James Bevan Bryan
In his 1984 paper titled "The Power of Deterministic Thinking in Machine Tool Accuracy", Mr. Bryan discussed the guiding design philosphy he and his colleagues developed while studying and building ultra-precision machine tools and instruments over decades. The paper not only discusses the power and benefits of positive (deterministic) thinking, it also describes a determinist. As Precision Engineers, we at Precision Mindset consider ourselves determinist. To help you better understand what we mean, we summerized and reproduced Mr. Bryan's statements below. [James B. Bryan, 1984]
Determinism
"The basic idea is that automatic machine tools and measuring machines are perfectly repeatable just like the stars. They obey cause and effect relationships that are within our ability to understand and affordably control. There is nothing random or probabilistic about their behavior. Everything happens for a reason. The list of reasons is small enough to manage by common sense, good metrology, and a reasonable investment of resources" [James Bevan Bryan, 1984]
A Determinist
- A determinist will never agree that a fixed value of nonrepeatability can be asssigned to a given machine. Such a value does not exist. Nonrepeatability depends primarily on the time, money, and skill (culture) of the user.
- A determinist will be happy to agree that some level of apparent nonrepeatability does exist for a given machine, on a given day, for a given series of tests, programmed in a given way, conducted by a given person, in a given environment consisting of a given level of temperature variation, vibration and dirt, using a given set of instruments with a given limitation on time and money.
- A determinst might also agree that the assumption of a Gaussian distribution and the calculation of sigma values, although technically invalid, might be useful as a statement of the level of the above variables existing at the time of a test.
- A determinist will have great doubt and anguish in ever agreeing that some level of nonrepeatability is inevitable regardless of the time, money, and skill available. This issue is negotiable, however.