My future prediction of the 'Recovery Grant' project.

[KitemanSA]

Why don't we just wait the report?

Because eventually, delays become indicative evidence.
A report was promised as of yesterday at latest, and is now "delayed." At the least, the plausibility-meter should be twitching.

You do have a point about the plausibility-meter twitching, especially when you discover changes in the "project summary".
Still, only on reading the report we will clarify these points.

Folks, if you have that twitchy a plausibility meter, why didn't it jiggle back LAST year at this time when they were talking about WB8 "under construction" when the contract specified DELIVERY on 30 Apr 10? Anyone who has been following the ACTUAL contract rather than the "Recovery Act Tracker" web site has known about this 6-9 month delay for almost a year. KEEP UP folks!

By the way, the old "Project Summary" in the RAT site has never reflected the contract until now. I suspect it was written for the untechnical and caught some here. Heck, it may have been illegal to have that summary written that way in that it was not what the contract said. Who knows?

[Giorgio]

Folks, if you have that twitchy a plausibility meter, why didn't it jiggle back LAST year at this time when they were talking about WB8 "under construction" when the contract specified DELIVERY on 30 Apr 10? Anyone who has been following the ACTUAL contract rather than the "Recovery Act Tracker" web site has known about this 6-9 month delay for almost a year. KEEP UP folks!

My twitchy plausibility meter was for the change in the "project summary" not for the delay. The delay was a known issue.

By the way, the old "Project Summary" in the RAT site has never reflected the contract until now. I suspect it was written for the untechnical and caught some here. Heck, it may have been illegal to have that summary written that way in that it was not what the contract said. Who knows?

I was stating in another thread that the more I think about it the more I find it plausible that the change in project summary might not be so important but, as you said, who knows.

[rcain]

You know for a fact that Park & co have forgotten that this is about doing fusion?

Well, if the project summary goes from;

We expect to determine if the Polywell is suitable as a clean energy source for electrical generation.

to

We expect to determine if the plasma scaling agrees with the Theoretical models.

..dunno.. you tell me?

Besides, it's a bit like everything about this project has been conducted in a way that nothing is going to ever be 'known' about it.

.. i understood those two statements in an opposit sense. vis: "we HAVE determined that Polywell is suitable as a clean energy source...(with varying but significant degrees of confidence, upon the 'scale' we are currentlly working at.)"

"therefore, the next logical step is.... TO BUILD A BIGGER ONE... and dertermine just how big it needs to be to hit our Q>1"

- which was always a tough/the toughest question.

in other words i see this as conformance to a 'critical project path' of 'minimized risk/uncertainty'.

what else would you expect? (apart from abject failure at stage 1).

i also think the contention about 'documentation' product Vs. 'machine' product from this stage of the project is a bit of a misnomer. to my mind you cant really have one without the other in this circumstance; its just a wording issue, though does empasise that the 'ultimate' purpose of this stage of the project is in 'answering a question' rather than just 'building another machine'. by this logic, the next contract should emphasise the opposite - ie. 'principally' about 'building a pre-production machine prototype' - or there abouts. we will see.

i do have to agree with chrismb's sentiments in general though; i think there is an enormous tendency for science and scientists (anyone in fact) to ease themselves into a cushy rut; be content with 'nibling away' at the edges of science, keeping your mouth shut and everyone happy, compared to blowing the lab up in a last desparate bid for eternal recognition.

i also agree however, that 'blowing the lab up' is in essence the 'only' type of news really worth getting excited about, if you will excuse he rather stretched/morbid analogy. Perhaps when Famulus announces 'he' is in the middle of confirming scaling laws, who knows.

As others here, I too believe we will NEVER hear very much in the way of data or published scientific evidence from EMC2-Navy - they are a defence project for christsake, what do people expect!

What I do anticipate however, is marginally positive news such as we have, giving a boost to competitive researchers and investors, including other public agencies. They will be the ones we finally get some data out of.