"OK, understood, these perpetual motion machines don't work. So once and for all let's do away with the motion. Luckily we have a new project which doesn't involve motion: we just have to ship a device which produces more electrical energy than one has to put in. Is 4 weeks enough? "
"we just have to ship a device which produces more electrical energy than one has to put in. Is 4 weeks enough? "
4 weeks for a brand new fuel cell is a bit short, but you can just buy them on the open market.
"didn't you attend the project meeting? We said we dismiss the motion part but of course not the perpetual part."
"Oh in that case we probably need some new hire with special knowledge. Like that new age engineer showing his free energy device on youtube. Or well, maybe not this one, he did not even to manage to hide the electric cables going into his magical maschine, but this one over there, publishing at infowar looks trustworthy"
"looks like somebody doesn't want to do his work"
I am sorry, my university did not offer the esoteric courses necessary, to build a machine that transformate believe energy.
The matter of your insufficient education for the job has been reported to HR; they will get back to you.
I had that experience once. To make it more interesting, I was the lone physicist in the entire company, and a brand new employee in a huge meeting full of company brass. I told the product manager that something wouldn't work. He stood up from his chair and shouted at me.
He didn't know that I had some "trial by fire" experience in previous jobs, and I calmly stood my ground. What he was proposing violated the second law of thermodynamics.
Thankfully the person running the meeting proposed tabling the idea. But it remained in the product requirements document for the duration of the project.
I learned that sometimes math and physics are best discussed privately. ;-)
"I learned that sometimes math and physics are best discussed privately. ;-) "
Would you have preferred to remained silent and afterwards having to implement a physical impossible concept?
Definitely not, but I've learned that some things are best done in meetings, and some things, not in meetings.
I had the same experience with percentage calculation. In my case brass was two PhDs in Chemistry. Well, both were reaching retirement age, but still.
In relation to this, there's a great quote "The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data." by John Tukey.
Yes: I "only" know why it doesn't work... something I would hope would have extreme value, as I am not simply telling you "you are dumb" and refusing to discuss it, even if you don't understand the math or physics involved and thereby can't tell the difference; and I don't have something else for you that does anything similar: if I had any hope this was possible, I assure you I would be dedicating quite a lot of our resources towards figuring out how to pull it off. I will even admit that maybe, just maybe, you are correct, and what you want somehow can be done because everyone who has ever studied this before is wrong... but it isn't going to anyone on our team--not me, and especially not you, who figures this out--so let's spend our time talking about things that aren't a waste of our time and money. Am I a "negative Nancy"? Sure... if that's what you want to call someone who uses their time effectively."""
-- someone who has often been in the situation of having to have this conversation about the same scant handful of "obvious" ideas over and over again, often times for years (essentially, until the project is scrapped)