At 02:38 pm 25-08-04 -0400, you wrote: >Hi Jones Et Al. > >Sorry, I've been too busy torturing Powerpoint for an upcoming command >performance to give the paper I linked more than a cursory examination. >It seemed to address some specifics of how to calculate casimir forces >from a given geometry. Frank complains that it reads like Ptolemy; my >flip answer would be to agree but I think it better to remind everyone >about those very early years when we were first taught to differentiate >functions. One learned a slew of confusing rules, and by the end of >it most any function could be massaged into its derivative. Very powerful, >but you still hadn't a clue as to what a derivative _was_. Then some >kind soul showed you how to do it geometrically; ah-ha! so that's what >a derivative is! Great insight, but try to find the derivative of >anything but the simplest function with geometric means and you're >swimming in a psychedelic mess of curves and lines... So it's like >that, huh? QM is a very powerful engineering tool but gives you >zero insight into what's actually happening. I try to keep a hand >in both worlds, insight and mathematical engineering are both necessary >to realizing the world around us. > >Regarding your posted abstract: >Ken needs something to keep his EV's glued together; I was under the >impression that it might be some mesoscopic quantum effect but who knows? >One thing I have always wanted to ask Ken was why he assumed that >the EV was composed solely of electrons; given that they are manufactured >from cathodes which disintegrate in the process. From my own work with >spark gaps I have seen similar patterns as what he describes, I attributed >some of these effects to particles from the cathode in a plasma form. >It's been a long time since I've read Ken's patents and papers, >would that I had the time to devote to properly evaluating this >excellent experimental work. > >K.
Many thanks for your interesting post, Keith. It gives me an excuse for one of my "long winded" replies <g> My denouement with the Calculus came at University when the maths course went through the 12 ways of solving high order differential equations. One of the students complained bitterly that it was more like biology than mathematics. I'm afraid that the marriage between maths and physics is an unhappy one which is always under strain. As an example from a quite different discipline, computing, consider the case of Dr Yarbin, an brilliant Hungarian mathematician, who was one of the first Scientific Officers at BRS to man the IT Section. He wrote all his programs in binary code - machine code that is - and really enjoyed it. When assembly language became available he bemoaned the fact. He felt that programming was going to the dogs. You can see his point of view. Whilst machine language was the only option it gave great power the high priests who worshipped at the air condition altar of IBM. When higher languages became available computing staff were virtually reduced to postmen; or consultants when us workers at the coal face got a bit out of our depth. The situation was made even worse for them when micro computers became available and everyone wanted to get rid of their dumb terminals. Personally, I never used the IT section. For the statistics involved in industrial experimentation, for example, (Multi-factor analysis, etc.) the communication problem involved in explaining the physics to the mathematicians and understanding their reply was just too great. So I always took evening classes at a London College for any techniques I needed to master. Most useful, coz then my under educated bosses couldn't argue with what I'd written and were reduced to correcting the spelling and grammar. As regards computers I always avoided being a suppliant. I started off buying an electro-mechanical Munroematic, the ones with a matrix of 100 buttons on the keyboard. From there I graduated to an Anita electronic machine, then a programmable desk machine that used a strip of punched tape down one side of a card. The machine, the name escapes, me was connected to an IBM golfball typewriter which only wrote in large and small capital letters. I think they were afraid of people pinching them. A Hewlett Packard programmable pocket calculator came next. This had a miniature magnetic strip one could pass through the machine to record programs. Last and best was the Atari ST, a powerful 32bit machine. Running the TOS, it offers comparable convenience to the Apple MacOS and meant I could use all my graph pads for scrap paper. That was the most difficult machine to lever through the Accounts Section coz they suspected that I wanted it for my kids to play games. They weren't entirely wrong either <g> but it was such a fag carting it back and forth that I eventually splashed out on a complete home set up. I used to do all my research printups at home so my Department got their money back in kind. I'd better stop rambling and get back on track. 8-) The trouble with mathematicians is they are even more passive than physicists. They don't care how the world works, all they care about is mathematics. Physicists want to understand the world but think that once they have modeled the world with mathematics (which they are not very good at in my experience), that they like the Ptolemaic astronomers, have understood it. Engineers, at the other extreme know they need to properly understand the world so that... --------------------------------------- Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low: and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways plain. --------------------------------------- .....and by constantly shifting their point of view, their numerical datum, as the situation demands they only need enough maths to carry them to the next staging post. Brunel didn't build the Great Western Railway by sitting on his arse in the comfort of a city office. He jumped on his horse and rode every inch of the route from London to Bristol. Seeing the world through the denaturing filter of mathematics is a bit like translating Eskimo and their fifty words for snow into English. An awful lot gets lost in the process. Cheers Grimer Oh! And good luck with your "command performance" 8-)
