Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:47:17 -0700
From: Jim Lux <jimlux@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)

At 11:40 AM 6/12/2007, you wrote:

>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 12 Jun 2007 11:55:32 -0700
>From: Ed Phillips <evp@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: Tesla list <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>
>Subject: Re: those folks at MIT (fwd)
>
>Jim:
>
>     Your note is FAR FAR too generous to those guys!  I have only seen
>their original paper; its one Tesla reference is irrelevant and their
>nomenclature is pure puffery.  The MATLAB [?] pictures are pretty but so
>what?  Seljacic obviously came from a totally different and
>non-engineering background discipline and his "discoveries" [the most
>astonishing one is that maximum coupling for a pair of tuned circuits
>occurs when they are both tuned to the same frequency!!!] may indeed be
>original as far as he's concerned.  If you play with his equations and
>parameters in his charts you can convert them to conventional concepts
>like kQ - there's absolutely nothing new there.  His little "horns with
>ears", duplicated in some of the press reports, are foolish at best.
>
>     It's still  mystery to me why MIT endorsed their papers since they
>must be a real embarassment to anyone in the EE or Physics fields who
>might have looked at them.  Perhaps no one has ever seen them?
>
>     On a more positive note I have yet to find the source paper you have
>read.  Is it available on line?

http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.dtl

June 7th edition.

gotta pay for it, unless you're at an institution with a 
subscription, or you're a member of AAAS


Did some analysis on their revised numbers in the supplementary 
material (1 MHz instead of 10 MHz, single turn loop).

Using practical materials (silver plated copper, polypropylene 
capacitors) the single turn loop (2 ft diameter) would have an 
unloaded Q of about 1400.

Doesn't change the fact that the authors of the paper (and the 
editors of Science) should be embarrassed about their lack of useful 
quantitative data, and an obvious unfamiliarity (or willful 
ignorance) of the relevant literature.  Some coworkers of mine here 
are casually looking for the oldest references that describe the 
phenomena reported in this paper.  They're not sure if they can get 
back before 1850, but they are hopeful, since Faraday described 
experiments with magnetic induction between two coils in 1831.  His 
coils were untuned and on an iron core, though.


It's the editors of Science who really deserve opprobrium here..