Re: bummed

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: Dgboorse@xxxxxxx 


Steven,

There are two kinds of science, theoretical and practical.  Theorecticians
are the ones who understand electricity, can do math, figure out on paper what
is going to work and do it.

The technologists or empiricists are the ones who practice science...do
things that might work and keep trying until they get something that works.

Both methods are used in science. Einstein worked by thinking.  Edison worked
by doing but continued to learn both from successes and failures.

Edison didn't make a light bulb that worked on his first try; as a matter of
fact the first 5000 light bulbs were failures.  But he learned from his
failures by trying to figure out what went wrong and correcting it.  I 
imagine that
most of the gentlemen on this TC list practice both kinds of science though
some may lean more toward the theoretical than others.

You should not have to make 5000 Tesla coils that don't work because a TC
like the light bulb is no longer unknown territory.

Now you have two choices: Get plans for one that really works and copy it
exactly, or learn the math and electrical theory needed to design 
one.  Once you
have one that works, then you are ready to do the empirical thing and try to
tweek it by changing one parameter at a time.

What you need to do is go see a movie and forget TCs for 24 hours...then
start fresh.  (Edison couldn't do that because he hadn't invented movies yet.)

Have a good weekend,

Dave