Yep. A physicist trying to explain a balanced line to other physicists, without knowing the word for it.

Haldane would be spinning in his grave.

If the end of the coil that is hanging is grounded (earthed), it becomes an autotransformer. As it's shown, it's a variable inductor and the disconnected end is irrelevant and has no meaningful physical effect at the frequency a spark transmitter could have reached.

This comment seems to get closer to what they actually mean in their scientific paper. But the article about it is garble and the paper might suffer from second-language issues, and a lack of familiarity with the terms used in RF engineering.

Sorry, I was being sarcastic. I happen have built more than one counterpoise.

The point they're missing is grounding of the "asymmetric" half of the antenna, and that's to keep a static charge from building in the antenna that'll zap through your electronics (or you) for safety reasons.

Sometimes. But you're missing what a Counterpoise does.

Damn, I wish I would have patented that and all its quantum magic...

I noticed that my vertical transmitting antenna often works better if I connect a horizontal wire about the same length as the antenna to ground at its base! The wire isn't connected to the transmitting side of the circuit at all! And how well it works varies depending on the length! Obviously there is some deus ex machina at work here...

Clearly you missed the bit where they invoked quantum mechanics, surely that explains away all the inaccuracies, like the fact you can already buy chip scale dielectric antennas

The thing that I really hate about Innovation Stories is that the reporter invariably doesn't understand what's going on, and invariably is easily convinced that The Obviiously Very Technical People have some very valuable invention.

Marconi's connection to the center tap of a coil with one end not connected worked by broken symmetry? Really? It wasn't just a method of tuning a coil to the correct reactance for a particular frequency?

The last point is a good one, and it's bigger than just the utilities. Over here, there's a hefty tax on every kWh (as there is on pretty much everything else). Since private households delivering power to the grid get paid retail rates including taxes (up to the total amount they draw from the system each year), solar installations pay for themselves quickly. However at some point, energy tax revenues will decline to the point where the government will have to make up for the loss by taxing something else. So your solar installation reduces your utility bill, but your income tax will go up. Or something like that.

They don't have nearly as much to offer if they can't do launches quickly. I'm sure they would make that a feature of their offering.

They can carry about 110kg to LEO, compared to the Falcon 9's 13150kg. That's 0.84% of the payload capacity. A launch is estimated to cost $4 900 000, compared to the Falcon 9's $61 200 000. That's 8.01%. That means cost per mass to orbit is nearly an order of magnitude worse.

Yes, this is a really small rocket. If you are a government or some other entity that needs to put something small in orbit right away, the USD$5 Million price might not deter you, even though you could potentially launch a lot of small satellites on a Falcon 9 for less.

And it's a missile affordable by most small countries, if your payload can handle the re-entry on its own. Uh-oh. :-)

1. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. 3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.

The model is pretty good at predicting a bunch of stuff; even if the model is wrong, it has proven to be eminently useful in everyday applied science and engineering. So who cares if it turns out to be crap upon crap? Scientists would, and they'd be ecstatic. Proving that there are major problems with the currently held theory means more work, jobs, grants, awards for scientists, and a chance to go down in history.

When a scientists measures something that doesn't fit the current models, they will generally suspect their equipment first. You could say it's reverence for established theories, but it is simple care to double check before announcing a ground breaking discovery to the world. You wouldn't call up your friends and family about winning the lottery before double-checking your ticket at least a few times either.

That's a bit like Bush talking about evolution and intelligent design, and claiming that "we have two theories". They both are theories, but only one is scientific. Same with these two theories about the origin of the universe. When scientific theory is demonstrably false, the theory is revised. When a theory fails to explain certain phenomena, it is refined. Scientific theories are put to the test. In religion, the theory is the test, even it that means denying what is staring you in the face. Or as another one put it: "Science needs to be seen to be believed, while matters of faith need to be believed to be seen".

Light, not life.

Interestingly, according to Genesis God created the earth before he created life. Maybe he has good night vision...