Timeline for How difficult would it be to reverse engineer a device whose function is based on unknown physics?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
13 events
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| Nov 17, 2022 at 23:20 | comment | added | Topcode | @JBH “only true if the material can intrinsically work” this makes no sense. Why? Because intrinsically nothing does much of anything, almost everything requires something else to do something. | |
| Nov 17, 2022 at 20:58 | comment | added | DKNguyen | @BarbaudJulien The OP specifies "unknown principles" though. Unknown. Not "aware of but poorly understood". Here's a more mechanical example: look at a drill, end mill, or lathe tool. Each is a solid hunk of metal. Can you actually point out the distinct features in each hunk of metal, let alone know what that part is supposed to do? If you're not familiar with them, you're going to miss some of the important ones. | |
| Nov 17, 2022 at 16:18 | comment | added | Barbaud Julien | (...) I trust you when you say that reverse engineering electrical circuits is hard. It is not justified to infer that everything else than a simple piece of uniform material is equally hard. I have worked in the photovoltaics industry. Reverse engineering is commonplace, and could be done withoutunderstanding the physics behind it (most people I worked with never studied quantum mechanics). It is far from an "intrinsic magic material thing", but I can assure you it is readily reverse-engineeringable. I think you are over-generalizing your particular experience and making it a universal rule. | |
| Nov 17, 2022 at 16:15 | comment | added | Barbaud Julien | @JBH As I said, I have made your point in my answer already, we do not fundamentally disagree. Read the second half again. Saying that it is simply false amounts to saying "reverse engineering this piece of unknown technology is necessarily possible". I do not suppose this is what you meant. As to the crux of the issue, I do not agree with your assumption that only a "material that intrinsically works" can be reversed engineered. I guess this belief comes from a bias from your experience as the electrical-reverse-engineering-expert guy which you have heavily made sure to establish(...) | |
| Nov 17, 2022 at 15:29 | comment | added | JBH | @BarbaudJulien Thank you for making my point. Unless the material is intrinsically capable of making a wormhole (it works whether people understand it or not), the answer is invalid. My difficulty with your answer is reflected by this quote, "it is entirely feasible to make stuff work without understanding the physics of it. It is also entirely plausible that reverse-engineering a very advanced piece of technology based on physics we don;t understand is unattainable." The first half is only true if the material can intrinsically work and the second half is simply false. | |
| Nov 17, 2022 at 5:23 | comment | added | Barbaud Julien | @JBH ''same with all your other examples''. Tylenol? I am a researcher in materials science, and I can garantee you that we continuously manufacture and come up with new materials that work tho we have no damn idea why. the question focuses on whether a lack of understanding of the physics the object is based on makes it impossible to make. My answer is ''no the understanding of the physics is not the problem, but obviously it could simply be too hard to reverse engineer if you so desire''. I don't quite see where you think we disagree. Your point of view simply focuses on the latter part | |
| Nov 16, 2022 at 20:26 | comment | added | Dennis Williamson | See also 1) Cargo Cult, 2) Tom Knight... | |
| Nov 16, 2022 at 18:17 | comment | added | JBH | This is only a valid answer if the material that makes the wormhole is intrinsically capable of making a wormhole. Compasses could be made before understanding magnetism because the materials used to make the compass were magnetic before their application (same with all your other examples). Are you suggesting that the material, which exists naturally on Earth, need only wait for (e.g.) the simple application of electricity to create a stable wormhole? It's like suggesting all silicon needs is electricity to make a video game. | |
| Nov 16, 2022 at 17:32 | comment | added | Mookuh | "Most engineers have forgotten what a differential equation looks like" I remember what they look like, but not how to solve them. Does that count? | |
| Nov 16, 2022 at 17:13 | comment | added | Giuseppe Negro | "Most engineers have forgotten what a differential equation looks like". This made me laugh, in a good way. (I am a mathematician). | |
| Nov 16, 2022 at 12:52 | vote | accept | TehKaoZ | ||
| Nov 16, 2022 at 23:37 | |||||
| Nov 16, 2022 at 8:38 | history | edited | Barbaud Julien | CC BY-SA 4.0 |
added 16 characters in body
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| Nov 16, 2022 at 8:29 | history | answered | Barbaud Julien | CC BY-SA 4.0 |