Who told you that?

[alatar]

To get myself back on thread, I think that the Valar did not experiment as we may think of it. There weren't 27 trees, all essays in the craft of making the Two, where all 25 (27-Two) were just complete failures. In science/experimentation, there are usually more failures and dead ends than successes. Think of Osse experimenting with ships. How many elves did he drown until he got it right? Did some of Varda's stars crash into Arda as she just didn't use enough glue to keep them hanging in the sky?

On the other hand, not much is known about the world before the elves showed up, so maybe many of the flubs were hidden back in the depths of time.

And regarding Egyptian contact lenses - anything's possible, but why then do we not have other examples of their knowledge of optics? And sometimes we see the past through our present-day filters, seeing bits of small glass and seeing 'contact lenses,' whereas the Egyptians meant something completely different.

[William Cloud Hicklin]

As you can guess, I can disagree here as well. Show me an objective 'double-blinded' study where a Strat is compared to a better quality violin made today.

There have in fact been many. Not just Stradivari, but in general the entire North Italian School about 1680-1750. Nobody has been able to figure it out. (there is one notable exception now: Brooklyn maker Sam Zygmuntowicz may have cracked it.)

[alatar]

More than you may have ever wanted to know about violins can be found here.

Originally Posted by Colin Gough

In practice it is extremely difficult to distinguish between a particularly fine Stradivarius instrument and an indifferent modern copy on the basis of the measured response alone. The ear is a supreme detection device and the brain is a far more sophisticated analyser of complex sounds than any system yet developed to assess musical quality.

Quality in the hearing?

Top players regularly return their instruments to violin makers, who move the sound post and adjust the bridge in an effort to optimize the sound. This means that there is no unique set of vibrational characteristics for any particular instrument - not even a Stradivarius!

So even a Strad needs to be tuned/maintained, and in my hands, would sound like fingernails across a chalkboard.

Science has not provided any convincing evidence for the existence or otherwise of any measurable property that would set the Cremonese instruments apart from the finest violins made by skilled craftsman today. Indeed, some leading soloists do occasionally play on modern instruments. However, the really top soloists - and, not surprisingly, violin dealers, who have a vested interest in maintaining the Cremonese legend of intrinsic superiority - remain utterly unconvinced.

Though I didn't see the results of their double blind test (if anyone even performed one), sounds like they are making my point regarding subjectivity.

Not saying that I'm right or know what I'm talking about, but I remain a skeptic and cynic regarding this and most other things.

[Alfwine]

What you are all forgetting is that there is never one way to solve a problem. Take ship building, Ulmo could have invent airplanes instead, or submarines. It is not nessecary for the valor to have had these crafts perfactly refined beforehand and ready in a box to hand the elves. Perhaps it was Ulmo's on the spot solution to a problem (the elves needed to cross the water) he could have solved it other ways, but this was how he did it, so for us, who have been shown the/a solution, it seams only natural (of course build boats).

As for trial and error being nessecary, these are valar we are talking about. They have a very great knowlage of Tolkiens world (they built it). they know in detail everything from available resources to physics to just the way things work. even a modern man whith enough expiriance in "the way things work" can take up a new craft and have a relative success the first time. For instance, I have spent most of my life building things with my hands, I recently decided to build a yew longbow and wouldn't you know it, my first try went fine, tillered properly shoots well, no masterpiece, but good enough.

Now I didn't invent longbows but it just goes to show, if Ulmo wanted to get elves across the water (Ulmo knew a heck of a lot about water!) and decided he wanted to use ships, I think he probably could have built fiesable boats his first go (he is an increadibly powerful knowlageable and skilled being after all. he probably could have run design simulations in his head before even putting axe to wood).