Breakable wrote:Yes, I wish there were more details available. Unfortunately the Polywell contract does not let them disclose any details. On the other hand an outsider could be more objective when evaluating a number of approaches.
Everything is realitive (where have I heard that before?). It depends on how you define an outsider. Someone like me with my modest knowledge (coff!) is definatly and outsider. A plasma physist or expert in electrostatics is less so. But, only those with an intamate knowlege of the data, and perhaps expertise could be considered a true insider.
My impression of "outsiders" making decisions are politicians depending on reported climate warming predictions in which the methods and honest confidence levels are not disclosed. Even those who are considered insiders can jump to subsequently disproven conclusions. I have been mildly amused by the firm convictions expressed by human evolutionests. Things like humanoids walked upright because they evolved in grasslands and had to see over the grass, Hand development led to tool use. both now in disfavor based on the newest research. The enviornment was much more unstable and varied, no evidence of stone toolmaking has been found untill a larger brain size developed and long after human like hands had developed. And don't forget Einstin's mistakes, steady state, Heisenberg's insistance that fission bombs were impossible (opinion possibly based on political reasons). Most meteor craters were thought to be volcanic in nature till clarified by Shoemaker. Reverse field configuration plasmas were concidered unstable till disproved. And, in the late 19th century, after Maxwell's work, the contention by at least some experts that all knowledge had been obtained and science (physics?) was at the end of the road ( a myth, I don't know if it is true).
So, skepicism is appropiate when listening to outsiders or insiders. Just make sure you answer test questions that conform to the experts view, but keep in mind the answer may change in 10 years.
Dan Tibbets
To error is human... and I'm very human.