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The problem is a sort of Pascal's mugging. Yes, some breakthrough claims pan out. But if you take every claim equally seriously, you'll be absolutely snowed und

The problem is a sort of Pascal's mugging. Yes, some breakthrough claims pan out. But if you take every claim equally seriously, you'll be absolutely snowed under amidst claims of breathtaking new discoveries. Extraordinary claims still require extraordinary evidence, because there are so many more extraordinary claims than actual breakthroughs. I mean, how many claims of Revolutionary New Battery Technology (for instance) are we going to get before we get a truly revolutionary new battery tech? Probably many! And those don't even require new physics! Lots of patents turn out to be totally useless (practically speaking), even ones that don't make extraordinary claims. Ones that do probably require heightened scrutiny. A better toaster? Probably works! A cheap and portable mind-control device? Maybe not.

derefr 8y ago
> how many claims of Revolutionary New Battery Technology (for instance) are we going to get before we get a truly revolutionary new battery tech We've already got lots of revolutionary new battery technologies. Just, none of them are optimized for the consumer-electronics usage profile (and, in fact, the "revolutionary" part of them isn't that they're better in all ways than existing battery tech, but rather that they allow for trade-offs we weren't previously able to make.) Such advances are already revolutionizing cubesats, supercapacitors, etc.
ethbro 8y ago
Batteries and nuclear power are probably surprisingly good analogies, inasmuch as both of them take obscene amounts of capital to productionalize. Per Brookings [1] the Manhattan project cost 2018:USD$34.52 billion. For comparison, from the same source, the entirety of US small arms materiel (ex ammunition) for all of WWII cost 2018,USD$38.41 billion. There was probably very easily a present where the Manhattan project was never funded, and nuclear chain reactions still sound like a crackpot theory. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project/ https://www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project...
- roywiggins 8y ago
  The Manhattan project had the benefit of most of the physics being at least fairly well understood. Everyone knew there was energy to be liberated from the atom, the question was whether a bomb would be practical: could it be small enough to fit in a plane? Could the material be enriched and mined practically? All of that stuff was engineering problems, absolutely massive ones. There were big uncertainties about the physics, but they were about the size of the effect, not about whether it existed at all. But EmDrive ideas are putting the engineering before the horse, the physics supposedly underlying them are not mainstream at all. The Manhattan project got off the ground because all the heavyweights in nuclear physics at the time thought it was possible. Nuclear chain reactions were demonstrated first, before the Manhattan project was started. (Self-sustaining chain reactions did only come as part of the Manhattan project)

derefr 8y ago

> how many claims of Revolutionary New Battery Technology (for instance) are we going to get before we get a truly revolutionary new battery tech We've already got lots of revolutionary new battery technologies. Just, none of them are optimized for the consumer-electronics usage profile (and, in fact, the "revolutionary" part of them isn't that they're better in all ways than existing battery tech, but rather that they allow for trade-offs we weren't previously able to make.) Such advances are already revolutionizing cubesats, supercapacitors, etc.

ethbro 8y ago

Batteries and nuclear power are probably surprisingly good analogies, inasmuch as both of them take obscene amounts of capital to productionalize. Per Brookings [1] the Manhattan project cost 2018:USD$34.52 billion. For comparison, from the same source, the entirety of US small arms materiel (ex ammunition) for all of WWII cost 2018,USD$38.41 billion. There was probably very easily a present where the Manhattan project was never funded, and nuclear chain reactions still sound like a crackpot theory. [1] https://www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project/ https://www.brookings.edu/the-costs-of-the-manhattan-project...

roywiggins 8y ago
The Manhattan project had the benefit of most of the physics being at least fairly well understood. Everyone knew there was energy to be liberated from the atom, the question was whether a bomb would be practical: could it be small enough to fit in a plane? Could the material be enriched and mined practically? All of that stuff was engineering problems, absolutely massive ones. There were big uncertainties about the physics, but they were about the size of the effect, not about whether it existed at all. But EmDrive ideas are putting the engineering before the horse, the physics supposedly underlying them are not mainstream at all. The Manhattan project got off the ground because all the heavyweights in nuclear physics at the time thought it was possible. Nuclear chain reactions were demonstrated first, before the Manhattan project was started. (Self-sustaining chain reactions did only come as part of the Manhattan project)