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Date: Mon, 22 Aug 2011 19:36:35 +0100
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Yes Chris, And to put it another way, electronic engineering is both an
art and a technology. The one explains the smoke, the other is the
methodology of keeping the smoke in the works. The guys who "see" the
smoke reflected in mirrors and think they can touch it worry me!

73

On Mon, 2011-08-22 at 18:45 +0100, Chris Trayner wrote:
> Dear All,
> 
> From an engineering point of view, a scientific theory does not have to be true.  It just has to be useful.
> 
> When a scientist builds a bridge it will collapse, but the scientist can perfectly explain why it collapsed. When an engineer builds a bridge it will not collapse, but the engineer will not have a clue why it does not collapse.
> 
> I'm afraid some of these homely sayings seem to me to miss some of the points.
> 
> If you have a 'theory' (e.g. a set of equations) which works, but you don't understand why (or it's not true), then it's potentially dangerous. 'It works' means that it works under the set of circumstances where it has been tested. You could use it outside those circumstances and not realise you had done so.
> 
> A scientist explaining bridge collapse isn't trying to build a good bridge: (s)he is playing a different game (albeit one that may later benefit bridge building).
> 
> An engineer who doesn't understand why their bridge stays up (i.e. hasn't bothered to undserstand the theory properly) may have built a bridge that will later collapse under unpredicted circumstances.
> 
> 
> Traditional electr(on)ic engineering had many areas where you can work well from simple theories and experience. You can choose an audio inter-stage coupling capacitor like that. But modern engineering also has many areas which are far more complicated - you can't design stripline by rule of thumb and feel (unless you've designed something very similar before), nor 3-phase AC-to-AC converters handling hundreds of megawatts.
> 
> "For now I see the true old days are gone." Cue chorus of old-timers blaming it on beat music and the lack of capital punishment. Actually, I think they are still here; it's just that the forefront of electronics nowadays is the far more complicated stuff. Fortunately, as radio amateurs, we set our own agendas and can choose to work in whatever part of that spectrum we wish.
> 
> 
> 73,
> Chris G4OKW
> 
> -----------------------
> Dr Chris Trayner
> School of Electronic & Electrical Engineering,
> The University of Leeds,
> Leeds LS2 9JT, United Kingdom
> Tel: +44 113 34 32053
> Fax: +44 113 34 32032
> 
> 
> 
> 

-- 
73 es gd dx de pat g4gvw
 qth nr felixstowe uk
(east coast, county of suffolk)