Mark Gibbs <mgi...@gibbs.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 20, 2013 at 11:47 AM, Kevin O'Malley <kevmol...@gmail.com>wrote: > >> They did not need to put first-principles theories of flight in their >> patent. Gibbs seems to think this has been a requirement all along. >> > > O'Malley is making unfounded assumptions. Gibbs never wrote or implied any > such thing. > Well, not to quibble or split hairs, but you said the Wrights had a "theory of lift." They had no theory. They did not know what caused lift. They did not try to learn that. What they had was engineering data from a wind tunnel *measuring lift* to 2 significant decimal places with a variety of different surfaces. They had much better data than anyone else. They put a lot of effort into the wind tunnel. They made sure the results were reproducible, so that the data from all surfaces was comparable. They then treated lift as a force like any other, and taking into account things like the center of mass, they engineered an unstable but controllable aircraft. That was an immensely complicated undertaking. Nothing like that existed and models such as bird flight were not very helpful (according to the Wrights). Violante and others are trying to master cold fusion by methods similar to this. They are measuring and cataloging the properties of Pd samples, then testing the samples to see how well they produce the cold fusion effect. They are trying to converge on effective material. This is far better than blind trial and error, because they have deep knowledge of metallurgy, and instruments that reveal a lot about the crystalline structure of the metal and other aspects of it. They can identify common elements in effective cathodes. They can do that without any theory of how the effect occurs. They are making progress. Unfortunately, the effort is so underfunded, that at the rate it is going, it might take decades more. They are close to retirement. With funding and proper equipment it could go much faster. Here is the potential benefit of this project: * Violante has learned how to make effective cathodes. In the hands of experts, they produce the cold fusion effect much more often than random Pd samples would, at much higher power. Results from different labs for the same sample are in the same range. * This should make it easier to explore the effect, since getting it to happen in the first place has been the challenge. As Ed points out, if you can make it happen often, you can then study it. Most people think that Pd is not a promising material for practical use. Ni is much better. I agree, but that is not relevant. This is a scientific study. The purpose is to gather data. Violante's test bed of instruments resemble the Wright brother's wind tunnel. The wind tunnel was a tool to study lift without *having to learn the underlying physics of lift*. It was a mechanical way to make an end-run around the gap in knowledge, and solve the problem without first-principles. A black box, if you will. Violante's methods may give us a similar way forward without a theory. They may give us enough test data to develop a theory. It might bootstrap up to a theory. Perhaps Violante's work will only teach us about bulk Pd, and not Ni or finely divided Pd. That would be okay. Presumably, a theory to explain one will have some applicability to the others. The limited range of things he can study with his test bed is analogous to the fact that the wind tunnel gave the Wrights information on a narrow range of configurations at a single, slow wind speed. You could never use their instrument to design a wide range of airplanes. Only very slow, first-generation ones. The Wrights were not trying to solve every problem in aviation. One of their many crucial skills was the ability to limit the problem set to essentials. They attacked the questions that mattered, and ignored things that could be put aside. - Jed
