XPost: sci.electronics.design   
   From: bill.sloman@ieee.org   
      
   On 14/02/2026 2:23 am, john larkin wrote:   
   > On Fri, 13 Feb 2026 09:50:59 +0100, Thomas Heger    
   > wrote:   
   >   
   >> Am Mittwoch000011, 11.02.2026 um 19:47 schrieb Liz Tuddenham:   
   >>> john larkin  wrote:   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>> [...]   
   >>>   
   >>>> Why are physics types so often insulting and obnoxious?   
   >>>>   
   >>>> I've been to physics meetings that shocked me with their brutality.   
   >>>> That mentality is terrible for brainstorming and inventing things.   
   >>>   
   >>> Physicists are particulary careful to prove that they are NOT inventing   
   >>> things.   
   >>>   
   >>>   
   >>   
   >> Of course physicist could invent whatever they want and have the ability   
   >> to invent.   
   >>   
   >> Science isn't organised in 'guilds' and everybody has the right to   
   >> invent, which would include physicists.   
   >>   
   >> But mainly the engineers invent things, because they have more training   
   >> in the use of the required means.   
   >   
   > Training teaches repetition. Dogs are trained.   
      
   The only physics course I took didn't involve a lot of repetition.   
   What's taught is how to recognise a situation, and how to look at it in   
   way that lets you do something constructive with it. Even training sheep   
   dogs involves more that instilling repetitve patterns of behavior.   
      
   > Inventing things is a separate skill. It involves being crazy,   
   > exploring the extremes of the solution space, staying confused.   
      
   Not for me, or the inventive people I've known. Alan Dower Blumlein   
      
   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Blumlein   
      
   had clocked up 128 patents before he died at age 38. He wasn't at all   
   crazy, or confused. One patent I got struck me as entirely obvious until   
   I'd had to explain it to enough people to realise that it wasn't obvious   
   to people "skilled in the art".   
      
   >> Also the usual job description of engineers is more related to invention   
   >> than those of physicst.   
   >>   
   >> But there exists no laws, that would prohibit inventions by physicists   
   >> -at least not in Germany. US laws are different, however, and nobody   
   >> actually knows, what they forbid or demand (besides a set of   
   >> 'sorcerers', which charge insane fees for legal informations).   
   >   
   > There's no legal restrictions on inventing things here in the USA.   
   > Lots of people do it, amateurs included.   
   >   
   > The vacuum diode (Edison effect), the triode, the airplane, the   
   > klystron, electronic TV, the personal computer, lots of stuff was   
   > invented by unauthorized people.   
      
   Electronic TV, as opposed to mechanically scanned systems, was invented   
   by people who had academic training - Blumlein at EMI certainly had, and   
   the crew at RCA who invented much the same system weren't amateurs.   
      
   > But I think there is a negative correlation of inventing vs advanced   
   > degrees.   
      
   You would. Advanced degrees are about learning stuff. The more you know,   
   the more likely you are to see an unexpected connection which can be   
   exploited in a patentable way. My father had a B.Sc. and got about 25   
   patents, my boss at EMI had a Ph.D. and got 25 patents, and my friend   
   from my undergraduate days took quite a while to get his B.Sc. and an   
   M.Sc. and has clocked up just as many.   
      
   Nothing about academic training strikes me as likely to make you less   
   likely to invent something.   
      
   --   
   Bill Sloman, Sydney   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)