tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23614129923089947742024-03-14T01:08:13.232-04:00Dealing with Creationism in AstronomyThis site is the blogging component for my main site <a href="https://crankastronomy.org">Crank Astronomy</a> (formerly "Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy"). It will provide a more interactive component for discussion of the main site content. I will also use this blog to comment on work in progress for the main site, news events, and other pseudoscience-related issues.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.comBlogger291125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-73337645991319240232023-11-05T12:41:00.000-05:002023-11-05T12:41:21.446-05:00So...What Happened?<p><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Wow. It's been over eight years since I last posted here...
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">When I stepped back in August 2015, I thought it would be for a few weeks, maybe a few months...at most.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">I have received a few inquiries as to what happened. Where did I go? What did I do?</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Initially there were three primary drivers for the hiatus, but the problems grew from there. </span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> 1) First was what I considered as a case of 'burnout', working a full-time technical job combined with the effort here, was demanding. I had also completed a number of projects and was trying to solve some issues with future projects in my queue.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">2) There were also some projects where I wanted to try out some new tools to present more sophisticated visuals on my website. </span><span style="color: black; font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Learning which new tools would be best, and how to use them, takes time.</span><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"> <a href="https://www.blender.org/" target="_blank">Blender</a> and other tools were considered for generating more video content for my work - but steep learning curves and not-quite-what-I-need functionality issues created challenges - and therefore delays. Interactive worksheets using <a href="https://ipython.org/" target="_blank">iPython</a> or <a href="https://jupyter.org/" target="_blank">Jupyter</a> notebooks were also explored, but there were web support challenges there. And since I did that initial survey of possible tools, about half the them I examined have either radically changed or are no longer supported. It adds up to a lot of lost time.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">3) Then there were recent studies (at the time) suggesting that the work I was doing was totally ineffective, that anyone going over my work, instead of being persuaded, would 'dig in' and more aggressively defend their pseudoscience. This behavior was called the 'backfire effect'. While I was certainly having an amount of fun exploring these off-beat ideas, was I actually doing any good with this project?</span>
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<ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"></span><a href="https://www.scienceabc.com/humans/what-is-the-backfire-effect-confirmation-bias-psychology.html" target="_blank">What Is The Backfire Effect?</a></li><li style="text-align: left;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Confirmation Bias </a><br /></li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">The 'backfire' effect had been subsequently difficult to confirm, but it did raise a number of issues about the how one approaches these types of projects to make them more effective. And I realized that I did not handle some conflicts on this blog as effectively, and gracefully, as I should have...</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">One of the <i>positive</i> situations that interfered with my ability to return to this project was that the particle simulation code which I originally wrote to support this project</span></p><ul style="text-align: left;"><li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;"><a href="https://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/11/doin-real-science-simulating-particles.html" target="_blank">Doin' Real Science - Simulating Particles </a></span></li><li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/geocentrism-barycenter-ii.html" style="font-family: arial;">Geocentrism & the Barycenter. II.</a></span></li><li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/geocentrists-3-body-problem.html" style="font-family: arial;">The Geocentrists' 3-Body "Problem"</a></span></li><li style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/exploration-of-lagrange-points.html" style="font-family: arial;">An Exploration of the Lagrange Points</a></span></li></ul><p style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">actually became a useful tool for my day job, mostly using the electromagnetic particle propagation options. This resulted in me spending a lot of time outside of work coding and testing different configurations of interest for some work projects, which meant less time for projects for here.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">But the delays created by the issues above gave time for the single most problematic issue to come to the fore. The hardware and software which I used for collecting, analyzing, organizing and annotating research papers used to back up ideas presented here, which had worked so well together, underwent changes which significantly hindered their interoperability and crippled my workflow. One program that used to transfer metadata and files easily between laptop (main collection and work area) to tablet (reading and note-taking) became a problem due to changes in the programs, and changes in the OS, that would force transfers through a cloud service instead of a direct cable connection. This issue persisted until eventually changes in the OS prevented one of the programs from running at all, and the developer had stopped updating the project.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Considering that the notes I kept in these files included ideas not just for debunking pseudo-science claims, but ideas for everything from real-science research projects, science-fiction stories to possibly patentable ideas, this was not something I wanted to have on a cloud server. Vendor claims of cloud security were not very comforting when looking at the actual history and some personal experiences. Then there's the statements in vendor license agreements of only sharing their customer data with 'designated partners', which enables a load of sins for scraping your data for the use by others, from surveillance to AI training and maybe things we haven't even thought of yet.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Frustrated by the decreasing level of control I had over my own work and data I had on Apple platforms, when my l needed to replace my older machines, I switched to Linux on Intel. Some system management aspects are more difficult than they were under Apple, but at least I have more control over my data.</span></p><p style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">I eventually found a bibliography package (<a href="https://www.jabref.org/" target="_blank">JabRef</a>) that could reproduce much of the functionally I had in the original <a href="https://bibdesk.sourceforge.io/" target="_blank">BibDesk</a> software, and a Python module (<a href="https://bibtexparser.readthedocs.io/en/main/" target="_blank">bibtexparser</a>) that could aid in the conversion. However it takes considerable effort to port my existing bibliography files to the new system, identifying and revising specialized tags, fixing font incompatibilities, revising links in the file system, etc. It is still a work in progress. Then there were years of notes collected in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journler" target="_blank">Journlr</a> that had intermediate notes and drafts for specific topics, tagged and organized. <a href="https://zim-wiki.org/" target="_blank">ZimWiki</a> seems to be the closest tool for porting this data but that is in an even earlier stage of progress.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Then there's the other changes in personal life that impacts ones free time for other projects, such as grand-parenting and the pandemic lock-down.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">So what's next?</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Good question...</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">I still have a lot of crank astronomy demonstrations in states of partial completion and I really want to get back to them. And with some newer hardware (which is getting to the point I may need to upgrade again) I have faster processing for some compute-intensive projects, including GPU-accelerated numerical processing!</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">A number of my write-ups on the blogger site are in reasonable condition but many links have been broken as referenced sites have changed their web organization and either deleted or moved the references linked. I need to update several references areas, like blogs, podcasts, and reading list. I have seriously considered reworking these posts into more of a textbook format, maybe with exercises for students, available stand-alone, for use by teachers and interested amateurs.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">In my time away from regular posting, much has been published on the psychology of pseudo-scientific beliefs. I've had the opportunity of exploring this as well as some of the theological, philosophical, and, yes, political aspects of pseudoscience - how it costs societies and individuals. Much of this is related to some of my own personal experiences. I'll definitely be writing up some of that, which might annoy some readers (assuming it's something other than search-bots are left visiting my site).</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">So, I expect to return. In addition to regular fixes, there is a chance this site may undergo some reorganization, and even move.</span>
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<span style="font-family: arial; font-size: small;">Now, where was I, and what's next...</span>
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Some of the more interesting experiments exploring cosmic electromagnetism were done by Kristian Birkeland in the early 1900s. Birkeland documented these experiments and his other ideas in his tome <i>The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition</i> (which I will reference as NAPE) which was published in two sections. Section 1 was published in 1908 and deals largely with the aurora expeditions and observations as well as Birkeland's initial terella experiments. In Section 2, published in 1913, Birkeland attempts to expand the scope of the interpretation of his experiments.<br />
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As a consequence of Birkeland's work with the aurora and the laboratory terella (which I will explore in a future post), Birkeland explored a number of ideas about the nature of the Sun.<br />
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Birkeland speculated that sun was powered by the decay of radium (NAPE, pg 314, 670). It was not a new idea and it did not originate with him, as the question of the energy source of the Sun had been a long-standing problem. With the discovery of radioactivity, the question of the heat source within the Earth was thought to be solved (<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1907JRASC...1..145R" target="_blank">1907JRASC...1..145R</a>). <b><i>The term 'transmutation' was apparently first used (with some trepidation) in 1901 by Rutherford and Soddy in describing nuclear decay of thorium to radium (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_transmutation#History" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</i></b>. Beyond nuclear decay, other nuclear reactions such as fission or fusion were not yet known. The first artificially-induced nuclear reaction would not be discovered
until 1919, by Rutherford, and after the death of Birkeland.<br />
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Birkeland mentions Rutherford's ideas that in the solar interior, that ordinary matter may become radioactive (NAPE, pg 315). However, in reading NAPE cover-to-cover, I found no use of the term 'transmutation' at all, much less in context of nuclear reactions. <br />
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These speculations on the solar energy source may have been the motivation of spectroscopic searches for radium in the Sun common around this time. However, a number of other elements such as iron, titanium, and lanthanum had spectral lines very close to those of radium so the status remained unclear for some time (<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1912AN....192..265M" target="_blank">1912AN....192..265M</a>, <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1912Obs....35..360E" target="_blank">1912Obs....35..360E</a>, <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1913PA.....21..321M" target="_blank">1913PA.....21..321M</a>). Eventually the spectral measurements become sufficiently accurate to conclude there was no significant amount of radium in the Sun (<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?bibcode=1929ApJ....70..160S&db_key=AST" target="_blank">1929ApJ....70..160S</a>).<br />
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At the bottom of page 665 in NAPE, Birkeland proposed THREE possible solar electrical configurations:<br />
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<b>1) Photosphere is cathode & anode located below.</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In the first place, it might be imagined that the interior of the sun formed the positive pole for enormous electric currents, while perhaps the faculae, in particular, round the spots, formed the negative poles." </blockquote>
<b>2) Photosphere is cathode & anode located above in corona</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Or it might be imagined that the positive poles for the discharges were to be found outside the photosphere, for instance in the sun's corona, the primary cause of the discharge being the driving away of negative ions from the outermost layers of the sun's atmosphere in some way or other for instance, as ARRHENIUS has assumed, by light-pressure after condensation of matter round them."</blockquote>
Note that Birkeland introduces this model with 'or' to label it as an alternative to model 1.<br />
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<b>3) Photosphere is cathode & anode located above in interplanetary space</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Finally, it might be assumed and this, according to the experimental analogies, seems the most probable assumption that the sun, in relation to space, has an enormous negative electric tension of about 600 million volts."</blockquote>
Models 1 & 2 are clearly different, placing the anode on opposite sides of the photosphere. It might be tempting to consider 2 & 3 as the same model, with the anode just further away in model 3, but model 3 places Earth IN the space of the anode, which has stronger implications for measurements near Earth not possible in model 2.<br />
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So Birkeland describes <i><b>three</b></i> different cathode-anode configurations for an electromagnetic solar model. All the models keep the cathode at or on the solar photosphere, perhaps at sunspots. The anode is proposed at three possible locations: inside the sun, just above the photosphere in the corona, and further out in interplanetary space. The final configuration is apparently favored by Birkeland, probably for its similarity to his terella configuration. <br />
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Of course, since these configurations all have a common cathode, it might also be possible to consider <i><b>combinations</b></i> of the anode positions: 1+2, 2+3, 1+3, 1+2+3, analogous to the multi-grid electron tubes (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_tube" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) used in the first half of the 20th century, providing up to seven possible configurations. Each one of these configurations would require a different analysis as the each has different implications for where and how we can make measurements.<br />
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It's difficult to find more specific information on these models with only very limited information in NAPE (pg 665, 716). Apparently there are more details in the French publication:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
K. Birkeland. <i>Sur la source de 1’eleclricite des etoiles</i>. Comptes Rendus Hebdomadaires des Seances de l’Academie des Sciences, T. 155:1467–1470, December 1912.</blockquote>
but the description in Science Abstracts seems to be mostly based on some of Birkeland's experimental configurations.<br />
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However, even in NAPE, it appears that Birkeland recognized the model had serious problems that would require more than Maxwell's equations to resolve (NAPE pg 720): <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"According to our manner of looking at the matter, every star in the universe would be the seat and field of activity of electric forces of a strength that no one could imagine.<br />
<i>We have no certain opinion as to how the assumed enormous electric currents with enormous tension are produced, but it is certainly not in accordance with the principles we employ in technics on the earth at the present time. One may well believe, however, that a knowledge in the future of electrotechnics of the heavens would be of great practical value to our electrical engineers.</i>" [italics mine]</blockquote>
Each one of these models above have the same problem: How is the electric potential maintained? In model 2, Birkeland suggests Arrehenus' idea of electrons driven out by radiation pressure might help maintain such a voltage. However, other researchers, such as Milne, Rosseland, Panneokeok and others explored the voltages possible driven by particle speeds, but the predicted voltages turned out to be FAR lower than Birkeland needed. Rosseland also explored mechanisms for generating currents in sun for solar magnetic field (<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1925CMWCI.302....1R" target="_blank">1925CMWCI.302....1R</a>).<br />
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In part II of this post, I will go over some of the other problems associated with Birkeland's solar models, some of which were apparently recognized by Birkeland.<br />
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<b><i>A Note for those Wishing to Comment on this Topic (under this or other posts):</i></b><br />
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No comments supporting the Birkeland solar model will be posted to these comment streams unless the commenter can provide correct numerical answers to at least half of these questions. Actually, if they are competent enough to answer half of these questions, which are at the level of high-school physics, they should be able to answer all of them.<br />
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<b>Birkeland Solar Models vs. the Solar Wind</b><br />
<ol>
<li>If it starts from rest, what is the final speed of an electron accelerated across a potential difference of 600 million volts?</li>
<li>If it starts from rest, what is the final speed of an proton accelerated across a potential difference of 600 million volts?</li>
<li>Given a cathode at the photosphere and an anode in distant space, which way do the electrons go in this potential? Which way do the protons go?</li>
<li>What is the speed of the solar wind? How do the speeds found above compare to the solar wind speed?</li>
<li>What voltage is needed to accelerate protons to the speed of the solar wind? What voltage is needed to accelerate electrons to the speed of the solar wind? </li>
<li>How do these voltages compare to the 600 million volts of Birkeland's model? Is the Birkeland model consistent with these measurements?</li>
</ol>
Birkeland used a potential between 10,000-20,000 volts in his terella (NAPE, p 151, 553). Here are some questions related to the parameters of these experiments.<br />
<ol>
<li>How much speed does an electron obtain in this potential difference?</li>
<li>How much speed does a proton obtain in this potential difference?</li>
<li>What is the mean thermal speed of electrons and protons due to temperature in lab (say 60F?). Does the electric field overpower the thermal motion?</li>
<li>What is the air pressure in the terella? The atomic density of the air in the terella?</li>
<li>What is the mean-free-path for atoms in the terella at operating pressure? </li>
</ol>
<h4>
Additional References</h4>
<ul>
<li>K.R. Birkeland. <a href="https://archive.org/details/norwegianaurorap01chririch" target="_blank">The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition.</a> 1902-1903. Section 1, volume 1. 1908. </li>
<li>K.R. Birkeland. <a href="https://archive.org/details/norwegianaurorap01chririch" target="_blank">The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition</a>. 1902-1903. Section 2., volume 1. 1913. </li>
<li>A. Egeland and W. J. Burke, editors. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ASSL..325.....E" target="_blank">Kristian Birkeland, The First Space Scientist</a>, volume 325 of Astrophysics and Space Science Library, May 2005.</li>
</ul>
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-14718140056527644602015-08-02T19:34:00.000-04:002015-08-02T19:34:00.294-04:00PseudoScience & the Ego-Centric UniverseEvery once and a while I receive emails and/or comments accusing myself (and/or others who choose to engage pseudo-scientists), of arrogance. <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/07/pseudoscience-and-models.html?showComment=1436627204651#c8834454032411444635" target="_blank">That occurred in the comments to the previous post</a>. In addition, I recently stumbled across some notes for a response to <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/12/paper-illustrating-more-of-crothers.html?showComment=1404721256875#c9170215771147801314" target="_blank">a previous comment expressing similar sentiments</a>.<br />
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Suric: <span style="color: red;">it takes arrogance, lameness, utter self love and desperate need to be in the limelight, to come up with an idea which allows one to erase, in one stroke, anyone's attempt to question and correct.</span><br />
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These are the types of responses when opponents don't have any actual facts to back them up.<br />
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Let's examine the commenter's statement piece by piece...<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>it takes arrogance, lameness...</b></span><br />
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Who is more arrogant, those who actually plan, build and operate these missions, or those who <b>claim</b> they can who have not demonstrated that they can do even the basics (like calculate spacecraft trajectories, compute particle fluxes) and going so far as to claim that those who CAN do these things are 'faking the data', 'lying to protect the status-quo model', etc.? <br />
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Challenging on this leads to evasion or silence...<br />
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<span style="color: red;"><b>...utter self love and desperate need to be in the limelight...</b></span><br />
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I'm not a research-grade scientist.<br />
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However, thanks to a rather broad training in physics that I obtained as an undergraduate and graduate student, I am a sufficiently good generalist that I can do support work with sufficient accuracy and reliability to aid those who actually do research. I'm quite happy with that.<br />
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I've been criticized, told I was wasting my time, by professional scientists, for being willing to deal with the cranks and crackpots. Though there are others who've actually thanked me for addressing some of the problems created by the cranks.<br />
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If I'm doing this to get attention for me, I'm clearly doing something wrong.<br />
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Meanwhile, many pseudo-scientists attempt to harass professional scientists (the more prominent the better) in an attempt to raise their profile. Since the pseudo-scientists can't meet the standards of REAL science, this is probably their only actual accomplishments. <br />
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<b><span style="color: red;">...to come up with an idea which allows one to erase, in one stroke, anyone's attempt to question and correct.</span></b><br />
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What most cranks, pseudo-scientists, and their supporters fail to address, is the faults in their claimed 'corrections' to the 'status-quo' model. I've yet to find one of these 'corrections' that has less severe problems than the mainstream problem they claim to correct. <br />
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Consider the Standard Solar Model. That model, as it exists today, has been developed over the past 100+ years with contributions from hundreds of individuals. While there are a few stand-out names among the contributors: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecilia_Payne-Gaposchkin" target="_blank">Cecilia Payne</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Norris_Russell" target="_blank">Henry Norris Russell</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Bethe" target="_blank">Hans Bethe</a>, etc., most of their names are lost to all but those who work actively in the field.<br />
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Among pseudo-scientists, there are as many theories as there are ego-maniacs. <br />
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As <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/10/the-sad-state-of-electric-suns-not-so.html" target="_blank">I have noted before, there are, at minimum, FOUR separate, and outright contradictory Electric Sun models pushed under the "Electric Universe" banner</a> by as many individuals, as well as loads of others lesser known. You see similar behavior in young-earth creationists, where different 'centers', ICR, CMI, AiG, etc. may utilize the same 'problems' in mainstream science, but often advocate different solutions to the problems, usually oriented around the products which they wish to sell to believers. <br />
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The proponents of each of these models are all hoping their model will 'win', but we have yet to determine:<br />
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<i>What is the standard for 'winning'? </i><br />
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While each of these EU or creationist 'researchers' has their own fan club, how many other individuals are actively involved in research on any of these models, as opposed to pushing another radical variant of their own?<br />
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But the really funny part which Electric Universe supporters is even with just these four 'Electric Sun' models are so radically different from each other that the proponent of any one of them is calling all the others nonsense. <br />
<br />
EU supporters claim these alternatives can explain such solar mysteries as:<br />
- the solar neutrino deficit (or maybe not)<br />
- the multi-million degree 'temperature' of the chromosphere and corona<br />
- the acceleration of the solar wind (actually more related to the corona temperature)<br />
<br />
Yet not only have EU 'theorists' not provided details of these theories with numerical predictions of these claimed 'successes', we have yet to see how any of these models can provide predictions of the particle environment around the Sun where we routinely fly spacecraft. <br />
<br />
Attempts by others to answer these questions not only demonstrates that the model fails. Presentations of these facts are usually met with bizarre excuses:<br />
<ul>
<li><i>"You did the computation wrong."</i> Okay, so demonstrate the 'correct' calculation...</li>
<li><i>"It is up to mainstream science to prove our theory."</i> So it appears EU 'theorists' want mainstream scientists to do the actual hard work while EU theorists hang around to take the credit?</li>
<li><i>"The EU model isn't sufficiently worked out yet."</i> If your theory is insufficiently worked out that it cannot provide numerical predictions which can be compared to measurements, then such a theory is, at best, not a serious contender. At worst, it is scientific fraud. (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/electric-universe-more-confusing-claims.html" target="_blank">Electric Universe: More Confusing Claims from the EU 'Worldview'</a>) </li>
</ul>
And we still get no 'correct' calculation. <br />
<br />
Talk about self-delusion!<br />
<br />
Yet while Electric Sun advocates claim these 'corrections' to the Standard Solar Model explain many problems with the model, we have yet to obtain any useful quantitative predictions from these models which we can compare to actual experiments and observations. And many of these failures of these 'corrections' are things which the Standard Model does well (see also <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html" target="_blank">Challenges for Electric Universe Theorists</a>).<br />
<br />
Pseudo-science 'models' claim to explain everything, yet can predict nothing except in the most ambiguous fashion, more like the predictions of a tabloid psychic than real scientists.<br />
<br />
And if they continue to be confronted with too many challenges which they can't answer, the pseudo-scientists will occasionally resort to claiming some technology was 'faked' (Apollo Moon landings, relativity in the GPS system, space flight in general), to extract themselves from the from the corner into which they've backed themselves. Then they have to hope none of their fans and supporters get wise to their retreat, but that's usually not that difficult...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“They are not mad. They're trained to believe, not to know. Belief can be manipulated. Only knowledge is dangerous.” -- <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/367975-they-are-not-mad-they-re-trained-to-believe-not-to" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Frank Herbert, Dune Messiah</a></blockquote>
<h3>
The Real Ego-Centric Universe</h3>
I'm reminded of the great quote from <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/10/reading-worlds-of-their-own-by-robert.html" target="_blank">Schadewald's "Worlds of their Own":</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"While orthodox science has had its share of egomaniacs, unorthodox science attracts even more."</blockquote>
EU has never even demonstrated that they understand enough about celestial mechanics to model an interplanetary trajectory as it is developed by the professionals, much less demonstrated that they can model a similar trajectory in a solar system awash in regions of significant charge which they claim exists. Yet they still claim they are the geniuses and insinuate the people who actually do this stuff are everything from incompetents or liars.<br />
<br />
Nature is under no obligation to conform to our expectations...<br />
<br />
In legitimate science, we conduct experiments and work to make sure they have results that are reproducible, and predictable. This practice has made possible technologies that were not possible one hundred, or three hundred years ago. It is because we now understand, in reproducible mathematical detail, behaviors of atoms and electrons at the atomic scale (making possible the computer on which you are reading this) to the motions of objects in distant space (making possible space missions to the outer reaches of our solar system). Sometimes this means there are some problems to which real science does not have an immediate answer, which are an ongoing area of research. Sometimes the answer to the problem requires a revision to what we previously thought we understood well, but there are rigorous procedures for making that determination.<br />
<br />
On the other hand, pseudo-science is based on the idea that the Universe must conform to the expectations and/or 'worldview' (i.e. political and/or religious ideologies) of its advocates (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/06/pseudoscience-and-world-view.html"> Pseudoscience and 'World-View'</a>). In this model, pseudo-scientists claim they can 'explain' any problem which exists in mainstream science, often at the expense of ignoring well-established science. Considering how many different (and competing) 'worldviews' have adopted some form of pseudo-science, or adopted some fact of established science to attack, statistically, what are the odds for ANY of them being correct?!<br />
<br />
Which system requires more arrogance?W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-23541107716588963952015-07-06T19:26:00.000-04:002015-07-06T19:36:36.624-04:00PseudoScience and ModelsWith the recent Electric Universe 'conference' in Phoenix AZ, I just had to do a little browse over to the Thunderbolts forum to see if there were any interesting threads related to it.<br />
<br />
While not directly related to the conference, there was one interesting recent thread, started by user Metryq, that died a quick death.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15820" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Thunderbolts Forum: Space Sim with EU?</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">There are many space sim/planetarium apps to choose from. Some are "Earth-bound" while others allow one to tour the Solar system, or farther. Many of these apps are like interactive textbooks, delivering only the mainstream view of astronomy.<br /><br />Some apps, like Celestia (which seems to have fallen out of development), permit mods and add-ons and interactive lessons. Is anyone aware of an app that includes EU material, or perhaps a multi-platform app that would accept an EU mod/lessons? Thunderbolts is promoting EU extremely well, but a space sim might be one more avenue to explore.</span></blockquote>
The short answer for Metryq is that there are many simulations involving electric fields in space. <br />
<br />
But those simulations just don't demonstrate what Electric Universe supporters claim they would show. Because if they did, this could have been done a LONG time ago. Computing power is more than up to the task of doing this. <br />
<br />
Many of the papers on REAL electric effects in space I've documented elsewhere on this blog.<br />
<ul>
<li><div class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/08/real-electric-universe.html">The REAL Electric Universe</a></div>
</li>
<li><div class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/365-days-of-astronomy-electric-universe.html">365 Days of Astronomy: The Electric Universe</a></div>
</li>
<li><div class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/02/the-real-electric-universe-inspired-by.html">The Real Electric Universe: Inspired by Velikovsky?</a></div>
</li>
</ul>
These papers reference known electrical effects in space that are incorporated into simulations that provide important information for the planning of future space missions, such as these<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://lunarscience.arc.nasa.gov/articles/lunar-polar-craters-may-be-electrified/" target="_blank">NASA: LUNAR POLAR CRATERS MAY BE ELECTRIFIED</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/new-nasa-model-gives-glimpse-into-the-invisible-world-of-electric-asteroids/" target="_blank">NASA: New NASA Model Gives Glimpse into the Invisible World of Electric Asteroids </a></li>
</ul>
which are also referenced in the Thunderbolts forum:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15121" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">new NASA (simulation) Model ; Electric Asteroids</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=15788" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Could this be NASA coming round to the EU model?</a></li>
</ul>
NONE of these NASA simulations use the gigantic electric arcs and currents claimed to exist by Electric Universe supporters, yet these models work perfectly well in planning the level of protection needed for un-crewed and crewed space missions. Funny that none of the Electric Universe fans seem capable of comprehending why that might be...<br />
<br />
Now many of these simulations are not that difficult to write. I wrote my first gravitational n-body simulation back in 1979 on an Apple II computer (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_II" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) using AppleSoft Basic. All it requires is a good understanding of the necessary mathematics and physics, and access to a sufficiently powerful programming language. In terms of programming languages, C and C++ are good if you want the better speed of compiled languages. Python now has extensive scientific libraries and graphical support and is my language of choice when speed is not critical. <br />
<br />
I've written numerous other simulations since then. More recently, I've written some 2-D plasma simulations and even an n-body particle code that combines gravity and electromagnetic forces.<span style="font-weight: normal;"></span><br />
<ul>
<li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/11/doin-real-science-simulating-particles.html">Doin' Real Science: Simulating Particles</a>. Near the bottom of this post is an example what can be generated by interfacing the output to a more polished rendering system like <a href="http://povray.org/" target="_blank">POVray</a>.</span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/geocentrism-barycenter-ii.html">Geocentrism & the Barycenter. II.</a></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/geocentrists-3-body-problem.html">The Geocentrists' 3-Body "Problem"</a></span><span style="font-weight: normal;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/exploration-of-lagrange-points.html">An Exploration of the Lagrange Points</a></span></li>
</ul>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lS2IsIXIsgc/VZsPgx1mXmI/AAAAAAAAAsI/_QLpQb7qK6U/s1600/BirkelandSample.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lS2IsIXIsgc/VZsPgx1mXmI/AAAAAAAAAsI/_QLpQb7qK6U/s320/BirkelandSample.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sample from from one of my 2-D plasma simulations of a ring Birkeland current in a magnetic field flowing perpendicular to the plane of the image. </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Modeling of plasmas is routine today, and many can be done without access to supercomputers. Consider the aspects of plasma modeling I've documented, many of which are now part of standard applications:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/08/electric-universe-real-plasma.html">Electric Universe: Real Plasma Physicists Use Mathematical Models!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/08/electric-universe-real-plasmas.html">Electric Universe: Real Plasma Physicists BUILD Mathematical Models</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/09/electric-universe-plasma-physics-for.html">Electric Universe: Plasma Physics for Fun AND Profit!</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/10/electric-universe-plasma-modeling-vs.html">Electric Universe: Plasma Modeling vs. 'Mystic Plasma'</a></li>
</ul>
So why aren't there similar simulations for Electric Universe models?<br />
<br />
If the Electric Universe 'theorists' were as smart as they want their fans to believe, they would have been able to demonstrate this YEARS ago, yet the only models that looked even encouraging, failed many other tests (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/06/scott-rebuttal-ii-peratt-galaxy-model.html">Scott Rebuttal. II. The Peratt Galaxy Model vs. the Cosmic Microwave Background</a>).<br />
<br />
The bottom line is these simulation programs don't exist because Electric Universe claims of gigantic currents powering stars and galaxies and etching canyons and craters on planets just doesn't work.<br />
<br />
General list of <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html" target="_blank">failures of Electric Universe models</a>. W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-22562887408468822332015-06-28T19:35:00.000-04:002015-06-28T19:35:00.057-04:00Exposing PseudoAstronomy: Big Bang DenialStuart Robbins over at <a href="https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Exposing PseudoAstronomy</a> has posted a new podcast on <a href="https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2015/06/23/podcast-episode-134-big-bang-denial/" target="_blank">Big Bang Denial</a> (BBD), a topic often covered here.<br />
<br />
Stuart goes into a number of the more basic aspects of the problem, mostly from the types of bad reasoning involved.<br />
<ul>
<li>arguments from personal incredulity</li>
<li>Dark Matter is fake. </li>
<li>Big Bang cosmology does not describe what started the universe, only how it evolved afterwards - rather like how biological evolution takes place regardless of how life started independent of abiogenesis (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abiogenesis" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>).</li>
</ul>
I have explored some additional claims in detail at the links below:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/08/on-dark-matter-i-what-why.html">On Dark Matter. I: What & Why?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-dark-matter-ii-exotic-hack.html">On Dark Matter. II: An Exotic Hack?</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html#PerattGalaxy" target="_blank">The Electric Universe/Plasma Cosmology alternative explanation for Dark Matter still fails</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-big-bang-cosmology-creationist-model.html" target="_blank">Is Big Bang Cosmology a Creationist Model?</a> </li>
<li>A 2-dimensional demonstration of how the cosmological redshift expansion does not define a center to the expansion (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/geocentrism-cosmological-redshift.html">Geocentrism & Cosmological Redshift</a>)</li>
<li>A summary of some other failed claims refuting Big Bang Cosmology (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/yet-another-claimed-stake-through-heart.html">Yet Another Claimed Stake-through-the-Heart of Big Bang Cosmology?</a>)</li>
</ul>
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-31411709045357195112015-06-21T18:23:00.000-04:002015-06-21T18:23:00.194-04:00Reading: The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design, by Ronald NumbersI recently finished reading the expanded edition of Ronald Numbers "The Creationists: From Scientific Creationism to Intelligent Design" (<a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674023390">Harvard University Press</a>).<br />
<br />
I had the pleasure of meeting Dr. Numbers at the recent <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/03/the-perceptions-project.html">Perceptions Project conference</a> and he autographed by copy.<br />
<br />
I learned a number of new and useful things from the book.<br />
<br />
The book traces the history of various flavors of creationism back significantly further than I had originally thought. After introduced in the late 1880s, Darwinian evolution was actually gaining some acceptance among mainstream Christian denominations until a more fundamentalist revival began to perceive it as a threat and points of resistance arose. Prior to reading this book, I actually thought creationism was more marginalized, limited to small churches (where I first encountered it in high school) since the Scopes trial (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scopes_Trial">Wikipedia</a>). I had thought that creationism did not achieve a higher profile until the Louisiana incident settled by the Supreme Court Edwards vs. Aguillard case (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edwards_v._Aguillard">Wikipedia</a>) in 1987.<br />
<br />
One of the aspects I found most interesting covered in the book was the incredible range of disagreements among religious people over just what the Bible actually said about 'deep history'. There were discussions of the <i>many</i> attempts to form a consistent 'creation model' of the universe. Many different denominations, and even individuals within a denomination, occasionally advocated radically different positions on the age of humanity vs. the age of life vs. the age of the Earth vs. the age of the cosmos. Some creationists wanted to include geocentrism in the creation model, to the disagreement of others (pg 264). This in itself tells you that creationism has no truly <i>objective</i> standard for deciding on the evidence, unlike regular science.<br />
<br />
The claim by creationists that they believe the literal truth of the Bible runs afoul of history. The geocentrists and the young-Earthers and the old-Earthers can all find biblical verses supporting their position, or a subset of the models of the other. So how do you determine which is the Truth? The same Bible has been used to support peaceful coexistence (the Golden Rule) as well as genocide; to support slavery, as well as free slaves; to support segregation as well has inclusion. Invoking the 'literal truth of the Bible' can mean whatever agenda one wishes to impose.<br />
<br />
The book mostly explored creationism as it applied to evolutionary biology and geology, with little discussions on cosmology. It focused more on the history of the movement and the interactions between the personalities involved, rather than particular issues of the science itself. Pages 280-281 explored Robert Gentry and his work with <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Polonium%20halos">polonium halos, a topic which I have explored on this blog</a>. <br />
<br />
Chapter 13, titled "Deceptions and Discrimination", explored the persecution, both real and imagined, experienced by creationists when they tried to seek higher degrees. The creationists often hid their inclinations from the university faculty while enrolled in the degree program. However, a severe problem encountered was that many creationists seeking advanced degrees in geology would encounter the incredible level of care exercised by mainstream geologists in determining things such as radioisotope dating or defining the geologic column for a region. It would often grossly contradict all they had been taught in their creationist studies and giving them a crisis of faith. At this point, options were limited for the creationist and those who wished to continue their studies would often switch to safer topics.<br />
<br />
One item that I was really hoping to find more about in the book was evidence of the impact of big science projects like the Manhattan Project and the Space Race on the history of the creationism movement. Sadly, I did not really finding anything addressing these issues in any detail. Pages 264-267 mention the impact of the pro-science movement at the start of the Space Race and an effort by creationists to assemble a textbook to compete with the BSCS biology textbook. Many creationists expressed concerns about finding a publisher for such a textbook as this was shortly after the backlash from the scientific community from the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Immanuel_Velikovsky#.22The_Velikovsky_Affair.22">Velikovsky affair (Wikipedia)</a>.<br />
<br />
While the book did not cover much of my particular areas interest, I found it a very useful history of the movement that I may reference occasionally. I regard it on-par with <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/10/reading-worlds-of-their-own-by-robert.html">Robert Schadewald's "Worlds of Their Own"</a>.
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-62802990856427580342015-05-31T18:45:00.000-04:002015-06-07T18:51:16.860-04:00Electric Comets: More Failures of the Electric Comet ModelElectric Universe (EU) 'theorists', like creationists and other pseudo-scientists, like to latch onto the anomalies, or things they can try to sell to fans as anomalies, while ignoring the far larger body of agreement with the standard model. This is much like using the existence of mountains as disproof that Earth is round.<br />
<br />
Electric Comet supporters continue this tactic, most recently trying to exploit discoveries of the Rosetta spacecraft currently station-keeping with comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). I consolidate more responses to some of these claims here. Some of this content has been distilled from the long-running <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147374" target="_blank">Electric Comet thread</a> at the International Skeptics Forum. Thanks to many of the individuals who participated in this thread and provided some additional information that has been incorporated into this post.<br />
<br />
<b>More Short-Circuited 'Electric Comets'</b><br />
<br />
What about those solar system scale electric currents so important for the Electric Comet model? Spacecraft measurements have demonstrated that the solar wind is largely neutral. Small scale electric fields are possible due to inhomogeneities and these amount to a few tens of volts. High-speed solar wind streams can generate voltages up to a couple thousand when interacting with a solid body, such as a asteroid or spacecraft. These are known in the standard model and are important in the design of spacecraft.<br />
<br />
It takes less than 1000 volts to accelerate protons to the speed of the average solar wind. It takes even less voltage to accelerate electrons to the same speed. Yet, if the solar wind acceleration were done predominantly by a large scale electric field, electrons and ions would accelerate in opposite directions! This is NOT observed! This qualifies as a <b>Major Electric Comet FAIL</b>.<br />
<br />
<b>The Electric Comet Theory of Water Production</b><br />
<br />
Rosetta has detected water coming off comet 67P. In the standard comet model, this water is due to the sublimation of water-ice which is part of the comet composition.<br />
<br />
Some Electric Universe 'theorists' claim the comet is negatively charged, forming water from positive H ions in solar wind combining with negative OH- ions repelled from nucleus. So we should see OH- and water only ahead of comet, between comet and Sun where it is largely formed, at least according to their model.<br />
<br />
Yet the OH ion observed is not OH-, but OH+! Not only that, but the OH+ and water are observed in the TAIL of comet, always moving away from the nucleus and away from the Sun! Virtually all ions observed in comet tails are positive ions moving away from the comet! It positive ions are supposed to be attracted to the negative comet nucleus, according to the Electric comet model, then this too is a <b>Major Electric Comet FAIL</b>.<br />
<br />
This is not a problem for the standard comet model as the neutral atoms from the comet are predominantly photo-ionized by solar radiation, which tends to liberate electrons, producing positive ions.<br />
<br />
<b>Electric Comet Not So Hot</b><br />
<br />
Electric Universe 'theorists' like to claim the comet nucleus is hot, while measurements clearly show it to presently be quite cold. As I demonstrated in the original post (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/electric-comets-ii-of-water-ice.html" target="_blank">Electric Comets II. Of Water & Ice</a>), the temperature about what is expected for a dark body at the present distance from the sun, heated by solar radiation, NOT electrical energy. This temperature will change as the comet gets closer to the Sun and some of the darker surface material is evaporated away.<br />
<br />
<i><b>WHERE are the explicit predictions of temperature, electric and magnetic fields, water production rates, etc. from Electric Universe theorists which we can compare to actual measurements? </b></i><br />
<br />
I and others have repeatedly insisted that Electric Universe supporters provide them. THOSE are real predictions that can meet scientific standards. Yet EU 'theorists' persistently make excuses evading these specific predictions, instead producing ambiguous, <i>"it looks like 'x'"</i>, and similar weak 'predictions' more like those of a tabloid-psychic, and then claiming success.<br />
<br />
So having failed so totally on things we can actually measure, as evidence of the Electric Comet model, such as the motion of charges and ions in the comet vicinity, the Electric Comet supporters retreat to any little thing they can claim is 'anomalous'...<br />
<br />
Most of the rest of this post will deal with these types of <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/electric-comets-ii-of-water-ice.html?showComment=1429094348268#c8051272099460723335" target="_blank">claims presented by commenter Matt Wood (MW)</a>.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: The extremely odd double-lobed configuration, the extensive rock and boulder fields in evidence all over the comet seem inexplicable on such a low gravity object. The jagged cliffs and overall decimated and rocky features of the comet also seem to stand in sharp contrast to the theory that these bodies were assembled through accretion. 67P looks exactly like it was ripped from larger body. </span></blockquote>
How could a double-lobed configuration hold together of it were 'ripped' from a larger body? After all, structures are usually weaker at their thinnest point. How did the two lobes manage to hold together through a violent event?<br />
<br />
However, if two roughly spherical accreted objects collided at low speed, they might generate just enough heat from their impact to melt a little of the water-ice at sufficient pressure it could liquify and anchor the two components together. Such an event would be consistent with enhanced water emission from the neck area, where water-ice had an opportunity to melt, differentiate, collect and then refreeze. <br />
<br />
As for the probability of collisions in the Oort cloud or Kuiper Belt, we've already witnessed comets ripped apart by gravitational tides such as comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_Shoemaker%E2%80%93Levy_9" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). If the parts did not separate too much after broken apart, some could drift back together, and re-merge from the impact.<br />
<br />
Why are there boulders? Why would there NOT be boulder-shaped material? Boulders can form from larger objects due to cracking from repeated heating and cooling cycles, much as they can on Earth. There are probably a few additional processes under the conditions on a comet that go beyond the known Earth processes.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://earthandplanetary.wordpress.com/rock-breakdown/" target="_blank"><span class="c1"><span class="StyleBold">Rock breakdown on Earth and Mars: A combined field and experimental approach</span></span></a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.sciencefriday.com/blogs/09/22/2010/how-boulders-are-born.html" target="_blank"><span class="c1"><span class="StyleBold">ScienceFriday: How Boulders are Born</span></span></a> </li>
<li>"<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1967NASSP.150..307H" target="_blank">The Cloud of Interplanetary Boulders</a>". Martin Harwit. 1967.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: Why does gentle warming on a cometary body produce such huge effects at such great distances and from the coldest regions of the object? </span></blockquote>
One wonders if Mr. Wood is deliberately ignoring that comets contain significant frozen CO2 in addition to water-ice. CO2 ice sublimates at significantly lower temperatures than water ice (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Carbon Dioxide</a>). <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: Would a similar experiment with a dirty chunk of ice placed in a vacuum here on Earth produce the same extreme effects if it was gently warmed?</span></blockquote>
Again, Mr. Wood ignores the contribution of CO2 in the behavior of comets. There is a popular classroom demonstration of 'comet making' using dry ice.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.esa.int/spaceinvideos/Videos/2014/10/Cooking_a_comet_ingredients_for_life_-_classroom_demonstration_video_VP06" target="_blank">ESA: Cooking a comet, ingredients for life? - classroom demonstration video, VP06</a> </li>
<li>Then there is a recent experiment with a more realistic comet composition:<a href="http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/jp509513s" target="_blank"> Mixing of the Immiscible: Hydrocarbons in Water-Ice near the Ice Crystallization Temperature</a></li>
</ul>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: And why do we not find visual evidence of these vents that are suppose to be blowing out all over the comet body? They should be visible all over the body but they are never imaged.</span></blockquote>
A body formed from accretion at low temperatures, with no opportunity for major compositional differentiation throughout, would have water and frozen CO2 well-mixed since they are accreting from a collection of small particles. 'Vents' would probably be so small and well distributed that you would not see them as discrete locations. Some may erupt in direct sunlight while some on the dark side could erupt via heat conduction through the comet. <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: I lean toward the EU explanations. Maybe that makes me uninformed - but the experts who arrived at a bone dry comet with a lander equipped with "ice" harpoons don't look a whole lot smarter or informed that I would be.</span></blockquote>
How 'dry' is water-ice at T = -68C = -91F? At these temperatures and pressures, water cannot exist in liquid form (note phase diagram at <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/electric-comets-ii-of-water-ice.html" target="_blank">Electric Comets II. Of Water & Ice</a>). Precisely what is meant by 'dry'? Does 'dry' only mean that <i><b>liquid</b></i> water doesn't exist, or can't exist? <br />
<br />
Are Electric Universe 'theorists' actually trying to claim that the mainstream model expects puddles of <b><i>liquid</i></b> water?<br />
<blockquote>
<span style="color: red;">MW: Does 67P look like a product of accretion to you?</span></blockquote>
What do Electric Universe 'theorists' expect an accreted body, assembled from dust and gas at extremely cold temperatures, to look like? <br />
<br />
Take a body formed by accretion in the outer solar system, then take that body and send it towards the inner solar system subject to repeated cycles of heating and cooling where materials will outgas at different rates at different temperatures. What does that object look like after a few cycles like this? <br />
<br />
Electric Universe 'theorists' want to claim that it would look nothing like what we observe on 67P. Based on WHAT, their INTUITION? <br />
<br />
Comets are not just a product of accretion, but billions of years of orbital evolution. For at least the past century, 67P has been a Jupiter-family comet subject to repeated heating and cooling from solar radiation, repeated cycles of sublimation and freezing. Why is there more emission at the neck? Perhaps, as I suggested in the original post above, this was where collision of two bodies generated enough heat to let water become liquid, collect, and refreeze.<br />
<br />
How much experience do EU theorists have of these materials at low temperatures, low densities, and against the near vacuum of space? None that I can find evidence of. EU 'theorists' routinely exhibit ignorance about the behavior of snow, especially snow mixed with common dirt, subject to repeated heating and cooling of day and night on earth (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/11/electric-comets-failures-of-electric.html" target="_blank">Electric Comets: Failures of the Electric Comet Model</a>). Why should anyone believe their comprehension of materials behavior beyond the range of regular human experience?<br />
<br />
It's dangerous to apply ones personal experience of materials in the temperatures, pressures of daily experience to radically different materials and environments. There are people who are seriously injured, or even dead, from making these errors of judgement with materials on Earth under unusual conditions. I've had a few close-calls myself back in the days when I did more experimental work.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: Do you find that odd, or do you think that standard comet theory has successfully predicted what is currently being seen on 67P?<br /><br />I think the coverage by the EU modelers are making a lot of really excellent observations that standard theory scientists seem to ignore.</span></blockquote>
Where are those successful predictions again? Because they were certainly not provided by Mr. Wood. All of these claimed 'successes' are constructed from blatantly false arguments about what the standard comet model actually says, and/or ambiguous explanations of their own 'Electric comet' model.<br />
<br />
Note that all the claims which would provide more direct evidence of the existence of claimed charges and currents, such as claims about the solar wind and comet water production noted above, fail miserably. <br />
<br />
So when that doesn't stick, Electric Universe supporters then fall back on claims about behavior of materials under extreme cold and vacuum where they appear to have even less expertise. It is becoming something of a running joke among those who've been dealing with Electric Comet claims for some time that Electric Comet supporters seem to have no real experience with even regular SNOW and ICE in the Earth environment, much less dry-ice in space.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">MW: I'm no scientist - but these seem like enormous blanks that were not predicted, expected or very easily explainable by current comet theory. </span></blockquote>
'I'm no scientist' has become the new popular disclaimer from cranks when they say something demonstrating their ignorance. Many who use this phrase get their information, not from those who do the REAL work, but from posers and wannabes who seek the status <i>without</i> doing the work.<br />
<br />
Why would a rational person believe information about the space environment from people (EU 'theorists') who have no experience or training designing and building spacecraft to travel through that environment?<br />
<br />
What is even more shameful is that the facts they have chosen to ignore are, for the most part, freely available for anyone examine and explore, should they bother to expend the effort. Scientific literacy is not just for scientists, it is vital to the economic success and future of any free society.<br />
<br />
The success and future of any society (and more most individuals and corporations) depends on their ability to solve problems faster than the problems (and their consequences) accumulate. Successful solutions require facts, and good science, not arrogant ignorance.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.” <br />
― <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/John_Adams" target="_blank">John Adams</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We need science education to produce scientists, but we need it equally to create literacy in the public. Man has a fundamental urge to comprehend the world about him, and science gives today the only world picture which we can consider as valid. It gives an understanding of the inside of the atom and of the whole universe, or the peculiar properties of the chemical substances and of the manner in which genes duplicate in biology. An educated layman can, of course, not contribute to science, but can enjoy and participate in many scientific discoveries which as constantly made. Such participation was quite common in the 19th century, but has unhappily declined. Literacy in science will enrich a person’s life. <br />
— <a href="http://todayinsci.com/B/Bethe_Hans/BetheHans-Quotations.htm" target="_blank">Hans Albrecht Bethe (1961)</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not enough of our society is trained how to understand and interpret quantitative information. This activity is a centerpiece of science literacy to which we should all strive—the future health, wealth, and security of our democracy depend on it. Until that is achieved, we are at risk of making under-informed decisions that affect ourselves, our communities, our country, and even the world. <br />
— <a href="http://todayinsci.com/T/Tyson_Neil/TysonNeil-Quotations.htm" target="_blank">Neil DeGrasse Tyson</a></blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The point is that we are all capable of believing things which we <i>know</i>
to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently
twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it
is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only
check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against
solid reality, usually on a battlefield.<br />
-- <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/George_Orwell" target="_blank">George Orwell</a> <b><br /></b></blockquote>
<b>Update</b>: June 7, 2015. Minor grammatical fixes.<br />
Per my comments above about formation mechanisms of the double-lobed structure of the comet nucleus, a recent result has been published on simulations for these structures. See <a href="http://phys.org/news/2015-05-comets.html" target="_blank">Phys.org: How comets were assembled </a>W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-16220955289475818812015-05-17T20:15:00.000-04:002015-05-17T20:15:00.167-04:00Real life intervenes...I was surprised to discover it's been over a month since my last post.<br />
<br />
I have been distracted by constructing responses to a number of comments to threads that divert far from the topic of the original post. The responses are getting rather long and complex as well as overlapping with other comments. I still think I need to respond to them, but it is taking some work to organize.<br />
<br />
Then there's more (expensive) adventures in home ownership that have diverted my time and attention and energy and will probably not settle back to reasonable normalcy until the start of June.<br />
<br />
I'm still here.<br />
<br />
Work is progressing...<br />
<br />
But I'll try to go over some comments that need only short responses and get them released.<br />
<br />
For short responses, I might be able to handle email (see the email link on the Profile page). <br />
<br />
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-38329555382995921072015-04-06T20:07:00.000-04:002015-04-06T20:12:38.839-04:00Of Gravity and AtomsMr. Wolynski continues to make several claims <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/03/relativity-denial-career-cost.html?showComment=1426615222454#c1174984652965650620" target="_blank">in the comments</a> to an <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/03/relativity-denial-career-cost.html" target="_blank">earlier thread</a> which I feel are best addressed by a separate post. I repeat the claims here for more convenient reference:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">1. Gravity cannot heat objects (that takes friction, flame, electric current, etc.)</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;">2. Gravity cannot cause charge separation (that takes electric current, friction, flame, etc.)</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;">3. A cloud of gas cannot gravitationally collapse upon itself absent a gravitating body (that would be philosophically unsound). That is unless you want your readers to believe gravitational fields exist absent gravitating objects?</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;">The jab at having some sort of Dunning Syndrome... Well, it does speak volumes of the people I've interacted with. The people who have been educated are the very worst sufferers. They simply cannot recognize how incompetent they actually are. What is worse is that they have been handed titles, which reinforces their poor attitudes towards people who are original.</span><br />
<span style="color: red;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: red;">-Jeffrey Wolynski </span></blockquote>
Mr. Wolynski has made these claims but has not defined any experiment which would demonstrate the veracity of any of them. They all seem to be driven by what he thinks he needs to make his other claims about stellar evolution 'true'. It appears that Mr. Wolynski thinks that his 'originality' is somehow evidence for the accuracy of his claims.<br />
<br />
'Originality' is not evidence of correctness in science, it is the agreement of model predictions with experimental or observational measurements. 'Original' ideas may be needed to solve problems in leading edge science, but it is generally not very useful in well-established science. Mr. Wolynski's claims suggest a number of follow-up questions which will illustrate where his 'original' ideas fail, and how they are not so 'original'.<br />
<br />
Mr. Wolynski apparently does not know what heat is. Heat is due to atoms or other particles in motion and how they exchange energy (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Heat</a>). <br />
<br />
Gravity is due to objects with mass. Objects are made of atoms and atoms have mass. Gravitational force is computed by adding up the force contributions between pairs of mass elements, of arbitrary small size, the nature of infinitesimals in calculus (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calculus" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>).<br />
<br />
Mass is additive. The mass of a body is the sum of the masses of the atoms composing it, less any binding energy created by attractive forces between the atoms (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Mass</a>). <br />
<br />
<i>1) Given a spherical cloud of gas the mass of the Earth, and an atom outside that cloud, is Mr. Wolynski saying the atom would not be attracted to the cloud of gas? If he wants to say that the atom is not attracted to the Earth-mass of gas, then how does Earth being 'solid/liquid' make a difference? </i><br />
<br />
<i>2) Or is Mr. Wolynski saying that atoms do not have mass? </i><br />
<br />
That would be contrary to experiment (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_mass" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Atomic Mass</a>). <br />
<br />
<i>3) Is Mr. Wolynski saying that inertial mass (the particle mass used in F=ma) is different than gravitational mass (the particle mass used in the gravitational force equation)? </i><br />
<br />
This would also be contrary to experiment (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%C3%B6tv%C3%B6s_experiment" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Eötvös experiment</a>).<br />
<br />
<i>4) At rest, say 50 miles above the surface of the Moon, so we can neglect air friction, you drop a bowling ball. The ball falls towards the Moon, gaining velocity and therefore energy. The ball hits the surface, and perhaps penetrates into the surface before stopping. Where did the kinetic energy from the velocity go? Better yet, where did the kinetic energy come from? </i><br />
<br />
At rest, say 50 miles above the surface of Earth, so we can include air friction, you drop a bowling ball. The ball falls towards Earth, gaining velocity and therefore energy. As the ball enters the atmosphere, it collides with air molecules, transferring some of its kinetic energy to them (heat) and slowing its own motion (drag). The gravitational potential energy of the bowling ball is converted to kinetic energy which is transferred to the surrounding air in the form of heat. Gravity is providing the energy that is converted to heat. If gravitation can cause objects to move and those moving objects collide to exchange energy, part of that energy can take the form of heat.<br />
<br />
<i>5) Is Mr. Wolynski saying mechanical energy cannot be converted to heat? </i><br />
<br />
This is also contrary to experiment, as well as loads of technologies (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanical_equivalent_of_heat" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Mechanical Equivalent of Heat</a>). <br />
<br />
One of the underlying themes in Mr. Wolynski's claims appears to be the erroneous assumption that atoms do not count as gravitating bodies.<br />
<br />
The force of gravity is symmetric between gravitating bodies - the force created by mass A on mass B is the same as the force of mass B on mass A. This appears to be true if A is an atom and B is a planet. Why would it not be true for two atoms?<br />
<br />
Experiments do indicate that individual subatomic particles respond to gravity:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2002/jan/17/neutrons-reveal-quantum-effects-of-gravity">PhysicsWorld: Neutrons Reveal Quantum Effects of Gravity</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v415/n6869/abs/415297a.html">Quantum states of neutrons in the Earth's gravitational field</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-540-45230-0_10">Quantum States of Neutrons in the Gravitational Field and Limits for Non-Newtonian Interaction in the Range between 1 μm and 10 μm</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://journals.aps.org/prd/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevD.81.052008">On observation of neutron quantum states in the Earth’s gravitational field</a> </li>
</ul>
<i>6) If gravitating bodies are made of atoms, and atoms have mass, why aren't atoms gravitating bodies? </i><br />
<br />
Laboratory experiments with gravity (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cavendish_experiment">Cavendish Experiment</a>, and later versions) with objects of known mass reinforces the evidence that the mass used in the gravitational equations is the sum of the masses of the component atoms.<br />
<br />
Similar experiments can demonstrate charge separation under gravity:<br />
<br />
a) Given a plasma at a constant temperature (to simplify the analysis) which particles have the highest average speed: electrons, ions, or do both travel at the same average speed?<br />
<br />
b) given the answer to (a), which particles will, on average, travel higher in a gravitational field? If so, the charge distribution is not uniform and a net electric field is possible. This was demonstrated back in the 1920s (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/365-days-of-astronomy-electric-universe.html" target="_blank">The Real Electric Universe</a>).<br />
<br />
As we can see, Mr. Wolynski's claims are certainly not 'original'. These types of questions were asked by a number of individuals going back a hundred years or more. Today, Mr. Wolynski's claims are not that different from those made by random individuals long ignored because their so-called 'original ideas' were settled long ago.<br />
<br />
Did Mr. Wolynski do any research to check for possible problems with his 'hypotheses'? Apparently not.<br />
<br />
In the scientific community, we usually have colleagues of equivalent professional background with whom we can bounce off ideas. There are probably loads of theories that die in this very early stage. Sometimes the idea gets a little further, maybe with early experimental tests or more sophisticated theoretical modeling. Sometimes the idea survives initial scrutiny to get experiments or an even more detailed theoretical examination and gets written up into a paper which is then submitted for publication. For reputable publishers, the paper is then sent out for peer-review and other researchers are able to check the ideas and results for possible errors. If the paper survives that process, it makes it to publication. That doesn't guarantee it is free of errors, it just means that a certain amount of error checks have been completed and it is presented to the wider community.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2009/01/22/the-purpose-of-peer-review-in-science/">PseudoAstro: The Purpose of Peer-Review in Science</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2013/11/21/podcast-episode-93-the-importance-methods-and-faults-of-peer-review/">PseudoAstro: Podcast Episode 93: The Importance, Methods, and Faults of Peer Review</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.astronomycast.com/2009/08/ep-147-how-to-be-taken-seriously-by-scientists/">AstronomyCast: Ep. 147: How to Be Taken Seriously By Scientists
</a>
</li>
<li><a href="http://www.astronomycast.com/2009/08/ep-146-astronomy-research-from-idea-to-publication/">AstronomyCast: Ep. 146: Astronomy Research from Idea to Publication </a> </li>
</ul>
Yet Mr. Wolynski wants to claim that educated people whom he has 'interacted with' have had their titles 'handed to them'. This is a common attitude displayed by cranks towards professionals when their errors are pointed out. As documented above, Mr. Wolynski has apparently not even conducted the BASIC research necessary to test his claims. He has no comprehension of just how much he does not know, and has concluded that he is correct and everyone else must be wrong. The people Mr. Wolynski wants to claim have had titles handed to them probably know more about applying the theory of gravity to solve real problems than Mr. Wolynski, who has demonstrated no competence in the topic beyond his 'say-so'.<br />
<br />
I would say that I have appropriately applied the Dunning-Krueger and I leave it to others to explore Mr. Wolynski's score on <a href="http://math.ucr.edu/home/baez/crackpot.html">The Crackpot Index</a>.<br />
<br />
<b>Being a crank is a choice.</b><br />
<br />
Myself, as well as other people who are doing real science today, had our own dalliances is various pseudo-sciences. Years ago, I did a lot of examination of UFOs, Velikovsky, ancient astronauts, etc. and was a big fan of it. What can I say, it was the 1970s (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/03/from-pseudo-science-to-real-science.html">From Pseudo-Science to Real Science</a>).<br />
<br />
Pseudo-science certainly has an appeal. Fans of pseudo-science get to feel like they know something special that others do not. The more narcissistic types will probably try and start their own branch of a pseudo-science, cutting-and-pasting ideas from different areas as if they're ordering at a cafeteria.<br />
<br />
But one thing I noticed in common with virtually all the pseudo-scientists I've encountered on this blog and elsewhere is the <i><b>cranks are never actually using their pseudo-science to do anything real in an area impacted by the pseudo-science they advocate.</b></i><br />
<br />
<i>- Electric Sun and Electric Comet supporters make all kinds of claims about the plasma environment of the solar system - but are any of them actually designing and building missions to fly through the environment they claim? </i><br />
<br />
Nope (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html" target="_blank">Challenges for Electric Universe Theorists</a>).<br />
<br />
<i>- Relativity deniers claim special and/or general relativity are wrong, but are any of them designing the next generation, higher precision GPS system? </i><br />
<br />
Nope (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Global%20Positioning%20System" target="_blank">Global Positioning System</a>).<br />
<br />
Pseudo-science is for posers, people who want credit for the real work the did not, and cannot, do themselves.<br />
<br />
But at some point I (and others) made a choice to actually learn some REAL science, science that people use to do REAL stuff, like build leading-edge instruments or send satellites into space.
That required abandoning many self-delusions of grandeur, but it has other, REAL rewards.
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-29630053202944635702015-03-22T19:14:00.000-04:002015-03-22T19:14:00.246-04:00The Perceptions ProjectOn Friday, March 13, 2015, I attended a conference down at the Ronald Reagan Building and International Trade Center in Washington, DC. The conference was part of the <a href="http://perceptionsproject.org/" target="_blank">Perceptions Project</a> sponsored by the <a href="http://www.aaas.org/" target="_blank">AAAS</a>. It is part an effort to build a better bond between scientific and religious communities.<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://perceptionsproject.org/event-items/perceptionsconference/" target="_blank">Perceptions: Science & Religious Communities</a></span><br />
<br />
Science and religion issues are often fought at the extremes. A goal of conference is to improve communication so that more moderate voices in religious community, who also accept science, can make it clear to other religious people, specifically in the evangelical community, that it is not an either-or situation. The conference was focused on the issues of origins, more specifically human origins and issues of global warming/climate change.<br />
<br />
I ran into Eugenie Scott of NCSE shortly before the conference opening. We have met a couple of times before.<br />
<br />
A also ran into a few people whose name I knew, but whom I had never met. I was even surprised by a few who were familiar with this blog.<br />
<br />
Ronald Numbers (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Numbers" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>), author of the book, The Creationists (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Creationists" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) which is a history of the creationist movement mostly since the publication of Darwin's Theory of Evolution. Dr. Numbers autographed my copy of his book. <br />
<br />
Hugh Ross of <a href="http://www.reasons.org/" target="_blank">Reasons To Believe</a>. I have followed some of the work by RTB and have written some on it before, having attended one of their local seminars. I used to follow some RTB podcasts, but they changed their feed a couple of years ago and I failed to follow-up.<br />
<br />
I met the current president of the <a href="http://biologos.org/" target="_blank">Biologos</a> organization, which was originally started by Francis Collins of NIH (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Collins" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). They are a group of Christians who take the extra step of accepting the scientific evidence for human evolution. I don't know that much about this organization, but I plan to do a little more research and might start linking to some of their resources when I want to address the biological evolution aspects in a Christian-friendly way.<br />
<br />
I also had an enjoyable conversation with a member of a local Dominican School (I think he was a student, but he could have been an instructor) who talked about the history of their Order in science. We also discussed some Fundamentalist groups in Catholicism (Wikipedia: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominican_Order" target="_blank">Dominican Order</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus" target="_blank">Albertus Magnus</a>).<br />
<br />The primary emphasis of the conference was that science does not necessarily have to be the enemy of religious belief. <br />
<br />
I've got over six pages of notes from the conference, and may write more about it in the future.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-87081019771895246092015-03-09T19:53:00.000-04:002015-03-09T19:59:07.873-04:00Relativity Denial: Career cost?Yet another comment whose response became too long for the Blogger comment system.<br />
From the comment stream of<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2015/02/pseudo-astro-black-holes-and-other.html"> Pseudo-Astro: Black Holes and Other Relativity Denial:</a><br />
<blockquote>
Ignoring GR/black hole theory does not harm future scientists and their studies of the stars. <br />
<br />
That is unless you can name me one example in which someone studied the stars, and their ignoring of GR/black holes has adversely affected their career?<br />
<br />
Seems to me their acceptance resembles the concept of God in seminary. Believe in them or you shall not pass! LOL! <br />
<br />
-Jeffrey Wolynski </blockquote>
The importance of General Relativity in stellar evolution depends on the nature of the studies. Studies of stellar formation, which occupy the lower density regime of the stellar lifetime, might not have problems ignoring relativity. However, relativity impacts so many additional aspects of atomic physics (atomic absorption and emission in moving flows, etc), that someone who actively ignored the effects would have too many ideas that would just fail under rigorous testing. Before long, such researchers would get no funding because too many of their ideas would fail to match observations or experiments. A number of the real incompetents will claim that they're geniuses being victimized by conspiracies, etc. (<a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/lessons-from-dunning-kruger/" target="_blank">Neurologica: Lessons from Dunning-Krueger</a>). <br />
<br />
At higher density regimes, such as high-mass stars, relativistic effects become important for structural changes due to gravity, and energy production mechanisms, such as pair plasmas. If the researcher wants to claim something other than relativity, they had better be working from an idea that can pass the basic tests where relativity has done well.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://arxiv.org/abs/1312.6698" target="_blank">ArXiv: Observational Evidence for Black Holes</a></li>
<li><a href="http://quantumfrontiers.com/2014/06/20/ten-reasons-why-black-holes-exist/" target="_blank">Quantum Frontiers: Ten reasons why black holes exist</a></li>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tests_of_general_relativity" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Tests of General Relativity</a></li>
</ul>
As for someone who '<i>ignoring GR/black holes adversely affected their career.</i>'<br />
<br />
Adversely affected defined how? I know loads of former grad students who washed out for various reasons. Now days, the real relativity denier rarely makes it to grad school because their relativity denial causes them to flunk other things in doing physics. Instrument precision is now sufficiently high that relativity can impact a number leading-edge laboratory applications (see <a href="http://arstechnica.com/science/2010/09/einsteins-relativity-measured-in-newtons-domain/" target="_blank">ArsTechnica: Einstein’s time dilation apparent when obeying the speed limit).</a><br />
<br />
Then there's active, working applications such as the GPS system (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Global%20Positioning%20System" target="_blank">links</a>)...<br />
<br />
Anyone who denies some component of well-established science limits their own career options. Their chance of useful discoveries is lower, so granting agencies, etc. are less willing to invest in them. <br />
<br />
For the most part, very few of these cranks ever actually become physicists or astronomers, though a large number manage to become engineers. I do know of a few support scientists who advocate various crank ideas, but they're kept on because in some sub-field of their actual employment, they are competent. There are a few I suspect were forced to retire because their crank ideas began to have negative impacts on their professional responsibilities. Engineers engaged in relativity denial are probably competent to do run-of-the-mill engineering, but they won't be qualified for engineering applications requiring high-precision positional or timing information. The engineers in the GPS program who doubted relativity effects in the early days of the program (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/04/scott-rebuttal-i-gps-relativity.html"> Scott Rebuttal. I. GPS & Relativity</a> and related links from the earlier post) are probably long gone.<br />
<br />
If the account manager in a business doesn't believe in sound accounting principles (also backed by mathematics), do you keep them on the job? <br />
<br />
Historically, there are a number of researchers who developed problems with relativity later in their career which had some negative impacts. Arthur Eddington (1882-1944) believed General Relativity, but didn't believe black holes could form (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Eddington" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Arthur Eddington</a>). Later in his career, Eddington got involved in some progressively stranger, and sillier, scientific ideas (see <a href="http://www.math.tohoku.ac.jp/~kuroki/Sokal/misc/bethespoof.html" target="_blank">Bethe's Spoof</a>). Then there was Herbert Dingle (1890-1978) (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Dingle" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) who claimed to demonstrate a logical contradiction from the 'twin paradox' (<a href="http://www.mathpages.com/home/kmath317/kmath317.htm" target="_blank">MathPages: Dingle and the Twins</a>) but this happened after his retirement.<br />
<br />
Relativity is no longer a question of belief, like a fairy tale or religion, any more than the theory of gravity or atoms, or electrons or thermodynamics. It is a matter that you can make numerical predictions that we can compare to observations and measurements and a great majority of them match to high precision.<br />
<br />
While relativity denial might have been justified 50-100 years ago, relativity is now so integrated into techniques and technologies that denying its validity, especially in the realms where it is routinely used, is equivalent to denying the reality of atoms.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-26611789870757820172015-03-03T21:00:00.000-05:002015-03-03T21:00:02.933-05:00Relativity Denial: Messin' with cRelativity, now passing its first century, continues to be one of the bugaboos of pseudo-scientists. In spite of repeated attempts to prove it logically inconsistent, etc. occasionally by professional scientists about 50 years ago, it continues to be one of the best tested physical theories we have. <br /><br />Still, modern-day relativity deniers keep picking up on reports of laboratory experiments which reportedly 'alter' the speed of light. Perhaps they think that such reports indicate relativity is showing a few cracks of impending failure? This thinking is sometimes encouraged by sensationalistic science reporting.<br /><br />Few, okay, probably NONE, of the anti-relativity cranks I've encountered recognize that the results of these experiments are actually <b>predicted</b> due to some rather counter-intuitive effects of the wave nature of light. Such effects are perfectly consistent with relativity and do not signal a 'problem' with the theory. <br /><br />I was recently directed by a commenter (comment to be released when I complete responses to it) arguing against relativity to a paper published under Science Express:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6224/857.abstract." target="_blank">"Spatially structured photons that travel in free space slower than the speed of light."</a> Science, 347(6224):857–860, 2015. doi: 10.1126/science.aaa3035.</blockquote>
I guess they were promoting the paper as evidence that the theory of relativity is about to fall.<br /><br />
<span style="font-family: Times,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">So I read the paper and was not surprised to find that the authors had found<i> another technique for reducing the speed of photons (yes, <a href="http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/1999/02.18/light.html" target="_blank">it has been done before</a>),</i> consistent with propagating them at the group velocity. This method works perfectly within the known relationships of wave phase and group velocities for the same old value of the speed of light, c. Some of this is even described in the introduction to the paper.</span></span><br />
<br />Waves can be described by three different speeds, the wave velocity, c, the phase velocity v_p, and the group velocity, v_g. These three parameters are related by<br />
<br />v_g * v_p = c^2<br />
<br />
which is one of the equations in the second paragraph of the paper. These distinctions are commonly important at microwave frequencies for waveguides. Note that if v_g goes less than c, v_p will always be greater than c and vice versa. <br /><br />As the authors of the paper note, they have significantly reduced the GROUP velocity in empty space of a wave packet by a technique that has not been used before, which works for propagating the photons across free space. The wave velocity, c, as well as other aspects of relativity, is not impacted. There is no violation of established physics here, in spite of some rather odd wording.<br /><br />There were a number of statements in the paper alluding to the fundamental nature of the speed of light:<br />
<blockquote>
"That the speed of light in free space is constant is a cornerstone of modern physics. ''</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The speed of light in free space propagation is a fundamental quantity. It holds a pivotal role in the foundations of relativity and field theory, as well as in technological applications such as time-of-flight measurements."</blockquote>
But I saw nothing in the paper indicating the results had any actual implications for relativity, a point which the authors clarify:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
``Our measurement of group velocity is strictly a measurement of the difference in propagation speed between a reference photon and a spatially structured photon. No direct measurement of the speed of light is made. Within this manuscript, the velocity we measure is strictly the group velocity of the photons"</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
``Beyond light, the effect observed will have applications to any wave theory, including sound waves.''</blockquote>
Notice that the authors do clarify that this result is important for the wave nature of light, but make no mention for any possible impact on relativity.<br /><br />Thanks to Dr. Padgett for helpful feedback clarifying the results of this work.<br />
<h4>
Why do Anti-Relativity Cranks Gravitate to these Stories?</h4>
Like most science fiction fans, myself growing up on the original Star Trek (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>), I've always been fond of the idea of Faster-than-Light travel. Numerous researchers have explored possibilities for object moving faster than light. I was a big fan of tachyons (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachyon" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) when I first read about them in high school and subsequently wrote a review of the physics literature (as it existed up to the late 1970s) as an undergraduate writing project. I do hope that we will one day find a way to get around the limitation for interstellar travel, but I do recognize that the theory that makes it possible will be an EXTENSION of the existing theory of relativity, much like General Relativity is an extension of Newtonian gravity.<br /><br />While this may be the motivation of a number of anti-relativity cranks, there are also a number who are opposed to relativity for social, political, or religious reasons.<br /><br />Perhaps it feeds on the word games which are common in pseudo-science circles. The popular statement used in the scientific community is that nothing can exceed the speed of light. Therefore any report of light traveling slower than the maximum speed means that the statement is not strictly true, and therefore must allow all manner of other possibilities. It's a cute word game, used commonly in politics, religion, and comedy. <br />
<br />
Creationists love to pull these kinds of rabbits out of their hats in debates with evolutionists, as evidence that some important physical law may not be so certain. Catching an opponent by surprise can win points in debate class, but in science, the details and the math matter. <br />
<br />
Reality does not play word games.<br />
<h4>
And why they are Wrong...</h4>
In many popularizations, we like to say that the speed-of-light is the limiting speed in our universe. We call it the 'speed of light' because it was the earliest measurement we had of something traveling at this ultimate speed. <br />
<br />
But it may more correctly be defined by some principle more fundamental, and light just happens to max-out at that speed. Light travels at this speed because the photon is mass-less and the translational symmetry of position and time (no preferred location or time) creates a relationship between rest mass, energy and momentum of particles (a consequence of Noether's Theorem (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noether%27s_theorem" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>). A zero rest-mass particle will always travel at the speed of light. <br /><br />It has been known since the early days of relativity that the Lorentz transformations can be derived WITHOUT the assumption of constancy of the speed of light in all reference frames. The basic assumptions of uniformity in how we measure time and spatial positions in reference frames (basically saying that any clocks and measuring sticks I can use on Earth will behave exactly the same on a spacecraft traveling at high speed relative to Earth) permit TWO different solutions for transformations between moving reference frames. <br /><br />One solution is the Galilean transformations. <br /><br />The other transformation solution defines an invariant velocity. These transformations become the Lorentz transformations if the invariant velocity is equal to what we call the 'speed of light'.<br /><br />Light, under optimum conditions, travels at this cosmic speed limit. There's nothing wrong with it traveling slower.<br />
<h4>
Additional Resources: </h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/content/347/6224/828.summary" target="_blank">Structured Photons Take it Slow. J.R. Sambles</a></li>
<li><a href="https://briankoberlein.com/2015/01/24/need-speed/" target="_blank">One Universe at a Time: Need for Speed</a></li>
<li>Wikipedia: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Group_velocity" target="_blank">Group Velocity</a>, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_velocity" target="_blank">Phase Velocity</a></li>
<li><a href="http://galileoandeinstein.physics.virginia.edu/more_stuff/Applets/sines/GroupVelocity.html" target="_blank">Java Applet Illustrating Group velocity & Phase velocity</a></li>
<li>AstronomyCast: <a href="http://www.astronomycast.com/2015/03/ep-368-searching-for-the-aether-wind-the-michelson-morley-experiment/" target="_blank">Searching for the Aether Wind: the Michelson–Morley Experiment</a></li>
</ul>
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-31751972569270816442015-02-23T19:29:00.000-05:002015-02-23T19:29:00.145-05:00The Real Electric Universe: Inspired by Velikovsky?I find myself with an annoying backlog of posts that are <i>almost</i> ready, along with a bit of "writer's block" on just how to complete them satisfactorily for posting. I'm also preparing some posts related to some inquiries in my comment stream, as well as some 'behind-the-scenes' upgrades to this effort.<br />
<br />
So for a while, I'm going repost and polish up some of the items that I contributed to the recently <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=147374" target="_blank">invigorated "Electric Comet" thread</a> over at the International Skeptics Forum. That thread was rather quiet for a while as it topped 100 pages long, <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288412" target="_blank">but has been continued in a new thread</a>.<br />
<br />
In response to my noting that astronomers and space physicists DO consider electric fields in space (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/365-days-of-astronomy-electric-universe.html">365 Days of Astronomy: The Electric Universe</a>) there was <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?p=10373243#post10373243" target="_blank">one of the claims by the participant Haig which I had not seen before</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: red;">Gee Tom, sounds like your trying to re-write Electromagnetism Space Science history.<br /><br />A major catalyst for independent re-consideration of electricity and magnetism in space came in 1950, with the publication of Immanuel Velikovsky's Worlds in Collision. <br /><br />Mainstream at that time denied Electromagnetism in Space or ANY need for it.</span></blockquote>
My original response to this claim is <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10374804&postcount=2941" target="_blank">here (ISF)</a>, but in this post I'll fill in more of the details.<br />
<br />
I have loads of papers exploring cosmic electrical phenomena prior to the publication of <i>Worlds in Collision</i> in 1950, so Haig's statement is demonstrably false.<br />
<br />
The big jump in the study of electrical phenomena in space was the advent of space flight. With the early high-altitude sub-orbital rockets like Aerobee (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerobee" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) and Viking (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viking_%28rocket%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>), came the prospect that we could do actual measurements of particles and fields in space. The success of the scientific community in contributing technologies for the Allied win of World War II combined with the competition of the coming Cold War made nations around the world expand their efforts to understand the space environment, especially the space near Earth, which could become the next High Frontier.<br />
<br />
But even prior to this, researchers looked for evidence of electric and magnetic fields in space. For a number of years, the difficulty was that most of our knowledge of the space environment came via light, which meant that the most direct measurements of distant magnetic and electric fields came via the Zeeman effect (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeeman_effect" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) and the Stark effect (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stark_effect" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) which affected spectral lines emitted by atoms in the respective fields.<br />
<br />
After setting up geomagnetic observatories around the Earth in the early 1840s with Weber, Carl Gauss (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Friedrich_Gauss" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>, <a href="http://www.phy6.org/earthmag/gauss.htm" target="_blank">Phy6</a>) recognized that most of the geomagnetic field was internal, but some components could be from electric currents high in Earth's atmosphere.<br />
<br />
This is just a <i>subset</i> of the papers that I have found, in English, and read, related to electric fields in space, prior to the publication of <i>Worlds In Collision</i>. In this list, I've not included Birkeland or Alfven's work, though I have referenced those who made use of their work, such as Carl Stormer. This illustrates how these studies were far from limited to researchers promoted by Electric Universe supporters. I've added comments to some of these entries.<br />
<ul>
<li>G. E. Hale. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1912PASP...24..226H" target="_blank">A Sun-Spot Hypothesis.</a> Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 24:226–227, October 1912. doi: 10.1086/122166. <i>Hale speculates that sunspots might have a magnetic structure similar to Birkeland's auroral model, mentioning Birkeland by name. Birkeland's work was known and appreciated by astronomers in the U.S. G.E. Hale was responsible for setting up many observatories in the U.S. (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hale_Observatories" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>).</i></li>
<li>G. E. Hale. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1914PASP...26..146H" target="_blank">The Zeeman and Stark Effects.</a> Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 26:146, June 1914. doi: 10.1086/122319. <i>An interesting quote from the paper: "The important discovery by Stark of the effect of an electric field on radiation is one of the greatest interest to the physicist and may prove of equal value to the astronomer."</i></li>
<li>G. E. Hale and H. D. Babcock. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1915PNAS....1..123H" target="_blank">An attempt to measure the free electricity in the sun’s atmosphere.</a> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 1(3):123–127, March 1915.</li>
<li>C. Stormer. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1917JGR....22...23S" target="_blank">Corpuscular Theory of the Aurora Borealis.</a> Journal of Geophysical Research, 22:23–34, 1917. </li>
<li>V. M. Slipher. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1917LowOB...3...55S" target="_blank">The spectrum of Lightning.</a> Lowell Observatory Bulletin, 3:55–58, 1917. <i>Sometimes when the weather doesn't cooperate for your astronomical spectroscopy, serendipity may provide other observations where specialized observatory equipment can contribute. This is the same V.M. Slipher who did many of the redshifts of extragalactic nebulae which established the cosmic expansion (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vesto_Slipher" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>).</i></li>
<li>H. Spencer Jones. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1918Obs....41...92S" target="_blank">The corpuscular theory of the aurora borealis.</a> The Observatory, 41:92–94, February 1918. <i>Mentions the work of Herbert Goldstein (1881) who was among the first to suggest the Sun sends electrical rays into space.</i></li>
<li>A. Pannekoek. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1922BAN.....1..107P" target="_blank">Ionization in stellar atmospheres (Errata: 2 24)</a>. Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands, 1:107–118, July 1922. </li>
<li>S. Rosseland. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1924MNRAS..84..720R" target="_blank">Electrical state of a star.</a> Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 84:720–728, June 1924. </li>
<li>H. Benioff. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1924PASP...36..200B" target="_blank">The Present Status of the Electrical Theory of Comet Forms. </a>Proceedings of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 36:200–203, August 1924. <i>This paper might be considered as the final stake through the heart of the idea that comets were 'electric discharges'.</i></li>
<li>O. Struve. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1929ApJ....69..173S" target="_blank">The Stark Effect in Stellar Spectra.</a> Astrophysical Journal, 69:173–195, April 1929. doi: 10.1086/143174.</li>
<li>V. C. A. Ferraro. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1930MNRAS..91..174F" target="_blank">A note on the possible emission of electric currents from the sun.</a> Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 91:174–184, November 1930.</li>
<li>C. Stormer. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1930JGR....35..193S" target="_blank">Twenty-Five Years’ Work on the Polar Aurora.</a> Journal of Geophysical Research, 35:193–208, 1930. doi: 10.1029/TE035i004p00193.</li>
<li>R. Gunn. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1931PhRv...37..983G" target="_blank">The Electrical State of the Sun.</a> Physical Review, 37:983–989, April 1931. doi: 10.1103/Phys- Rev.37.983.</li>
<li>T. G. Cowling. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1932MNRAS..93...90C" target="_blank">The electrical conductivity of an ionised gas in the presence of a magnetic field. </a>Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 93:90–98, November 1932.</li>
<li>R. Wildt. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1937MNRAS..97..225W" target="_blank">Note on stellar ionization and electric fields.</a> Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 97:225–231, January 1937. </li>
<li>R. V. D. R. Woolley. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1937Obs....60..235W" target="_blank">The Stark effect in stellar spectra.</a> The Observatory, 60:235–239, September 1937.</li>
<li>L. I. Schiff. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1939PNAS...25..391S" target="_blank">A Question in General Relativity.</a> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 25: 391–395, July 1939. <i>Don't let the title fool you, it actually an examination of the proper way to compute the electric field created by a rotating magnetic dipole by transforming to a rotating reference frame!</i></li>
<li>L. Davis. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1947PhRv...72..632D" target="_blank">Stellar Electromagnetic Fields.</a> Physical Review, 72:632–633, October 1947. doi: 10.1103/Phys- Rev.72.632. <i>Another analysis of the electric fields that would be generated by a rotating star with a magnetic field.</i></li>
<li>R. H. Woodward. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1949JGR....54..387W" target="_blank">a Tentative Model of the Sun.</a> Journal of Geophysical Research, 54:387–396, December 1949. doi: 10.1029/JZ054i004p00387.</li>
<li>V. C. A. Ferraro and H. W. Unthank. <a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1949MNRAS.109..462F" target="_blank">On the Solar Electric Field Engendered by the Rotation of the Sun in its Magnetic Field.</a> Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 109:462–470, 1949.</li>
</ul>
Note that many of these are published in astronomical publications, Astrophysical Journal, The Observatory, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, etc. so the claim by Electric Universe supporters that the astronomical community denied electric fields in space is clearly bogus.<br />
<br />
Electric Universe (EU) advocates continue to deny this long history of the legitimate study of electric fields in space, attempting to rewrite the history. Many of these earlier works ruled out EU claims that comets/planets/stars/galaxies/whatever derive their energy output by electrical means from some still unknown generator. This makes it easy for EU advocates to claim any modern day mention of electric fields in the space science and astronomy community is evidence of <i><b>their</b></i> specific claims. It's rather like a psychic claiming there will be a major earthquake or major celebrity death in the coming year. It's only a surprise to people who don't pay attention to the number of large earthquakes and celebrity deaths occur every year!<br />
<br />
Electric Universe supporters continue their track record of poor scholarship, in additional to supporting a 'theory' that has yet to generate useful predictions for planning space missions (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html"> Challenges for Electric Universe 'Theorists'...</a>).<br />
<h4>
<b>Additional References</b></h4>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAC_Corporal" target="_blank">Wikipedia: WAC Corporal Rocket</a></li>
<li><a href="http://gravmag.ou.edu/mag_earth/mag_earth.html" target="_blank">Earth's Magnetic Field</a></li>
</ul>
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-66092028725060399742015-02-08T19:04:00.000-05:002015-02-08T19:04:00.429-05:00Pseudo-Astro: Black Holes and Other Relativity DenialStuart Robbins @ Exposing PseudoAstronomy has a recent podcast on relativity denial. Check out:<br />
<br /><a href="https://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2015/02/01/podcast-episode-125-the-black-hole-conspiracy/" target="_blank">Podcast Episode 125: The Black Hole Conspiracy</a><br /><br />In this podcast, he covers the mis-information distributed by various individuals on the existence (or non-existence) of black holes.<br /><br />General relativity has always been a rather popular topic on this blog, especially combined with Biblical geocentrism. A number of the threads receive a lot of viewing traffic, but that appears to be predominantly from 'fanboys' of some particular claim or claimant stalking the thread for traffic.<br /><br />I do get a large number of comments on the topic of relativity, but many are posted under radically different topical posts which makes them more like spam. I'm reluctant to release them on the off-topic posts since some cranks subsequently insist on posting page-after-page of cut-n-pasted content in these off-topic threads. I usually just mine those comments for possible topics for future posts.<br /><br />One of the recent off-topic comments in a post stated:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"It's a fallacy that GPS needs relativity. Hell, GPS doesnt even need a CLOCK on the receiver!! One simple implementation of GPS needs a few geostationary satelites that send out signals at the same time, from that the reciever can easily calculate the distance from the difference in time they arrive."</blockquote>
In addition to just posting their comment on a general pseudo-science thread instead of one of the <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Global%20Positioning%20System" target="_blank">many GPS threads on this blog</a> accessible in the 'Labels' sidebar, they didn't even bother to check that I had written about the flaw in this particular claim already:<br /><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/06/relativity-denial-gps-4-satellite.html" target="_blank">Relativity Denial: The GPS 4-Satellite Solution</a><br />
The short answer is the fourth satellite just provides a fourth equation that allows us to solve the system of range equations for the receiver time in addition to the three-axis coordinate position. That receiver time calculation must still include a relativistic correction.<br /><br />Another recent claim from some relativity deniers stated that the "Engineering Manager for GPS" says that relativity is not needed in the GPS system and that only correction to the timing involves the gravitational potential "which has nothing at all to do with GR". I've never quite found out who the 'Engineering Manager for GPS' actually is, as those using that claim never provide a clear reference. I deal with that claim here:<br /><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/10/relativity-denial-importance-of.html" target="_blank">Relativity Denial: The Importance of Dimensional Analysis</a><br /><br />I also cover how the how the 38 micro-second per day accumulation of difference between the ground and GPS clocks actually accumulates into an 11 kilometer per day error accumulation in the system.<br /><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/08/relativity-denial-response-to-more.html" target="_blank">Relativity Denial: A response to more comments about GPS</a><br /><br />In addition, one of the comments mentioned a relativity 'controversy' of many decades ago, involving the science philosopher Herbert Dingle (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Dingle" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). I am in the process of reading many of these papers and hope to post on it in the future.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-29535406695972224602015-01-04T20:20:00.000-05:002015-01-04T20:20:00.560-05:00My Reading List from 2014A short summary of the books I've read in 2014, some for research related to this site and other (including work) projects, some for entertainment. This doesn't include about 100 research papers.
<br />
<hr />
<h2>
Scientific & Technical</h2>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Cover</th><th>Title</th><th>Authors</th><th>ISBN</th></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0XYeo3r6nhs/VKX0Qo_wLyI/AAAAAAAAApw/_mHdiBgdOuM/s1600/1426210175.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0XYeo3r6nhs/VKX0Qo_wLyI/AAAAAAAAApw/_mHdiBgdOuM/s1600/1426210175.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration</b>
<br />
Buzz Aldrin outlines a scenario for sending humans to colonize Mars on a regular basis. I have an autographed copy.</td>
<td width="30%">Buzz Aldrin, Leonard David</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1426210175" target="_blank">1426210175</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FlhZzxVHFVQ/VKX0Qvb9l2I/AAAAAAAAAp8/i4z4ruqrt9w/s1600/1402004672.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FlhZzxVHFVQ/VKX0Qvb9l2I/AAAAAAAAAp8/i4z4ruqrt9w/s1600/1402004672.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Astronomy-Inspired Atomic and Molecular Physics (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)</b>
<br />
Explorations in atomic physics inspired by solutions to problems in astrophysics. It will provide more information for my next iteration of <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/08/cosmos-in-your-pocket-expanded-revised.html" target="_blank">"Cosmos in Your Pocket"</a>.</td>
<td width="30%">A.R. Rau</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1402004672" target="_blank">1402004672</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UbvOsL7PHbM/VKX0ROK8GZI/AAAAAAAAAqE/XqMprb0GgEw/s1600/1449319793.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-UbvOsL7PHbM/VKX0ROK8GZI/AAAAAAAAAqE/XqMprb0GgEw/s1600/1449319793.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<b>Python for Data Analysis: Data Wrangling with Pandas, NumPy, and IPython</b></td>
<td width="30%">Wes McKinney</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1449319793" target="_blank">1449319793</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<b>Is Mars Habitable?</b><br />
In 1907, Alfred Russel Wallace examines Percival Lowell's ideas of a Mars teeming with life.
A fascinating examination of just how much we knew about Mars in the early 1900s.</td>
<td width="30%">Alfred Russel Wallace</td><td><a href="http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10855" target="_blank">Gutenberg.org</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wBHtlSByTJs/VKX0PrYW18I/AAAAAAAAApc/DuONuEkKp9g/s1600/0521004667.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wBHtlSByTJs/VKX0PrYW18I/AAAAAAAAApc/DuONuEkKp9g/s1600/0521004667.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Introduction to Comets (Cambridge Planetary Science)</b>
<br />
This book was one of my primary references for tracking down resources to deal with <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Electric%20Comets" target="_blank">Electric Comet</a> claims. It has also provided substantial information for some Young-Earth creationist comet claims.</td>
<td width="30%">John C. Brandt, Robert D. Chapman</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0521004667" target="_blank">0521004667</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NJC6PnISPLE/VKX0PQXIbEI/AAAAAAAAApQ/mILF9B_K7WY/s1600/0471610119.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-NJC6PnISPLE/VKX0PQXIbEI/AAAAAAAAApQ/mILF9B_K7WY/s1600/0471610119.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Comets: A Chronological History of Observation, Science, Myth, and Folklore</b>
<br />
This book was one of my primary references for tracking down resources to deal with <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/Electric%20Comets" target="_blank">Electric Comet</a> claims. It has also provided substantial information for some Young-Earth creationist comet claims.</td>
<td width="30%">Donald K. Yeomans</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0471610119" target="_blank">0471610119</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<hr />
<h2>
Pseudoscience</h2>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Cover</th><th>Title</th><th>Authors</th><th>ISBN</th></tr>
<tr><td></td>
<td width="40%"><b>Invisible Light or The Electric Theory of Creation</b><br />
I posted a <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/08/reading-invisible-light-or-electrical.html" target="_blank">review and analysis of this book here</a></td>
<td width="30%">George Woodward Warder</td><td></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<hr />
<h2>
History</h2>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Cover</th><th>Title</th><th>Authors</th><th>ISBN</th></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ghHOC-v_BH0/VKX0RM0xLEI/AAAAAAAAAqU/7-GaDLijLKA/s1600/1611457092.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ghHOC-v_BH0/VKX0RM0xLEI/AAAAAAAAAqU/7-GaDLijLKA/s1600/1611457092.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Hitler's Gift: The True Story of the Scientists Expelled by the Nazi Regime</b>
<br />
An examination of the physicists, chemists, biologists, and doctors expelled by the anti-semitic
and anti-science policies of the Nazi regime. Many of these people would make dramatic scientific
contributions for the United States and other Allied countries.</td>
<td width="30%">J. S Medawar, David Pyke</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1611457092" target="_blank">1611457092</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<hr />
<h2>
Book Club & Other Fiction</h2>
<table border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0">
<tbody>
<tr><th>Cover</th><th>Title</th><th>Authors</th><th>ISBN</th></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3JCWVn_Xyyw/VKX0QA12syI/AAAAAAAAApg/qzJTZymL8b8/s1600/0679722610.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-3JCWVn_Xyyw/VKX0QA12syI/AAAAAAAAApg/qzJTZymL8b8/s1600/0679722610.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Red Harvest</b></td>
<td width="30%"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
Dashiell Hammett</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0679722610" target="_blank">0679722610</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-l_k9kCMoBUA/VKX0Qv1JNLI/AAAAAAAAAps/ZArudAtxGrA/s1600/1400034205.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-l_k9kCMoBUA/VKX0Qv1JNLI/AAAAAAAAAps/ZArudAtxGrA/s1600/1400034205.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>The Razor's Edge</b></td>
<td width="30%">W. Somerset Maugham</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1400034205" target="_blank">1400034205</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Gg1SJSBjSU/VKX0PfNhpdI/AAAAAAAAApM/88knx4JSJho/s1600/0316769509.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7Gg1SJSBjSU/VKX0PfNhpdI/AAAAAAAAApM/88knx4JSJho/s1600/0316769509.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Nine Stories</b></td>
<td width="30%">J. D. Salinger</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0316769509" target="_blank">0316769509</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1-18p0H944/VKX0QMhbVDI/AAAAAAAAApk/qAo1KhgUOMI/s1600/0804139024.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-z1-18p0H944/VKX0QMhbVDI/AAAAAAAAApk/qAo1KhgUOMI/s1600/0804139024.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>The Martian: A Novel</b><br />
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe_on_Mars" target="_blank">Robinson Caruso on Mars</a>, updated for the era of space-flight.
Under development as a movie (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_%28Weir_novel%29" target="_blank">The Martian</a>).</td>
<td width="30%">Andy Weir</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0804139024" target="_blank">0804139024</a></td></tr>
<tr><td><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lP0UtGptRbg/VKX0PcU8hMI/AAAAAAAAApU/OW09g0HrWgY/s1600/0307887448.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-lP0UtGptRbg/VKX0PcU8hMI/AAAAAAAAApU/OW09g0HrWgY/s1600/0307887448.png" /></a></div>
</td>
<td width="40%"><b>Ready Player One: A Novel</b></td>
<td width="30%">Ernest Cline</td><td><a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0307887448" target="_blank">0307887448</a></td></tr>
<tr><td></td>
<td width="40%"><b>Islands of Space</b><br />
An early sci-fi novel of interstellar exploration.</td>
<td width="30%">John W. Campbell</td><td><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islands_of_Space" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-15072539376425708782014-12-21T19:24:00.002-05:002014-12-21T19:24:28.529-05:00Electric Comets & A Break for the Holidays...I'm taking a break for a few weeks for the holidays, and hope to polish up a number of posts that have been long overdue (how many times have I said that?).<br />
<br />
Recently I have been participating in the <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6176895dce0974f4d144a6cb66fe2f12&t=147374" target="_blank">Electric Comet thread</a> over at the <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/forumindex.php" target="_blank">International Skeptics Forum</a>.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-14002841350974045482014-12-07T19:08:00.000-05:002014-12-07T19:08:00.048-05:00Electric Comets III: Mass vs. ChargeStuart Robbins at <a href="http://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Exposing PseudoAstronomy</a> has posted <span style="color: black;"><a href="http://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2014/12/01/podcast-episode-121-james-mccanneys-views-on-other-stuff-in-the-universe-part-2/" target="_blank">Part 2 of his critique of James McCanney's odd claims about electric comets and the rest of the universe</a></span>. Definitely worth a listen.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, I'll address some of the claims floating around about the measured mass and density of Comet 67P (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>). By measuring the motion of the Rosetta spacecraft around the comet, they have been able to estimate the mass of the nucleus at about 1e13 kg or 10 trillion kilograms. Current measurements suggest this value is accurate to within about 10%, so future estimates should fall in the 9-11 trillion kilogram range, with some smaller probability that they fall outside that range.<br />
<a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/08/21/determining-the-mass-of-comet-67pc-g/" target="_blank">Rosetta Blog: Determining the Mass of Comet 67P/C-G</a><br />
<br />
This will not be the final word on the comet mass as at various times during the mission, Rosetta will be moved to locations where more precise measurements are possible. Note that the standard model for comets will also expect some rate of mass loss.<br />
<br />
Using that mass estimate and the measured volume of the comet constructed from imagery, we get a mean density of 0.4 gm/cm^3, significantly less than water and around what you expect for the 'dirty snowball' model.<br />
<br />
When I saw this estimate, I considered the possibility that the Electric Universe crowd might claim that this low mass was an artifact of assuming that the attraction was purely gravitational and did not include contributions due to electrostatic repulsion which might occur in one of the many 'electric comet' models. Shortly after I started work on this analysis, I was notified that <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/11/electric-comets-failures-of-electric.html?showComment=1416229088389#c6228914050806233327" target="_blank">this was indeed being claimed by some Electric Comet supporters</a>.<br />
<br />
While Electric Universe supporters continue to make excuses, people with real training in physics can use such claims to determine physical parameters. So we ask the question:<br />
<br />
<b>How much charge would that take to make a dense object appear to be a given lower mass object? </b><br />
<br />
First, we setup the force equation so the gravitational acceleration between the mass of the spacecraft, m, and the perceived mass of the comet, M', vs the real mass, M.<br />
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FpojnMYHbNo/VIOedNGCPXI/AAAAAAAAAo8/9_NVfL6-WGA/s1600/Equation1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-FpojnMYHbNo/VIOedNGCPXI/AAAAAAAAAo8/9_NVfL6-WGA/s1600/Equation1.png" height="43" width="320" /></a><br />
This equation balances the forces so 'real' masses M & m appear to have apparent masses, M' and m (assuming the spacecraft mass, m, is unchanged), if they are carrying charges Q and q, respectively. The fact that both force laws are inverse-square allows distance between the masses, r, to cancel out. This leaves:<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Scn0WJdjjM/VIOedA2g41I/AAAAAAAAAok/ubd0V8pj-B0/s1600/Equation2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Scn0WJdjjM/VIOedA2g41I/AAAAAAAAAok/ubd0V8pj-B0/s1600/Equation2.png" /></a><br />
Then we can re-arrange the terms to solve for the product of the charges Q & q:<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2cu33mS6SkY/VIOedI-JkRI/AAAAAAAAAoo/nLuETChBUIs/s1600/Equation3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-2cu33mS6SkY/VIOedI-JkRI/AAAAAAAAAoo/nLuETChBUIs/s1600/Equation3.png" /></a><br />
Using the fact that mass is density times volume, we can recast this equation into a form more useful for exploration of our question:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9MSyEHe6fI/VIOedr7ch8I/AAAAAAAAAos/sdeOAZd8cJE/s1600/Equation4.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-X9MSyEHe6fI/VIOedr7ch8I/AAAAAAAAAos/sdeOAZd8cJE/s1600/Equation4.png" /></a><br />
Now we have an expression that can tell us about the charge on the comet nucleus and the spacecraft, based on other numbers which we can measure as well as some hypothetical 'real' densities. We don't obtain the actual value of the charge of the comet nucleus, but we now have a constraint that can be combined with other data to tell us more. <br />
<br />
From the form of the equation itself, we see that for the apparent density to be less than the real density, Qq will always be positive, meaning that the charge on the spacecraft and comet must be of the same sign, both positive or both negative. This makes intuitive sense, as the electrostatic force will be repulsive in both cases. But if the charges are of opposite signs, the apparent density will be higher than the real density since now the two objects must be attracting each other through the electrostatic force.<br />
<br />
Let's plug in some numbers. We have the 'apparent density' of the comet, based on the allegedly flawed assumption that gravity is the only important quantity for steering the Rosetta spacecraft.<br />
<br />
We have a mass for the spacecraft, m=1230 kg (assuming the spacecraft is the dry mass defined in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_%28spacecraft%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)<br />
<br />
Apparent comet nucleus density = 0.4 gm/cm^3 = 400 kg/m^3<br />
<br />
Combined with the mass, we can estimate the volume of the nucleus.<br />
V = (1e13 kg / 400 kg/m^3) = 2.5e10 m^3<br />
<br />
Let's assume the real density is closer to that of rocks, say 2 gm/cm^3 or 2000 kg/m^3. Then, using the SI units where epsilon0 = 8.854187817e-12 farads/m, we find<br />
<br />
Qq = 4*3.14159* (8.854187817e-12 F/m ) (6.673e-11 N(m/kg)^2)*(1230 kg)* (2.5e10 m^3) (2000 - 400) kg/m^3<br />
= 3.65e-4 F*N*m<br />
<br />
We can also plot the charge constraints, examining the requirements for several different densities. In the graph below, we plot the spacecraft charge on the x-axis vs. the charge on the comet nucleus (y-axis) for several different values of 'real' density. Plotted logarithmically, different values of Qq form straight lines for the different density values.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FXrxYmyXhk/VIObJW3LeqI/AAAAAAAAAoY/j_7PbyWC_iw/s1600/67P-massvscharge.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/--FXrxYmyXhk/VIObJW3LeqI/AAAAAAAAAoY/j_7PbyWC_iw/s1600/67P-massvscharge.png" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
While we don't know the charge on either the comet nucleus or the Rosetta spacecraft, we now know the product of these quantities. This provides us with options to examine. <br />
<br />
One thing we should note is the surprisingly small value of this quantity. If the comet carried a charge of 1 coulomb, then the spacecraft would be charged to 3.65e-4 coulombs. You can charge a small capacitor to one coulomb. It isn't that much charge. If the comet were charged to 100 coulombs, then the spacecraft would be charged to 3.6e-6 coulombs, or 3 millionths of a coulomb. The higher the charge on the comet nucleus, the smaller the charge on the spacecraft must be to explain the density discrepancy Electric Comet supporters advocate. Similarly, we could place more charge on the spacecraft than the comet.<br />
<br />
Of course, this claim has loads of other implications, none of which we've seen explored by the Electric Comet advocates or their 'theorists'. Let's examine some of these questions. We'll see if we get any real answers from Electric Comet supporters. Some of these I'll explore in a future post.<br />
<br />
The comet nucleus is traveling through the solar wind, which is a plasma, free electrons, free protons, and a fraction of heavier ions.<br />
<ul>
<li>How much of this plasma does the comet nucleus intercept? How long would it take for the charge on the nucleus to neutralize? You need to compute or at least estimate the projected geometric area of the comet nucleus.</li>
<li>Step it up a notch and consider not just how much of the solar wind will be intercepted by the comet's geometrical profile, but how much additional charged material is attracted to the nucleus from beyond this region due to the electrostatic attraction of the comet. Now how long will it take for the nucleus to neutralize charge? What happens then, and why?</li>
<li>Is the amount of additional charge attracted (most likely solar protons) sufficient to explain the amount of OH and water production measured per the Thornhill model for the comet OH emission? (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/electric-comets-ii-of-water-ice.html">Electric Comets II. Of Water & Ice</a>).</li>
<li>The constraint above means a very small amount of charge could be on comet as well as spacecraft. In the solar wind plasma, one might expect that non-uniformities in the solar wind might fluctuate substantially, perhaps even occasionally charging up objects with the OPPOSITE charge. If it manages to do that on only one of the objects in the comet/spacecraft system, this repulsion can suddenly become attraction. Therefore, in the electric comet model it is possible that the comet might suddenly appear MORE massive. With such small values of charge on the comet or spacecraft sufficient to explain the density discrepancy, it may certainly be possible for one of the objects to accumulate charge of the opposite sign and make the comet appear not just more massive, but significantly more massive. What navigational issues does this present for Rosetta?</li>
</ul>
And of course there's the persistent question about Electric Universe models that remain unanswered:<br />
<ul>
<li>How would/could a net charge on the comet nucleus be maintained in interplanetary plasma?</li>
<li>Where's the battery or generator that maintains the potential between the comet nucleus and the solar wind?</li>
</ul>
<b>Exercise for Readers</b><br />
It might be tempting for Electric Universe supporters to use the analysis above as evidence that planetary bodies might carry significant electric charge which alters our estimates of planetary masses. While the analysis above works easily for two bodies, I'll suggest it as an exercise for the reader to determine what happens for three or more bodies which will disrupt simplistic attempts to re-interpret solar system dynamics.<br />
<b> </b><br />
<b>Other Notes: </b><br />
<ul>
<li>For another challenge for the geniuses of the Electric Universe, see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/11/electric-comets-failures-of-electric.html?showComment=1417677616109#c384631900709791064" target="_blank">my response to a comment from Lodaya</a>.<span style="color: red;"> </span></li>
<li><span style="color: red;"><a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/" target="_blank"><span style="color: black;">Rosetta Blog </span></a></span></li>
<li><a href="http://sci.esa.int/rosetta/35061-instruments/?fbodylongid=1644" target="_blank">Plasma instrument on Rosetta</a></li>
<li>A long-running and recently restarted <a href="http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?s=6176895dce0974f4d144a6cb66fe2f12&t=147374" target="_blank">Electric Comet discussion is ongoing over at the International Skeptics Forum.</a> </li>
</ul>
For reference, here's some of the standard Electric Universe Excuse set I've seen:<br />
<br />
<b>1) The irregular shape of the nucleus makes it impossible to determine precise values for the area/spacecraft mass/some other variable.</b><br />
- We're just trying to get estimates here. Real scientists and engineers do these types of estimations all the time. You can at least estimate a maximum and minimum for the area and examine the implications of that.<br />
<br />
<b>2) The problem is non-linear and therefore unsolvable.</b><br />
- Real scientists and engineers solve non-linear systems all the time. Multi-target spacecraft trajectories, weather forecasting, etc. 'Non-Linear' is not a total roadblock for people who know what they're doing.<br />
<br />
<b>3) This model does not include effect 'X', therefore it does not apply to Electric Comets and they will not address it.</b><br />
- Then include effect 'X'.<br />
<br />
<b>4) These problems come from someone who is an enemy of Electric Universe theory/fails to treat Electric Universe theories with appropriate respect so therefore their objections can be ignored.</b><br />
- Bad news dudes, if other scientists who actually do spacecraft missions saw your claims and actually looked at them, they would insist on answers to these questions and more before they trust electric comet advocates to multi-million dollar/euro equipment.<br />
<br />
<b>5) Electric Universe 'theorists' have no way to verify that these claims would actually be made by other scientists so they will not be addressed by Electric Universe supporters.</b>W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-5504986597415404772014-12-02T19:33:00.000-05:002014-12-02T19:33:00.467-05:00Geocentrism: According to Hoyle? This is another post in the followups to the claim that Geocentrists @ Galileo Was Wrong (GWW). Specifically, this is a partial response to the post:<br />
<br />
<a href="http://galileowaswrong.com/newton-versus-einstein-the-physics-of-alec-macandrew/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GWW: Newton versus Einstein: The “Physics” of Alec MacAndrew</a><br />
<br />
I found this post particularly entertaining as Mr. Sungenis wants to lecture someone with actual training in physics when the Geocentrists' understanding of the topic is so poor that they must do their 'physics' by copying old texts (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/geocentrism-flunking-lagrange-point.html" target="_blank">Geocentrism: Flunking the Lagrange Point Challenge</a>) and trying to pass off the standard, non-Geocentric, technique of computing the Lagrange points as supporting Sungenis' particular flavor of Geocentrism.<br />
<br />
To clarify, when I'm talking about the equivalence of coordinate systems in the relativistic sense, I try to refer to it as geocentric with a lower-case 'g', since this treatment works for ANY point you which to choose as a center. If I'm talking about geocentrism where the claim is Earth a center in some kind of absolute sense, I'll use Geocentric, with an upper-case 'G'. I'll try to avoid using these terms at the start of sentences, where ambiguity might result.<br />
<br />
But the topic I wish to specifically address in this post is Mr. Sungenis' quote-mining of Fred Hoyle (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) to support his position. Sungenis does this using HIS twisted definitions of terms rather than those meant by the person he is quoting, but then this is the standard for the practice of quote-mining (<a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quote_mining" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>).<br />
<br />
The particular reference Sungenis uses is Fred Hoyle's book, "<i>Nicolaus Copernicus: An Essay on his Life and Work</i>" written in 1973 (<a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Nicolaus_Copernicus.html?id=vFnvAAAAMAAJ" target="_blank">Google Books</a>).<br />
<br />
In this book, written for popular audiences, Hoyle invokes relativity (the equivalence of ALL reference frames) to make the point that we can just as easily consider the universe as centered on the Earth, as well any other point. <br />
<br />
The most telling example of Sungenis' distortions is, in quoting Hoyle from "<i>Nicolaus Copernicus: An Essay on his Life and Work</i>", p. 82. he quotes Hoyle a little TOO much...<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"we can take either the Earth or the Sun, <b>or any other point for that matter,</b> as the center of the solar system." (emphasis mine). </blockquote>
Sungenis quotes, but conveniently ignores, the full implications of Hoyle's meaning with this statement, instead choosing Hoyle's mention of the equivalence of the 'geocentric' view to spin the statement into claiming Hoyle supports Geocentrism with Earth as some absolute cosmic center. I'm surprised Sungenis didn't make that clause disappear with ellipsis...<br />
<br />
Hoyle was not a Geocentrist in the sense of claiming the Earth can be the center of the universe in any absolute sense, but advocating geocentrism as a frame of reference chosen for convenience (much the same as Phil Plait's argument at <a href="http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2010/09/14/geocentrism-seriously/" target="_blank">Geocentrism? Seriously?</a> and <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocentrism-does-nasa-use-geocentrism.html">Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism?</a>) where we can chose Earth, or any other point, as the origin for our coordinate system. THAT is the underlying basis of relativity which Sungenis tries to ignore and evade. Hoyle could just as correctly chosen Mars, or Saturn, or gamma Andromedae or the M33 galaxy as the center, with no loss of generality. But, since Hoyle was writing for a lay audience, he probably chose Earth for familiarity.<br />
<br />
Of course, that freedom of choosing the 'center' at another location comes with a price, most notably the additional mathematical complexity. In Newtonian physics, it is the inclusion of such things as centripetal forces. But in the Einstein and Mach formulation, the metric (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metric_tensor_%28general_relativity%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) actually carries this information along. All the complex terms which appear in the Newtonian formulation don't show up until you explicitly derive the equations of motion for a specified coordinate system and frame of reference.<br />
<br />
This makes the Geocentrists failure of the <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/11/geocentrism-flunking-lagrange-point.html" target="_blank">Lagrange Point challenge</a> even funnier. If they want to argue relativity now, even if incorrectly, they should have done a relativistic derivation of the Lagrange points. Though it probably would have been quite a challenge to find one already worked out for them to copy unless they know a graduate student doing General Relativity who might have done it as part of a homework assignment...<br />
<br />
Fred Hoyle is often quoted by creationists and similar pseudo-scientists for his opposition to Big Bang cosmology. Creationists conveniently ignore that one of the reasons Hoyle, and a number of others who argue against BBC, do so because of its suggested religious analogies (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/01/is-big-bang-cosmology-creationist-model.html">Is Big Bang Cosmology a 'Creationist' Model?</a>). Fred Hoyle was an interesting individual, who had made a significant professional reputation for himself in nuclear astrophysics, but was also often fighting for the underdog or for someone whom he feels was wronged by 'the system'. In this area, Hoyle is probably best known for his support for Jocelyn Bell (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jocelyn_Bell_Burnell" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) for credit on the discovery of pulsars. <br />
<br />
<h3>
Other References and Notes</h3>
<ul>
<li><a href="http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Hoyle.html" target="_blank">MacTutor: Sir Fred Hoyle</a></li>
<li>The expression "according to Hoyle" may be familiar to card game enthusiasts (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edmond_Hoyle" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Edmond Hoyle</a>). </li>
<li><b>Some Personal recollections of Fred Hoyle:</b> I had the opportunity to meet Fred Hoyle when my Ph.D. advisor invited him to Clemson in 1992. Hoyle even autographed my copy of his book <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diseases_from_Space" target="_blank">"Diseases from Space"</a>. The fact that I have this book does not mean I endorse any or all the ideas presented within. </li>
</ul>
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-45929946200879939502014-11-23T19:15:00.000-05:002014-11-23T19:15:00.629-05:00Electric Comets II. Of Water & IceFirst, I want to say congratulations to the team that built and operated Rosetta & Philae to a successful rendezvous and landing on the nucleus of comet <span dir="auto">67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/67P/Churyumov%E2%80%93Gerasimenko" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>).</span><br />
<br />
The really funny part about this is that if the space environment around the Sun were really as different from the mainstream science model as Electric Universe advocates want to claim (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html"> Challenges for Electric Universe 'Theorists'...</a>), the Rosetta mission would not have been the level of success that it has been so far - the spacecraft would have been fried long ago from the voltages induced within by the various 'Electric Sun' models (particularly those noted in <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/death-by-electric-universe-ii-solar.html">Death by Electric Universe. II. The Solar Capacitor Model</a>, <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/death-by-electric-universe-iv-z-pinch.html">Death by Electric Universe. IV. The Z-Pinch (Solar Resistor) Model</a>).<br />
<br />
The simple explanation is that the Electric Universe model for the heliospheric environment and comets is blatantly wrong.<br />
<br />
Probably because of this event, my first Electric Comet page (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/11/electric-comets-failures-of-electric.html">Electric Comets: Failures of the Electric Comet Model</a>) has been receiving a lot of traffic of late, so it seemed time to assemble some additional items I've collected for an update. <br />
<br />
Stuart Robbins has also put together a podcast on James McCanney's "Electric Comet" claims (<a href="http://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/2014/11/18/episode-120-james-mccanneys-views-on-comets-part-1/" target="_blank">Exposing PseudoAstronomy: Episode 120: James McCanney’s Views on Comets, Part 1</a>). Stuart does a detailed explanation of how we determine the temperature of comets and know that they are cold, not hot. He also talks about how McCanney denies that water has been found in previous (and current) comet observations, as well as McCanney's failed predictions for the passages of comets ISON (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet_ISON" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) and Siding Spring (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C/2013_A1" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) near Mars.<br />
<br />
In spite of the denials of Electric Comet advocates, Rosetta has made a number observations that fit major predictions of the standard "dirty snowball" comet (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comet" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Comet</a>), most notably the detection of water vapor and carbon dioxide, very close to the comet.<br />
<ul>
<li>ESA, June 2014: <a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/06/23/first-detection-of-water-from-67pc-g/" target="_blank">First detection of water from 67P/C-G</a></li>
<li>ESA, September 2014: <a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/09/15/miro-bathes-in-water-vapour/" target="_blank">MIRO bathes in water vapour</a></li>
<li>ESA, November 2014: <a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/11/07/virtis-detects-water-and-carbon-dioxide-in-comets-coma/" target="_blank">VIRTIS detects water and carbon dioxide in comet’s coma.</a> Note the production rate is increasing as it gets closer to the Sun (0.3 liters/second in June 2014, increasing to 1-5 liters/second in July-August 2014)</li>
</ul>
Wal Thornhill has created a little 'story' to explain these observations but for his model, the combination of the raw atomic material to form water must take place further out (see <a href="https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2014/10/27/predictions-for-comet-science-after-rosetta/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Thunderbolts: Predictions for Comet Science After Rosetta</a>):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In our recent Space News on Rosetta, we noted that electrochemical processes, not dissimilar to those proposed in peer-reviewed papers for Mercury’s putative ice deposits and water in the lunar soil, may in fact be responsible for the signal of “water” appearing in the comet’s coma—a potential game changer in comet science. As Wal Thornhill explains, “The cathode jets strip and ionize atoms of oxygen from minerals on the comet and accelerate the negative ions away in a fine jet. The oxygen ions then combine with the protons in the solar wind to form the hydroxyl radical, OH, which was mistakenly assumed to be evidence of an ultraviolet breakdown product of water molecules from the comet. Oxygen and hydrogen have both been found in the comet’s coma, by the Rosetta ultraviolet spectrometer.”</blockquote>
But there's some more predictions implied by this model which Thornhill ignores, or evades...<br />
<ul>
<li><i>How much hydrogen would need to be collected from the solar wind by the nucleus to explain the observed rate of water produced each second?</i> Note for the case of Mercury and the Moon, water is forming on a rocky world over billions of years, while the comet expels quite a lot with each orbit of the Sun.</li>
<li><i>How much charge would need to be on the nucleus to collect this amount of hydrogen?</i> </li>
</ul>
I've also heard some claims that the low density (0.4 gm/cm^3, less than water) of the comet nucleus inferred from the spacecraft motion could be the result of electrostatic repulsion between the spacecraft and nucleus. <br />
<br />
Both of these claims provide information on the alleged charge of the comet nucleus, and the spacecraft. Once you have that, there are a number of other forces, such as the Lorentz force (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorentz_force" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Lorentz Force</a>), which will act on both the spacecraft and the comet and would alter it compared to the predominantly gravitational trajectory assumed for piloting Rosetta to 67P/<span dir="auto">Churyumov–Gerasimenko</span>. More on these in a future post.<br />
<h4>
Should We Expect to See Patches of Ice on a Comet Nucleus?</h4>
Some people, including some astronomers, have commented that they were surprised that they did not find patches of ice in close-up views of the comet nucleus. But one needs to ask, <i>would you expect to see surface ice in the standard comet model?</i><br />
<br />
Consider the measured surface temperature for 67P using the VIRTIS instrument (<a href="http://blogs.esa.int/rosetta/2014/09/08/virtis-maps-comet-hot-spots/" target="_blank">ESA: VIRTIS maps comet 'hot spots'</a>) was 205K (-68 C = -91 F) in mid-July 2014 when the comet was about 3.75 AU from the Sun, definitely still a bit of a deep freeze. A simple radiation balance calculation (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_temperature" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Effective Temperature</a>) for the temperature of an object at this distance from the Sun gives (using 0.00468Astronomical Units for the solar radius):<br />
<br />
5780K * sqrt( 0.00468AU / 3.75AU ) = 204K <br />
<br />
which is pretty good agreement for an object of low albedo (about 4%) and high emissivity. For perihelion for 67P, at 1.24AU, we might expect the temperature to reach 355K (82 C = 180F), assuming emissivity and albedo remain about the same (which we can be pretty certain will not hold true). <br />
<br />
To make ice patches on the comet would require temperatures and pressures high enough for liquid water to form from the ice, collect into patches, and then re-freeze. At temperatures below 0 C and pressures below 0.006 atmospheres, water cannot exist in liquid form as we note from the phase diagram (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Phase Diagram</a>).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_diagram_of_water.svg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/08/Phase_diagram_of_water.svg" height="270" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Phase Diagram for Water (Credit: <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase_diagram" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
In these ranges of temperature and pressure along the bottom of the graph, common in the space environment, water goes directly from a solid to a gas. Near perihelion, the temperature will be high enough to form liquid at higher atmospheric pressures, but against the vacuum of space, water would sublimate to a gas before liquifying. So even when the temperature got above 0 C, the pressure in space, even close to the Sun, will not get high enough to form liquid water that could refreeze into an obvious patch of ice.<br />
<br />
In the low-gravity environment of the comet nucleus, another question is how would the water collect into a puddle to make an ice-patch? Water molecules do have attractive forces between them which are the basis of surface tension, the reason why water makes a meniscus (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meniscus" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) in containers and collects into spheres on the International Space Station (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZEdApyi9Vw&list=UUYKfAzPEXMQsGtNfBCNa_BA&index=5" target="_blank">YouTube:<span class="watch-title long-title" dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="Space Station Astronauts Grow a Water Bubble in Space"> Space Station Astronauts Grow a Water Bubble in Space</span></a>).<br />
<br />
The water and other volatiles out-gassing are so mixed in the with the other material of the nucleus that they may not appear to emit from a distinct patch of the comet.<br />
<br />
But next we could ask: <i>Is there a way the pressure and temperature on the comet could increase sufficiently for liquid water to form and subsequently re-freeze to ice?</i> <br />
<br />
I can imagine possible impact scenarios where temperatures and pressures during a collision might be sufficient to convert water into liquid form that could refreeze, however, I've not yet done a detailed calculation for that scenario. <br />
<br />
Some astronomers have made this claim and it has been picked up by a number of pseudo-sciences. But it is fair to ask if the idea is based on an actual examination of the physics of the conditions, or a seat-of-the-pants guess or speculation, most likely based on our everyday experience with water and ice in our Earth-temperatures and atmospheric pressure?<br />
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-76464244593084762072014-11-09T17:41:00.000-05:002014-11-09T17:59:08.300-05:00Yet Another Claimed Stake-through-the-Heart of Big Bang Cosmology?Another comment, posted under a different topic (<span style="color: black;"><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/12/paper-illustrating-more-of-crothers.html?showComment=1414450218971#c5027228869388056424" target="_blank">"A Paper Illustrating More of Crothers' Relativity ..."</a></span>) and copied here to address: <br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: purple;"><a href="http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141025-dwarf-galaxies-dim-dark-matter-hopes/">http://www.quantamagazine.org/20141025-dwarf-galaxies-dim-dark-matter-hopes/</a><br /><br />Please publish this if you dare :)<br /><br />You can sell your diploma on eBay.<br /><br />Don't forget to include some lollipops in order to get buyers. Sucking is a great way to spend an afternoon. Sure, you should know all about it, you've spend years sucking it.<br /><br />Post this comment if you dare. I'll be watching, you preposterous asshole. </span></blockquote>
Perhaps the commenter didn't actually read the article, or did they not think beyond the title?<br />
<br />
The article describes recent observations by the Fermi Large-Area Telescope which rule out particular, but not all, models for Dark Matter. It's part of the regular process of science and the researchers have done credible work. Why would I not post it? <br />
<br />
The solar neutrino problem when through a similar process for many years of narrowing down what the solution <i>couldn't</i> be while we improved detector technology to the point we could actually detect the 'missing' neutrinos. See <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/06/neutrino-oscillations-yet-another-blow.html">Neutrino Oscillations: Yet Another Blow Against Non-nuclear Stellar Energy..., </a><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/falsifying-scientific-models.html">Falsifying Scientific Models)</a><br />
<br />
How many years since prediction to detection of the Higgs boson? 48 years. And that was one we expected to find in the laboratory (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_boson" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>). It also had a number of 'hiccups' along the way to its confirmation.<br />
<br />
Loads of other things were added to the list of contributions to Dark Matter (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baryonic_dark_matter" target="_blank">wikipedia: baryonic dark matter</a>) before we got to the level that everything but a previously undetected particle was all that remained (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_matter" target="_blank">wikipedia: Dark Matter</a>).<br />
<h4>
There They Go Again...</h4>
Shall we go into all the times that someone has pointed to one story claiming it was the stake through the heart of Big Bang cosmology? A few months, or sometimes even years later, the problem ceases to be an issue due to<br />
<ul>
<li>an error made in the research result, either in the observations or the theoretical understanding;</li>
<li>a recognition that another process, within the context of the standard model, explained the discrepancy; </li>
<li>a larger data survey with better instruments finds the 'anomaly' isn't as anomalous as first thought.</li>
</ul>
Let's go over just a few in recent history, some of which I have explored here:<br />
<ul>
<li><b>Galaxy rotation curves</b> can be explained by giant Birkeland currents criss-crossing the cosmos. Except the expected microwave emission of the currents were never detected (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/06/scott-rebuttal-ii-peratt-galaxy-model.html">Scott Rebuttal. II. The Peratt Galaxy Model vs. the Cosmic Microwave Background)</a>.</li>
<li><b>Groups of galaxies, particularly quasars clusters, were too large to be consistent with large-scale uniformity in Big-Bang cosmology</b>. But, as noted at "Eyes on the ICR", this is not the first time that has happened and was found to not be that much of a problem as more data were collected (<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20597-largest-cosmic-structures-too-big-for-theories.html" target="_blank">New Scientist: Largest cosmic structures 'too big' for theories</a>, <a href="http://physics.aps.org/articles/v4/47" target="_blank">American Physical Society Viewpoint: Cosmic smoothness</a>, <a href="http://eyeonicr.wordpress.com/2013/01/18/the-huge-large-quasar-group/" target="_blank">Eye on the ICR: The Huge Large Quasar Group</a>)</li>
<li>Consider the laundry-list of <b>'anomalies' reported in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB)</b>:<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2011ApJS..192...17B" target="_blank"> Seven-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Are There Cosmic Microwave Background Anomalies?</a> My favorite CMB anomaly are Stephen Hawking's initials (SH) visible in the data. It even shows up in PLANCK. See a popular-level summary at <a href="http://www.universetoday.com/55200/seven-year-wmap-results-no-theyre-not-anomalies/" target="_blank">Universe Today: Seven-Year WMAP Results: No, They’re NOT Anomalies</a></li>
<li><b>Arp's discordant redshifts. </b> The real solution was a simple application of 3-D perspective (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/06/discordant-redshifts-post-mortem.html">Discordant Redshifts: A Post-Mortem</a>). </li>
<li><b>'Quantized' redshifts. </b> Why is it that every researcher finding 'quantization' are always doing a 1-dimensional Cartesian power spectrum on a RADIAL distribution (that isn't even spherically symmetric) constructed from a 3-D data set? Why does it not occur to those researchers that improper application of an analysis tool will generate a flawed result? Why doesn't this 'quantization' appear in work where the proper 3-D power spectrum is computed?<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2008/09/john-hartnetts-cosmos-1-introduction.html"> John Hartnett's Cosmos. 1. Introduction</a>, <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2008/10/john-hartnetts-cosmos-2-methodologies.html">John Hartnett's Cosmos. 2. Methodologies</a>, <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/05/quantized-redshifts-xi-my-designer.html">Quantized Redshifts XI. My Designer Universe Meets Some Data and What's Next...</a></li>
</ul>
And this is just the short list...<br />
<br />
The funny part is that many of these claims rely on the observation being an extreme outlier in the statistical significance. But yes, sometimes you can roll a five ten consecutive times on a die.<br />
<br />
With the range of evidence that the universe was smaller in the past, and still expanding today, those who expect one or a few of these types of observations to overthrow Big Bang cosmology are overly optimistic. These anomalies don't make the other evidence go away.<br />
<br />
Then there's the research groups that release their results a little TOO soon, before they've made reasonable error checks. This also winds up feeding a number of crackpot claims. Consider the recent BICEP2 fiasco which released their results to the press too soon, before others could check the results.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://glenmartin.wordpress.com/2014/07/05/bicep2-redux-how-the-sausage-is-made/" rel="bookmark">GlenMartin: BICEP2 Redux: How the Sausage is Made</a></li>
<li><a href="http://www.quantamagazine.org/20140921-big-bang-signal-could-all-be-dust-planck-says/" target="_blank">QuantaMagazine: ‘Big Bang Signal’ Could All Be Dust</a></li>
<li><a href="http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2014/sep/22/bicep2-gravitational-wave-result-bites-the-dust-thanks-to-new-planck-data" target="_blank">Physics World: BICEP2 gravitational wave result bites the dust thanks to new Planck data</a></li>
<li><a href="http://phys.org/news/2014-09-evidence-gravity-clouded-interstellar.html" target="_blank">Phys.Org: Evidence of gravity waves clouded by interstellar dust</a></li>
<li><a href="http://phys.org/news/2014-09-trumpet.html" target="_blank">Phys.Org: The risks of blowing your own trumpet too soon on research</a> </li>
</ul>
A little patience would have saved the BICEP2 researchers a lot of embarrassment, not to mention their work being picked up by crank science sites claiming the failure was predicted by THEIR theory. <br />
<br />
Note that it is rarely (never?) the crackpot group that actually finds the error in the analysis or experiment. The interesting part is that it is often the supporters of Big Bang cosmology or the standard model in question (such as those working with the Fermi mission data) that clearly identify the problems.<br />
<h4>
Conspiracies and Cover-ups</h4>
So why would the commenter suggest I would not post it?<br />
<br />
Probably because in the world of advocates of pseudo-science, the 'Truth', or at least the 'Truth' they are trying to sell, is covered up or cloaked by conspiracies. Pseudo-science thrives on the notion that it is some 'conspiracy' of mainstream science to silence them. The fact that their ideas don't work when subjected to rigorous testing, is irrelevant to them. I find it very interesting that some studies suggest those who believe
in these types of conspiracies are reflecting a segment of their own
mindset (<a href="http://www.psmag.com/navigation/books-and-culture/belief-in-conspiracies-linked-to-machiavellian-mindset-30295/" target="_blank">Pacific Standard:Belief in Conspiracies Linked to Machiavellian Mindset</a>).<br />
<br />
But legitimate science cannot survive in that type of environment.<br />
<br />
Note that the researchers who reported the results in the above experiment, or the errors in the BICEP2 results, are not advocates of some radically different cosmology such as Plasma Cosmology or other Electric Universe variant or even Creationists. They may support some other variant of the Dark Matter problem, but they pretty much support the standard cosmology. They are researchers whose goal is to report their observations and their analyses faithfully, even when the results may be at odds with the dominant model. <br />
<br />
Contrast the behavior of legitimate scientists to that of pseudo-scientists. <br />
<br />
The fact is that advocates of these 'alternatives' are RARELY the ones who actually expose the flaw in the experiment or analysis that invalidates the result. The pseudo-scientists usually rant and claim the results aren't correct, but when someone else does the work to define the error, they pat themselves on the back chanting that they "knew it all along". Of course, the pseudo-scientists don't talk about all the times they claimed the mainstream results were wrong but an error WASN'T found and the results were reinforced by later research.<br />
<br />
How often do we see posts at Thunderbolts.info or the various creationists and similar forums on the problems implied by their pet cosmologies? Pseudo-scientists are quick to jump on a handful of seemingly out-of-place and anomalous observations from mainstream science while conveniently ignoring the far larger successful body of evidence which supports the mainstream cosmology to the exclusion of their pet cosmology.<br />
<br />
Have we seen any serious effort at Thunderbolts.info addressing the basic problems of their models which I've summarized at<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html"> Challenges for Electric Universe 'Theorists'...</a>? Electric Universe supporters have yet to address the problem of space weather prediction which is explained and even predicted by the standard model far better than anything from the Electric Sun advocates. Electric Universe advocates ignore and evade these issues, even when billions of dollars of space asset and the lives of astronauts are at risk.<br />
<br />
So it begs the question, just who is engaged in a cover-up or conspiracy to hide data contradictory to their model?<br />
<br />
<div class="post-title entry-title">
<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/09/on-motivated-rejection-of-science.html">On the Motivated Rejection of Science</a></div>
W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-12550048341400490212014-11-02T19:38:00.000-05:002014-11-03T18:27:42.526-05:00Geocentrism: Flunking the Lagrange Point ChallengeIt was recently brought to my attention that the Geocentrists at <a href="http://galileowaswrong.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Galileo Was Wrong"</a> (GWW) have actually attempted to meet my Lagrange Point challenge (<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/09/geocentrism-galileo-was-wrong.html?showComment=1289276064541#c4860573697301235463" target="_blank">Rick DeLano's original claim that geocentrism can explain Lagrange Points, and my specification of the challenge</a>).<br />
<br />
Here's the conditions I had defined in the link above:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Since this is a fairly straightforward analysis in a Newtonian and non-geocentric framework that undergraduate physics students are expected to do (and I have done it), you are required to prove that this analysis has been done in the physically geocentric model. <br />
<br />
Identify all five Lagrangian points using a strictly geocentric calculation with full mathematical detail FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES, i.e. the claimed geocentric physics behind it, presenting the equations of motion, etc. (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lagrangian_point" target="_blank">Wikipedia - lagrange points</a>). Post the solution on a web site and send me the link. The positional solutions must be identical to those found in Newtonian non-geocentric case and should properly identify the Lagrange points of the Earth-Sun system (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QHPAkR1FKwk" target="_blank">STEREO @ L4 & L5</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VH3Y-OfHnI" target="_blank">Sentinels of the Heliosphere at L1</a>, <a href="http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/mission/observatory_l2.html" target="_blank">WMAP @ L2</a>), the Earth-Moon system (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crB1LKcGpAk" target="_blank">ARTEMIS at L1 & L2</a>), and the Sun-Jupiter system (Trojan asteroids). Note that operating missions have made, or are making use of up to four of the five points. We've not yet found a good use for L3 points that warrants a visit.<br />
<br />
And no cheating - claiming that the result is the same as the non-geocentric case with a coordinate transformation to the geocentric frame is physically indistinguishable from the frame of reference designation - which can be done anywhere in the universe and makes all frames equivalent. There is no universal or physically preferred rest frame by this method on any scale less than the CMB.</blockquote>
Note that one of the requirements of this challenge is that the analysis must be FUNDAMENTALLY in the geocentric frame. <br />
<br />
<b>Doing the analysis in the the standard Newtonian framework and then translating to an Earth-centered frame does not qualify as this is a step that can be done for ANY point and so does not actually treat Earth as a preferred center in any absolute sense. </b><br />
<br />
The original post at GWW is available here: <a href="http://galileowaswrong.com/determining-lagrange-points-in-a-geocentric-system/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"A Geocentric Solution to the Three-Body Problem" Prepared by Gerard Bouw, Ph.D.</a> (last retrieved November 1, 2014. The file metadata show a creation date of July 18, 2014 and a modification date of August 7, 2014). While in the original challenge I requested that I be notified of publication of the document, I did not hear about it until a little later, from the folks at <a href="http://geocentrismdebunked.org/">GeocentrismDebunked.org</a>.<br />
<br />
On August 22, 2014, Dr. MacAndrew posted an examination of Dr. Bouw's analysis in <a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/geocentric-physics-is-that-all-youve-got/" target="_blank">Geocentric Physics: Is That All You've Got?</a><br />
<br />
I commend Dr. MacAndrew for his analysis. He exposed the flawed math in the first section, when Bouw tried to remap the physics into a rotating geocentric frame using the standard Newtonian analysis. Compare Dr. Bouw's math to that presented at <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centrifugal_force_%28rotating_reference_frame%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Centrifugal force (rotating reference frame)</a>. Dr. MacAndrew identified a serious mathematical error in the section. So far, there is NOTHING in this analysis that makes Earth a preferred frame in any absolute sense. Is a basic treatment that allows physicists to convert between inertial and rotating reference frames, whether they be rotating planets or rotating children's tops.<br />
<br />
But Dr. MacAndrew's real accomplishment is identifying the second section with the claimed Lagrange Point analysis, starting at "Equations of Motion for the Infinitesimal Body". Even before I recognized the answer, there were a number of 'red flags' in the analysis. The figures 5, 6 & 7 looked really suspicious, as they appear to be in a style popular in textbooks using techniques from about a century ago. After all, if Bouw had actually done the calculations himself, you'd think he could generate original figures with modern software. Here's some plots I generated using a fairly short section of Python code:<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5xCyzYJ-Hyo/VFVprkLctaI/AAAAAAAAAn8/xEuhPgMxxnQ/s1600/Lagrange10.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-5xCyzYJ-Hyo/VFVprkLctaI/AAAAAAAAAn8/xEuhPgMxxnQ/s1600/Lagrange10.png" height="270" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mapping of gravitational potential for a mass ratio of 10. Origin at center of mass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQiUlrRwmP0/VFVprrdpdAI/AAAAAAAAAoA/CoE8lQsq8Jw/s1600/Lagrange83.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-lQiUlrRwmP0/VFVprrdpdAI/AAAAAAAAAoA/CoE8lQsq8Jw/s1600/Lagrange83.png" height="270" title="" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mapping of gravitational potential for a mass ratio of 83 (=Earth/Moon mass ratio). </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Origin at center of mass.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
Note that I make these images <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/" target="_blank">Creative Commons NC BY</a>. You can use them but they must be clearly credited with a link to the source document (this page).<br />
<br />
Kudos to Dr. MacAndrew who found the original text at archive.org, Archive.org: <a href="https://archive.org/stream/introcelestial00moulrich#page/276/mode/2up" target="_blank">"An Introduction to Celestial Mechanics" 2nd Revised Edition by Forest Ray Moulton</a>. Moulton's 2nd Edition is available as a Dover reprint.<br />
<br />
With the original source for comparison, we can explore just how much Bouw copied the original Moulton text. Bouw's equation system 13 are identical to equation 1 of Moulton. <i>These are basically the Newtonian force equations written based on the RELATIVE positions between the three bodies.</i> <br />
<br />
Pages 8-25 of Bouw are almost identical to pages 278-294 of Moulton. There are minor changes in symbols used, updating of some numeric formats in text, but for the most part, they are identical. This demonstrates just how blatantly Dr. Bouw copied the standard Newtonian treatment from the original text and without any citation. Without that citation, Dr. Bouw is presenting the analysis if it is HIS work, when it's pretty obvious that the only actual work Dr. Bouw did in this effort is some scanning, transcription, and copying the equations into an equation editor.<br />
<br />
If a student had been caught turning this in as part of a physics homework assignment, the instructor would certainly be justified in reporting the student for disciplinary action for plagiarism.<br />
<br />
Additionally, there is NOTHING in this equation set that relies on the existence of an absolute fixed location, such as Earth (as the Geocentrists insist). This analysis works with a 'center' as Earth (for the Earth-Moon Lagrange points), or the Sun (for Sun-Earth or Sun-any other planet Lagrange points).<br />
<br />
David Palm followed up with an even longer examination of the level of uncredited copying of the work of others by the Geocentrists at GWW (<a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/top-geocentrists-caught-plagiarizing/" target="_blank">GD: Top Geocentrists Caught Plagiarizing</a>)<br />
<br />
<b>Sungenis Responds</b><br />
Sungenis responded to these with <a href="http://galileowaswrong.com/david-palm-falsely-accusing-opponents-of-plagiarism/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">GWW: "David Palm Caught Falsely Accusing Opponents of Plagiarism"</a> which included a response from Dr. Bouw about how he didn't see a problem as copyright had expired on the Moulton work. The issue is Bouw presented this material as not just a 'Geocentric' analysis (which it is not), but also as HIS OWN WORK, which it clearly is not, and which he now admits. No telling how long it would have taken for that fact to come to light if the source text had not been so conclusively identified.<br />
<br />
Expiration of copyright is not a license to plagiarize. By Dr. Bouw's interpretation, he could re-publish most of the works of Edgar Rice Burroughs under his own name and he would have done nothing wrong. The issue is this was presented as his own WORK. <br />
<br />
In addition, Sungenis states:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Mr. Palm quotes Tom Bridgman as saying: “Everything I’ve seen from Geocentrists is a cheat, trying to take someone else’s heliocentric solution and then moving the origin to the Earth.” Of course, we would expect an atheistic, evolutionist, Big Banger like Bridgman to picture it as a “cheat,” but in reality it is nothing more than showing the world how the same equations heliocentrists use to demonstrate the viability of their system can be used to demonstrate the viability of the geocentric system, which has been known ever since Mach and Einstein expanded on Newton’s equations. The geocentric derivations MUST employ the heliocentric equations, often point‐for‐point, since the geocentric is just the inverse of the heliocentric. There is no way to avoid this state of affairs, especially when one is trying to show the equivalence of the two systems.</blockquote>
Sungenis invokes Mach & Einstein to bolster his poor position. But Mach and Einstein expanded on Newton's work, which expanded the concept of no absolute spatial reference frame to include time as well, and that reference frames and 'centers' can be chosen for the convenience of solving the problem at hand. <i><b>The methodology defines NO absolute position.</b></i> I wrote more on Geocentrists invoking Mach at <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/10/geocentrism-mach-aether-drag-and.html">Geocentrism: Mach, 'Aether Drag' and Aberration.</a><br />
<br />
Sungenis evades the reason I state that such a heliocentric method is a cheat, as I note in the condition and emphasize yet again (since Sungenis seems to avoid this annoying mathematical fact):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And no cheating - claiming that the result is the same as the non-geocentric case with a coordinate transformation to the geocentric frame is physically indistinguishable from the frame of reference designation - which can be done anywhere in the universe and makes all frames equivalent. There is no universal or physically preferred rest frame by this method on any scale less than the CMB.</blockquote>
The technique the Geocentrists use to get the 'geocentric' solution works just as well to do an areocentric (Mars-centered), selenocentric (Moon-centered), jovicentric (Jupiter-centered), kronocentric (Saturn-centered) or any other 'center' one wishes to define ANYWHERE in the cosmos. NASA uses these transformations routinely when sending spacecraft to other planets (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocentrism-does-nasa-use-geocentrism.html"> Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism?</a>).<br />
<br />
Sungenis' excuse exposes Geocentrists' claims as indistinguishable from a personal preference (like a favorite dessert), or personal bigotry.<br />
<br />
And while this post was still in preparation, Dr. MacAndrew responded with <a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/plagiarism-the-folly-of-defending-the-indefensible/" target="_blank">Geocentrism Debunked: Plagiarism: The Folly of Defending the Indefensible</a>, which prompted my THIRD rewrite of this post...<br />
<br />
So, contrary to the terms of my original challenge, AT MOST, all the Geocentrists have done is used the standard derivation using Newtonian gravity and force laws (which define no absolute position) and 'translate' it to a geocentric frame. Sungenis even admits this. In Newtonian mechanics, this trick works around ANY point, Earth, Moon, Sun, Mars, etc., contrary to Geocentrist claims of Earth being a special point in an absolute sense.<br />
<br />
It is difficult to interpret Dr. Bouw's 'article' as anything other than a document created to deceive. Combined with Sungenis' defense of it, they appear to document two violations of the Ten Commandments.: <br />
<br />
1) Thou shalt not steal<br />
2) Thou shalt not bear false witness<br />
<br />
As Jesus noted in Matthew 7:15-23, his followers will be recognized by their actions more than their words. Such explicit acts of deception are yet another reason I regard the Geocentrists and Young-Earth creationists as the 'wolves' which Jesus warned his followers about (see<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2008/10/creationist-junk-debunked.html"> Creationist Junk Debunked</a>).<br />
<br />
P.S. And yes, I'm preparing a follow-up on Sungenis' claims about my analysis of Hartnett's work...<br />
<br />
<b>Update November 3, 2013:</b> I've fixed a few minor typos and removed the 'Dr.' when referencing Sungenis. It's been pointed out to me that his doctorate (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sungenis" target="_blank">wikipedia</a>) is from an unaccredited institution.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-55580885179605853632014-10-26T19:40:00.002-04:002014-10-26T19:40:27.904-04:00News from Other FrontsSince so many alternative cosmologies get discussed on this site, here's a good summary of how the current model came to dominate the field from Ethan Siegel at "Starts with a Bang": <br />- <a href="https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/how-the-big-bangs-alternatives-died-aa52857cf943" target="_blank">How the Big Bang's alternatives died.</a><br /><a href="https://medium.com/starts-with-a-bang/10-things-you-didnt-know-about-the-anthropic-principle-b46427f8a3a0" target="_blank">- 10 Things You Didn't Know About the Anthropic Principle</a><br /><br />I've been busy preparing my own response to the Geocentrists' sad attempt at meeting the <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/09/geocentrism-galileo-was-wrong.html?showComment=1289276064541#c4860573697301235463" target="_blank">Lagrange Point Challenge</a>, which I heard about from <a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/geocentrists-fail-the-lagrange-point-challenge/" target="_blank">Geocentrism Debunked:</a> <a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/geocentric-physics-is-that-all-youve-got/" target="_blank">Geocentric Physics: Is That All You've Got?</a><br />
<br />
They also have another good article on Geocentrists' claims about the Cosmic Microwave Background: <a href="http://www.geocentrismdebunked.org/the-cmb-and-geocentrism/" target="_blank">The CMB and Geocentrism"</a><br /><br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-38260200871214208422014-10-19T19:27:00.000-04:002014-10-19T19:27:00.228-04:00Relativity Denial: The Importance of Dimensional AnalysisFrom the comment stream for the post<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/04/scott-rebuttal-i-gps-relativity.html"> Scott Rebuttal. I. GPS & Relativity </a>this little goodie was flagged by the blogspot spam filter from an anonymous poster:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"The Engineering manager for GPS states that there are no corrections for relativity used in GPS, only a correction for gravitational potential (which has nothing at all to do with GR). If you want to discuss real errors with relativity you should check the mathematics of Einstein in GR for errors, because the whole lot is mathematically seriously flawed leading to all kinds of false conclusions!"</i></blockquote>
It also included a link to a site claiming relativity is flawed but not a link with documentation of the specific claim in the comment (and I already have plenty of links from this site to that site, so I don't need another). I therefore regarded the comment as link-spam (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spamdexing#Link_spam" target="_blank">Wikipedia</a>) and have dumped it. <br />
<br />
However, it did make a couple of comments that I thought worthy of addressing and clarification.<br />
<br />
The statement about the "Engineering manager for GPS" was made with no reference. However, I have heard this term used to indicate the authors of the paper discussed in the main article,<a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2009/04/scott-rebuttal-i-gps-relativity.html"> Scott Rebuttal. I. GPS & Relativity</a>, "GPS and Relativity: An Engineering Overview". Therefore I suspect the commenter actually mean the very same paper that was discussed in the main post. One point of my original post was to point out that because of the "An Engineering Overview" paper, with the statement of no GPS effects, an additional experiment was actually conducted (again) and found the predicted relativistic effects. Clearly the commenter either didn't read, or didn't understand the information. <br />
<br />
Then there is this statement:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<i>"there are no corrections for relativity used in GPS, only a correction for gravitational potential (which has nothing at all to do with GR)"</i></blockquote>
Let's see, Newtonian gravitation involves gravity, so we expect to see <b>G</b>. It involves the mass of objects, so we expect to see <b>M</b>, and it involves positions, so we expect to see some representation of position, such as radial distance from a center, <b>R</b>. Masses and positions are the main inputs for the theory. This is true for Newtonian gravitation, as well as General Relativity. <br />
<br />
The gravitational potential for a point mass is <b>G*M/R</b> in Newtonian gravity. The gravitational potential has units of energy per mass (joules/kilogram) which is dimensionally the same as velocity squared (meters/second)^2.<br />
<br />
General relativity involves the very same quantities of G, mass, and position. Being an extension of special relativity, the energy of the gravitational field must also be a component, since it also contributes to the mass of the system. Therefore we expect a gravitational representation of energy in General Relativity. With the quantities we have available, only one combination comes close to units of energy, and that is <b>G*M/R</b>, the same as the Newtonian gravitational potential.<br />
<br />
Therefore basic dimensional analysis EXPECTS a quantity like the gravitational potential to appear in General Relativity in some form. Very often, researchers will recast the full relativistic solution into a form using the classical gravitational potential to facilitate comparison of other derivations to the Newtonian solution.<br />
<br />
So how can the commenter claim that the gravitational potential can have nothing to do with General Relativity?<br />
<br />
The commenter's statement exhibits an incredible lack of understanding of not just general relativity, but basic physics and the importance of dimensional analysis. These types of errors can be dangerous, expensive, or even fatal. Dimensional analysis is a powerful tool that can often be used to find errors in analysis and is a vital tool in engineering.<br />
<br />
<b>Additional Resources on the Importance of Units and Dimensional Analysis</b><br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter#Cause_of_failure" target="_blank">Mars Climate Orbiter: Cause of Failure</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.alysion.org/dimensional/fun.htm" target="_blank">Fun with Dimensional Analysis</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimensional_analysis" target="_blank">Wikipedia: Dimensional Analysis</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://www.chem.tamu.edu/class/fyp/mathrev/mr-da.html" target="_blank">Math Skills Review: Dimensional Analysis</a> </li>
<li><a href="https://www.physics.uoguelph.ca/tutorials/dimanaly/" target="_blank">University of Guelph, Department of Physics: Dimensional Analysis Tutorial</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/301/lectures/node8.html" target="_blank">University of Texas: Dimensional Analysis</a> </li>
<li><a href="http://xkcd.com/687/" target="_blank">XKCD: Abusing Dimensional Analysis</a> </li>
</ul>
<br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-59119645026530857532014-10-12T19:22:00.000-04:002014-10-12T19:22:00.125-04:00Star Talk Radio Episode: Pseudoscience<a href="http://www.startalkradio.net/" target="_blank">Neil deGrasse Tyson's "Star Talk Radio"</a> show recently conducted an episode on Pseudoscience. Most of the topics discussed were rather 'garden-variety' pseudo-science, not much overlap with the topics discussed on this blog, but it might be of more general interest.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.startalkradio.net/show/cosmic-queries-pseudoscience/" target="_blank">Star Talk Radio: Cosmic Queries, Pseudoscience</a><br /><br />
One of the topics discussed was an online list of cognitive biases or failures - a list of ways in which people fool themselves. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">Wikipedia: List of Cognitive Biases</a><br />
<a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases" target="_blank">RationalWiki: List of Cognitive Biases</a><br />
<br />
The best scientists are pretty good about checking their ideas against such biases, which is why they often devote a large part of some of their potentially more controversial papers to checks on their methodology.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, pseudo-scientists usually just accuse mainstream scientists of group-think, and other items on this list, while never doing a serious check of their OWN biases. <br /><br /><br /><br />W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2361412992308994774.post-91784802803520245292014-10-05T19:03:00.000-04:002014-10-05T19:18:12.036-04:00Geocentrism: Mach, 'Aether Drag' and AberrationI have received some email inquires requesting a follow-up on the geocentrism claims of John Martin (<a href="http://johnmartin2010.blogspot.com/2011/07/in-response-to-dr-bridgmans-geocentrism.html" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">In Response to Dr Bridgman's "Geocentrism: Failing More Basic Physics"</a>). These are followups to my original post, <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/06/geocentrism-failing-more-basic-physics.html" target="_blank">Geocentrism: Failing More Basic Physics...</a><br />
<br />
Mr. Martin engages in the common practice of the "Gish Gallop" (<a href="http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_Gallop" target="_blank">RationalWiki</a>), throwing out a plethora of claims most of which are nonsense, many are even contradictory, as we shall see below. Mr. Martin has dumped a load of similar claims in the comment stream of my original post which I am holding until I complete addressing the individual entries. I've been accumulating info on many of these earlier claims, each one of which would require an entire post to provide details and examples of why it's nonsense. Since I have a number which are in various stages of completion, I thought I would write up a summary of some of the 'high points' where I have the most complete information.<br />
<br />
Mr. Martin claims I have not provided specific examples of problems that cannot be addressed with a 'stationary earth'. Yet I have not seen him or any of his supporters meet my <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2010/09/geocentrism-galileo-was-wrong.html?showComment=1289276064541#c4860573697301235463">Lagrange Point challenge</a>.<br />
<br />
I have also provided simulations of Newtonian gravitation operating on massive objects dealing with some of Mr. Martin's bizarre claims about how a center-of-mass of a system operates.<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/01/geocentrism-vs-barycenter.html">Geocentrism vs. the Barycenter</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/02/geocentrism-barycenter-ii.html">Geocentrism & the Barycenter. II.</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/geocentrists-3-body-problem.html">The Geocentrists' 3-Body "Problem"</a></li>
<li><a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2012/03/exploration-of-lagrange-points.html">An Exploration of the Lagrange Points</a></li>
</ul>
If the center of mass behaved the way Mr. Martin claims, then an automobile engine, consisting of many moving parts and many different centers-of-mass for any combination of the components, would be incapable of moving!<br />
<br />
Mr. Martin continues by making ambiguous claims to various professional research papers which he claims have 'solved' these problems. These are apparently used as a diversionary tactic so they don't have to do any actual work - just claim their theory gives the exact same predictions! <br />
<br />
Yet any example that can be placed into a form for a 'stationary Earth' can be placed in a form for a 'stationary Moon', a 'stationary Saturn', or any other place in the universe. NASA routinely uses these types of transformations to send spacecraft to land and orbit other planets (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/04/geocentrism-does-nasa-use-geocentrism.html">Geocentrism: Does NASA use Geocentrism?</a>). <br />
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<h3>
Geocentrism and 'Machian' Models</h3>
Another funny, and again, contradictory, argument tactic by Geocentrists is to invoke Mach's principle (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mach%27s_principle">Wikipedia: Mach's Principle</a>).<br />
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Machian ideas are actually the ultimate in relativistic thinking, as they try to define the inertial properties of any object in the universe based on the rest of the universe. Taking this ideas to the ultimate extreme, some authors like to say these models can be viewed as a moving universe around a stationary Earth (a statement which makes them popular for use among the Geocentrists). Some of these papers go so far as to use the example of if I spin around, I'm actually making the entire universe spin around me - I guess that would be an <i>EGO-centric</i> universe! <br />
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But Geocentrists' professional references doing the 'Machian' calculation are simply generalizing the techniques I've outlined before - doing the computation in, say, a heliocentric frame, and then doing the conversion to the Earth frame - a trick that works identically for any other planet or any other location in the Universe! Therefore their claimed proof fails to demonstrate the Earth more preferred than any other frame! By relying on these references they are making MY point. They do not show that the location of Earth is in any way a preferred frame beyond Mr. Martin's own personal prejudice.<br />
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Mr. Martin provides references to papers by Julian Barbour and various co-authors. A number of these papers, and summaries, are available on <a href="http://www.platonia.com/papers.html">Barbour's site</a>.<br />
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Note that in one of the Machian papers, the first paragraph of "Relative-distance Machian theories" reference by Barbour:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Mach's principle, in essence, requires that the dynamical law of the Universe be expressed ultimately in terms only of the relative distances between observable entities in the universe. Here I propose a framework for constructing theories that satisfy this postulate automatically."</blockquote>
Note that he specifies RELATIVE DISTANCES between objects. This is because Machian models have no absolute frame. <br />
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Also note the mathematics in these papers. The equations contain summations over objects in the universe, computing parameters based on the particle mass and velocity relative to each other. Therefore, each entry in the sum treats all particles in the universe the same! The very mathematical structure contains no preferred location or motion! <br />
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The problem the Geocentrists don't acknowledge, is that these models also work having the entire universe rotate around Mars, or the Moon, or even a planet orbiting a star in a distant galaxy.<br />
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<h3>
Planetary Aberration</h3>
In regards to planetary aberration, Mr. Martin had this to say:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The above statement by Wicki doesn’t give us any calculated examples or any references to any journal articles. This is telling on wicki and shows the reader that planetary aberration is merely assumed, but no evidence is presented for its existence."</blockquote>
Planetary aberration is calculated as it is for stars, based on the RELATIVE velocity of the planet and spacecraft. These corrections are installed in numerous software used for planetary navigation (see <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2011/06/geocentrism-ubiquitous-aberrations.html" target="_blank">Geocentrism: Ubiquitous Aberrations</a>). The aberration calculation itself is trivial once the positions and velocities of the objects of interest are known. The real work is computing the positions and velocities of the objects involved, be they planets or spacecraft, a task which geocentrists have demonstrated no competence.<br />
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<h3>
"Aether Drag"</h3>
In the late-1800s as Maxwell completed the mathematical unification of electricity and magnetism with his equations and light was recognized as an electromagnetic phenomenon, the question arose "what is the medium that allows light to travel?" Previous experience with sound suggested that a medium was required for the waves. It seemed reasonable to researchers of the day that light would also need such a medium. They called that hypothetical medium the aether or ether and proceeded to devise experiments in an attempt to determine its properties (much like today we adopted the name Dark Matter as the explanation for cosmological gravitational inconsistencies and proceed to determine its properties).<br />
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Experiments searching for the aether gave such contradictory and inconsistent results it was eventually suggested that light did not need an aether to propagate and the proposal of special relativity in 1905 provided a firm mathematical foundation.<br />
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Nonetheless, some try to hang onto the aether as a way to claim Earth is motionless. Per Mr. Martin:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Galileo’s theory of gravity is false. Things do not fall at the same acceleration. Newton’s theory of gravity is also false because the aether has been found. Finally Einstein’s theory is also false because of the constancy of c, time dilatation and length contraction have all been invalidated or are internally logically incoherent. All this is in an article dedicated to debunking crank science and all the time you are unaware of the findings of modern science which overturn you pet theories. Evidently your example is just as flawed as your understanding of science and gravity. Maybe it is you who has no operational experience other than deluding yourself into thinking you know more about gravity and science theory than what your erroneous posts are saying."</blockquote>
Things do not fall at the same acceleration? Not sure where THAT comes from as Mr. Martin provides no reference. I can take two ball-bearings of different masses and holding them the same height above the ground and releasing at the same time, they will hit the ground simultaneously. If you want to use a hammer and a feather (which has much more drag from air resistance), you'll need a good vacuum for the experiment (see <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDp1tiUsZw8" target="_blank">YouTube: </a><span class="watch-title " dir="ltr" id="eow-title" title="Hammer vs Feather - Physics on the Moon"><a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDp1tiUsZw8" target="_blank">Hammer vs Feather - Physics on the Moon</a>). </span>No word yet if Mr. Martin will be claiming the Apollo lunar landings were faked (see <a href="http://pseudoastro.wordpress.com/category/apollo-moon-hoax/" target="_blank">Exposing PseudoAstronomy</a>, <a href="http://www.badastronomy.com/bad/tv/foxapollo.html" target="_blank">Bad Astronomy: Moon Hoax</a>).<br />
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Claims of Aether drag having been 'found' conveniently ignore the fact that it has been known since 1907 that the Einstein theory gives the same result as the Fresnel 'aether drag' equation. This derivation is illustrated on the Wikipedia page (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aether_drag_hypothesis#Lorentz_and_Einstein" target="_blank">Aether drag hypothesis: Lorentz and Einstein</a>)<br />
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Even funnier is that <b><i>many of the mainstream papers which 'aether' supporters reference as evidence for the existence of an 'aether' often include the derivation of the 'aether drag' in the relativistic formulation.</i></b> A number of experiments in the 1970s were done by R.V. Jones:<br />
<ul>
<li><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1972RSPSA.328..337J">'Fresnel Aether Drag' in a Transversely Moving Medium</a></li>
<li><a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1975RSPSA.345..351J">''Aether Drag'' in a Transversely Moving Medium</a></li>
</ul>
Note that R. V. Jones would even write 'Fresnel Aether Drag' in quotes to emphasizes it is not to be taken literally!<br />
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Spurred on by Jones' research, M. Player (<a href="http://rspa.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/345/1642/343.abstract">Dispersion and the Transverse Aether Drag</a>) examined the problem in more detail, considering the optical dispersive properties of the medium. Player also used the relativistic derivation, but now included how the Doppler effect would change the wavelength of the light and the refractive properties of the medium (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispersion_%28optics%29" target="_blank">Wikipedia: dispersion</a>) under testing would change.<br />
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One of the most popularly cited papers by 'aether' supporters is by Aleksandar Gjurchinovski (<a href="http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004AmJPh..72..934G">Aberration of light in a uniformly moving optical medium"</a>). However, if you actually READ the paper (and understand it), you'll notice that <b><i>Gjurchinovski is explaining the Jones result in a relativistic framework.</i></b> Note in particular equation 3 which is the Lorentz transformation! Pushing the parameters of the experiment with a very dispersive medium, Gjurchinovski gets a result that matches the derivation by Player (referenced above) including the effects of dispersion. I have found some quotes from the Gjurchinovski papers where there is a discussion of how 'real' these effects are, but one must exercise care with the wording.<br />
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So it looks like the proponents of the claim that 'aether drag' is real and are using these papers never actually understood the papers! They just blindly assumed they must back up their claims!<br />
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So what's the excuse for such blatant errors?<br />
<ol>
<li>Did Mr. Martin not bother to read the papers he is citing, or did he just blindly accept someone else's claims?</li>
<li>Perhaps Mr. Martin read the papers, but did not understand them and decided to use them anyway?</li>
<li>Or perhaps Mr. Martin read the papers, understood that they did not support his claim, but decided to use them anyway under the assumption that anyone following his claims would just blindly accept them?</li>
</ol>
Whatever the reason, these falsehoods are now exposed.<br />
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Note that Mr. Martin actually invokes CONTRADICTORY claims as his own evidence, invoking Machian models (the ultimate in relativity) simultaneously with 'aether' models (the ultimate in anti-relativity). This is a popular tactic for those who have no evidence FOR their actual claims - they desperately throw out any claims they think might have any sticking power, and hope no one is the wiser.<br />
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Oh, and one entry in Mr. Martin's 'laundry list' invokes Halton Arp's discordant redshifts. The final post I did on this topic from 2013, summarizes the more detailed posts (and includes links to the details) at <a href="http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.com/2013/06/discordant-redshifts-post-mortem.html">Discordant Redshifts: A Post-Mortem.</a><br />
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Update 2014-10-05: minor typo fixed. Format problem fixed.W.T."Tom" Bridgmanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10889134728080314165noreply@blogger.com6