M.,
Professor: "Heck, I have a million good ideas of my own that I can't get paid to work on! Why should I consider Joe Blow's idea first? (And who is this guy anyway? What interests does he represent? Who is he Astroturfing for?)"
That's the reality of trying to actively push an idea on someone. The best thing hobbyists can hope for is that some of their ideas, techniques, or insights will fly into the professional world on their own merits. Actively interjecting oneself into this process just strikes me as unproductive, even questionable. Speaking of productivity...I've got my own ideas, why don't I work on them myself? I think that creed is more representative of the hobbyists found here.
And I'm gonna call BS on this: "The individual with the home built fusor is not a thing of the past by any means, but it is not the wave of the future." Consider: trains are certainly not the "wave of the future" in America, and yet many people take great pride (and spend a fortune) making little toy trains run around tiny model villages in their basements because they find it FUN and REWARDING. Why do you think people make little tiny fusion reactors in their basements?? Certainly the argument can be made, with some persuasiveness, that a fusion hobby is more useful to society than a train hobby, but still...we do it because it is fun and rewarding. For that reason, you won't ever see me (A) donating my hobby budget to somebody else's fusion project and ceasing to build fusors at home; (B) shopping out my ideas to somebody else to work on; or (C) doing Joe Blow's experiment just because he thinks it oughtta be done. These kinds of exchanges are the domain of academic and enterprise research (where they're done in the furtherance of making a living). If you think hobbyists do this, you're out of your mind! Also: "the individual with the home built fusor" is precisely who visits fusor.net, and if this is not a burgeoning trend with a healthy future, then I'm out of my mind.
-Carl |
2008-05-09 16:07 Starting A Fusion Program In Your Home Town (M. Simon) [Latest: 2008-05-13 15:18]
2008-05-09 19:53 Re: Starting A Fusion Program In Your Home Town (Carl Willis)