re another sf irritation relieved doctor who vindicated in article schumach convex convex com schumach convex com richard a schumacher writes this reverse the polarity crap always bugged the hell out of me too until i found an actual live real life example of it working i quote from aviation week and space technology for july page he colonel charles f stirling speaking of the problem of fuel bubble formation in titan aerojet lr engines said engineers at nasa s jet propulsion laboratory had run into the same problem and suggested that the air force look at the effect of aerozene decomposition the fix now flown three times without incident was to reverse the inlet and outlet portions of the hot gas cooler once again life imitates art how about the discussion of the sts tether experiment ran forward it would suck energy from the earth s magnetic field while trivially slowing the shuttle it could also have run backward if they ran electricity through the tether the other way it would have trivially propelled the shuttle faster but an even better example comes to mind there s this electronics guy someone like craig anderton or don lancaster ten years ago he wrote about an invention of his he could take a light detector run current through it at about a hundred times its rating and it would glow he got legal rights to this design of a combination fiber optic emitter receiver this turned out to be the basic unit of att s i think plan to bring brazil s communications system into the st century the article was mostly about his legal wranglings with the company that eventually got him well compensated for his invention tombaker yes that s my real name my employer s opinion s are not my own i am self employed
