Mike Carrell wrote:
> whereas if the 1992 Thermacore tests had continued they would have > convinced everyone by 1994.
It's really not intended to convince anyone, but to establish a track record useful in what could be a major patent battle.
Even if that was not the intention I think it could have been used to convince people. I have seen many presentations about CF and that was one of the most convincing and dramatic.
The thermacore units were bulky and produced a good thermal signal, but were a long, long way from commercial usefulness.
With all due respect, Mike, either you are ignoring me or you misunderstand. I have already granted that point! Yes, it was a long way from commercial usefulness. Yes, that particular approach may never have become commercially useful. (I wouldn't know.) That has *nothing* to do with what I am saying. I say those cells might have been used to convince people even though they were not commercially useful. The model 1908 Wright Flyer was about as far from being commercially useful as anything could be, because it killed most of its pilots, yet it instantly convinced the public.
In any case, commercial usefulness is an impossible goal for a first-generation product of this nature. No matter how skillful Mills and his industrial collaborators are, and no matter how much R&D they put into their first products, those products will be obsolete six months after their introduction. Radically new first-generation technology always changes at lightning speed. Look at the early models of automobiles, airplanes, transistors, personal computers and so on. They look impossibly awkward within six months. Most are obsolete by the time they struggle out of the lab to reach the marketplace.
Researchers can never come close to imagining the optimum configuration for the real world. What is worse for the "first movers" who introduce a product, as soon as they begin selling, competitors race to develop better versions, and their job is made much easier because they can look closely at the first-generation product and its performance to see what kind of problems it has, and where the customers does not like it. In other words, they take advantage of the first mover's inevitable mistakes. At best, Mills and his collaborators can only get a running start on the technology -- a temporary advantage.
- Jed
