No, but it is a pretty good claim to show an understanding of the basics that they supposedly haven't learned.
That Musk runs a company that has successfully engineered cars and spacecraft in no way makes him qualified to construct the Hyperloop.
Civil engineering isn't mechanical engineering isn't chemical engineering isn't aerospace engineering. These are different disciplines. Being a talented industrialist in one (or more) of these do not imply capability in any of the others.
That's true, but all of them derive from the same set of first principles, those defined by physics.
> Being a talented industrialist in one (or more) of these do not imply capability in any of the others.
Not true -- expertise is not implied, but capability certainly is. In this specific case, to predict the behavior of an evacuated transport tube, and given that the project doesn't resemble any existing projects, one could hardly do better than have a background in spacecraft booster design.
The fact that mechanical engineering and civil engineering and aerospace engineering all derive from basic physical laws is rather meaningless - engineering isn't about first principles, it's about the extremely complex task of putting these to use.
To make an analogy to software, that's like saying "writing code for a Martian probe isn't very different from writing code for a website, it's all the same first principles".
In this case, the author's thesis is that Musk is applying analysis methods that are wholly inapplicable to civil engineering, and fails to account to the scale of the structure, and makes faulty assumptions about the validity of simulating the structure in small segments. This is the sort of thing you see when you cross someone who is an expert in one field into another where they have no expertise - but they know just enough to get started.
I write mobile apps for a living. I can probably hold a decent conversation with a kernel hacker, but I am in no way qualified to design the next uber-kernel of the future. Traditional engineering is no different.
That's true, and I've had similar experiences, but it doesn't argue against my saying that these engineering disciplines have many basics in common.
My only reason for posting was to argue against the idea that different engineering fields have no common base. They either do, or they're not based in science, which is the common base for all engineering fields.
As to a new project that has little in common with existing projects or established engineering fields, the obvious solution is to depend on basic science rather than nonexistent engineering projects, which would be the best approach to a project like this one.
All new engineering projects teach us one thing -- no matter how many advance expectations and predictions, by the time the project is operational, all of us will be educated in new principles that no one anticipated.
If you are going to label the common base as "science" then you could equally say engineering is common with psychology since they both involve "words". That makes equally as much sense.
False, and that cannot be used to argue that they're not all directly derived from physics. Look at cosmology and particle physics. It's hard to imagine two fields that are less alike -- one studies nature at the largest scales, the other at the smallest. But not only are they both physical fields and share the same theories, but they attend each other's conferences and work together on common issues.
Remember that engineering is applied science. This is true for all engineering fields in which people place their trust.
> There is no way a mechanical engineer could work in the electronics, IT or biochemical engineering fields.
Same reply -- it's not relevant to the issue of their scientific underpinnings.
> If you are going to label the common base as "science" then you could equally say engineering is common with psychology since they both involve "words".
When you think of a coherent argument, post again. Psychology isn't scientific, engineering is, and the topic is science. When a psychologist uses the word "gravity", he means seriousness. When an engineer uses the word, he means spacetime curvature.
More is different (PDF link: http://robotics.cs.tamu.edu/dshell/cs689/papers/anderson72mo... ).
Much like a knowledge of physics is insufficient to draw conclusions about biochemistry, knowledge of basic physical laws tells you very little about the fundamentals of a practical engineering field. The theory and laws of e.g. civil engineering are typically traceable back to abstract physical principles, but are not strictly derivable from them.
What? A link to a paywalled article with no abstract? That was constructive. Here's a real link:
https://www.tkm.kit.edu/downloads/TKM1_2011_more_is_differen...
As to the article's content, it's philosophy without supporting evidence (meaning it's philosophy), and its conclusions are regularly refuted by the many examples that connect physical fundamentals with everyday reality. Example? Quantum theory and computers -- as separate as the two may seem, we can't have the second without a detailed knowledge of the first.
> Much like a knowledge of physics is insufficient to draw conclusions about biochemistry ...
In the final analysis, all of biochemistry derives from biology and chemistry, each of which derives from physics. Relevant in that regard is the fact that chemistry turns out to be applied quantum physics, to a shocking number of decimal places.
> The theory and laws of e.g. civil engineering are typically traceable back to abstract physical principles, but are not strictly derivable from them.
Not true. Either civil engineering is "strictly derivable" from physics, or it's not part of reality. The behavior of concrete over time, as just one example -- we know what will become of it in the long term, and modern quantum theory tells us why.
Philosophical articles like "More Is Different" represent nothing more or less than physics envy. They're interesting and deserve to be heard, but in the reality footrace, events annoy the authors by reliably overtaking their philosophical positions.
Engineering is a corpus of knowledge that has been slowly and with great difficulty hewed from the raw rock of real experience over hundreds of years. It is not just a branch of math derivable from axioms. Show some respect.
"Academic physics" describes reality. It is the closest thing to an accurate description of reality that we have.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_physics
Quote: "A physical theory is a model of physical events. It is judged by the extent to which its predictions agree with empirical observations."
Read the above carefully. What it says in essence is that a physical theory is judged by the degree to which it agrees with reality. Our best physical theories agree with reality to ten decimal places.
Physical theory is a statement about reality. If reality disagrees, the theory is thrown out and replaced by a better one.
> It is trivial to say engineering knowledge is derived from reality, and it's wrong to say it's derived/derivable from purely theoretical/academic knowledge of physics ...
Engineering is applied science. Any engineering field for which this is not true has no right to exist, and doesn't deserve the public's trust.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applied_science
Quote: "Applied science is typically engineering, which develops technology, although there might be feedback between basic science and applied science: research and development (R&D)."
> Engineering is a corpus of knowledge that has been slowly and with great difficulty hewed from the raw rock of real experience over hundreds of years. It is not just a branch of math derivable from axioms.
False, and you need to learn this topic. I hope you're not an engineer.
> Show some respect.
By correctly identifying engineering as applied science, I did. There is no higher praise than to say -- correctly -- that engineering is derived from scientific principles, from physics.
How so? By insisting on their connection with established scientific principles? Astrologers would love for me to do that, as would psychologists.
Surely you don't think a single counterexample -- or a dozen counterexamples -- refute well-established principles? The argument was that various engineering disciples are independent of each other and of physics. That's very clearly false and smacks of post-modernism (i.e. that everything is a matter of opinion, not evidence), and it's hardly supported by an example -- or a dozen examples -- where someone gets the engineering wrong.
No, actually, they were argued to be different than each other, but no one in this thread argued that they were independent of each other or that any of them was independent of physics.
Inasmuch as that's the position you are arguing against, it is a strawman.
> No, actually, they were argued to be different than each other, but no one in this thread argued that they were independent of each other or that any of them was independent of physics.
False. Read this quote: "The fact that mechanical engineering and civil engineering and aerospace engineering all derive from basic physical laws is rather meaningless - engineering isn't about first principles ..."
To say, as this correspondent did, that "engineering isn't about first principles", is to argue that it has nothing to do with science, because science establishes first principles.
> Inasmuch as that's the position you are arguing against, it is a strawman.
Well, since you can't be bothered to read the thread and find out what positions people have taken and that I'm arguing against, there's no point to this.
It is not arguing, as you claimed, that the disciplines or "independent of each other and of physics", especially not when, as that correspondent did, an acknowledgement is included in the same sentence which expressly acknowledges the fact (while dismissing its relevance in context) that they all derive from the same physical laws.
No one is arguing that different engineering disciplines aren't related to each other and to physics; the debate is about the extent to which how those relations (as well as Musk's connection to certain engineering disciplines through SpaceX and Tesla) are relevant in the context of the Hyperloop proposal, the criticism of it, and the treatment of Musk as an authority deserving special deference in regard to that proposal.
"In this specific case, to predict the behavior of an evacuated transport tube, and given that the project doesn't resemble any existing projects, one could hardly do better than have a background in spacecraft booster design."
Seems to me that one could do a lot better than having a background in spacecraft booster design, as the fairly trivial errors pointed out in this article illustrate.
Yes, “stringer” is also a common word in structural engineering, especially in bridge design, but something that reinforces a tube wall is a stiffener, not a stringer. Update: I am reminded by Matthew Hunt on Twitter that “stringer” is commonly used in aircraft design. I should have remembered that.
Given this quote how do we know they aren't in violent agreement but talking past each other because they are using terms from different disciplines?
So in a sense he has this "new kid on the block" serial enterpreneur attitude where he bursts into a scene, stumbles a lot but finally seems to get something done quite right. Maybe it's him learning the tricks of the trade - or that just finding the right people takes a lot of time, or something else entirely. I at least don't know that closely what happens in these organizations.
It might be cool to read a book about something like that. I don't have high hopes of anyone getting the stories right though.
If you feel the original article is wrong then it is worth discussing. If Musk and friends are modern day messiahs what's there to discuss?