Cecil Moore wrote:
There is zero real power in standing
waves.

The sentence is true, and is without need of the words 'real' and
'standing' to make it so.

Therefore, standing waves did not destroy the
coax.

:-) Yes and no. Were it not for waves standing on the coax, there
would have been no damage to the coax, and there wouldn't be an
explanation for the damage pattern. So your 'truism' has some
significant caveats. I guess that makes it more of a ....'half-truism'.

By the process of elimination, it was traveling
waves that destroyed the coax.

Kinda tough to have a standing wave in the absence of traveling waves
now, isn't it.

During the initial transient state, traveling wave
energy becomes standing wave energy that exists
through steady-state.

So there's energy in the standing waves, but not power. Apparently
they're like traveling waves......that stand!

Probably best not to assume it's a 'different kind of wave' in the
first place. Maybe it would be better just to think of it as a
pattern formed by traveling waves - an appearance that traveling waves
can have under certain circumstances which produces stationary effects.

Yes I know that's basically what you've been trying to say "all
along", but you were saying it so poorly that it was indistinguishable
from fantasy.

J. C. Slater says it is more likely that the damage
occurred at the current nodes rather than at the
voltage nodes.

I didn't even know he was there! But it is consistent with what J.W.
Kelley has said about it. :-)

73, ac6xg