Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Technology Stocks : Silkroad -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: George T. Santamaria who wrote (245)	3/1/1999 12:38:00 PM
From: Kachina	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 626

This is from my brother who is a research scientist at Max Planck institute. His field is electronic instrumentation. ========================================================== I gave a copy to a friend who will look further into the physics. He seemed rather suspicious. I did a couple other things. I checked the credentials of JR Palmer which claim: >He has researched, published and > taught on technological innovation topics, specifically optical fiber > communications. Dr. Palmer has authored more than three books > and dozens of technical papers. 1) I did a literature Search on the name JR Palmer. (He is the person cited as the scientific guru of the technology). I found two articles which were probably him, it was from a JR Palmer at TRW which is where he claims to have worked. The first is called "Continuous Wave Laser Damage on Optical Components" this was in Opt. Eng. 22:4 435-436 1983 (Kind of old). This was followed by a correction titled "correction" in Opt. Eng. 22:5 662-662 1983. The correction has never been cited. The original has been cited a total of four times in 16 years. The original cites 31 references two of which are references to unpublished meeting proceedings in 1981 and 1982 by a JR Palmer. I'm wondering where the dozens of papers are. It is possible that these papers include unabstracted unrefereed meeting proceedings. The data base I used includes some SPIE proceedings but not all meetings. I would call that resume inflation. 2) The web site claims: >This advancement in fiber-optic technology received its patent on >October 6, 1998 I checked for patents assignable to Silkroad and found none. I also checked for patents in JR Palmers name. There were two issued in 1998. Both of these were to another a Palmer Jr. not the man in question. On their web site they claim to have a Oct. 6th, 1998 patent. I couldn't find it. Dubious. If you look at their press releases, it sounds like they do not in fact have a patent, only that the US patent office has accepted the application. >The U.S Patent Office confirmed acceptance on October 6, >1998 of SilkRoad's initial application covering 52 claims. An application is a very different beast from a real patent. In case you are not aware of it there is a very nice free website run by IBM where you can search further if you wish. I give this site a 5 star rating. patents.ibm.com 3) I found no sign that he published anything before 1983. Nor afterwards. This implies he never bothered to publish his dissertation. Nor did he cite it himself. I call that the sign of the sack. Not that publications are everything of course. Lots of very intelligent people have never published a damn thing nor gotten a Ph. D. but they also typically do not need to inflate their qualifications. 4) The web site claims that he has > won numerous honors and > awards, including the Rudolf Kingslake Medal and > Prize awarded by the International Society of > Optical Engineering (SPIE). There is in fact such an award and he did win it in 1983. This award is given to the most noteworthy original paper in SPIE's official journal Opt Eng. in the given year. I'm a little puzzled by such an award being given to a paper generating such a lack of interest, but ... it happens. By comparison if you look at my citations you will find somewhere around 16 papers which have been cited between 0 and 50 some times. None was given an award. But then the paper I consider my best has never been cited. He is, by the way, listed as a current member of SPIE. 5) It claims >Dr. Palmer served as the electronic >technology department's chairman at the College of Northern >Nevada. I can find no reference to this college on the Web. There is to the best of my ability to find it no such college (at least Yahoo!'s Education page couldn't find it.). There are 4 community colleges, two universties, one research institute and two private colleges in Nevada. I found no such college. 6) It claims he got a Juris Doctor from >Western State >University, San Diego. There is a law school of that name in California. However, it is located in Fullerton (Orange County). 7) The last thing I would like to point out is that his PH. D. is said to be in Physical Chemistry. From what I know of Physical Chemistry curricula at the graduate level (particularly in the late 70s, I would be very surprised if he formally studied physics to the level required for making applications of time dilation. Very dubious. Actually extremely dubious. If you have access to dissertaion abstracts I'd check out the topic of his work. Again stranger things have happened. But I'm suspicious. If he is a smart guy, he might have picked it up on his own. Again it happens. But more likely he knows optics to the level required to make a reasonably beleivable white paper. (I wrote one or two of these in graduate school. We used to call them "Wipe Papers" and tried to avoid doing them when possible. Makes one feel kind of dirty.) My recommendation is that your friend quietly try to get his money back. Once he has it back in hand ask for the following documents. a) Their patent - or just the patent number. b) Copies of Palmer's papers and books. If he can't produce dozens (I mean dozens) go away. I personally don't pay much attention to non-abstracted journals or meeting proceedings. If they can produce these, then maybe he should consider putting his money back. I'd still do something like the following: (I mean $50,000 is not small change to most of us) go find a physics professor with a specialty in optics and offer him $1000 for an afternoon of work (Most would go for this sort of thing. In fact many would be delighted, might even do it for free.) Fly the guy up there for the day to talk to some "potential investors" and get the guy on video while the professor puts him through his stuff. Start him off with writing down Maxwells equations and work him through time dilation. Basically put him through an oral examination related to his field. Such an exam is warranted. He should be able to make a reasonable accounting of himself - at a blackboard with chalk or markers. It is ok if he doesn't know everything - but a PH.D. should be able to give a reasonable accounting for a definable area of knowledge. The Professor would be able to gauge this (you might be able to as well). Maybe invite a fraud investigator too. If he comes out looking ok then maybe its worth it. My take on this is that it is probably crap. The white paper sounds like gobblydeegook for the most part to me. It may be outright fraud, but frankly, they are probably totally safe in court. It would be very easy to fool any jury of even substatially above average intelligence and make it look as if it is a difference of scientific opinion or legitamate errors. All they have to say is that the technique turned out to be non-feasible.

To: George T. Santamaria who wrote (245)	3/1/1999 1:37:00 PM
From: ahhaha	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 626

The point I'm trying to make is that the wavelength extension has nothing to do with the physical dimension of the opto-electronics. It is like claiming that a radio telescope's diameter which is specifically designed to pick up say, 21 cm neutral Hydrogen broadcasts from the IGM is constrained somehow to 21 cm. This is not a nitpicking. Whereas it is true that the size of the opto-electronics is irrelevant, the wavelength here is not the same as the wavelength found in classical solutions to the wave equation. That is a linear solution to Maxwell. Photons are non-linear solutions to extended Maxwell. The reason is that the frequency of the rotation of the E x B areal form determines the progression rate of the z directed helical motion constrained to Planck quantum units of the limiting velocity of light. This frequency is not the classical frequency, but it is this frequency that governs the packing density of the soliton-like photons.