Re: [Vo]:Another Irish FE Firm?
The Anomalous Magnetization of Iron and Steel, B. Osgood Peirce 1912: https://www.jstor.org/stable/20022770?seq=2 The effects seem to pertain to high dv/dt impulses however.. not to mention antique metallurgical samples (the high-Sv kind). Modern electrical steels OTOH are designed to be high-mu, high-freq and hence low-Sv inductors with minimal remanence / retentivity. Anomalous self-induction must be arising under some very a-typical circumstances if no one's noticed it previously.. and we're not talking micro-teslas here, he's claiming a 400 - 500% gain in flux density, sufficient to turn a gennie.. The claim seems eminently falsifiable though, reducing to this singular putative exploit - whatever the specific grade of material he's sourcing will have a B/H graph in its spec sheet, since this is its whole raison d'etre, the very properties it's designed and purposed for. So, find out exactly which material it is, download the spec sheet, and check for a sudden 500% jump halfway up the B/H plot that nobody else but this genius PhD has noticed for some reason, square in the middle of its designed operating range there. Job done, next..
[Vo]:Stimulated emission and Pre-Quantum Physics
I have been doing more reading about the history of stimulated emission. Einstein formally introduced a quantum version of the concept in 1917. Therefore you might think that it is only possible in a quantum theoretical context. However, subsequent mathematical work has shown that a form of stimulated emission can also arise in a classical (pre-quantum) setting when a suitable model of the atom is used. Also, it seems to me the concept of stimulated emission represents a revival of Count Rumford's cooling or frigorific radiation but under a different name. The classical physicists who developed radiation theory from the second half the 19th century onwards were ideologically opposed to Rumford's concept of cooling radiation, because at the time there were no unambiguous empirical reasons to accept or reject the concept. However, I am starting to wonder if this ideological opposition to cooling radiation contributed to the "ultraviolet catastrophe" which happened when classical physicists failed to adequately explain the blackbody radiation curve. If that is the case then perhaps Planck's ad hoc introduction of "quanta" could have been avoided if the possibility of stimulated emission or cooling radiation were incorporated into classical accounts of blackbody radiation from the outset. Harry
