For a very long time, I've thought it a disservice that the public "educational" system(s) here haven't made some effort to teach something of basic physics to the intermittently attending conscriptees. Talking to another tech years back about some simple universal physics principles that eliminated the need to memorize specific checklist actions on some now forgotten procedure, he dismissed me with "I never took physics". Me either, but I live in a world that is governed by it on all levels outside the human mind (a whole nother world). If not physics, what guides and governs troubleshooting, repair, adjustment, modification, and refinement of every physical manifestation around us, including this unlikely wood, iron, wire, and wool contraption we've adopted as a means to make a living? I can't remember most of the now many thousands of times I've looked at something unfamiliar and understood what it did and how it did it (at least on a basic level) because I recognized the known physics application. Many other times, a chance remark from someone produced a "well, duh" forehead slap moment as something I'd not given consideration clicked in place and connected a whole bunch of associated previously unexamined floaters. I see someone posting in to the list with a question about how to fix something, or one of the dreaded "puzzlers". The responses are usually a huge collection of very low incidence "what I found once" or an amazing list of all the possibilities in the known universe. Chose one and guess. The physics based troubleshooters don't post this stuff, because they find it while they're at the piano. What does it look like I'm seeing? Is it consistent with known physical reality? No, revise premise and start looking. Consider the possible first, with what's likely from memory, bypassing the universal tendency to invent fantasy explanations for everything with no understanding until you can establish a physics based cause and relationship for the cause of your problem. Test, revise, narrow down, test, etc. It's there, and a rational decision tree of sorts is a much more workably efficient way to find it than random guessing. Unlike people, physics doesn't hallucinate, believe in magic, or lie to itself (just stay away from cosmologists and quantum physicists for now). Ask yourself why what you're assuming is probably wrong, instead of clutching at the first notion that passes through with an unbreakable death grip and hurrying past the more likely causes. Being wrong in the first pass is both likely and instructional, if you'll allow it and modify your premise to accommodate observation instead of the usual other way around. Again, there are physics based reasons for every mechanical function or dysfunction. The resolution of our alleged brains and our available measuring tools limits us to the more coarse interactions, so we'll not be able to tell what the molecules are thinking, but we can certainly learn something of weights and balance and empirically test dynamic interactions. Best evidence, least bad, use of the resources available to us (with the pianotech help hotline not the first thing on the list, hopefully). It's a continual refinement series, not a one shot absolute. Good job Dean. Ron N
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