Scholasticism
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January 2015. After being
open for a decade with no student in the world taking up the offer, it is now
closed. Ivor Catt. Ivor
Catt, Electronics
World, August
2004, p57 and
November 2004 |
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For many years, for
instance in the pages of Electronics
World, I have offered a large sum of money to any student who
succeeds in getting his accredited lecturer or text book writer to write a
signed, dated document discussing "The Catt Question". 2011.
Still no takers. Thus, worldwide students also want the knowledge base to be
stabilised. They join in helping to end The Enlightenment. (If a proposal to
change a paradigm is censored/ignored, then The
Enlightenment is over.) Sir Michael Pepper Analysis State
of Play Political Analysis [Febuary
2011. Nobody has risen to the challenge.] Letter to the Editor, Electronics World, published
August 2004, p57;
The Catt Question - The EW
Challenge.
Two letters in the July issue prompt me to take a major initiative, and to relegate my replies to the www in the hope that our editor will be able to publish them later. For the present, they are at the bottom of http://www.ivorcatt.com/44.htm
Regarding "The Catt Question", EW reader Alan Robinson
favours the "Westerner" answer of Dr Neil McEwan, Reader in
Electromagnetism, while the second letter writer Ian Darney
favours the "Southerner" answer of (Now Sir Michael Pepper) Pepper FRS. They reinforce our
concern that the question is
unresolved.
For many years, for instance in the pages of Electronics World, I have offered a large sum of money to any student who succeeds in getting his accredited lecturer or text book writer to write a signed, dated document discussing "The Catt Question", to no avail. Now the offer is put on a firmer footing. I have opened a
bank account containing £2,000 which our Editor can access. This is the prize
behind the EW challenge.
I suggest to the editor that “Accredited” should mean Reader in Electromagnetism, author of published text book from mainstream publisher, or similar. Professor of Electronic Engineering will do, but not Professor of Electrical Engineering.
My advice to the Editor is that the first student who succeeds in getting his accredited lecturer or text book writer to write, sign and date meaningful, intelligible comment on "The Catt Question" should receive the first prize of £500. The next ten successful students should receive £100 each.
A student who provides documentary proof that his accredited lecturer or text book writer refused to make meaningful comment should receive £50.
Prizes should be paid out until the money runs out. Any third party contributions will be added to the fund.
In due course of time, all written, signed, dated comment (and all proof of refusal to comment) will be reached via my website at http://www.ivorcatt.com/44.htm .
Only written comment the whole of which our editor understands can receive a prize.
The challenge is open to the whole world. All comment must be in English. The decision of the Editor is final.
Ivor Catt August 2011. No
student in the world has come forward to take advantage. May 2017. Still
no comment from any student. The offer is now closed. _________________________ |
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Letter to the Editor of Electronics World originally for publication in the August 2004 issue, replying to letters in the July issue. [This reply by Catt was not published.]
Q. How did Electra Robinson travel to London? A. I know you are asserting she came by train. In his letter in EW July04, p52, Alan Robinson writes; "Catt flap 1 .... The crux of his renamed 'Catt question' is this assertion ...." It is not. A question is a question. Pepper FRS and Dr Neil McEwan, Reader in Electromagnetism, give contradictory answers. See www.ivorcatt.com/2812.htm and 2813 . “It is an anomaly between rival textbooks and professors [Pepper and McEwan].” - Editorial, Electronics World, August 2003, p3. In April 2004 I wrote; "It took many years of painstaking work to elicit a single reply from each of two luminaries, who totally contradicted each other, and then went silent. All other accredited 'experts' also remain silent." In February I wrote; "Catt is not involved, except as an anxious student of these luminaries." In his letter, Alan Robinson supports McEwan. On the same page as Robinson, Ian Darney cites a document which supports Pepper FRS. I have assembled lists of luminaries into the two groups, Southerners after Pepper and Westerners after McEwan. Since writing my Exclusive OR article in
the July issue, I have remembered that I had made a previous attempt to get
the Exclusive OR (XOR) into a logic family. In Motorola we were committed to
ECL. I was brought into Motorola in 1964 to address possible new problems
with our ECL logic gates, which had a propagation delay of 1.35nsec. Previous
logic, for instance the then current TTL, had a propagation delay of 10nsec.
Motorola crossed the threshold when the delay through a gate fell to less than
the delay across the system, 6in/nsec in an epoxy glass board. Coming direct from Data Product Corp., I entered a community that was
expert in semiconductor electronics, but admitted ignorance of digital system
design, which is why they hired me. They created families in the tradition of
the books on logic design, and also copied other companies’ approach. I
noticed that the bistable they had built for their
ECL range could be converted into an XOR gate with only one small change
in the top layer of metallisation. They refused to do this, because the gate
was not in Boole. The D type bistable
worked by using a lower long tailed pair to switch the current out of the bistable proper into one or other of its collector
resistors, and then returning the current. The bistable
itself was a cross coupled long tailed pair. The two long tailed pairs had
common collector resistors. Two long tailed pairs with common collector
resistors were also the essence of an XOR, dumping the current into one
or other collector resistor. This bistable
had a propagation delay of 3nsec. I called it the “Murray bistable”
because Don Murray, my co-author, invented it. However, this naming was
prevented because Walt Seelbach, deputy head of
R&D, thought he needed to be given some of the credit. It never got a
name, although I thought its design was brilliant and should be patented
under Don Murray’s name. Ivor Catt St. Albans @@@@@@@@@@@@@ Reply by Catt to a letter published in August 2004. Andy Holt discussed the XOR, saying it is not fundamental because it can be built-up from AND/OR/NOT. This argument could also be used against regarding OR as a fundamental operation because it can be built-up from AND/NOT. A discussion of the role and importance of the XOR is given in my 1968 article . Both AND and OR could be argued as doubtful as fundamental functions because, as De Morgan says, they mirror each other. However, for me, the fundamental set is NOT/AND/OR/XOR, as I show from first principles. As I say in my July article, I used the XOR a great deal when it was available. Ivor Catt Letter to those responsible for electromagnetic theory. |
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