Predictions for the future...

[ironsight]

In 10 years OBOLA will have destroyed our country.

OR if the 'progressives' take over the country like they did in New York, Chicago, Ca., Detroit and some other big cities or States.... they're all broke hell holes now, in-dept, hi taxes, hi crime, red light camera havens and regulated beyond reason.

 

[Abraham Zincoln]

I can see a time coming where the coil detects a place to take a snapshot transfered to the LCD screen. You would use a thumb control (like on the XBox 360) to move the pic around to get a true idea of size and shape. Pull tabs will be distinct from coins and jewelry. Hope it's in my lifetime.

Man I am totally digging your prediction. I have seen the detectors with a 3D screen so I could see someone doing that easy in 10yrs. time. "Nope, on to the next."

 

[hannibal31]

I work in the metallurgy field and there is an instrument on the market now where you point the gun at a piece of steel and an infrared beam will collect data and tell you the exact physical make up of the steel. There are at least a few dozen different types of mainstream steel. For example it will read 8620 steel at 96% meaning it is 100% 8620 steel with the 4% being additives in the steel making process. This technology could very well trickle down to the metal detecting hobby- although at a very steep price. The steel detector gun costs in the $30,000 range I am told.

 

[mudpuppy]

Hannibal...that would be the XRF analyzer...yeah, they are high buck...my metalurgist also had one and we shot our rings and whatnot to test it out...i think it was made by Olympus...now that would be a game changer for us for sure!
Mud

 

[dirt doctor]

I work in the metallurgy field and there is an instrument on the market now where you point the gun at a piece of steel and an infrared beam will collect data and tell you the exact physical make up of the steel. There are at least a few dozen different types of mainstream steel. For example it will read 8620 steel at 96% meaning it is 100% 8620 steel with the 4% being additives in the steel making process. This technology could very well trickle down to the metal detecting hobby- although at a very steep price. The steel detector gun costs in the $30,000 range I am told.

$30,000 ? I would bet if the technology trickled down to the metal detecting hobby and say the unit cost $15,000 . There would be a large list of guys waiting to pre-order .Two weeks after it's release it would have it's own forum and there would also be several for sale in the classifieds .

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Mud-puppy is right. And sure: it would tell you the difference between gold and aluminum (even if the two test targets had the exact same TID signature when measured by conductivity). But the problem is: To use such technology to penetrate the ground at all (even an inch), would require massive amounts of radiation. You'd have to wear a lead suit, and go through a million permitting agencies, blah blah blah. So dream on.

 

[Oldguy]

The problem could be solved with a discrimination technology that reads metal's density rather than its conductivity. What can you come up with detector manufacturers...

 

[ironsight]

Any of you guys remember when color TVs first appeared on the market? They required a mortgage to buy back then and were a novelty bad picture and all.
Now a days the big box stores don't even sell B&W TVs. A 19" color HD LCD today costs a fraction of those first color TVs.
Remember the days when the Internet first appeared? I do. 300 baud analog modems were the only devices capable of connecting to the Internet back in those days. Forget Ytube videos.
Now we've got hi-speed Internet capable of multiple Mbs/sec allowing downloading and viewing of videos, even HD videos.

Far as the future of detector development to take a quantum leap from where it is today, its all a matter of supply, demand and profit shares to fund R&D.
Consumer devices like TVs are virtually in every household unlike metal detectors which are in comparatively few households. Adding to this, from those households which have metal detectors, there are even fewer of those willing to spend more big bucks on a state of the art metal detector. I'm guessing slim profit margins.
This means detector companies just don't have the extra money to aggressively fund R&D for hiring extra scientists, physicists and engineers.

IMO, its technologically feasible to develop an affordable safe portable metal detector which can with 100% accuracy differentiate target metal composition and target form factors and at depth.
But don't hold your breath. It would take an effort similar to when NASA put a man on the moon.
I will say if that detector is developed and made available to the public, the first company to do so would own the high end detector market.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

the spectrum analysis that this thread (mudpuppy) is talking about , is NOT measuring conductivity. As for "density", I'm sorry, not sure about any machine that can do that. I mean, sure, there's machines that measure "density" as in cavities in the ground (anolomolies in the pack/pressure, etc...). But those, in no way, can tell one metal apart from another. They're for things like finding outhouse bottle pits, for instance.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

This line of reasoning that you cite, has been put out there many times as a "hope that ..... something simplly *must* be on the horizon. The logic works like your TV and computer type logic of evolutions. Ie.: no one 30 yrs. ago could have envisioned the computers we have now, blah blah blah. So the line-of-reasoning is that: "So too is there potentially a detector break-through the likes of which we would call impossible now". Eh ? But the problem is, that we've hit the laws of physics. With what we're using now anyhow. So no matter how small or fast or accurate you make components for detectors (shrinking as in the TV and computer analogy), it still doesn't bode for ability to tell metals apart, or add depth.

 

[targets]

the AKA range are streets ahead of the competition so why wait for the future to arrive .it will take a lot to clone a deus so unlikely to happen

 

[ironsight]

This line of reasoning that you cite, has been put out there many times as a "hope that ..... something simplly *must* be on the horizon. The logic works like your TV and computer type logic of evolutions. Ie.: no one 30 yrs. ago could have envisioned the computers we have now, blah blah blah. So the line-of-reasoning is that: "So too is there potentially a detector break-through the likes of which we would call impossible now". Eh ? But the problem is, that we've hit the laws of physics. With what we're using now anyhow. So no matter how small or fast or accurate you make components for detectors (shrinking as in the TV and computer analogy), it still doesn't bode for ability to tell metals apart, or add depth.

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

Its not a matter of small, fast or accurate components but thinking outside the box. Think of all the inventions and technology strides since 1899!
Those thinking inside the 'box' are hopelessly stuck in that box!

 

[Walknstik]

n/t

 

[Tom_in_CA]

What's funny is, if you turn that pat-statement around, it can be used just as illogically against what you are saying. For example: If I say "it's impossible to make a tennis-shoe smeared with peanut butter, into a satisfactory treasure finding device", you can simply say the same thing, as if to disprove what ..... otherwise ....... seems to be a logical statement:

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

So the fact that things got invented after 1899, in NO WAY means, that ........ therefore .......... anything and everything can and will be invented. The logic simply doesn't follow.

 

[ironsight]

What's funny is, if you turn that pat-statement around, it can be used just as illogically against what you are saying. For example: If I say "it's impossible to make a tennis-shoe smeared with peanut butter, into a satisfactory treasure finding device", you can simply say the same thing, as if to disprove what ..... otherwise ....... seems to be a logical statement:

"Everything that can be invented has been invented." - Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899

So the fact that things got invented after 1899, in NO WAY means, that ........ therefore .......... anything and everything can and will be invented. The logic simply doesn't follow.

Tom, i think you're using some kind of fuzzy math logic. If i understand correctly, you and 'ol Charley Duell would of got along just fine.
History has indeed proven wrong many many times over Charles Duell's state of mind back in 1899.

The human mind is capable of persuing the how and the why things exist in our plane of existence.
My dog could care less how and why an automobile engine works but she can and does learn tricks per Pavlow's cause and effect experiments.
There is something that separates us humans from all animal species, its not cause and effect for a food treat but something else. I think its called inquisitive vision. The ability of the mind to visualize the how's, why's and more importantly the 'what ifs' with an innate drive to make those 'what ifs' a reality.

Patents are applied for and given every day. Inventions by people with enquiring minds that approach a problem and envision solutions until one of those visions works. Some of those inventions when initially viewed by the public usually provokes a 'why didn't i think of that' response.

Adding to this, there are promising new theories beyond Newtonian Physics.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Sure. And people said that heavier-than-air flight was impossible, etc.... Sure. But so too did people back cite things as impossible that ............ are still impossible, never happened, and never will. There is limits of science and physics and no amount of back-wards looking great-inventions, necessarily means that ........ therefore "all things future-tense are possible".

It's certainly not going to happen with detectors doing detecting as they do now. Ever since the days of BFOs and TR's, detectors (even today MFs, etc...) are basically the same thing (send and receive signals, and measuring conductivity, etc....). THOSE machines are limited, and in no way going to go infinately deeper, and start doing anything other than what they already do. It'd have to be something utterly different than what we have now. In that sense, sure, anything can happen.

I remember the years from 1975 to 1985 in md'ing circles. And back then, if you had a machine a mere 3 yrs old, YOU HAD A DINASOUR! haha. But ........ the same evolution can not be said for today, in the last 10 to 15 yrs. Heck, the Explorer is now over 15 yrs. old, if I'm not mistaken ? And the CZ6 is over 20 ? etc... See ? And contrast that to the cell phones and computer evolution in that same 15 to 20 yr. period. See what I'm saying ? It's no longer a function of "faster and smaller" (as is the case of evolution in computers and cell-phones). There's a law of physics limits, on the ground the signals much punch through.

George Payne was interviewed on this very subject, and ....... he agreed that detectors as we know them have peaked. Nothing more now but bells and whistles (I'm speaking in over-kill terms, but .... you get the point).

 

[ROBOCOP]

We don't know what we don't know.

ROBOCOP

 

[targets]

if you look at electronics from 1980 to now its mind boggling , so in another 34 years it will be even more mind boggling as your cellphone will contain the equivalent of todays super computer .so never say never about anything

 

[Tom_in_CA]

yes, computers and cell-phones from 1980 to now, is phenomenal, eh ? 34 yrs. made a lot of difference, eh ? Heck, even 15 or 20 yrs. made a lot of difference in 'puters and cell-phones to now, eh ? But the problem is, this is not the same for metal detectors. It's "hit a wall", unlike 'puters and cell-phones. Because 'puters and cell-phones became a function of "faster and smaller" components. Not so with detectors. Going "faster and smaller" is not helping, nor is it going to help with detectors. Therefore the same analogy can't be drawn. There is the component of the ground impediment, that no amount of "faster and smaller" is going to change. Ie.: a law of physics present.

 

[ironsight]

Going faster and smaller? What allowed all that smaller and faster electronics we enjoy today? There's a difference between invention and enhancement of an invention.

Going faster and smaller is nothing more than further developmental enhancements based on the 'invention' on the semi-conductor transistor.
The semi-conductor diode in a sense has been around for a while aka the old crystal radios some of us played with as kids... a 'cat whisker' contacting a crystal allowed 'human ear' demodulation of an AM radio station signal. Then there were the later somewhat inefficient selenium rectifiers that could handle high wattages. Which finally led up to the PN junction semiconductor diode still in use today in IC chips.

The invention of the PN junction semi-conductor diode led to the development of the transistor which basically included 2 junctions PNP or NPN which overnight made the old vacuum tube obsolete. The transistor is the base component in all the miniature IC chips in use today. They also allowed miniaturized digital logic computers.
If it weren't for the invention of the transistor decades ago, we'd still be using old electro mechanical land line telephones today and taking our TVs vacuum tube to the local drug store to test. The invention of the transistor made possible all the electronics we enjoy today.

Then there's the discovery of the laser with telecommunication and industrial applications.... another invention which along with transistors and the invention of fiber optic cable allows me to type this post and send it to this forum's server in fractions of a second, even pictures and videos. Something that was not possible just a few decades ago in the age of vacuum tubes.

As for nothing is going to change the law of physics, those Newtonian laws are being challenged every day by astronomers and sub atomic particle scientists.
For example, i recently posted in another thread i had excellent results locating my old well pipes using a divining rod. Yes divining rods work. I can even locate coins on the ground with them.
There is no 'conclusive' scientific explanation why or how divining rods work that i heard of. In fact a large segment of scientists dismiss the whole thing just like their predecessors who dismissed the idea that the earth is not the center of the universe or is round.
Can whatever force that is at work with divining rods be developed further into an accurate metal detecting machine?