Mirce philosophy
“Everything that the human race has done and thought is concerned with the satisfaction of felt needs”. A. Einstein
During the history of civilisation, needs for transportation, communication, navigation and many others have been satisfied by human created machines like, trains, aircraft, cars, computers, telephones, radars, radios satellites and so forth. They are constructed by assembling a well-defined number of parts, made by selected materials, in a precise and pre-established way. As they are functioning in predetermined linear chains of cause and effect, governed by the well understood mechanisms of natural sciences, their in-service performance measured through speed, acceleration, power, range, energy usage, capacity and similar could be accurately predicted by making use of Newton’s laws of motion, Coulomb’s law of solid friction, Hook’s law of stress and strain, Maxwell’s law of electrodynamics, Boltzmann’s law of thermodynamics, to name a few. All of them are based on the physical and chemical processes that are characterised by certainty, continuity, reversibility, separability and independence of time, location and humans.
However, experience teaches us that in-service performance of these machines is dominated by phenomena like fatigue, operator induced errors, corrosion, creep, foreign object damage, a faulty weld, bird strike, perished rubber, carburettor icing, space radiation, to name just a few. These phenomena generate energy exchanges between machines and environment, leading to the loss of their design-in performance. Hence, maintaining the design-in performance beyond the delivery day requires executions of necessary actions, like: troubleshooting, repairs, replacements, modifications, diagnostics, “cannibalisation”, change of operational location/mode, and so forth.
Consequently, the cumulative amount of "satisfied needs", measured by the work done: by and on a machine to keep them in working order during a stated period of in-service time become known through post-service statistical analysis of data collected and presented through histograms and pie-charts. The reason for this is the fact that the motion of machine through in-service reality is characterised by uncertainty, discontinuity, irreversibility, separability and dependence of time, location and humans.
In mid 1970s Dr Knezevic started seeking scientific theory, laws and equations for predicting the in-service performance of a machine, measured by the work done by and on a machine during in-service time when design-in performance are predicted by making use of well known and proven laws and equations of science. As these two types of machine performance are mutually dependent the accurate predictions of both must be done concurrently. Thus, while existing scientific equations and engineering methods existed for the former there was nothing similar for the latter.
After a decade of unproductive literature search and studies of existing theories within academic and scientific communities, Dr Knezevic started the search for the answer to the self-imposed tasks. He systematically studied in-service behaviour of machines to:
- Physically observe the motion of machines through in-service reality over time and to measure in-service performance
- Mathematically define a framework for describing the motion of machine through in-service reality to enable quantitative prediction of in-service performance
- Scientifically understand mechanisms that cause the motion of a machine through in-service reality to subject them to the predictive mathematical framework.
The outcome of the extensive physical observation of the behaviour of a machine through in-service time was the establishment of a generic structure within which a motion of a machine through in-service reality could be conducted.
The first premise of Mirce philosophy is that at any instant of in-service time a machine could be in one of the following two in-service states:
- Positive State (PS) – measurable function is being performed
- Negative State (NS) – measurable function is not being performed,for whatsoever reason.
The motion of a machine through in-service states during in-service time is govern by the compelling actions that are classified as following:
- Positive Action (PA) - any natural process or human activity that compels a machine to move to a PS
- Negative Action (NA) - any natural process or human activity that compels a machine to move to a NS.
The motion of a machine through in-service states is physically observed through sequential occurring in-service events that are classified as following:
- Positive Event (PE) - any physically observable occurrence that signifies the transition of a machine from a NS to a PS,
- Negative Event (NE) - any physically observable occurrence that signifies the transition of a machine from a PS to a NS.
In summary, the pattern of the motion of a machine through in-service states is uniquely defined by the combined impacts of built-in properties of a machine, on one hand, and impacting actions of in-service reality, positive and negative, on the other.
In-service performance of machines is quantified by:
- Positive Work (PW) - the amount of time it spent in PS, during the length of the in-service time T, PW(T)
- Negative Work (NW) - the amount of time it spent in PS, during the length of the in-service time T, NW(T)
Since the earliest years of science the only idea of motion perceived was that of the continuous motion of macroscopic material bodies through time, based on forces, energy, and momentum – hence the creation of classical mechanics.
As the science progressed, the need for describing the motion of electricity arose. Initially, attempts were made to view electricity as a liquid flowing through the wires and apply classical mechanics. However, the motion of electrical current, from negative to positive terminals, by slow drifting of individual electrons while the electric field propagates through the circuit near the speed of light, required a new way of description. Even bigger challenge was to describe the motion of matter and light at atomic and subatomic scales govern by the quantised energy levels of electrons - hence, the creation of quantum mechanics
After decades of experiencing and systematically studying the behaviour of machines through in-service reality, Dr Knezevic concluded that the new body of knowledge is needed for accurate prediction of their in-service performance – hence, the creation of Mirce mechanics.
Source: Knezevic, J., The Origin of MIRCE Science, pp. 232, MIRCE Science, Exeter, UK, 2017, ISBN 978-1-904848-06-6