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Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:02 am
by Giorgio
Joseph Chikva wrote:Like you me too is a little bit interested in military. One example: how many kinds of weapon systems have been developed and then how many from them have been accepted by Army?
Not to be accepted IS NOT equivalent to have failed.
A weapon system can reach the same objective in different ways, than is up to the army to choose the one they prefer or that costs less. This does not mean that the one that have not been selected are a failure. Maybe they simply were too complicated to use or too expensive.
Joseph Chikva wrote:But borderline between science and engineering is not well defined.
I have to disagree here too.
In science you start a research with an idea but you can end up with a different result.
In engineering you start with a final result and you can reach it with different ideas.
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 12:46 pm
by Joseph Chikva
Agree-disagree depends only on definition - what do you mean saying "science" or "engineering".
Anyhow choosing of plastic insulator would be a wrong solution.
Regarding weapons, ok, complicated to use or too expensive or not answer some other criteria. But I know for example about number of R&D and engineering projects financed from the beginning and then canceled.
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 1:19 pm
by KitemanSA
Joseph Chikva wrote: Regarding weapons, ok, complicated to use or too expensive or not answer some other criteria. But I know for example about number of R&D and engineering projects financed from the beginning and then canceled.
I suspect the statement for this is that they were UNABLE to engineer a solution.
Scientists are paid to fail. Sometimes they don't. This is called success.
Engineers are not paid to fail. Sometimes they do. This is called failure.
Everyone dumps on the engineer!
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 6:20 pm
by Joseph Chikva
Negative result is result too. In all kinds of activity. Including engineering.
Posted: Tue Oct 04, 2011 8:29 pm
by ladajo
Too many negatives in Engineering, and you will be walking alone down the side of the street talking to your lunch pail.
Science craves negatives and positives equally. Both are learning points.
Engineers are not generally paid to learn, they are suppossed to have done that already. It is not cost effective for a company to employ an engineer so he can learn how to do it right by failed projects.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 3:34 am
by Joseph Chikva
Here we only are discussing on definition of scientist and engineer (who is who). As large companies have own R&D programs and two or more competing teams may work on the same task independently.
And competition means that one of involved teams will be winner and others - looser. But during R&D before cancellation they should be paid theoretically equally.
It is the common practice for companies who as result of R&D then have their own know-how in certain branch of technology and, so, competitive advantage in comparison to competitors.
Posted: Wed Oct 05, 2011 2:29 pm
by KitemanSA
How did "Win/Lose" become confused with "Succeed/Fail"?
Posted: Thu Oct 06, 2011 3:06 am
by Brian H
There's another report, the collaboration conference, and the next scheduled ones. Setting up a data and speculation exchange website, etc.
http://lawrencevilleplasmaphysics.com/i ... &Itemid=90
The size calcs of LPP seem to be validated by others' results.
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 4:16 pm
by D Tibbets
In the link provided by the preceding post, the electrode size effects are briefly discussed. Apparently the smaller LLP electrodes allows for higher KeV. This is possibly significant advancement as at least some labs are using significantly larger electrodes. This (?) reenforces my impression that DPF is size limited. Also, at least with these labs, LLP has a distinct advantage in the race to demonstrate P-11B fusion, the others are obtaining much lower kinetic energies.
That leaves LLP and Polywell as the only contenders to possibly demonstrate this reactor reaction in significant quantities. A dark horse FRC could also sneak into the competition. The Russian beam target results do not count as this was apparently very low scale and does not have even speculative possibilities of scaling to useful P-11B fusion levels.
Dan Tibbets
Small is big
Posted: Fri Oct 07, 2011 10:11 pm
by Brian H
Yes, my opinion is that you can do stellar or microscopic over-unity fusion, but in-between is "forbidden territory"; plasma is just too dang frisky to permit "containment" during fusion. Lerner's observation that you must leverage instability, and exploit it, is key.
(As for LENR, if it works at all, it will, I think, turn out to be ultra-tiny events which exceed unity and leave heat behind. But extracting power from heat is so lossy that it has no chance of matching FF's economics. Where "economics" is the pattern of choices about where to employ your resources, and the consequences thereof. The Invisible Hand's brass knucks batter down those who insist on doing things the hard (expensive) way without adequate return.)
Posted: Sat Oct 08, 2011 1:06 am
by hanelyp
Other than the R^2 surface area limit for getting out heat, I don't see a physical upper limit on scaling the polywell, and that's just a limit on how much power you can generate at a given scale. In practical terms you may be better off with multiple smaller polywells instead on one big.
Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 10:31 pm
by nferguso
Scientists tell themselves that a negative results is also a success. Engineers don't.
Posted: Sun Oct 09, 2011 10:55 pm
by Skipjack
Scientists tell themselves that a negative results is also a success. Engineers don't.
Because scientists search for results, one way or the other. Engineers want practical applications of results.
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 6:11 am
by Joseph Chikva
Skipjack wrote:Scientists tell themselves that a negative results is also a success. Engineers don't.
Because scientists search for results, one way or the other. Engineers want practical applications of results.
If you would see list of team members of any fusion experiment you would see at least third of them are engineers.
We all here are discussing on definition.
For example, injection of high current into synchrotron without particles losses is scientific or engineering challenge?
Or how to avoid anode erosion in Focus Fusion Device?
And who is scientist? The man having PhD degree, only theoretic, who a little bit or significantly changed anode’s design in others invention?
Who?
Posted: Mon Oct 10, 2011 12:06 pm
by KitemanSA
Joseph Chikva wrote:Skipjack wrote:Scientists tell themselves that a negative results is also a success. Engineers don't.
Because scientists search for results, one way or the other. Engineers want practical applications of results.
If you would see list of team members of any fusion experiment you would see at least third of them are engineers.
We all here are discussing on definition.
For example, injection of high current into synchrotron without particles losses is scientific or engineering challenge?
Or how to avoid anode erosion in Focus Fusion Device?
And who is scientist? The man having PhD degree, only theoretic, who a little bit or significantly changed anode’s design in others invention?
Who?