T-Pain Is On A Boat: Re: [Electric Boats] Re: "Batteries Not Included"

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Re: [Electric Boats] Re: "Batteries Not Included"

- sub 4 minute mile, a great example. in 1770 james parrot ran a measured sub 4 minute mile. his time was measured by a new chronometer, accurate enough to easily measure the time. the route and time were checked by current 'qualified officials' who duly accepted the time. then 'we' came along.

- as later officials 'knew better' parrots time was struck off the records as modern officials 'knew' it wasn't possible! the sublime arrogance of the educated.

- i'm not saying he did it or not but it was checked by accepted people of the day and ratified by those trusted to do so, but i guess they didn't belong to a body we 'accept' so it had to be bogus.

- we'll not be around to see what future folk decide about things we've written into the records, and decide must have been an error.

- the biggest critics used to be ill educated know alls, and then we got education for the masses, (well in developed countries anyway) an now i think you'll find the biggest critics are those 'who know better'.

- as no institution (or student for that matter) has the time to let us mess around and prove/disprove things for ourselves, we accept what we're told, carry out a few selected experiments (to prove what we've just been taught is correct), and hope we can remember it so we can pass the exam and prove we're qualified.

- it was estimated around 20 years ago years ago that the "average person" actually had 20-25% personal experience in the things that they said they "knew", e.g. most people will tell you that "a Rolls Royce is a good car" without themselves or anyone they knew first hand having ever owned one.

- as long as the information comes from an a trusted or dominant peer e.g. friend, boss, aunty etc, an "authority figure" e.g. doctor, someone in the pertinent uniform etc, or media e.g. television, Wikipedia, a well put together presentation etc we are happy to trust and repeat that wisdom.

- that is fine though and has always been, and must remain a/the major part of our "learning" as we are simply not capable of experiencing anything but a tiny portion of what life and others have to offer. The necessity of intellectual progress makes it a fundamental to be "like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants". How far would we have got along our path so far if we had to reprove every step, experiment, law, tenet etc.

- what's not fine though is that those who 'know better' actually don't 'know' at all, as their empirical/hands on experience (if any) is usually narrow, limited and job or carrer specific.

- so you're overly kind when you say "scientists and engineers who have arrived at their opinions by way of research and experience." i number amongst them and have worked with and employed both over many years and if you look at company surveys and research conducted, both classes of people invent little but both specialise in perfecting the work of others.

- ici before it divisionalised (to limit the effect of looming law suits) conducted such a survey and found that innovation was inversely proportional to the level of qualification, i.e. the more you know what can be done, the less you bother with what you know you can't be, and who wants failures on his resume/c.v. anyway.

- so the qualified or those who know better don't even need to waste their time thinking about nonsense, and so just cut'n'paste laws, copy formulas from wikipedia, and quote them to the poor dumb sods who waste their time thinking about stupid things like the sea of energies we walk around in still to be discovered or tapped, the near perpetual motion that is the universe we live in e.g. a lab version of the atomic or planetary model where the momentum of the object is thousands of times stronger than the slowing effect caused by the friction in the system, but hey that nonsense is for ill-educated fools like Faraday etc.

cheers

On 31 May 2013 02:18, John Kohnen <jhkohnen@boat-links.com> wrote:

Rolls Royce made a V-8 engine in 1904, and V-8s from other makers were
pretty common by the time Henry Ford introduced his flathead V-8 in the
1930s. Ford didn't "invent" the V-8, his innovation was putting one in a
low-priced car. Sometimes the stories that you think are true just aren't:
only Columbus thought the world was round in 1492; Henry Ford invented the
automobile; Edison invented the light bulb (he just perfected it), and
many more...

Who said, "it is humanly impossible for a man to run a mile in less than
four minutes?" I don't doubt that somebody could have said that, but it
seems unlikely that it was the accepted "fact." There are always naysaying
crackpots. They're different from sceptical scientists and engineers who
have arrived at their opinions by way of research and experience.

On Thu, 23 May 2013 22:58:43 -0700, james wrote:

> Well said.
> If I remember my history correctly.... "it is humanly impossible for a
> man to run a mile in less than four minutes" Roger Banister did it when
> he was told it couldn't be done.
> "A v8 engine can not be made, the theory is illogical" Henry Ford knew
> it could be done and he made it.
> "Man is meant to go through life with Kerosene lanterns" Thomas Edison
> even failed 10,000 time trying to invent the electric light.... but he
> did it.
> "Man cannot fly" but we do.
> Traveling to the moon was fantasy... now it's a reality.
> "Anything a man can see in his mind and believe whole heatedly... He can
> achieve" quoted from the bible, written over 2000 years ago.
> ...

--
John (jkohnen@boat-links.com)
It s a damn poor mind that can think of only one way to spell a word!
(Attributed to Andrew Jackson)

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