<mix...@bigpond.com> wrote:
> That may be true of normal commercial equipment that has already had the > teething problems removed, and where one may expect consistent action. > However > that is not likely to be the case with Rossi's reactor. > If it works for an hour, any HVAC engineer could confirm that. Or if it is not working that particular hour, the equipment would show that, too. The whole purpose of HVAC test equipment is to sort out whether the machine is working consistently or not. Things stop working in an ordinary HVAC installation. Baffles get stuck; fans turn off. It often happens at my office. That's why the guy comes around with his air flow vane velocity fan and thermometer. I am just saying the story is incomplete. This cannot mean a "test" in the normal sense of the word, because people test heaters a hundred thousand times a day, and these tests take an hour. He was baby-sitting it for the year, and fixing things whenever it broke > down. > If it is broken that day, the HVAC guy comes back the next day. My point is, you can confirm it is working in less than a year. > The customer needed to know that it would pay off in > the long term. Hence the year long test. > If so, I could have saved the customer the trouble. No, it is not possible this thing can work trouble free for a year. And even if it could, the machine would be obsolete long before that. Rossi demonstrated that when kept describing new configurations and new gadgets during the test. Prototypes are never stable in performance. They are obsolete in months. Even first-generation production devices are soon obsolete, and seldom on the market for a year. Frederick Brooks described prototypes in his book "The Mythical Man Month", in the chapter "plan to throw one away:" In most projects, the first system built is barely usable. It may be too slow, too big, awkward to use, or all three. There is no alternative but to start again, smarting but smarter, and build a redesigned version in which these problems are solved. The discard and redesign may be done in one lump, or it may be done piece-by-piece. But all large-system experience shows that it will be done. Where a new system concept or new technology is used, one has to build a system to throw away, for even the best planning is not so omniscient as to get it right the first time The management question, therefore, is not whether to build a pilot system and throw it away. You will do that. The only question is whether to plan in advance to build a throwaway, or to promise to deliver the throwaway to customers. Seen this way, the answer is much clearer. . . . - Jed
