Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] Salon article -- off topic

[Steve Schear]

At 10:48 AM 3/13/2003 +0100, Eugen Leitl wrote:
> On Thu, 13 Mar 2003, Steve Schear wrote:
>
> > Since David is promoting a new regulatory regime based on good science his
> > proposals need to take into account QED and the effects on his proposals,
> > if any.  I've brought this to David's attention but neither of us has the
> > rigorous background to adequately field these questions.
>
> Matter-mediated photon coupling via NLO doesn't occur in thin media (air,
> glass) at fluxes normally used for signalling. This is only moderately
> less lunatic fringe than generating particle/antiparticle pairs from thin
> vacuum...

I'm glad you're definite on this.  Although my physics training covered QED 
my understanding of NLO effects if quite limited. I agree with almost all 
David has to say.  My purpose in bring up QED/NLO was only to learn the 
depth of David's physics background and understand what effects had been 
taken into consideration in his concept formation.

I still recall first learning of the intricate beauty of QED and its 
explanation of classical phenomenon (e.g., reflection/refraction).  Its 
unfortunate that General Relativity, which has less practical value today, 
gets so much attention while QED, which is widely used for uncounted 
applications, is almost unknown in the popular press.

steve