To Perion,

What you describe below is simple problem solving. As a design engineer of
many years whenever I had to design a new machine or tool from scratch I
would call the design team together for an "anything goes" meeting, during
which no one was ridiculed for his suggestions, thoughts or criticisms.

Next I would produce an overall design which I would take to the design
draftsmen. When the detailed drawings were completed I would call for
another final "what can possibly go wrong meeting". What if the power goes
off momentarily, can the machine be serviced, can it be readily assembled,
is it safe to operate, etc. etc.

None of the above has anything to do with a thought experiment. It simply
constitutes proper design practice, the purpose of which is to design
something that works first time off, rather than after several redesigns.

A thought experiment on the other hand is used to develop new theories and
propose new laws of nature. It ends up in textbooks as proof how
relativistic physics works etc. It is like building sand castles in the sky
which are then used to indoctrinate the next generation of physicists. None
of this happens when you try and think off scenarios that could possibly
cause a new engineering design to fail.

I have made my living as a professional design engineer for many years, both
in a industrial as well as in a nuclear setting and know what I am talking
about.
Next time think twice before getting involved in a discussion about a
subject you don't know anything about.

Len Gaasenbeek P.Eng.
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"Perion" wrote in message
news

"Len Gaasenbeek" wrote in message
...

It is interesting to note that the only "science" which frequently makes
use
of "thought experiments" to make a point is Relativistic Physics.


Thought experiments are just mental what-ifs and are definitely NOT just
confined to relativity physics. Among other things, I program automation
and
robotics controls for industrial manufacturing which requires a lot of
mental what-if visualizations. Believe me, we do thought experiments
everyday to theorize about some aspect of some hypothetical situation.
Then
we devise ways to test our conclusions. The end result is very specific
code
to embody the results of "playing" via thought experiments. Having majored
in physics I know that the thought experiments we do is the same
exploratory
process that physicists employ. That is, we visualize a hypothetical
scenario according to some problem we are struggling with or to probe some
functional possibility - from that we devise a mathematical model and see
if
it can be coded - then we test the code and the see if it solves the real
world problem or lives up to the desired functionality.

I am fairly new to this ng but it didn't take long to become amazed by the
degree to which many people will use anything at their disposal (including
a
whole lot of illogical and irrelevant mental gymnastics) to preach their
anti-relativity religion. I say religion because most of the criticisms
I've
read here at s.p.r. seem almost evangelical rather than technical and most
(if not all) of the alternative proposals are mostly a mishmash of muddle.

Perion

To Perion,

Why don't you study my Selected Papers at: http://www2.rideau.net/gaasbeek
before you criticize my work?

It would also help if you read the many postings I contributed to this
newsgroup over the years.

Other than that, I stand by what I said.

Len.
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