🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug11.091141.3116@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>In article <1992Aug10.215957.2777@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> crb7q@kelvin.seas.Virginia.EDU (Cameron Randale Bass) writes:
>>In article <1992Aug10.202413.10772@pollux.lu.se> magnus@thep.lu.se (Magnus Olsson) writes:
>
>>    Of course, the boys around Maxwell also had a pretty good
>>    idea what his equations were good for.  After all, telegraphy
>>    was one of the more profitable threads that held the empire together.
>>    (Of course that did not prevent them from misusing the equations
>>    at times).  
>
>They did have _some_ ideas about what his equations were good for, of
>course - he wasn't working in a vacuum. What I was referring to was
>the fact that Maxwell's equations have freely propagating waves as
>solutions. If you had asked a telegraphic engineer of the mid-19th
>century about that (provided he had *any* understanding of the maths
>and theoretical physics behind Maxwell's theory, and the maths used by
>Maxwell was much more formidable than the streamlined vector calculus
>of modern textbooks), I doubt *very much* that he could have foreseen
>radio communications, or for that case *any* application of those
>wavelike solutions.

     Of course not.  Heck, most of the guys that developed radio
     could not solve Maxwell's equations.  That was not the point.
     The point was, that even in the beginning,  Maxwell had some
     actual practical motivation.

     A historical tidbit, Maxwell himself may not have thought that
     it was possible to produce electromagnetic waves by electrical
     means (Bruce J. Hunt, The Maxwellians, Cornell Univ. Press (1991),
     a very interesting book, concentrates on Fitzgerald, Heaviside,
     and Hertz and the development after Maxwell).

>>     As far as the rest goes, it is a very weak justification of 
>>     a $10 billion project to say 'I'm *sure* that there will be
>>     some results that apply outside particle physics, I'm just
>>     not sure what they are'.  Well, *I* am sure that there will
>>     be 'some results'.  I am just not sure that they will be 
>>     anywhere near commensurate with the cost (predictions of 
>>     'hundreds of trillions' of dollars of spin-offs in the next
>>     century notwithstanding).
>
>Sorry, but I interpreted your earlier arguments as that you were
>certain that there would be *no* applications outside particle
>physics. 
>
>Anyway, of course cost is the important factor. I suppose that if the
>SSC had cost $10 000 instead of $10 G, nobody would have opposed it,
>right? 

     I certainly would not be.  It probably also would not be if
     it cost $1 billion.

>I really shouldn't argue too much about this, since I won't be paying
>for the SSC (but for the LHC, which has been ignored almost totally in
>this discussion), but IMHO the SSC isn't too expensive compared to
>e.g. the defence budget, or the amounts spent on TV commercials, or
>whatever. On the other hand, it *is* a lot of money and it would be
>unfortunate if other science projects would have to suffer.

     It sure is expensive compared to Sweden's defense budget, and
     compared to my household budget.  However, I'm not sure that
     comparisons of this nature are very fruitful.

     As far as the LHC goes, I eagerly await the results since I do
     not have to pay billions for them.

>And I'm not all that sure about the wisdom of building the SSC and the
>LHC simultaneously. Why can't people cooperate instead of compete?
>(Yes, I'm aware of the arguments that without the competition, the
>prooject to be built would be delayed. It's sad that national prestige
>has such a large part to play in this.)

     Don't be sad.  This is one of the two or three main reasons that
     the SSC will be built at all.

>>     However, this is an evasion of my question.      If you wish to 
>>     comment please tell me how you think the SSC will produce results
>>     relevant to biological or biochemical systems (apart from contributing
>>     to our national biological trip to the poor-house).  I am still
>>     waiting my enlightenment.
>
>I'm sorry, but I can't enlighten you. On the other hand, *I* never made
>any claims that the SSC would have immediate effects on other areas of
>science or technology (except the ones directly related to the
>construction, of course) - any such effects would probably be in the
>very long run. But who knows? 
>
>An important question is of course _who_ should pay for the SSC.
>Saying that biologists should pay, because there will be benefits to
>biology in the long run, strikes me as typical political tactics, and
>not very nice to the biologists.

     I did not say that biology should pay, especially since any	
     results relevant to biological systems are likely to be nonexistent.

                                  dale bass

-- 
C. R. Bass                                           crb7q@virginia.edu
Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia                            (804) 924-7926