Antennae

The previous blog hits on an interesting subject.  Empiricism in science.

One area where theory is relatively useless and technicians are paid very well for their empirical knowledge is right in your hand: the cell phone.  The antenna's in cell phones and most other radio receiving and transmitting devices are designed by a category of very valuable engineers.  Radio wave detection has a modest theory, mostly about wavelength, but engineers who have tried tens of thousands of antennas have a good sense of what works.

Antenna engineers are hired entirely on their past success, which is almost always the result of experimentation.