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From: Rune Allnor on 29 Dec 2009 04:44 On 29 Des, 10:10, Muzaffer Kal <k...(a)dspia.com> wrote: > On Mon, 28 Dec 2009 23:26:28 -0800 (PST), Rune Allnor > > > > > > <all...(a)tele.ntnu.no> wrote: > >On 29 Des, 07:55, HardySpicer <gyansor...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > > >> > Bullshit! I don't know what you mean by 'Bell lab type people', > >> > but I can assure you you only need highly skilled, dedicted > >> > people to do new stuff. The PhDs are the last people you want > >> > to have anywhere near, if you want an progress made. > > >> Well you may think that but look ta the history: Nyquist,Bode,Shannon > >> et al. > > >OK, I take your word for that the people mentioned held the > >degree. Now - assuming that's correct - *when* and *why* did > >they obtain the degree? > > >I can easily imagine somebody like Shannon being awarded the > >degree based on his achievements in comminications theory, > >*after* he published his papers. That breaks fundamentally > >with present practices where people first obtain the degree > >and only then are expected to justify it. > > Funny you say that. Why? > It would've been so easy to use that basic skill > called research, be a dedicted [sic] person and back up that easily > imaginable stuff. Let me try for you: > Shannon got two degrees from U of Michigan (EE and Math) then did a > PhD at MIT generating a thesis on algebraic genetics. I have no idea what that is, but it might well have been novel enough to deserve the degre. I just don't know. > He wrote the > communication paper after receiving his PhD degree. > The three inventors of the transistor all had PhDs (and worked at Bell > Labs) before they came up with it. Gallagher who discovered the LDPC > code (Kay says "turbo codes are LDPC codes) wrote it up in his PhD > theses. Viterbi also had his PhD before he came up with the algorithm > named after him. > So there you go. 3 or 4 major inventions/discoveries which are the > main carriers of almost all technology we use today (computers, cell > phones, other high speed communications) came from people who had a > PhD. I bet you didn't think that was easily imaginable. Well, I don't know when Viterbi was at his most active, but Shannon's most celebrated papers date from the '40s or '50s, and the transistor was invented in '48 or '49. That was a totally different time than now - in those days even a MSc (or equivalent) degree meant something. > By the way, isn't Dr. Ing. the same as a PhD? It depends. Dr. Ingeniør (pronounce like the French 'Ingenieur'), which is the degree I hold, is a degree awarded to somebody who take the extensive education in engineering. These days students join the programme at age 25 or so, and are usually awarded the degree at age ~30. There is also the Dr. Techn. degree, that is awarded to somebody who have actually achieved something. Both degrees are translated to 'PhD' in the English/American system. > So at your company they > don't want any progress made I suppose ;-) The one thing I learned from the PhD scholarship was how the academic system works, how many people are in there who don't have the faintest clue what they are doing, who are unable to think one thought out, leat alone two in sequence. During my student years I worked at a site where people actually had made some serious progress. What mattered was the skills and dedication of the people who did the job, not the formal positions or academic degrees. The product that saved the metal factory from giving in to low-cost competitors was a product made by pouring metal holding some ~1500C through water, so that the metal anneals into pea-size beads. At first that might not sound like much. However, water splits to O2 and H2 gases if heated beyond some 600C or so, in which case one will have a serious explosion if or when the gases ignite. There were no PhDs within lightyears of that project; hardly MScs. Just very skilled people who knew what they were doing. That particular process was a trade secret to the site for years, and for the company for decades after the development. For all I know, it might still be internal to the particular company. Using the philosophy I learned at that site I spent literally half an hour improving some survey equipment we had trouble with, on an offshore survey vessel. On the other side I see professors with decades worth of experience who don't grasp the simplest details. The main opponent at my PhD dissertation asked me why I didn't follow up on some feature I had processed out of some seismic data I had worked with. I explained that yes there was *some* feature present, but following up on it would require me to identify the feature in terms of wave type (there was half a dozen candidates) and modal ordinal within the wave type. Without such identification I could not know what to do with the data. I could tell from his reaction that he had not though about this - and this was a guy with 20 years experience with this kind of analysis. Rune
From: Richard Owlett on 29 Dec 2009 09:44 Rune Allnor wrote: > On 29 Des, 07:55, HardySpicer <gyansor...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > >[snip] >> In fact they kick them out after a >> year if they do not perform. > > Where do you get these kinds of delusions from? Kicking out > a student is a no-no for any number of reasons: > > 1) The cerdist are lost for future fund applications > 2) The academic stature of the supervisor diminishes > in the eye of colleagues, department and funders > 3) Kicking out students means by inductio that the > supervisor accepted the wrong student in the first > place, indicating fallibility > 4) There are no useful measures of 'performance' around, > particularly after merely one year. > > There are any number of reasons why students leave: > > 1) They find the job wasn't as exciting as they thought > 2) They find better paid work > 3) They can't submit a theis in time > > The one reason *no* *one* leave by, is that their work > don't keep up to standards. > Rune, you are wrong. A young man who graduated from my high school was a PhD candidate in chemistry when I was an Instrument Technician for the department. He left with a MS degree. That was in the 60's so things *may* have been different.
From: Jerry Avins on 29 Dec 2009 11:28 dvsarwate wrote: > On Dec 28, 10:59 am, Jerry Avins <j...(a)ieee.org> averred: > >> I had one guy with a Ph.D. in some electrical branch of physics tell me >> that the curved line on the schematic representation of a 'lytic was a >> "mere visual embellishment". To prove that a polar capacitor was a >> contradiction in terms, he wrote out the defining equation. > > > Oh, shoot! You mean V = IR is all wrong and if I apply > a gazillion volts to a 1-ohm resistor, I won't get a gazillion > amps flowing through it? This fellow was a walking indictment of an educational system. He wasn't stupid, just uneducated. Once we taught him how to use a soldering iron (he figured out by observation which end to pick up) he learned quickly. The guy who told me that the power supply I has lent him didn't work right was also college educated. The supply voltage was adjustable and the thing had a current limit. His observation was that current and voltage couldn't be controlled independently. There goes V = IR again! Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. �����������������������������������������������������������������������
From: Randy Yates on 29 Dec 2009 11:30 Rune Allnor <allnor(a)tele.ntnu.no> writes: > [...] "He who thinks his education has finished is not educated. He > is finished." I have found that education exposes one's own ignorance. -- Randy Yates % "And all that I can do Digital Signal Labs % is say I'm sorry, mailto://yates(a)ieee.org % that's the way it goes..." http://www.digitalsignallabs.com % Getting To The Point', *Balance of Power*, ELO
From: Jerry Avins on 29 Dec 2009 11:52
Rick Armstrong wrote: >> If arguments about capacitor nonlinearities are too subtle, try doing >> this with a 1000 ohm resistor, a 1 microfarad, 50V cap, then plug the >> assembly into a 120V, 60Hz wall socket. >> >> As a thought experiment, of course. > > I've done that one, inadvertently. It's a real...blast! "Blast" reminds me of the time I wired up a 2000-microfarad 60-volt 'lytic backwards. It worked for a while, then it exploded about a foot from my head. It was overnight before I could hear normally again. (Normal includes tinnitus anyway.) The innards, mostly unrolled foil, overflowed a large office wastebasket. Perfect? Who, me? Jerry -- Engineering is the art of making what you want from things you can get. ¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ |