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Missile Defense

Nazi engineer and Disney space advisor Wernher Von Braun helped give us rocket science. Today, the legacy of military aeronautics has many manifestations from SDI to advanced ballistic missiles. Now there is a controversial push for a new missile defense system. What will be the role of missile defense in the new geopolitical climate and in the new scientific era?

dirac_10 - 11:05pm Jan 24, 2001 EST (#593 of 596)

rshowalter - 10:41am Jan 24, 2001 EST (#589 of 592)

on dirac's

["Because no scientific reasons whatsoever have been presented. The "figure of merit" thing is engineering and scientifically worthless."]

The idea that "engineering is scientifically worthless"

Get the quote right. That misquote is so blatent, I have to think you just misread it, even thought you quote it above. It is so far from what I actually said that I suspect it isn't the ordinary pathetic strawman.

shows a good deal of disconnection from the processes by which real human beings build real things that work.

Well, since you completely misquote me, who knows what you are thinking. But your complete lack of scientific arguments leads me to think you have no clue how things work. And you are talking to a world class expert on how things work.

Oh, yeah.

Engineers have, over the years, built many things, including very many involving big projects. And the experience is that order of magnitude advances aren't to be expected after a project has gone on long enough,

Notable exceptions are computers, electronics, and lasers. As I pointed out and as you deliberately ignored. Now why is that?

except in VERY exceptional cases, and always for good engineering reasons.

Funny that you seem innocent of all those "good engineering reasons". Seems you would mention one.

(Engineering is the science that can be applied to making things, by real human beings, in real human organizations, using real tools.)

I can eat you alive as an engineer. You have yet to give any engineering or scientific reasons for anything. I have given a great deal of engineering and scientific reasons that could be questioned. Yet you haven't.

Now why is that?

dirac_10 - 11:18pm Jan 24, 2001 EST (#594 of 596)

mhunter20 - 01:17pm Jan 24, 2001 EST (#592 of 593)

Perhaps you should read about the source of power that Tesla used for his rig.

I never really studied him. I probably should. If you run across a good book, let me know.

I never thought about Tunguska and Tesla being connected. I do know he could transmit vast amounts of power at distances using high frequency and voltage. Getting Maxwell's equations to work on something like that is tough. I mean, the different kinds of dielectric/conductive properties of the ground. Does relaxation time enter the issue because of the high frequency? I mean Ohm's law tells us high voltage means power transmission without losses. Not to mention the spooky resonant standing waves that we also use on common transmission lines.

If I were to play devil's advocate, I'd say that the energy released at Tunguska that flattened virtually every tree for over a thousand square miles, was beyond the electrical conservation of energy thing available at the time. (Unless he tapped into some other source of energy.)

mhunter20 - 10:20am Jan 25, 2001 EST (#595 of 596)

I do know he could transmit vast amounts of power at distances using high frequency and voltage.

Power was transmitted on the Earth's surface at extremely low frequencies, about 12 Hz.

Principle behind the Magnifying Transmitter - an electron pump

Tesla's autobiography

rshowalter - 10:30am Jan 25, 2001 EST (#596 of 596)
Robert Showalter showalte@macc.wisc.edu

dirac why don't you identify yourself, in a verifiable way. I have a professional engineers ticket, and if you feel that you have reason to go after it, why don't you?

I'd say you're a writer, running malicious, and taking the word of people you happen to want to believe, for whatever reasons. But I'm willing to be convinced.

Give me your name, and your credentials, and we can discuss whether you can "eat me alive as an engineer." I know many engineers of considerable rank, and I defer to them in some ways, but on matters of technical right or wrong, by and large, the facts, in open engineering discussion, speak for themselves, and the people with rank got there, in part, because they know that especially well.

Could I be wrong? Sure. So could you.

Why don't you call me on the telephone?

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