What Ben said about finding the truth in nature is valid, but finding what will work in Engineering is a different issue.
A good engineer will imagine a billion ways in which an invention will fail so that invention is built to avoid all those failure modes. The disciples of Cassandra make the best engineers. On Tue, May 30, 2017 at 9:47 PM, Jed Rothwell <[email protected]> wrote: > A Certain Person with a Vivid Imagination often makes Bold Claims about > cold fusion. These claims are not borne out by the literature, or by > theory. They are, as far as I know, imaginary. He is the only one who > believes them. > > > Okay, there are many people like that in this field. > > > Anyway, in answer to this person, I looked up a quote from Benjamin > Franklin: > > > "Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is > more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is > uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so > much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of soul in order to encounter > it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure > and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field, the soul > has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, > and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities." > > > —Benjamin Franklin, Report of Dr. Benjamin Franklin, and Other > Commissioners, Charged by the King of France, with the Examination of the > Animal Magnetism, as Now Practiced in Paris (1784) > > > (People unfamiliar with his biography may not realize that Franklin was > one of history's leading scientists. He was an FRS and he made fundamental > contributions such as discovering positive and negative electricity, and > inventing lighting rods and the Franklin stove.) > > > - Jed > > > >
