Looking Back

Abstract

In the autumn of 1973 the western economies were given the rare chance of a ride in a time machine and saw what the world would be like when there was no longer cheap oil. Most people thought it looked rather uncomfortable but a few very powerful people made a great deal of money by exaggerating the crisis. Others, who had previously been regarded as eccentric, increased their efforts to develop what were then called alternative, and are now called renewable, energy sources. Still others set out to destroy what they saw to be a threat. Their inventors, myself included, invariably claim at first that they are simple and, after experience with the dreadful friction of reality, invariably discover that this is not totally true when they come to test in the correct wave spectra with a Gaussian distribution of wave amplitudes. An easy way to detect beginners is to see if they draw waves the same size on both sides of their device. Although almost everyone knows which of the devices proposed so far will ultimately prove the best it is not certain that no improvement could be invented. This chapter describes some of the work done on several devices at Edinburgh University in the hope that future generations of wave inventors can save time and avoid mistakes.