What if the textbooks are right?

[Liberty]

Hello, Liberty,

I think every student of physics at some time tries to discover new principles involving magnets.  Books have been written on the subject.  The good books are saying that "perpetual motion machines" don't work.

You will go further in your pursuits if you adopt the view that if you don't know exactly where the expected energy is coming from (e.g., you put it in) then you shouldn't expect to get any energy.

Every testbook on this topic should include that a magnetic field from a magnet can be represented as a scalar potential field.  A requirement that a scalar field exist is that the curl of B = 0 and this is interpreted as a condition for a "conservative field."  Yet I am having trouble at the moment with the idea that a magnetic field be "conservative" since I don't know where to get the "test charge" to verify the fact.  (I am a bit rusty here.)

Ernie Rogers

Thanks for your information Ernie.   I will be putting my unorthodox "idea" to the test fairly soon. 

[WilbyInebriated]

Laws of TD have been in power for more than 100 years now... And so far, they're shown to be the "death proved" method in science. That's why they're a called LAW, not THEORY.
But you're right, the minute when someone can prove they're not working, the science would (probably?) admit the error and moved on....
All what is needed is a good, solid proof! Until then, why change something which definitely works?

You see, the "history" can be quite partial, or biased.... Depends on which sources you trust.? Yes, Science make mistakes, no doubt...
But there were mostly important individuals (not always scientists), who at some time expressed a (wrong) opinion... (Teachers, physics, doctors, politicians, scientists, generals, presidents... whatever... ) And who were later quoted by many....
(I had a chance to read a lot of such brilliant statements  from different sources....)  ... Lord Kelvin, etc...

The case you're mentioning - I think I remember that the pearson was a head of a US patent office, expressing his (narrow-minded) opinion during an important event (World Show event or something)..  One pearson!  That surely was not a general scientific opinion?

The same goes for possibility of flight, space exploration, nuclear technology, revolutionary medicine, chemistry, economy.... Name it...

It's up to any individual to form his/hers impartial opinion..

I must say that the general FE community is seriously clogged with extremely partial "historical sources"...
Many "urban legends" became a "historical facts"...

Like the famous saying that the "bumblebee cannot fly".... On many FE pages, it is quoted as a proof for scientific nonsense...
But it is interesting to trace this statement back in time....

Cheers!

didn't i say something about no silly discussion about how casual the science religion is with principle, law, theory and theorem? and yet here you are responding to to a comment that was not addressed to you or even to all, it was specifically addressed to ernie...
but i'll play along once.

really? then why isn't pythagoras theorem called a law? 
you are correct, it wasn't some british society group it was the commissioner of the patent office. it was lord kelvin who said "Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." my bad.
as i said earlier i'm not really interested in proseltyzing
science would probably NOT admit the error and move on, history demonstrates this OVER AND OVER AND OVER AGAIN. i gave a list. perhaps you didn't read it... pay close attention to chandra and what eddington did, "Never underestimate the authority-following tendency of the physics community, or the power of ridicule when used by people of stature such as Eddington."

these aren't 'one person' incidents. i've read brilliant statements from a lot of different source also... so what
heres the short list, AGAIN
    * Arrhenius (ion chemistry)
    * Alfven, Hans (galaxy-scale plasma dynamics)
    * Baird, John L. (television camera)
    * Bakker, Robert (fast, warm-blooded dinosaurs)
    * Bardeen & Brattain (transistor)
    * Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan (black holes in 1930)
    * Chladni, Ernst (meteorites in 1800)
    * Crick & Watson (DNA)
    * Doppler (optical Doppler effect)
    * Folk, Robert L. (existence and importance of nanobacteria)
    * Galvani (bioelectricity)
    * Harvey, William (circulation of blood, 1628)
    * Krebs (ATP energy, Krebs cycle)
    * Galileo (supported the Copernican viewpoint)
    * Gauss, Karl F. (nonEuclidean geometery)
    * Binning/Roher/Gimzewski (scanning-tunneling microscope)
    * Goddard, Robert (rocket-powered space ships)
    * Goethe (Land color theory)
    * Gold, Thomas (deep non-biological petroleum deposits)
    * Gold, Thomas (deep mine bacteria)
    * Lister, J (sterilizing)
    * T Maiman (Laser)

        "Concepts which have proved useful for ordering things easily assume so great an authority over us, that we forget their terrestrial origin and accept them as unalterable facts. They then become labeled as 'conceptual necessities,' etc. The road of scientific progress is frequently blocked for long periods by such errors." - Einstein

    * Margulis, Lynn (endosymbiotic organelles)
    * Mayer, Julius R. (The Law of Conservation of Energy)
    * Marshall, B (ulcers caused by bacteria, helicobacter pylori)
    * McClintlock, Barbara (mobile genetic elements, "jumping genes", transposons)
    * Newlands, J. (pre-Mendeleev periodic table)
    * Nottebohm, F. (neurogenesis: brains can grow neurons)
    * Ohm, George S. (Ohm's Law)
    * Ovshinsky, Stanford R. (amorphous semiconductor devices)
    * Pasteur, Louis (germ theory of disease)
    * Prusiner, Stanley (existence of prions, 1982)
    * Rous, Peyton (viruses cause cancer)
    * Semmelweis, I. (surgeons wash hands, puerperal fever )
    * Tesla, Nikola (Earth electrical resonance, "Schumann" resonance)
    * Tesla, Nikola (brushless AC motor)
    * J H van't Hoff (molecules are 3D)
    * Warren, Warren S (flaw in MRI theory)
    * Wegener, Alfred (continental drift)
    * Wright, Wilbur & Orville (flying machines)
    * Zwicky, Fritz (existence of dark matter, 1933)
    * Zweig, George (quark theory)

taken from http://amasci.com/weird/vindac.html

perhaps you should spend more time actually building than playing with calculations and formulas. this is where academia fails, no one needs to pay to go to school (which is probably why you defend it, you have to, you have a 'vested' interest) to have someone teach them how the world works, embrace the world it will teach you for free. ie: all of car0t's academia and schooling and calculations and formulas DID NOT prevent him from destroying a lawn mower engine.
there is NO formula or calculation in existence today that can take into account all of the encompassing effects of nature. nor is a calculation a substitute for actually doing it. further more, anything based entirely on calculations is suspect as it is subject to human error.

note that i made no mention of bumblebees...

edit: i almost forgot our thread creators namesake, sadi carnot founded thermodynamics in 1824 but that attracted little attention during his lifetime. the principles involved were grasped some twenty years later by... joule. what was it again? oh yeah, the carnot THEOREM...   


cheers 

[CARN0T]

- -  ie: all of car0t's academia and schooling and calculations and formulas DID NOT prevent him from destroying a lawn mower engine.

Aha!  You just confounded your own argument.   

The occasion when I screwed up was when I DID ignore the learning of the past, and go ahead and do something without first studying the relevant science or take a class in lawnmower engines.

I replaced a wiper ring with a sealing ring.  Kaflooey!

But, I bet you wouldn't have made that mistake.

Ernie Rogers

[WilbyInebriated]

Aha!  You just confounded your own argument.   

The occasion when I screwed up was when I DID ignore the learning of the past, and go ahead and do something without first studying the relevant science or take a class in lawnmower engines.

I replaced a wiper ring with a sealing ring.  Kaflooey!

But, I bet you wouldn't have made that mistake.

Ernie Rogers

no, i didn't and no i wouldn't have. see, i learned 2 stroke engine theory by rebuilding the minibike my father bought me at age 5 from the frame up. he made me do this as well as be able to explain to him in a reasonable manner how it worked and why before he would let me ride it, and boy was i pissed at having to tear down and rebuild over a winter. now i can't thank him enough, that experience lets me sniff out theorists like yourself in a heartbeat.
i knew at 5 what it took you a lifetime and a small fortune to learn, go back to your books ernie...

[Creativity]

didn't i say something about no silly discussion about how casual the science religion is with principle, law, theory and theorem? and yet here you are responding to to a comment that was not addressed to you or even to all, it was specifically addressed to ernie...
but i'll play along once.

this forum is an open space for anyone to express their opinion.If u wanted no discussion,why u started and followed one. PM is for personall messages,anything else put into wide post is an opening for debate.

Models,laws,teorems are all to make descriptive tasks and predictions easier about the things we already know.They r not to be a research apparatus per se,but can be build to suit some conditions occuring in nature.They may be unreliable in new conditions,may forsee false states or may ommit some of the circumstances.

It is just a tool like hammer or screwdriver.of course u will not be able to screw all of the possible screws with a given screwdriver,but its pretty good for the family of screws..and so on.

When they look suitable they r constantly tested in new conditions and corrected if needed.In the end u get pretty good design tool and u don't have to, for example ,cut 100 samples of wire and choose a one with the resistance u need.U can just calculate that the wire u need will be 1.4 m +/- 1cm,reducing the wasted material,time and effort..

Models are also ways to communicate between people( a common language).If u had only hand working people ,all of them will end up with different names for thing they do and tools they use.How do u think it would influence knowledge propagation?think of it as a standarisation enforcement(if u r more familiair with industry/business)..

Is it a theorem or a law?..who cares as long as it works(i don't have to know german name for screwdriver,but i can use it..)

Experimenting/building/tesing may find flawned models...models can open new possibilities to experimenting ..and the circle is round.

Relying on one or the other side of the barricade only is an obvious hinder and let u unflexible and mind-casted into numbers or tradition of operation..a healthy mix is what u need.