[Tycho?]

Dear insane_alien;

 

Sorry to tell you' date=' but even very low infrared light will strip electrons, how do think we have infrared sencers, how thay work.

This disription was in one of my first patten back in 84.[/quote']

 

Infrared radiation will not strip electrons. Infrared sensors work by detecting (surprise!) infrared waves.

 

And you can't just say "the math works out, but I'm a visual thinker so there isn't much math here". Thats just a way of getting out of having to do any math, which you absolteuly need when you talk about this kind of garbage. All you have is barely coherent text and meaningless pictures to go along with it.

Any idea how long a complete recycle would take? For that matter, how long does it take on Earth?

It would go a lot faster on earth, with all of its volcanic activity and plate tectonics. But geology isn't exactly my field.

Well' date=' what would be the advantage of THAT over an orbitting telescope?

 

Does seem a shame not to use such a big moon for something, though, doesn't? Maybe eventually power generation? Huge solar or thermoelectric arrays, and electricity beamed via laser and collectors on Earth? I guess you'd need self-replicating and self-maintaining machines for that to be practical...[/quote']

 

The dark side of the moon is free from any radio chatter from earth.

I'm not sure what the advantage would be that orbitting and geostationary satellites wouldn't provide.

Yeah. There are already a ton of satellites that do exactly the same thing.

Look for fossils, or any evidence of life. If you can't find that first there is no point in looking for evidence of a civilization.

Oh, I wish I could do that.

No but it could ignite it...or it could become part of the fusion mass of the star.

I rather doubt it. I'd think something so massive and so hot (its emitting x-rays) would already be undergoing fusion if it was capable of doing so. And regardless the object is much too large for the entire thing to fuse or do much else; if part of it started to fuse, the energy released would tend to blow away matter. So its not like the whole thing could undergo fusion at the same time.

...and despite the fact that I have about 200 publications in well-respected journals.

...am I reading this properly? Could you elaborate on this please?

After correcting for GR effects and effects due to acceleration' date=' right? Not quite model independent, is it? Once you know what it is that you are looking for in an experiment, it is hard not to find it. All experimentalists struggle with this bias problem. The greater ones recognize it and bend over backwards to maintain the highest levels of scientific integrity, but even they are not immune to it.

 

[/quote']

 

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU EVEN ARGUEING? Do you know how hard people tried to disprove SR when it was first published? Its not like it was accepted with open arms, it tooks many years and many, many experiments. Attempts to prove SR succeeded, attempts to disprove it failed.

 

Why the hell are you talking about model independant? Why does this even matter? SR works in every way thats ever been tested. It has defied attempts to disprove it. It is a very succesfull theory. dot dot dot. So why are are you talking about biases and stuff? If your argument is that you cannot prove any theory totally you are correct.

 

But SR works! And, responding to the title of this thread, time dilation exists, exactly as it is predicted by theory. Time dilation is hence not a "global hoax" Thread done.

A model independent, SR time dilation has been measured? Impossible to measure by definition.

...how the hell is this impossible to measure? One clock says one thing, another is slower. Time dilation, as simple as that. How is this impossible to measure?

Such remarks and a general assumption of ignorance on the part of the dissenter are the typical responses to criticism. Not like religious intolerance? I should probably rest my case here.

 

 

As kkris1 pointed out' date='

 

A theory can work without being "right." Of course, the typical response to this observation would be a cynical invitation to develop a new theory that would explain every phenomena explained in the current theory. And this has to be done with no academic or funding support.[/quote']

 

 

What the hell are you even talking about? We arn't even discussing the theory behind time dilation. Time dilation itself has been measured many many times, and knowledge of this phenomenon is being used as we speak.

 

All your argument boils down to is "SR might be wrong", of course without giving us any reason to think so. SR is an incedible successful theory, and has stood up to a great deal of cristism over the years.

 

We get a lot of people who dont know anything about physics coming in and trying to poke holes in theories like this. If you feel like doing so then do it, using physics, and be sure to show your work. If you dont want to do this, then too bad.

The way modern physics is taught shows a religious reverence to mystic knowledge and a deep rooted intolerance toward criticism. This attitude is neatly reflected in most major religions in the world with their believers showing absolute faith in their doctrines. However' date=' unlike religions where you have competing faiths, there is only one physics, so the religiousness of its attitude is not immediately obvious.

 

To be fair, a large part of the impatience with dissent in physics is well-meaning. Physicists cannot keep listening to every crazy half-baked idea that occurs to any bozo. But their absolute faith in the basic hypotheses and assumptions as facts of nature is a little troubling at times.[/quote']

 

Hahahah, no.

 

Take some university physics classes before saying things like that.

Well tsunamis can be avoided relatively easily. Animals notice ground shaking, and move away from the coast. It would make sense that an instint like this would come up though.

But earthquakes, I dont think there is anyway to sense them before they actually occur. There is no reason to do this anyway, even a very large earthquake wouldn't have much effect on animals since they dont live in collapsible structures.

Wait, so you're saying the cat is really dead, but your changing the experiment to make that so. How is that clever?

He opined that time measures an interval. Correct. An interval between what? I don't think it matters. He references atomic vibrations, which would be frequencies or the orbits of particles. With the absence of something to measure, what happens to the clock? I couldn't say it all applies with respect to absolute zero. Theories are notoriously shortlived though. Yet it seems there's more worries about the details rather than the devil itself.

Theories are notoriously short lived? What? No they're not. Details of what?

Is the unit (cage & power supply) going to be propibably heavy. If it does use lots of power' date=' (ie the plasma escapes in large amounts), could plasma be shed in a direction that propels the rocket in the proper direction?

 

Maybe we should pospone this idea until there's a Space Elevator, or just go to Mars the old fashioned way (by probe).[/quote']

 

A space elevator would need radiation shielding as well.

Some hicks talking about things they dont understand?

Responding to that big post in your link; the universe will not reach absolute zero ever. It may approach this number but not reach it. Also, why the hell would time stop because the universe is cooler? Plus his arguments have nothing to do with infinity.

OK' date=' I got your point.

 

In fact this raises an interesting question, i.e. in what cases would the energy of the meteor be transformed into different forms of energy which wouldn't [i']directly[/i] affect our ecosystem (i.e. setting aside the effects of the suspended dusts and stuff)?

I'm trying to reason about that - I beg the physicists here to accept my apologies, I'm obviously not in the field.

The total mechanical energy of the meteor is the sum of its potential and kinetic energy. While it falls towards the Earth, the latter becomes the main term. I don't know if the kinetic energy of the meteor when it's very far from the Earth is a significant part of the total, but anyway...

If the kinetic energy was entirely transformed into heat, we'd have the consequences you calculated.

But what other forms of energy can we get? If, say, the meteor was 'unbreakable', it would hit the surface, and then what? Would it dissipate its energy by breaking the chemical bonds in the rocks it hits and/or as potential energy by changing the position of the rocks (i.e. forming a crater)?

And if the rocks on the surface were too hard to break, what would happen? Where would the energy go?

 

My impression is that it's quite difficult to predict exactly what would actually happen.

However, it's probably true that any impact which converts most of the energy of the meteor into heat or its equivalents (e.g. burning in the atmosphere or vaporizing a portion of the oceans), rather than into potential energy, is more dangerous for our ecosystem. Unless most of the heat and dusts are eventually expelled into space.

And it's also probably true that disintegrating the meteor before the impact wouldn't be particularly helpful, especially if all of its parts would hit us anyway.

In a normal impact a lot of the energy would go into the ground. This would form the crater as matter is ejected at very high velocities. Plus shock waves through the ground and air. Energy into breaking chemical bonds would be negligable I would think.

You're right' date=' it would be a catastrophic event anyway. I was not trying to minimise it. We can all stay assured that if something like this happens, it won't be fun for anyone.

 

However, your starting point was the energy of the hypothetical meteor which is supposed to have killed the dinosaurs. So we're talking about an event that, if hasn't actually happened, at least has been simulated by someone (on the basis of a given set of parameters) in order to justify the extinction of these animals.

This means that its effects (according to the model used) are already known, nobody needs to reinvent them.

 

My worry is that sometimes we need to over-simplify models, and when we deal with VERY complex systems (let alone those subject to chaotic behaviour), at the end of the day our prediction may be largely unreliable.[/quote']

 

True, but I'm not attempting to model or reinvent anything. An object as large as the one I was using in my example obviously would not totally burn up in the atmosphere, most of the mass would impact the surface. But a lot of people have the impression that when an asteriod "burns up" there is no danger. My example was just a reminder that an object big or small has energy, and this energy has to go somewhere, so burning up doesn't necessarly get rid of the danger

I guess the figure you got is incorrect because of some parameters you neglected.

The object would hit the Earth in a relatively short time and in a relatively small region compared to the whole planet's surface' date=' therefore heat would be generated at a much higher rate (I guess) than the rate of the heat transfer from the collision area to the surroundings. So there would be a highly overheated area.

According to the BBC's Horizon programme someone's already mentioned in this thread, this would cause a big 'fireball', i.e. the overheated air would be violently expelled towards space due to the huge difference in density.

If so, most of the heat would be simply dissipated.

Concerning the remaining part of energy, is it possible to imagine that water (overall 1.4 × 109 km3 on Earth, cp about 4 J/(gK)) will slowly absorb some of it, making the deltaT somewhat more acceptable?

However, I still believe that a pretty big area around the impact point will be [i']marginally[/i] less hospitable than before!

 

By the way, why did the dinosaurs die after that impact? Was it because of the increase in T or because of its decrease (as a consequence of the vapours and dusts shielding solar radiation)? They were cold-blooded animals, weren't they? I must have seen so many programmes about these catastrophic events, that I eventually got confused!

 

If I may add a final observation about the topics in this thread, I'm afraid that as usual mankind's worst enemy is man himself. We're likely to do ourselves an awful lot of irreversible damage centuries before any big meteor hits us or any big volcano explodes.

Don't get me wrong, it's great to see people trying to use logic, science and common sense for preventing natural catastrophes, and I read all the posts with great interest.

Unfortunately, the same good capabilities of human intellect are generally NOT used by governments and politicians for preventing or stopping things such as wars, social injustice, famines, which, unlike natural catastrophes, would be to a reasonable extent under our control.

So we can still devise cunning ways to fight against nature, but we can never forget that many of us live in pain, hunger and unhappiness because we're not fighting against our own evil.

Sorry if this sounds like a preach, it's aimed to myself in the first place.

Yeah I realize its not transfering all this energy into the atmposphere alone, instead only a specific region. But I dont see this changing my general idea; that if a large object was totally burned up entering the atmosphere it wouldn't by much better than the object striking the surface.

The fireball created by this thing would be massive if it was totally burned up in the atmosphere. Like incinerating large portions of a continent kind of big. The shockwave produced would be unbelievable with such an enourmous volume of air being rapidly expanded; it would be like an atmospheric tsunami. Also, most of the mass of the asteriod would stay in the atmosphere as dust since it didn't hit the ground in the first place. This huge huge mass of dust and ash I would think would make big changes in earth's climate. PLUS the temperature rise over the entire earths surface would not be negligable I think, at least enough to kill crops and other plants/animals.

I can't comment on your math, Tycho, but I've got a question relating to the whole issue of detection: Why is it that we rely on telescopes first, and then radar? Can't we launch satellites to scan space with radar for us? I would think we would have a lot more success if we were scanning for them with space-based radar system than with telescopes that are generally in the atmosphere (thus dealing with interference there) and require movement/light reflection for detection.

I dont really know, but I can guess.

With telescopes we observe light or other radiation bouncing off asterioids. With radar, we would be sending out a radio signal and then listening for when it bounces back. I assume the problem would be that this would have to be a damn powerful radio signal, since the radar wave decreases with the inverse square of distance. A way to get around it would be to shoot a super focused beam of radio waves out in a singal place in order to get a larger effective range. But then it isn't useful in detecting a lots of objects.

Ba bump? I am still curious about this, I'd like if someone could look over my above work and see if there are errors in math or reasoning. Because thats a pretty big number I got, one I still do not believe.

I haven't really looked at the papers much' date=' but here's something that popped into my head as soon as read your post:

 

There is, as far as I am aware, nothing stops there from being a white hole (opposite of a black hole). But that doesn't mean they exist.

[/quote']

 

What does white hole even mean? Wouldn't this just be a star?

How it so happens that a light beam traveling through a material with -ve index moves faster then 'c'?I read that 'it emerges before it enters'.What exactly does that mean?And finally' date='why it does not violate relativity or will a massless particle moving faster then 'c' violate relativity?Why?Whynot?also,what are the consequences(or assosiated phenomenans) of this faster then 'c' travel.

 

Thanks in Advance.

 

Also,if someone is intrested,here is the news link

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/841690.stm[/quote']

 

When you use punctuation, like a period or a question mark or a comma, you put a space after it. Its very irritating to read if you dont.

Yay for crackpots.