The Story

I wish to do my own research. Independently, as a hobby. A very expensive, but meaningful hobby…

I tend to work overtime. Put my life savings back into projects I’m paid for. And I don’t know why. A wish to be helpful? Noticed? Rewarded? Promoted? For “science”?

Our lab works mostly with topics that I would not call “scientifically driven”. More so “for profit” rather than “science”. I find that not satisfying. I do “science” for fun during the evenings. But days are boring. Just don’t know another way to access equipment.

It got me thinking: Can research be done beyond institutions? Real, curiosity driven, observation based research? Using some money made during the “after hours”? Building my own machines, sensors, concepts at home? And so, for 5 years I have been building a lab at home. And I made this web page, to test where it goes. I have experience building robots. The metal frames, the hydraulics, water supply systems. Using / designing sensors, coding micro controllers. Wrote my own FEM simulations. Recently started experimenting with 3D printing. Some of this should be good for something, outside of lab too.

Part of me strongly wishes to continue researching and making public the physical material properties I had discovered during M.Sc. and Ph.D. in geotechnical engineering. I did “triaxial testing beyond yielding” and unique foundation protype tests. The observations exposed and resolved numerous anomalies, paradoxes. The outcome results in unprecedented level of control over stiffness (controlling the shape, size and position of disturbed soil stiffness hysteresis loops). I observed and found ways to control material properties nobody knew existed. Had to invent names for the observations (quasi-static stable state loops), etc.

All the time was an up hill struggle. At first critics said it is not plausible to do the tests I had attempted. Some called me a “diletante” while standing no so far behind me. After the “break though”, I was told the findings ar too “fundamental” and will not make profit for 50 years forward, so there is no money in it or for it… All those “implausible” tests were curiosity driven, “radical new” procedures. And fair to say, I still find it shocking that observations exposing glitches in theory are not being funded for research.

After numerous international conferences, it seems no one on this planet is financed for curiosity driven, observation inspired, fundamental research. Resolving big questions. Shown the results, some professors said “I had not seen anything like it”, some advised “stay where you are, there’s nothing out there”. And the rest - just ignore it, confused, sad or angry. One business man said “you will be rich some day”. I think he had not read history books regarding science…

I was naive. I thought “one observation contradicting a theory, proves theory wrong”. It would be breakthrough, leading to funding. Truth is - it doesn’t. Breaking a theory gets you ignored, rather than financed. It’s citing nothing (no one else profits - from a new branch, a competing new topic). It raises questions (reduces citations of others). And that is a problem in academia, where all things are based on citations - known things, old things, familiar, “normal”. Thus, curiosity - has a very steep price. Real novelty - threatens even the recent “new” things. I will be alone in this quest.

The experiments I’ve done so far are frankly simple. I can easily build machines to demonstrate them. And others can test them using the frictionless triaxial apparatus, or attaching an actuator to a stick shoved in mud. Physical testing is rather easy (albeit expensive). But the empirical proof points to something much bigger. A theory derived by P.J. Yoder (1980): “derivation and implementation of strain-space plasticity”.

Imagine this - measurements, empirical observations, deliver patterns that point to an abandoned theory, derived 40 years back. A theory that has almost no citations, but predicts new, previously unobserved material properties. Fresh, unexplored range of physical properties. It’s the best scientific paper I know of. And it has nearly zero citations. Only a .pdf scanned as a series of pictures (text not detected by the search engines). And a few public defenses where no one could break it. Only abandon, ignore and forget it - due to the authors not having funds to do physical testing.

Another surprise delivered by theory invented by P.J.Yoder is - parallel spring systems. There was no GPU card in 80’s. But today, in addition to matching physical observations, the strain-space plasticity theory offers compatibility with super computers. GPU, parallel processing clusters. If it becomes noticed by someone important, it could run simulations at never seen speeds at absurd scale. Entire city blocks during an earthquakes, entire wind parks fully coupled with DEM - fluid mechanics. It can support multiple layers of fabric on top of each other (soil and water) - all within one giant, closed GPU loop.

And then, the strain-space plasticity theory can be upgraded. Combined with the equation of motion: simulate nonlinear waves that interact with each other, reflect from each other, due to stiffness changing with the wave amplitude (impedence as function of wave phase / shape). I tested it in 1D. It can simulate odd things like waves traveling on top of each other at different speeds. Even waves modifying the continuum, leaving permanent “stretch marks”, “distortions” in the continuum (imagine cracks in sand opening up due to explosive wave front passing through it). Thus, a whole new, unexplored branch of dynamic continuum theory could be born from work done by P.J.Yoder. Which, by coincidence, was “rediscovered” during physical specimen testing (tests published in papers). I wish to explore this further. It could do a lot of good for the world.

Soon, I could be forced to abandon this topic. Financial limits, incompetence of committees, lack of scientific virtue, politics, funding cuts... Career restrictions. All without any proof that the theory is wrong. I wish someone found something wrong with that theory. So I could sleep better. At least - break the theory. For the measurements are correct. We can only argue about the interpretation.

So, my aim is - a computation method, running on super computers. Predicting and explaining paradoxical, “convention breaking” physical properties. That is my goal. And it’s more simple than it seems. Uses even less math than we use today (one line of code less, within iteration loop).

That is a huge aim. I can not push forward alone. Doing research at full scale would need a full team of robots and operators, parallel computation stations and administrators, mathematicians and physicists, financed for decades.

What’s the next best thing? I guess - small things for the good of others… Small demonstration prototypes to put on the table. To show how a wind turbine foundation is tested. Other tests, for the classrooms, for YouTube. To increase chances the good thing will happen, within my lifetime.

So, I ask you to help me, by letting me help you. I will hone my skills to design, build and code things. And show you examples. If you like something - purchase. If you have an idea - let’s make it together. Let’s make something good, and do it together. :)

My dream was and probably will be - to do independent scientific research. In accordance to virtues of science. Obeying the Kuhnian definition of truth (observable non-falsify-able). Aiming to observe the unpredicted, and predict the unobserved. Following the reflective cycles of testing / observing / reflecting / predicting… To talk, listen to, and be guided by specimens rather than people.

Theory can not be confirmed, only proved false (if prediction is false - theory is false, if prediction correct - theory not false “yet”). For, models that make false predictions - are false, and need to be changed. Either new parameters observed, or causation between the existing parameters changed, re-phrased, re-discovered, re-searched.

It bothers me that I can not find a community doing this in my field methodically - at a fundamental level.