Quote:
Originally Posted by Vman455
I think we're all oversimplifying in this thought experiment.
[....]
We need actual comparison of a high-lift and low-lift vehicle on the road, or the same vehicle in different configurations, to answer the initial question.
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In a nutshell, this is why I really dislike "thought experiments" on web discussion groups. (Not just this thread - all of them.)
Anyone - anyone at all - can come up with ideas that might possibly work. But does an idea alone have any value? I'd suggest that in the field of modifying cars, no, it doesn't.
What has value is coming up with the idea
then proving (through actual testing) that it works.
Maybe I have a different perspective because, as a magazine editor, I used to get maybe one or two of these a week sent to me for my thoughts. Someone, dreamily looking into space, said "But what if we did...? Wouldn't that be great? I know, I'll send it to that bloke Julian Edgar for his thoughts." I have one in my in-box right now.
Is it a good idea? Who knows? Who cares? I don't, much. Unproven ideas are easy. I'd go so far as to say: trivial. Only two of those hundreds of ideas that I have been presented with over the last 30 years, have, to my knowledge, ever been commercially successful. And not serendipitously, both had been well tested before being presented to me.
But the real reason I dislike thought experiments is this: they spread likely falsehoods. The idea may have been a mere postulation, but soon it takes root. The idea initiator has plausible deniability ("I didn't say it was true or would work!"), but they're the one who initially promoted it. Just look at US politics for many classic examples.
Suggesting that lift is a good idea in road cars - and 99 per cent of this website is about modification of road cars - is an especially bad idea to spread... there is literally truckloads of evidence against it.