Quote from: kurt9 on 07/07/2011 10:55 pmQuote from: Star-Drive on 07/07/2011 10:39 pmWe keep trying, but I need a data point. What kind of M-E data set will be required to tear you away from being "skeptical" and make you a believer in the M-E? In other words, do we really need to float a self-contined, battery powered M-E test article into the confernce room under R-C control, while keeping it floating for XXX minutes to make you a believer? Or can some subset of this M-E thruster performance level suffice? So are we now talking about the need for proof of the M-E input power to output thrust scaling rules being observed, and/or, do we need to increase thrust levels to 10 micro-Newton, 100 micro-Newton, 1.0 milli-Newton, 10 milli-Newton, or even more, and what selection critera are you using for your choices? Or does the M-E unit really have to be a battery powered, self contained system hovering over your hand for an hour or two to put all qualms aside?? Best,Paul M.Demonstration of scaling rules into the milli-Newton range (say, 1 milli-Newton or so) would convince me. It's about the scaling compared to the noise and other factors that seem like distractors.It's not clear to me, for instance, why the runs are done as a frequency sweep -- it seems like a distractor. Why not do the runs at a rectified constant frequency where the stack is most resonant? Wouldn't that provide the clearest "thrust" signal?Why does the thrust noise trace trend up over the course of a run in a major way?If the unaveraged thrust signal was about 50 times what it currently is compared to the noise, there really wouldn't be any question.The new .pdfs are much more convincing with regard to spurious causes, but, as is constantly pointed out, it really is an extraordinary claim, so "arguably just over six sigma" doesn't really cut it.
Quote from: Star-Drive on 07/07/2011 10:39 pmWe keep trying, but I need a data point. What kind of M-E data set will be required to tear you away from being "skeptical" and make you a believer in the M-E? In other words, do we really need to float a self-contined, battery powered M-E test article into the confernce room under R-C control, while keeping it floating for XXX minutes to make you a believer? Or can some subset of this M-E thruster performance level suffice? So are we now talking about the need for proof of the M-E input power to output thrust scaling rules being observed, and/or, do we need to increase thrust levels to 10 micro-Newton, 100 micro-Newton, 1.0 milli-Newton, 10 milli-Newton, or even more, and what selection critera are you using for your choices? Or does the M-E unit really have to be a battery powered, self contained system hovering over your hand for an hour or two to put all qualms aside?? Best,Paul M.Demonstration of scaling rules into the milli-Newton range (say, 1 milli-Newton or so) would convince me.
We keep trying, but I need a data point. What kind of M-E data set will be required to tear you away from being "skeptical" and make you a believer in the M-E? In other words, do we really need to float a self-contined, battery powered M-E test article into the confernce room under R-C control, while keeping it floating for XXX minutes to make you a believer? Or can some subset of this M-E thruster performance level suffice? So are we now talking about the need for proof of the M-E input power to output thrust scaling rules being observed, and/or, do we need to increase thrust levels to 10 micro-Newton, 100 micro-Newton, 1.0 milli-Newton, 10 milli-Newton, or even more, and what selection critera are you using for your choices? Or does the M-E unit really have to be a battery powered, self contained system hovering over your hand for an hour or two to put all qualms aside?? Best,Paul M.
The trouble is that Carl Sagan was spouting nonsense. Why should the standard of evidence be lowered for claims that people don't find "extraordinary"?If a certain level of evidence is good enough to be admitted in support of an accepted theory, it should be good enough to be admitted in support of an unpopular one.
Quote from: 93143 on 07/08/2011 01:49 amThe trouble is that Carl Sagan was spouting nonsense. Why should the standard of evidence be lowered for claims that people don't find "extraordinary"?If a certain level of evidence is good enough to be admitted in support of an accepted theory, it should be good enough to be admitted in support of an unpopular one.Yet we have tenureships and book sales built on String Theory, which isn't even physically verifiable. Meanwhile we have GRBs which show no fine structure of the universe down to 10^-48m, 13 orders of magnitude below the Planck scale...
The trouble is that Carl Sagan was spouting nonsense. Why should the standard of evidence be lowered for claims that people don't find "extraordinary"?
If a certain level of evidence is good enough to be admitted in support of an accepted theory, it should be good enough to be admitted in support of an unpopular one.
So we march toward making the M-E test articles be able to hover into the confernce room and the rest we leave to history.Best, Paul M.
Quote from: Star-Drive on 07/08/2011 04:07 pmSo we march toward making the M-E test articles be able to hover into the confernce room and the rest we leave to history.Best, Paul M.How long do you think it will take to achieve this?With the exception of your 2004 experiment, you guys still seem to be stuck at micronewtons.
Quote from: GeeGee on 07/08/2011 07:03 pmQuote from: Star-Drive on 07/08/2011 04:07 pmSo we march toward making the M-E test articles be able to hover into the confernce room and the rest we leave to history.Best, Paul M.How long do you think it will take to achieve this?With the exception of your 2004 experiment, you guys still seem to be stuck at micronewtons. A demonstration around 1 millinewton would convince me its real.
Quote from: 93143 on 07/08/2011 01:49 amThe trouble is that Carl Sagan was spouting nonsense. Why should the standard of evidence be lowered for claims that people don't find "extraordinary"?Because life is too short to apply the same standard of evidence to all claims across the board. If I tell you that I just saw a Boeing 747 flying overhead, is it worth your time to require the same level of evidence as if I tell you that I just saw a Klingon Bird of Prey flying overhead?It's just plain common sense.
Quote from: IsaacKuo on 07/08/2011 06:28 pmBecause life is too short to apply the same standard of evidence to all claims across the board. If I tell you that I just saw a Boeing 747 flying overhead, is it worth your time to require the same level of evidence as if I tell you that I just saw a Klingon Bird of Prey flying overhead?It's just plain common sense.Yes, it's plain common sense. What it is not is science.
Because life is too short to apply the same standard of evidence to all claims across the board. If I tell you that I just saw a Boeing 747 flying overhead, is it worth your time to require the same level of evidence as if I tell you that I just saw a Klingon Bird of Prey flying overhead?It's just plain common sense.
Obviously the claim of seeing the 747 is more likely. But if the BoP can be faked, so can the 747 - probably even more easily, in fact. So the photographic evidence for the 747 does not actually constitute a higher degree of proof than the one for the BoP.
We can believe the 747 claim because it isn't perceived as intrinsically unlikely, and it saves mental effort. Also because it probably isn't particularly important to be right. But doing this in science is called "confirmation bias" and is a bad thing.
You're conflating two different things.You can go ahead and assume the prevailing theory is correct when you use it as a basis for other stuff, like your particle accelerator example. (Or like the Mach Effect work, which assumes GRT is correct.) You CANNOT assume the prevailing theory is correct when you are attempting to demonstrate that it is.Confirmation bias, properly understood, is NOT necessary, except in the sense that it is unavoidable.
Because you (understandably) never went out and confirmed the full landscape of that assumed ME-excluding System Of The World, it's only an assumption that ME phenom as conjectured are fictive.
Quote from: 93143 on 07/08/2011 10:56 pmYou're conflating two different things.You can go ahead and assume the prevailing theory is correct when you use it as a basis for other stuff, like your particle accelerator example. (Or like the Mach Effect work, which assumes GRT is correct.) You CANNOT assume the prevailing theory is correct when you are attempting to demonstrate that it is.Confirmation bias, properly understood, is NOT necessary, except in the sense that it is unavoidable.No, that's not confirmation bias. That's circular reasoning.