There is no way we can experimentally verify all the data
sheets. charts, graphs, computer programs ect. that are available.

======================================

There's no need to. Inevitably, 99.9 percent of data to be found in books
does not match up to the exact problem in hand. And what is in hand is VERY
exact. Very early in one's career one realises this and soon discovers it is
largely a waste of time 'researching' the literature for details. There's
too much of it. It is more expeditious to have confidence in one's ability,
to go back to first principles and THEN concentrate on the details in
and - which are NEVER to be found in the books.

The best engineers don't have time to write books - except perhaps for
short, simple ones which educate by concentrating on first principles. A
relatively few number of such books or papers are needed. Nearly all of
them have already been written. Such as Shannon's beautifully concise paper
on Ball-packing.

=====================================

Quoting the last 100 years of antenna research, from worshipped Guru's
should
not be a bad thing, because most of us will never have the opportunity to
prove
them incorrect.

====================================

But good engineers accidentally find them incorrect all the time. It forms
part of their normal wasted time. Anybody who worships a book has only ever
read it (e.g. not built the circuit ) - he has never used it in anger. It
has to be admitted that finding more than two errors in a book (not counting
obvious printing errors) is enough to destroy its sacred properties.

====================================

Reg, I am sure you have found numerous errors in Guru's texts, and have
tried
to point them out to us. But you cant't just go out in the back yard and
burn
all those books:-) Who would we then quote?

====================================

I once quoted (second hand) from a text book on this newsgroup. But it was
in an ironical context. Probably nobody noticed.

I possess remarkably few books on radio enginering. One of then is a
treasured 1937 copy of Terman's Radio Engineering. I may refer to it once
every few years because of its comprehensiveness. I have a poor memory. But
I wouldn't dream of using numbers from it in anger without checking from
first principles they are in the right ball park. I remember first
principles. They are so simple and can be expressed in plain English.

But I could not bear to see books of any sort burned! Carry on quoting
Kraus who I am a little familiar with via this newsgroup.

The bottle is finished. Good Night.
----
Reg, G4FGQ