On Apr 15, 7:49 am, Gene Fuller wrote:
....

Cecil,

I pointed out a few days ago that the FSU Java applet you lean on so
heavily these days is a simple tutorial device designed by a grad
student and a programmer. As shown, it is physically impossible, since
there is no mechanism in place to cause the waves to suddenly jump
together and interfere.

It is a useful picture showing how sine waves with differing phases add
together; no more and no less. It is a simple matter of mathematics. It
is not a new discovery in the world of RF or optics.

73,
Gene
W4SZ

I have yet to see Cecil, or anyone else, post an example of how waves
can become perfectly collinear, except at an interface: a
discontinuity in a transmission line, a partially-reflecting surface
in an interferometer, ... -- a physical interface of some sort.

I have yet to see Cecil, or anyone else, post an example of perfectly
collinear waves that perfectly cancel over some small finite volume
which do not also cancel perfectly at all points up to their point of
origin: a physical interface. In other words, lacking that example,
I see NO physical evidence that those waves exist beyond that "point
of origin." Specifically, I have not seen an example of a uniform TEM
line on which it is supposed that two waves cancel perfectly over some
distance, but over some other length on the same line with no
interposed interfaces, the two do not perfectly cancel.

I have yet to see Cecil, or anyone else, post an example wherein the
behaviour of a uniform, linear TEM transmission line is not adequately
explained by the propagation constant of the line, the concept that Vf/
If=-Vr/Ir=Zo, Vtotal=Vf+Vr, and Itotal=If+Ir, and the boundary
conditions at any transitions or interfaces.

Whether or not any claims about power and energy formulas are accurate
or not, I don't know. I'd have to be convinced they're actually
useful before I looked at them more closely. So far, I've not been
convinced of their utility. But then maybe I'm just slow. I could
never see how the current at two ends of a wire (with no other
conductive paths between the ends) could be different unless the wire
in between was storing or giving up charge, either, and I was LAUGHED
AT and told that was just flat-out wrong. The laughing didn't seem to
help; I still don't see it.

When I brought up that applet a few days ago, the same thing jumped
out at me, and gave ME a good laugh. Yes, it shows waves cancelling,
but it never shows how they got there.

Cheers,
Tom

This posting (c) 2007; it may be quoted only in its entirety.