we are missing a hand full of key, enabling developments that is slowing us down (e.g. fusion energy, room temperature super conductors)?
Or is it that we are not able to intelectually keep up with ourselves?
Or is there some corporate low risk mentality that keeps things slowed down?
Engineering is slow ponderous work because of liability concerns. If an experiment goes bad you lose a few lab techs and a physicist or three (biologist? doctor?). If you make a bad auto - you also make bad headlines. So improvements in engineering tend to be incremental.Skipjack wrote:Yeah, I know that science and engineering is hard. But have we come to a point of development that does not allow for fast growth anymore (diminishing returns), like some are suggesting? I do think that this is one possibility.
Or is it politics that are slowing things down (e.g. there are people that think that politics have slowed down NASAs LV developments in the past).
Or is it that we are missing a hand full of key, enabling developments that is slowing us down (e.g. fusion energy, room temperature super conductors)?
Or is it that we are not able to intelectually keep up with ourselves?
Or is there some corporate low risk mentality that keeps things slowed down?
Remember - experiments are meant to be written off. Products are supposed to be profitable.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Maybe, but consider that historically, credit for major breakthroughs has gone to one person or a small team. This structure makes communication of ideas much easier and quicker.Skipjack wrote:Yeah, I know that science and engineering is hard. But have we come to a point of development that does not allow for fast growth anymore (diminishing returns), like some are suggesting? I do think that this is one possibility.
NASA's challenge could be compared to that of the Wright brothers. A huge government (politically) funded team compared to a small privately funded team. After the Wright brothers flew, private enterprise took over airplane development with a vengeance. Of course they also pursued government funding. After NASA drops out of LV competition, we will soon see what private enterprise does.Or is it politics that are slowing things down (e.g. there are people that think that politics have slowed down NASAs LV developments in the past).
Things always look easier from hindsight. Again, look at the airplane development after it was proven to fly or transistor development after it was shown to work. We have ideas about what these new enabling technologies might be, what is lacking is knowing even one way to make them work in practice. Or maybe more to the point, what is lacking is the competitive atmosphere of a race to see who's version of the Polywell will be the one to first achieve break-even.Or is it that we are missing a hand full of key, enabling developments that is slowing us down (e.g. fusion energy, room temperature super conductors)?
That may be a big part of it but I suspect that the shear size of the research efforts gets in the way of the people who can wrap their minds around the problem.Or is it that we are not able to intelectually keep up with ourselves?
Same as the above, established research managers inhibit the efforts of genius for personal security reasons. "It may work but if it doesn't then I will be on the hook for the wasted money, and it it does work then new genius will attract the limited funding and where will I be?"Or is there some corporate low risk mentality that keeps things slowed down?
I remember a conversation I had (1979) with my landlady while I was working away from home. She told me that the economy had gone to *ell in a hand basket, everyone was so poor. When she was a child everyone had all the money they could use, everyone had servants and even the servants were better off than most people are today. She was talking about the 1890's, and of course I took that with a grain of salt, but consider. The 1890's was the era of the airship experimentation. Many people were working on and flying balloons and experimental airships at that time. The Wright brothers had a bicycle shop, maybe comparable to a successful car dealership today. They had "enough" money but what they really had was a powerful drive to accomplish flight. Instead of sitting around blogging and speculating with the neighbors, they were in their shop assembling an engine and wind tunnel (the breakthrough technologies needed) in order to further their dream of flight. I don't know what the Wright Flyer cost them in terms of current dollars but how many of us have the resources to pursue a current project of that magnitude under the scientific and technical circumstances that existed then or exist now? I think there may have been a kernel of truth in what my landlady remembered.
Aero
Did your landlady have air conditioning. An auto or three. Electricity. A telephone. A Super Computer (cira 1980 technology) on her desk? A 10 Mbs pipe feeding it. Wireless for all the kid's laptops when they come to visit.
Friends she could talk to from 5 or 15 countries around the world she could converse with by post cards delivered in 10 seconds or less. A printing press in her home office. A document scanner. A wireless phone.
And let us not even get into medical services. Did she have to worry about polio in the summer.
I dunno. I'd rather be poor today than rich in 1890.
Friends she could talk to from 5 or 15 countries around the world she could converse with by post cards delivered in 10 seconds or less. A printing press in her home office. A document scanner. A wireless phone.
And let us not even get into medical services. Did she have to worry about polio in the summer.
I dunno. I'd rather be poor today than rich in 1890.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.
Rapidity of development often takes a war.
Most development is done by small teams with meager resources. EMC2 hit about a dozen people at peak , and much of the work was done with a staff of about four. Possibly they have more people now, but I suspect the present effort is under a dozen. The other small fusion efforts are probably comparable.
Picture fission proceeding the same way, without WWII to spur development. Would a small effort be able to develop industrial-scale mass spec, gaseous diffusion, or ultra-centrafuge capability?
Aircraft development: before WWI aircraft were a novelty. Afterwards there was an industry. Before WWII the US Army Air Corp was flying biplanes, with a few modern planes just coming on-line in response to building international tension. Had peace broken out, we might still be flying ragwing biplanes.
Liquid-fueled rockets were the field of back-yard tinkerers. Dr. Bussard probably would have picked up Goddard's mantle had the nuclear field not evolved (as a kid he was an amateur rocketeer, before the V2). As it was, rapid space development was the result of the Cold War.
Before WWII radio was around. Several militaries were experimenting with detecting aircraft at a distance using radio waves. This probably would have remained a nifty little corner of radio research, operating in the VHF range, impractical applied to stick and canvas biplanes, without the war. But by December 1944 my dad received a case of a nifty new fuse, POZIT, that contained a radar transmitter and receiver. This radar proximity fuse could withstand firing from a howitzer, and detonate the shell a precise distance off the ground. Nasty high-tech surprise for the Germans during The Bulge.
I know most of you guys think AGW is a crock. I think the brouhaha is meaningless if nobody has a viable option to fossil fuels. If the noise over AGW lights the fire for people to come up with practical alternatives (which for me means the Polywell and maybe a few others), I'd say just try to steer the arguments into a practical direction. If the motivation is enough, it is preferable to a war. But if you look around the world at active wars and the potential for them, energy is a huge player.
Most development is done by small teams with meager resources. EMC2 hit about a dozen people at peak , and much of the work was done with a staff of about four. Possibly they have more people now, but I suspect the present effort is under a dozen. The other small fusion efforts are probably comparable.
Picture fission proceeding the same way, without WWII to spur development. Would a small effort be able to develop industrial-scale mass spec, gaseous diffusion, or ultra-centrafuge capability?
Aircraft development: before WWI aircraft were a novelty. Afterwards there was an industry. Before WWII the US Army Air Corp was flying biplanes, with a few modern planes just coming on-line in response to building international tension. Had peace broken out, we might still be flying ragwing biplanes.
Liquid-fueled rockets were the field of back-yard tinkerers. Dr. Bussard probably would have picked up Goddard's mantle had the nuclear field not evolved (as a kid he was an amateur rocketeer, before the V2). As it was, rapid space development was the result of the Cold War.
Before WWII radio was around. Several militaries were experimenting with detecting aircraft at a distance using radio waves. This probably would have remained a nifty little corner of radio research, operating in the VHF range, impractical applied to stick and canvas biplanes, without the war. But by December 1944 my dad received a case of a nifty new fuse, POZIT, that contained a radar transmitter and receiver. This radar proximity fuse could withstand firing from a howitzer, and detonate the shell a precise distance off the ground. Nasty high-tech surprise for the Germans during The Bulge.
I know most of you guys think AGW is a crock. I think the brouhaha is meaningless if nobody has a viable option to fossil fuels. If the noise over AGW lights the fire for people to come up with practical alternatives (which for me means the Polywell and maybe a few others), I'd say just try to steer the arguments into a practical direction. If the motivation is enough, it is preferable to a war. But if you look around the world at active wars and the potential for them, energy is a huge player.
The answer is "No." Remember 1979? That was pre- PC, pre-Internet, Pre-cell phone, post polio vaccine and she lived near the Pacific Ocean so no need for A/C. But you bring up a good point. R&D in the last 3 decades has gone into areas that are less visible than airplanes, rockets and automobiles. Sure, the end results are quite visible and very handy, but the behind the scenes research work has been incremental improvement, it hasn't been so much blockbuster breakthroughs.MSimon wrote:Did your landlady have air conditioning. An auto or three. Electricity. A telephone. A Super Computer (cira 1980 technology) on her desk? A 10 Mbs pipe feeding it. Wireless for all the kid's laptops when they come to visit.
Friends she could talk to from 5 or 15 countries around the world she could converse with by post cards delivered in 10 seconds or less. A printing press in her home office. A document scanner. A wireless phone.
And let us not even get into medical services. Did she have to worry about polio in the summer.
I dunno. I'd rather be poor today than rich in 1890.
I remember the first "Cell Phone" I ever encountered. 1986, it was a radio in a brief case with a telephone interface. Everyone else wore pagers. Couple years later, I met a lady who had a "Brick" cell phone, but it would fit in her purse. Then very quickly, cell phones got small enough to fit into a pocket. Visible results of research. Cell phones have gotten a little smaller since, but much, much more capable. Invisible research, but a lot of research.
As for being rich in the 1890's, what's the good of being rich if everyone else is, too? But no matter what the era, I'd rather be comfortably rich than poor.
Aero
So your point is that it requires extreme motivation on the order of survival to shake the money loose to do research in breakthrough technologies. Probably more correct than not, but there are many exceptions. March and Woodward come to mind. But then, even after they develop a proof of concept device there is no guarantee the thrusters will be developed any more rapidly than the airplane was.Tom Ligon wrote:Rapidity of development often takes a war.
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I know most of you guys think AGW is a crock.
Last edited by Aero on Wed Mar 17, 2010 4:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Aero
RE: Enabling technologies ...
People toyed with human flight for millenia. The Greeks considered it, with the famous story that says Daedelus achieved it. Human-powered, though. Feasible? Well, it was in 1988, but probably not 2000 years earlier.
DaVinci tried it. His coachman supposedly was badly injured trying it.
A number of gliders were tested before the Wrights. While they would have benefitted from a control system and a better understanding of aerodynamics, they did fly. But they had no practical application because they lacked a source of power, so they never got much beyond a rich man's hobby.
Langley failed in large part because of an inadequate and impractical power plant.
The enabling technology for the Wrights was the Otto Cycle engine, but existing engines were not adequate. One of the outstanding accomplishments of the Wrights was that these two bike mechanics engineered a 4-cylinder engine with a better power to weight ratio than anything available then. Without it, the dream of flight was impractical.
And give credit to their machinist who actually built it, almost from scratch. People replicating Wright Flyers today do not try to replicate the engines.
Yes, if it works, the Polywell will be an enabling technology for a lot of exciting stuff.
People toyed with human flight for millenia. The Greeks considered it, with the famous story that says Daedelus achieved it. Human-powered, though. Feasible? Well, it was in 1988, but probably not 2000 years earlier.
DaVinci tried it. His coachman supposedly was badly injured trying it.
A number of gliders were tested before the Wrights. While they would have benefitted from a control system and a better understanding of aerodynamics, they did fly. But they had no practical application because they lacked a source of power, so they never got much beyond a rich man's hobby.
Langley failed in large part because of an inadequate and impractical power plant.
The enabling technology for the Wrights was the Otto Cycle engine, but existing engines were not adequate. One of the outstanding accomplishments of the Wrights was that these two bike mechanics engineered a 4-cylinder engine with a better power to weight ratio than anything available then. Without it, the dream of flight was impractical.
And give credit to their machinist who actually built it, almost from scratch. People replicating Wright Flyers today do not try to replicate the engines.
Yes, if it works, the Polywell will be an enabling technology for a lot of exciting stuff.