[ATM] PLOP's usefullness.

[artbianconi@blast.net]

I've spent the last 50 years of my life in the best "love affair" 
anyone could ever want: dancing with discovery, exploration 
and the mindblowingly beautiful and awesome excitement of the 
creative process. 

Along the way I've come to recognize that complexity originates 
in the observer's mind not in Nature. So too contradictions. 
There are no contradictions in the Universe only in our own 
minds. Reality is amazingly simple if we let go of our ego 
attachments to what we think we know and simply embrace mother 
nature's simplicity. 

Successful arguments like E=MC squared, are rarely the result of 
responding with complex answers to our antagonist but to a 
simpler one from within. And so with mechanical designs. It's 
egotistically to offer up 18 point cells with complex fulcrums 
when there are far simpler and less costly solutions that work 
better!

PLOP may have proven of value when there were no other ways for 
non-scientific minds to deal with the complex variables present 
in the mechanics of cell and mirror interaction or Finite Element 
Analysis. What is ironic is that the simpler solutions work 
better! Some obviously have a lot invested and demonstrate an 
inappropriate attachment to PLOP in spite of the fact that it is 
an answer based on crippling assumptions in an attempt to make it 
useful to non-FEA people. Ironically, it's "solutions" are based 
on arguments for one condition of tens of thousands that the cell 
must deal with. In other words, it's like arguing that the broken 
clock is still correct twice a day!

I am not arguing simply on behalf of financial economy but 
structural economy as well. I am going on the basis of what 
nature and others have taught me. Buckminster Fuller invented the 
Geodesic Dome 60 years ago and it continues to be the best 
example of the KISS principle for engineers on how to get more 
done with less. Economy is not just effective and more efficient, 
it's downright  beautiful! If you doubt that, go outside and take 
a look at how nature solves problems!

Economy is the basic tool of research scientists, engineers and 
technicians. ATM's would do well to adopt it as well. Nine 
"plops" of silicon between the back of a 15 inch mirror and it's 
cell will be lighter, more effective and less costly than 
anything you could make in a machine shop. And, it will work in 
every attitude without mechanical hold-down clamps around the 
perimeter.

Art Bianconi
Milford, NJ

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