so, no one is interested in the $1 bill I posted above?
Hmm. (yes $1 and $20 can have the same serials back then. I think now the serial numbers have been expanded. Don't know if current serials are unique between denominations)

How much would you have bet on being able to find any denomination that matched a Cooper serial plus series year (including the A)

what would be the Vegas odds? Edwards could calculate for us.

First, according to Tom, he did speak with him but not specifically about the titanium.

If you break down the quote from the book, any reasonable researcher should see the red flags.
This is not about criticizing a person, it's about criticizing the typical verbage used when someone has a bias or point of view they want to manipulate the reader into believing.
Academics are prone to trying to manipulate readers, abusing their position of "respect" in society, IMHO.

"The Citizen Sleuths website describes the source as titanium metal; however, our comunications with Mr. Kaye indicate that the particles were titanium oxide, a widely used component of food coloring, paints and pigments, and sunscreen."

Note "our communications". Doesn't say what form of communnications (email? casual talk on the street? phone call?)
The formal "our communications" leaves an implication of formal, correct communication. Also, why not say "communications"? It's a bit of the royal "we" ...as if "our communications" are more accurate or privileged than the common man's.

"Mr Kaye" ..using a formal title like implies correctness, accuracy, professionalism. Rather than just saying "Tom".

"indicate" Why use the verb indicate? Again it's trying to imply that evidence and facts are pointing to a new fact. Rather than "I think Tom said this"

"Titanium, which at one time suggested an exposure of the tie to an environment within the aerospace industry, eventually appeared to be no more than a marker for, most probably, paints and pigments."

"eventually appeared to be no more than a" ..A dismissive remark about a prior published analysis. It's the academic sneer.

The reader gets sucked into the academic "better than thou" point of view, by dumping on prior published research (with no actual facts presented).
For instance, other papers (the 727 jump research by the guy from Texas) cite email correspondence, the exact date, and quotes from the email, if data/interview material was obtained from other researchers.

What Edwards did was incorporate hearsay in his book, which had many other academic-styled references (format-wise), and tried to imply his hearsay was as good as his other referenced material.

It wasn't, obviously.

An actor posing as an academic, basically.

Big words and LOTS of them is a failing of Doc Edwards' book. Reading it was mind-numbing, and that's a big Red Flag.

Let's say the tie is elemental titanium as Kaye has concluded... I disagree with his inference that Cooper didn't work in the aircraft industry.  Aeronautical engineers were likely working closely with the foundries to develop alloys and test their performance against pure titanium.  It probably rules him out for having worked for say Cesna, but it wouldn't rule out Boeing or the military IMO.  Further, I think it's likely Boeing and the military had their own material testing labs and were working on alloys themselves.  Why would you delegate that task to a foundry 1000's of miles away?  And even if you weren't making alloys yourself, you'd still want to have pure titanium to provide a baseline on any given materials test.  That's a very basic approach used in engineering and science.  You need to know the benefit of an alloy over the baseline pure metal.

Since machining pure Ti is easier than machining Ti alloys, I was wondering if any prototype work might have been done on Ti first, before  moving to the final Ti Alloy. Just a random thought, that Ti may have been used in prototyping somehow.

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Big words and LOTS of them is a failing of Doc Edwards' book. Reading it was mind-numbing, and that's a big Red Flag.

Bruce, are you actually serious about this?  Yet you identify yourself as a journalist and book author?  This is just about the last complaint that I could have imagined.

What is your limit on big "words"?  One syllable or two?

It's about targeting your audience. If your goal as a writer is to help your audience understand something and get pleasure from that understanding, you write directly.
If you have other goals, you write appropriate to those goals.

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Big words and LOTS of them is a failing of Doc Edwards' book. Reading it was mind-numbing, and that's a big Red Flag.

Bruce, are you actually serious about this?  Yet you identify yourself as a journalist and book author?  This is just about the last complaint that I could have imagined.

What is your limit on big "words"?  One syllable or two?

It's about targeting your audience. If your goal as a writer is to help your audience understand something and get pleasure from that understanding, you write directly.
If you have other goals, you write appropriate to those goals.

I agree, Snow. At times I wondered if Doc Edwards was Ph.D-ing it (Piling it High and Deep) to impress the reader.

I didn't find Dr. Edwards' book more or less wordy than any other of the dozen Cooper books I have read. I will say that it has a different intent than any other Cooper book. It's not telling the tale of a devilish rogue who pulled one over on The Man and got away with it or how the direction of the author's life was altered by investigating the case or the detailed life stories of a dozen guys who probably aren't DBC. It's intended to inform, not entertain. I think some people might get put off by the science, math, and discussion of which FBI file said what and when, but at no time did I get the impression that Dr. Edwards was trying to put on airs. It's just a different style of writing for a different style of DB Cooper book IMO.

Here's my test for whether the writing style "works" for a book.
I asked why the book was "great" ...it's still not clear to me. No one answered other than "it's a fresh look"
Then I asked "what new evidence"...Answer: Apparently some suppositions about evidence that are wrong. (Edwards is wrong).
Now it seems like you can't relay to anyone here, what he is saying about flight path, or jump point, or the fbi flight path map.

I mean if he wrote something he wanted to say, why can't you just post the summary of what he said?

Is what he writes so obtuse that no one knows what he said in his book? I mean it sounds like you can't even tell if what he's saying is right or wrong.

If that means it's a great book for you, fine.
Not by my standards.

Just start small. Give me one paragraph of new thinking by Edwards that is simple to understand and correct.
Just state the result. As long as you believe his proof and understand it. Or if you disagree, say what's wrong with Edwards' thinking.
If you don't know whether it's right, say "I don't know if Edwards is right here".

You refuse to read the book yourself, so why do you give a shit whether I think it's good or not? It's incredibly weird to not read a book, form an opinion about it, and then criticize people who have read it and have drawn a different opinion.

And for the record, I have summarized what Dr. Edwards concludes about the flight path and the jump time. If you want a more satisfactory answer, the read book for yourself. Or don't. I couldn't care less.

ad hominem
You can go that way, but then you're just conversing with a crazy person (me) posting on dbc forums.
Apparently this is a race according to Flyjack. I think the winner is the one with the most posts. Content doesn't matter.