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Originally Posted by Victory Pete
(Post 6616714)
The problem is your approach, I love science and technology, I hate jargon.
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I'm not going to go very far down that rabbit hole. However, science and technology are based on specific concepts, one of which is defining explicitly what terms mean.
Jargon is language that is used as a shorthand to refer to specific things amongst members of a group familiar with those things. Jargon can sometimes be used to purposely exclude those who are not members of that group.
By contrast, science uses terminology that is explicitly defined to describe key concepts that form the basis for understanding and discussing science. Sometimes, that terminology is used by laypersons who are unfamiliar with the precise definitions or use the terminology to refer to something else. A simple example is the word "stress". In colloquial speech, one might say, "I've had a really tough week and I feel stressed." Someone well-versed in science might say, "That beam is highly stressed." Same word, different meanings. When the term "stressed" is used in the context of a beam, it has a very specific, explicitly-defined meaning and isn't open to interpretation. Ditto for the term "bending stiffness".
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You never can agree with anything I post.
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I'm sure we agree on some things.
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Let me ask you this: Do you think a flat soundboard would tend to sound bassy, responsive to fingerpicking and more prone to being lifted from string pressure? Also do you think an arched soundboard would tend to sound bright, less responsive unless strummed hard and less prone to being lifted from string pressure?
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And, that's the point. The "response" of a guitar is the sum of many variables. There is very little that is proven to have a direct cause and effect that if I change this one variable, "this" response will result. It is very difficult to isolate a single variable so that it is the only one variable that is changed, allowing one to, with full certainty, create a cause and effect between that one change and the resulting response. If it were possible, we could write a single equation of known variables and choose the response we want and know exactly what to do - what values of those variables - to ensure that result. If we could, we'd be able to produce instruments with identical response, time after time. We can't. We'd like to, but we can't.
There are many, many variables involved in making a guitar, not the least of which is variation in the physical mechanical properties of the materials we use: wood. The "stiffness" (Young's modulus) changes from one piece of bracing material to the next, as it does from one guitar top to the next. The density - mass/unit volume - of the material changes from one piece to the next. The damping properties change from one piece of wood to the next. (The response of any mechanical system, including an acoustic guitar, is a function of the mass, stiffness and damping of that system.) So, when one attempts to isolate only the one variable of flat vs. arched top, one can't: other variables are also changing, muddying the waters of cause and effect.
Then there are issues of "strummed hard". As Alan alluded to earlier, how does one ensure that the "hardness" of strumming used to compare the flat top to the arched top. And so on, with more variables to control. If, for example, you play one "harder" than the other, consciously or subconsciously, or simply due to variations in muscular control, what does that do to one's conclusions of what influence flat vs. arched has on the response?
Anyone who wants to can, at any time, say, "I think this sounds better/louder/more balanced/(insert variable)." That isn't proof of anything. It's a subjective opinion. Anyone can express an opinion. There is nothing wrong with having an opinion or expressing one.
An opinion is something very different from an objective "fact". To substantially support something as being accepted as "a fact" or "true", science provides a specific methodology. That's what science is, a methodology, a way to approach the world and its phenomenon.
Something isn't true because one wants it to be, at least not from a scientific perspective. One can believe whatever one wants. By its very nature, belief doesn't require objective evidence to support it. That precludes statements such as yours, "I appreciate science and Wiki pages but I believe that my assertion is correct." Belief is the antithesis of science. (Belief is not the same as having a hypothesis.)
When you begin to use terminology that is explicitly defined in science, it implies an adherence to some semblance of scientific method. That method precludes something being true simply because one believes it to be true.
There is a difference between saying that, "pre-stressing a guitar top increases its stiffness", versus saying, "I think I get a sound I like better if I arch a guitar top." The first is presenting a cause and effect statement of purported fact, while the second is stating a subjective opinion or belief. One is an apple, the other an orange: one can't explain an apple using an orange and vice versa.
To be clear, there are many facets of life that are driven by belief - unsubstantiated opinion or faith. There is nothing wrong with that. The issue arises when people confuse belief with scientific "fact". Science can't prove a belief anymore than belief can prove science. They are parallel entities.
I'll conclude with three quotations that encapsulate all of the above.
"An art is a science with too many variables."
P.N. Adams, a fluid mechanics professor I once had
"Things should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler."
Albert Einstein
“A casual stroll through the lunatic asylum shows that faith does not prove anything.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
