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Re: How to rise the secondary? (fwd)



---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 10:53:35 -0700 (PDT)
From: Michael Nolley <mhnolley-at-willamette.edu>
To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
Cc: tesla-at-pupman-dot-com
Subject: Re: How to rise the secondary? (fwd)



On Tue, 14 Jul 1998, Tesla List wrote:

> 
> 
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Tue, 14 Jul 1998 21:21:38 +0000
> From: "John H. Couture" <couturejh-at-worldnet.att-dot-net>
> To: Tesla List <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>
> Subject: Re: How to rise the secondary? (fwd)
> 
> 
>   Malcolm -
> 
>   What you are saying contradicts what theory says and that is that coupling
> only changes the time of energy transfer and not the amount of energy
> transferred.  
> 
>   However, the scope should show coupling as a change in the half cycles
> timing and tuning as a change in the amplitude of the waveform at the end of
> the transfer. Do you see this on the scope and how does it correlate with
> the K coupling and tuning changes that you are making?
> 
>   John Couture
>   
	An interesting question has been raised by the proceedings 
between John and the rest of the group-- does theory determine practice, 
or the reverse?  Western science has in some ways been the history of 
Johns and Malcoms, those who prefer to rely upon previously existing 
theories, the truth of which they often times aren't willing to question, 
and those who question established theory, often times without the 
clarity of knowledge that the former display.
	  The sometimes unresolvable 
dialectic between these two forces could be evidenced by Galileo's 
struggle against the Catholic church and the predominance of the 
Aristotelian world view, or the apparent battle in modern physics 
between determinism and chaos theory.  The point is-- neither side has a 
monopoly on truth-- a deterministic and "complete" theory which although 
structurally sound may not reflect the true operation of the Tesla coil, or 
the indeterminacy of as-yet-unformulated practical rules.
 	 John, I was reacting to your comment "What you are saying contradicts 
what theory says"
	Some here tend to believe more 
often what the coils themselves say rather than what theory says. Your 
experience in building coils is noted, but just as Catholic priests again 
and again proved the validity of Aristotle's physics, so can you prove 
the validity of your conception of Tesla coil theory if you let theory 
exclusively determine practice.  I would urge those of you who do rely 
heavily upon rules of thumb-- as helpful as they may be they really aren't a 
substitute for theory-- they may make the coil run, but if you have no 
idea why, and you have no desire to know or discover why, then you simply 
aren't a scientist.  
	I have polarized the differences between the two parties here, 
and that is partly due to my lack of experience, and also my desire to 
stimlate some discussion-- forgive me.
		--Mike