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From that article: > Q3. Somebody must design microwave oven doors based on laboratory measurements. Where are these people? They're (1) deep inside large cor
by LeifCarrotson 10y ago
From that article:
> Q3. Somebody must design microwave oven doors based on laboratory measurements. Where are these people?
They're (1) deep inside large corporations like GE, LG, Sharp, and others - they have non-disclosure agreements, keycard locks on the doors to neighboring departments, and strict firewalls on their network connections. They don't publish, which is probably a foreign concept to this Oxford professor.
And (2) they are cannot afford to be this curious, they are time-constrained and budget-driven, which is also fundamentally alien to this professor's tenure-based worldview. They have to pass CE/FCC emissions regulations, and if a trial of a larger grid spacing or lower gauge says the device fails, that's the conclusion of the matter - put in the stuff that worked before. They certainly don't have a year to devote to understanding the fundamentals of Faraday cages.
- Gravityloss 10y agoOn the other hand, people have gotten curious in the past. If I wanted to hire innovative top talent, I would expect them to have interests outside the immediate company project requirements. Actually most good ideas come from domain experts and not some business managers. Furthermore, many people just naturally like to share their ideas and discoveries to the world.
- dkural 10y agoI don't think it's just a publication issue. As far as I'm aware GE / none of the companies you cited actually did measurements on a variety of designs for plasma confinement. It was great to see the German Wendelstein 7-X experiment. I personally think that's a much more promising (both in terms of science & economics) approach to fusion energy.