Jed, it seems the way it performs depends on the original document's characteristics (resolution, fonts, multiplicity of fonts maybe?). In the case of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume 3 (quantum mechanics), of which I made a searchable backup of my print version from an image format pdf found on scribd :
1/ The ClearScan'd pdf file size was several times *smaller* than the original image-only pdf found on the web 2/ Haven't tried printing but it does look better on screen, even without zooming in 3/ The OCR quality is much better than what you got with your EPRI document, without any "touching up" I got, for page 1-1 : << 1 Quantum Behavior 1-1 Atomic mechanics "Quantum mechanics" is the description of the behavior of matter and light in all its details and, in particular, of the happenings on an atomic scale. Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about . They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen. Newton thought that light was made up of particles, but then it was discovered that it behaves like a wave. Later, however (in the beginning of the twentieth century), it was found that light did indeed sometimes behave like a particle. Historically, the electron, for example, was thought to behave like a particle, and then it was found that in many respects it behaved like a wave. So it really behaves like neither. Now we have given up. We say : "It is like neither. " There is one lucky break, however-electrons behave just like light. The quantum behavior of atomic objects (electrons, protons, neutrons, photons, and so on) is the same for all, they are all "particle waves," or whatever you want to call them. So what we learn about the properties of electrons (which we shall use for our examples) will apply also to all "particles," including photons of light. The gradual accumulation of information about atomic and small-scale behavior during the first quarter of this century, which gave some indications about how small things do behave, produced an increasing confusion which was finally resolved in 1 926 and 1 927 by Schrodinger, Heisenberg, and Born. They finally obtained a consistent description of the behavior of matter on a small scale. We take up the main features of that description in this chapter. Because atomic behavior is so unlike ordinary experience, it is very difficult to gel used to, and it appears peculiar and mysterious to everyone-both to the novice and to the experienced physicist. Even the experts do not understand it the way they would like to, and it is perfectly reasonable that they should not, because all of direct, human experience and of human intuition applies to large objects. We know how large objects will act, but things on a small scale just do not act that way. So we have to learn about them in a sort of abstract or imaginative fashion and not by connection with our direct experience. In this chapter we shall tackle immediately the basic element of the mysterious behavior in its most strange form . We choose to examine a phenomenon which is impossible, absolutely impossible, to explain in any classical way, and which has in it the heart of quantum mechanics. I n reality, it contains the only mystery. We cannot make the mystery go away by "explaining" how it works. We will just tell you how it works. In telling you how it works we will have told you about the basic peculiarities of all quantum mechanics. 1-2 An experiment with bullets To try to understand the quantum behavior of electrons, we shall compare and contrast their behavior, in a particular experimental setup, with the more familiar behavior of particles like bullets, and with the behavior of waves like water waves. We consider first the behavior of bullets in the experimental setup shown diagrammatically in Fig. 1 - 1 . We have a machine gun that shoots a stream of bullets. It is not a very good gun, in that it sprays the bullets (randomly) over a fairly large angular spread, as i ndicated i n the figure. I n front of the gun we have 1-1 1-1 Atomic mechanics 1-2 An experiment with bullets 1-3 An experiment with waves 1-4 An experiment with electrons 1-5 The interference of electron waves 1-6 Watching the electrons 1-7 First principles of quantum mechanics 1-8 The uncertainty principle Note : This chapter is almost exactly the same as Chapter 37 of Volume I . >> I can spot only 4 broken words in the whole page: three "i n" and one "i ndicated", but why it makes such silly errors is beyond me, doen't it use a dictionary? Michel 2010/4/9 Jed Rothwell <[email protected]>: > I got the latest version of Adobe Acrobat 9 and I am testing this > "clearscan" OCR option. It looks great in high resolution but unfortunately > it has some problems: > > 1. It makes the files ~3 times bigger. > > 2. It does not look any different when printed. > > 3. The OCR quality is poor. It seems to often break words in the middle. > Here is some sample text copied from documents with the line-breaks, fonts, > and font size unchanged. > > OmniPage 17 OCR output: > > some researchers select open electrolytic cells over closed > cells, and very long sampling intervals (e.g., 5-minute sampling > intervals for input voltage used by Pons and Fleischmann in > recent boiling-cell experiments [12]). Some researchers continue > to use x-ray films instead of x-ray spectrometers, helium or > tritium gas sampling instead of charged-particle spectrometers, > Geiger counters rather than silicon or germanium detectors, and > neutron survey meters instead of sensitive neutron detectors as > described above. It is time to strongly question claims of cold > fusion based on crude techniques and to demand tests at a > rigorous scientific-proof level. > > EPRI ICCF-4 Proc. Vol. 3. p. 275 (And this is a pack of lies, by the way) > > Same text, Acrobat 9 OCR output: > > some researchers sel ect open el ectrolytic cells over closed > cel l s , and very l ong sampl ing interval s ( e . g . , 5 -minute sampl > ing > interva l s for input voltage used by Pons and Fle ischmann in > recent b o i l ing-cell experiments [ 1 2 ] ) . S ome researchers continue > to use x-ray f i lms instead of x-ray spectrometers , hel ium o r > tritium g a s sampl ing instead of charged-particle spectrometers , > Geiger counters rather than s i l i con or germanium detectors , and > neutron survey meters instead o f sens itive neutron detectors a s > described above . I t i s time to strongly question cla ims o f cold > fus ion based on crude techniques and to demand tests at a > rigorous -scient i f ic-proof l eve l . > > - Jed >
