billiards

On 3/26/2018 at 5:40 AM, Area54 said:

 

The majority of planetary scientists consider Venus to lack plate tectonic activity. Though some researchers have occassionally pointed out features that could be evidence for plate tectonics, these notions have generally been dismissed and Venus has been viewed as having a stagnant lid -  a single, fixed lithospheric plate, rather than the multiple mobile plates found on Earth. This lid is thought to have overturned in the last billion years as a mechanism for heat loss, a heat loss otherwise restricted in the absence of plate tectonics.

 

What do you mean when you say the lid has overturned?  Would this not require some kind of breakup and plate movement?  I.e. would this not count as "plate tectonics"?

 

I'm sorry I don't think I will be able to finish it now, I suffered a rather unfortunate accident. In reviewing your previous posts my Troll Detector exploded with such ferocity I was nearly blinded.

 

Wow. Just wow. You've been asked multiple times by multiple users over the course of this thread to summarise your ideas. This is stooping pretty low as far as excuses go.

 

It's a testament to how COMPLICATED your theory is that you cannot do it. Now what were you saying about Occam's razor?

 

Still the same condescending billiards we all know and love.

 

I have watched you attempt every conceivable method to move the goal post away from this requirement. The last few posts were the most recent, and desperate I might add.

 

 

Your back must be killing you from moving the goal post so far away from where it was.

 

 

Yet, you just dance around, move goal posts and avoid providing real evidence that convection can produce plate movement.

 

 

It's very revealing that you refer to it as a trap.

 

 

 

Arc, you continually avoid all the science questions I throw at you. You spend your time on these light weight digs at me. That's the thing that is very revealing.

 

Rather than tackling the science head on you go for me.

 

What goal posts have I moved exactly?

 

Remember I'm not here to defend the "standard theory". You're here to defend YOUR theory. I think you forget that.

 

Let me know when you are ready to answer some science questions.

Sigh. There is just no point. The layers of ignorance are just too thick.

 

OK, let me elaborate.

 

What? Really!

 

Posted 31 January 2016 - 11:52 PM

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73730-plate-tectonic-mechanism/page-24#entry903463

 

Posted 1 April 2017

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73730-plate-tectonic-mechanism/page-24#entry980003

 

 

Really? That paragraph was much too “LONG” for you, huh?

Fair enough. They were buried in a couple of your posts. You'll just have to forgive me. I can't be expected to trawl through everything you've ever written.

 

That sounds rather hypocritical when one considers the Doglioni et al paper gives an honest evaluation of convection’s failures in regards to the Standard Model.

 

“nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects”

Note that this is not the same thing as saying the mantle does not convect!

 

That is pretty blunt and to the point. In other words; No one has developed a solution to make convection more than an almost certain impossibility due to its technical difficulties.

False. We can agree that the mantle does convect, we just can't agree on exactly what the convection looks like.

 

Doglioni et al has reset the clock. Geology in regards to convection is back to square one. The Doglioni et al paper has basically taken you back to 1919 when the great Arthur Holmes first theorized the idea. An idea he himself suggested was a “purely speculative” idea.

Again. False. Because you're starting from a false premise.

 

http://www.amnh.org/explore/resource-collections/earth-inside-and-out/arthur-holmes-harnessing-the-mechanics-of-mantle-convection-to-the-theory-of-continental-drift/

It was Holmes, in 1919, who suggested the mechanism: that the continents are carried by flow of the mantle on which they sit, and that the mantle is flowing because it is convecting. Warning that his ideas were “purely speculative,” he suggested that rocks in the interior of the Earth would buoyantly rise toward the surface from deep within the Earth when heated by radioactivity and then sink back down as they cooled and became denser.

 

 

Arthur Holmes understood at the very start that his idea was totally dependent on evidence being found to support it. Only accurate predictions of observations would work to either support or dismiss his conjecture.

Interesting historical aside.

 

So, here we are just short of the hundred year anniversary of his idea and what is the most descriptive, accurate and sobering account on convection’s viability?

 

". . . . . none of the proposed models of mantle convection can account for the simpler pattern in plate motion we observe at the surface, nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects. At the moment there is no way to link mantle dynamics and plate kinematics at the surface, considering that the mantle and lithosphere are detached. The Atlantic and Indian ridges are in fact moving apart with respect to Africa, proving not to be fixed both relative to each other and relative to any fixed point in the mantle. This evidence confirms that ocean ridges are decoupled from the underlying mantle."

 

Do you see any predictions of observations in that statement above that supports convection or the argument in favor of it?

Still spectacularly missing the point.

 

No, there isn’t any. In fact, just the opposite, it bluntly declares that mantle convection is, as you accused this model of being;

Not “even physically feasible in the first place”.

Where does it say that convection is not physically feasible? Perhaps you should read the extensive literature on the subject before clinging so tightly to one paragraph you have taken out of context.

 

Well, what was that about convection? - Quote: “nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects.”

 

Hmmm. Sounds like Doglioni et al are not going to follow your course and are instead expecting something much closer to reality for an answer.

Yes, you're still talking about the same thing and you're still missing the point. Can we move on now?

 

Why do you suppose they would say something so refreshingly honest?

 

Because Doglioni can. He can tell every person in the geoscience community today that convection does not work to explain plate tectonics and they will consider it with the regard due its author.

 

http://www.dst.uniroma1.it/doglioni

 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=LBFxf2IAAAAJ&hl=en

 

Carlo Doglioni, Sapienza University, Roma, Italy

Geosciences, Geodynamics, Earth sciences, Geophysics, Marine geology

 

All Since 2012

Citations 9431 3874

h-index 53 36

i10-index 135 93

 

So, Doglioni is one of the preeminent geoscientist on the planet. He’s not some run of the mill geologists. He has ascended the highest position possible for any person in geoscience to attain. He is truly a remarkable scientist.

Dig your heels in a little deeper and commit the appeal to authority fallacy while you're at it. Can we move on yet? I think you've got all the milk out of that sentence now!

 

I’m going to step out on a limb here and assume that Holmes himself would have greatly appreciated the candor of the Doglioni et al paper. He was a remarkably humble man and I would venture He would not have attempted to counter argue what is now his conjecture’s obviously troubled situation.

 

 

Whilst we're stepping out on limbs, I'm going to step out on a limb here and say that Holmes (and hell, Doglioni too) would reckon you're completely off your trolley.

 

It’s interesting that you view almost an entire century of “0” predictions of observations supporting convection as just a “gap” in “scientific knowledge”.

Dude, you really need to catch up and do some reading. Here you go: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/referenceworks/9780444538031#ancv0040

 

But, that was not the point of Doglioni et al quote, was it?

 

“At the moment there is no way to link mantle dynamics and plate kinematics at the surface”

 

 

"Is coupled"? Really?

 

“At the moment there is no way to link mantle dynamics and plate kinematics at the surface, considering that the mantle and lithosphere are detached.”

They are not frictionlessly decoupled. They are obviously decoupled to some extent hence the plates can move as rigid objects independently of the more complex visco-plastic deformation of the underlying mantle. Though we do not know what that decoupling looks like or how it is controlled.

 

 

 

And that is what we like to call a lot of hand waving. Pointlessly comparing similarities between apples to oranges as if they could be. My model has no point of contention for a hypothetical “flow direction at every point inside the mantle.” That is the morass that you and the convection of the Standard Model are bogged down into and that Doglioni et al aims squarely to address.

 

Nice try – no not really.

But that IS the point of Doglioni's first sentence. “nor has a unique solution been proposed for how material in the mantle convects”. You just haven't realised it yet as you've been too blinkered.

 

If your model has zero convection then the simple answer to the question would be: "There is no flow in the mantle". The flow is zero everywhere. Easy, right?

 

But we've already been over this ground haven't we? You claim your model has zero convection but can explain subduction. A frankly impossible situation.

 

 

Again you are projecting your model’s problems onto my model. My model has made predictions of observations already. It’s your model that doesn’t work. Think about it. It doesn’t make predictions or even been remotely linked to any “plate kinematics at the surface”.

Classic Dunning-Kruger. You've not taken the time to actually study the material. Have you ever run a geodynamics calculation? Do you know what the Rayleigh number is? How about the Prandtl number?

 

 

 

Again, trying to make this mechanism dependent on the same vulnerabilities as convection is. This model’s mechanism does not need or is concerned with mantle flow of any sort to move the tectonic plates. This model outlines the creation and disposition of GPE in the crust to facilitate the tectonic plate movement.

Not trying to do anything of the sort. Was trying to get you to stand up to the same "Doglioni" test you insist the standard model lives up to. Of course you failed spectacularly with hilarious consequences. You fell into your own trap.

 

 

Yet, you ignore what Doglioni says about convection.

And again, you are projecting your model’s problems onto this one that actually works.

More repetition. You need to cut down on that. It's tiring.

 

 

Really! Yet it makes accurate predictions of observations! What a paradox!

And again, you ignore what Doglioni says about convection.

Unfortunately when replying to your thread I can't see what you were quoting. Therefore, without going back to look, I can't easily respond to this. That's a limitation of this site.

 

 

Here’s your problem, I only have to make accurate predictions of observations. It doesn’t matter how or why or whether or not I have mathematics to explain it.

Not my problem mate. Without maths you can't make a testable prediction.

 

 

If I produce an explanation that is simple enough to be preferred by Occam’s razor and it makes accurate predictions of observations – It wins.

But your model is horrendously complicated and involves impossible forces. It fails.

 

 

If your model is complex, convoluted, has not produced predictions in 98 years and is discounted by one of the most renowned geoscientists alive – you lose.

But your wrong, wrong, and wrong, in all the assertions you have made. Take your head out of the sand. Read some more literature.

 

 

If convection has gone 98 years without results then you have way bigger problems than just this model. Dogioni et al allows me to disregard convection until you or someone else can produce actual evidence that it exists - or in other words – show that it can make some predictions of observations.

Quit with the Doglioni thing. Please. I'm embarrassed for you. Perhaps if you make an honest effort to understand the science you will be able to open your eyes. Unfortunately I can't do that for you. You have to do it for yourself.

 

 

The Standard Model and convection will need to do better.

Yes the science is not there yet. Unfortunately your model is a wild leap in the wrong direction.

Do I really need to repost every one of the examples that I have posted ?

You do need to make a much better effort to present your evidence. How about putting it all together in a nice easy to read table?

 

What I'm also trying to do is establish a base line of understanding of the current Standard Model's abilities and more importantly your apparent and probable bias in regards to its ability to perform to the degree that your confidence in it seems to portray.

 

 

When what you SHOULD be doing is establishing that your model is even physically feasible in the first place. Something you have repeatedly avoided. Simple energetic considerations expose your model for being the fraud that it is.

 

What you ARE doing is finding areas where scientific knowledge is lacking and then claiming that your theory can explain all the gaps. You are CLAIMING victory over ground you see as fair game.

 

Take these Doglioni problems you keep coming back to. (Note you have never actually stated yourself what the "Doglioni" problems actually are, only referring readers to a LONG document. A classic and pitiful obfuscation tactic.) Let me have a go at summarising them:

 

(1) We do not precisely know the kinematics of the convection flow patterns inside the mantle; and

(2) We do not fully understand how the plate is coupled to these underlying flow patterns (convection).

 

Let's take argument (1) and say your model tells us the flow direction at every point inside the mantle. So what is the flow direction 500 km deep beneath the UK? What is the flow direction 2800 km deep beneath Hawaii? Please answer these questions and if you can't then your model automatically fails "Doglioni test #1".

 

Now let's assume you do give quantitative answers, let's compare your position to the "standard" model. There are plenty of models in the literature that will give you an answer to that question. However, they are just models, and the "problem" Doglioni is talking about is just that: they are only models! We need better observational constraints in order to TEST the models. So how is it possible that your model can improve over the existing models when the observational constraints needed to directly TEST this are missing? You cannot possibly claim this ground over the "standard model".

 

Now let's take point (2). You claim your model can explain the link between the underlying flow and the tectonic plate movement. Well first of all how can you do that if you are not SURE you even know what the underlying flow is? (see point 1) Second of all what IS the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary? That is a subject of intense scientific debate right now, something I doubt you've even heard of, and certainly something you've never mentioned. Understanding the nature of this boundary is CRITICAL to this question and your model says absolutely ZERO about it. Thirdly, and this really is the killer, your model contains NO PHYSICS. Not only is the physical basis underlying the WHOLE of your model a COMPLETE SHAM, you have NO NUMBERS anywhere to explain how the tectonic plates move in relation to any mantle process whatsoever. So you really cannot claim this ground either.

That’s strange . . . . . . . I’ve looked the whole thread over, can’t find even one moderator admonishing me for not answering all the criticisms, not even one mod note addressed to me. I don’t think they would have allowed me to get away with that. Are you accusing them of dereliction of their duties?

Wow, typically evasive response. Turning it back around on me, nice touch.

 

Is not answering *all* criticisms against the rules?

If you like I'm sure we could arrange some mod intervention if we started hitting the report button.

But that wouldn't be very nice, would it? I doubt the mods want to trawl through this mess of a thread. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt that you just haven't got around to answering the Qs yet.

 

Maybe it’s because you haven’t directly answered to those problems I raised about the Standard Model.

I do remember I had insisted several times that you should address those three criticisms of the Standard Model and convection’s inability to actually work.

 

Here they are again;

1. How does the material in the mantle actually convect in regards to Doglioni et al? http://www.dst.uniroma1.it/sciterra/sezioni/doglioni/Publ_download/E6-15-03-13-TXT.aspx.html#10._Plate_Kinematics_versus_Mantle_Dynamics_

 

2. How are mantle dynamics and plate kinematics linked at the surface in regards to Doglioni et al?

 

3. How does mantle convection produce the required levels of GPE in the crust in regards to Ghosh et al http://ceas.iisc.ernet.in/~aghosh/Ghosh_geology06.pdf

 

Still waiting, didn’t you say you were an expert on mantle dynamics?

 

Waiting a year between posts does not make them go away I'm afraid.

Again, deflection tactic. What does your theory say about this? Convection in the mantle doesn't exist? So how exactly is heat transferred? Conduction, radiation? Have you looked at the physical plausibility of this? What's the Rayleigh number in the mantle?

 

Right, that’s why predicting the observation of the phenomena ahead of the discovery by over a year, is so important to help distinguish between making legitimate predictions of observations and simple cherry picking. I’m sure that’s what you meant, right?

 

So, how about another one then, wouldn’t that be great!

 

So here’s a research paper, this one from Sept 2015, describing a specific type of plate movement. Please note the timing between advance, retreat and break-off. You can see that same cycle of several million years that I have repeatedly shown in the other research I’ve posted since outlining this model at the beginning of this thread.

 

Repeated slab advance–retreat of the Palaeo-Pacific plate underneath SE China

Yao-Hui, Jiang; Guo-Chang, Wang; Liu, Zheng; Chun-Yu, Ni; Long, Qing; Zhang, Qiao

(2015): Repeated slab advance–retreat of the Palaeo-Pacific plate underneath SE China.

http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1328415Retrieved 04:37, Sep 08, 2015 (GMT)

 

"Integrating these observations, we propose a repeated slab-advance–retreat model for the late Mesozoic magmatic evolution of southeast China. Palaeo-Pacific plate subduction underneath southeast China initiated in the Late Triassic Rhaetian and reached southern Jiangxi by ca. 197 Ma, followed by slab rollback during 197–191 Ma and by slab break-off at ca. 189 Ma. Then slab advance was reestablished with the northwestward subduction approaching southern Hunan at ca. 178 Ma. From ca. 174 Ma, slab rollback reinitiated and gradually migrated from inland to the coastal area. This repeated slab-advance–retreat model is helpful to further understand the geodynamic mechanism of the late Mesozoic tectono-magmatism and related metallogenesis of southeast China."

 

Below in post #6 in 2013 I describe how the plates can be pulled during the thermal expansion portion of the cycle, causing it to break off and withdraw, then during the mantle’s subsidence, to advance again.

 

http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/73730-plate-tectonic-mechanism/page-1#entry735753

 

“The story that I see in these images is told by that big green depression just east of the San Andreas Fault, it's known as the Central Valley and it has an interesting alignment to the Mendocino and Murray Fault lines. Just beyond the valley is the Sierra Nevada Mountains and on past farther east is the Basin and Range extension. So we already according to the model have the Basin and Range pulled out to the west by the tension in the plate section due to the thermal cycles slow expansion of the crust, causing the retraction of the overran Pacific Plate. It looks to me that the plate section broke from the massive tension at the east side of the Central Valley. As the plate was slowly pulled west the overriding continental crust filled in the slowly developing void. . . . . . . . The broken and decoupled plate will not stop the eventual compression of the thermal cycle that in millions of years from now will take this spread out assemblage of ranges and valleys and slowly over millions more bulldoze it into a pile of tilted rock and debris that will then require maybe 50 million years more to erode to resemble the current American Cordillera.”

So the cartoon image of a trench rolling forward then backwards "fits" your model. What about the timescales? Do they fit with the solar cycles? What about the Japanese earthquakes? Have you looked to see whether any of the timescales actually tell the same story?

Hi arc,

You still flogging this dead horse?

That is, the alternate model should, or really, must describe, or predict, in a detailed way a process that has not yet been observed or described, preferably by others, to have occurred in nature. And, also preferably, this discovery should be made at some appreciable time in the future after it was described and predicted by the model. This predictability is the optimum criteria for science. That it not only describes what is currently being observed, but will describe in detail a solution to various phenomena observed at a later date that are currently unknown to the science at hand.

Yes. However.... You must also answer all the criticisms that have been raised in this thread. Waiting a year between posts does not make them go away I'm afraid.

I now would like to show some research that was received for review June 20, 2016 and approved October 11, 2016.

http://www.pnas.org/content/113/47/E7359

Rapid conversion of an oceanic spreading center to a subduction zone inferred from high-precision geochronology
Timothy E. Keenan, John Encarnación, Robert Buchwaldt, Dan Fernandez, James Mattinson, Christine Rasoazanamparany, and P. Benjamin Luetkemeyer

Nice find. Of course cherry picking results from the literature that "fit" your model is not how science is done.

The term you should 'google' (if you have not already) is 'extremophiles' - these are organisms here on the Earth that live in environments that were thought not to be able to support life. Understanding these orgamisms may give us some clues as to what is possible eleswhere in the Univrerse.

+1

 

Also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemotroph

I guess the wavelengths don't fit.

 

The spatial wavelength is far too short. These bulges are of order +/-1 km elevation with 10^3 km lateral wavelength.

The temporal wavelength is far too long. Geological evidence shows this topography develops over millions of years.

Press release:

 

http://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/first-global-map-of-flow-within-the-earths-mantle-finds-the-surface-is-moving-up-and-down-like-a-yo

 

Or go straight to the paper:

 

http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2709.html

 

My own perspective:

 

We already knew that the Earth's surface moves up and down, and that one way this can happen is because the mantle pushes the land up from underneath. In this paper a new dataset of observations is presented measuring this type of topography ("dynamic topography"). What's interesting is that the "shape" of the bulges is different from what has been previously been predicted. They are narrower than the broad peaks predicted by previous modelling. They also form more quickly. The authors demonstrate how hot buoyant material confined to channels in the asthenosphere can fit the data.

The funny thing here is that subduction is actually a (really important) mode of mantle convection. It's cold material from the surface that is dense, buoyantly unstable, and sinks into the hotter (more buoyant) fluid below (only fluid over long timescales mind) -- that's pretty much the definition of convection.

 

Subduction = convection

 

Arc denies convection and ridicules it by calling it 'gnomes' yet at the very same time he claims that his model (which kicks the gnomes' collective butt) elegantly explains subduction. So ironically his model "explains" convection. Yet convection is the very thing that he hates (and that every Earth scientist (including Doglioni by the way) is too stupid enough to "believe").

 

Arc hates convection, but subduction's just fine.

 

Arc's stuck in a kind of dumb position here, it's a bit like saying "I hate animals that fly, but birds are okay".

Yay! Dwarves!

Your dwarves sound a bit my like my ants.

 

The plates moved because there is a giant ant colony living in the mantle and they carry the plates on their backs. They live about 200 km deep and eat their way through the mantle material. They are evolved to withstand the tremendous pressure and temperatures found down there and never come up to the surface which is why we don't see them. They eat through the mantle leaving behind a soft residue thus -- my model predicts the existence of the asthenosphere -- this is a simple, accurate prediction not made by any of the competing theories. They converge at subduction zones to mate, and this process drags the plates behind them opening up rifts forming the new oceanic lithosphere.

Out of the three theories presented in this thread I'd definitely say my one has got the most legs!

What is your background that allows you to dismiss arc so harshly?

I don't think I'm being overly harsh; it's his idea, not him, that I dismiss.

 

His idea doesn't stand up. I've given a lot of patience to arc if you look through the thread. I took the time to understand his ideas and to challenge them from many angles.

 

This is what the speculations forum is here for. To challenge ideas. However, it's reached a point where it has become clear (to me) that arc is not interested in dialogue. Every challenge arc faces he either ignores or sweeps under the carpet of a wall of (largely duplicated) text. You could boil down all the hard science content from arc in this entire thread probably into something about as long as his average post.

 

Oh, and I have a PhD in geophysics; my dissertation was about the mantle. I've been through the peer review process and have a better than fair idea of how arc's theory would cope under professional scrutiny. It would crumble.

I would not dismiss the idea completely.

Arc's work is a patch-work synthesis of science tied together in an original way by giant leaps of imagination. It is those giant leaps of imagination that you should look at and question.

 

One giant leap of imagination, backed up by evidence and strong theoretical arguments, would be the work of a genius.

Many unsupported giant leaps of imagination without any clear evidence and zero theory would be the work of a crackpot on an internet forum.

 

I'll leave it to you to decide which of these arc is.

Assuming the core does expand by heating up due to some fanciful mechanism. (Which it should be noted is firmly in the realms of science fiction, but let's just assume it for fun.) Then does it follow that the "crust" would split open as arc suggests?

 

Well, we should at least think seriously about this possibility ...

 

Have you considered a possibility of structural change of mantle minerals in the contact area between outer core and lower mantle, which could reduce the volume and allow to dissipate the stress without the need to lift the entire mantle?

 

The process of metamorphism is extremely abundant in nature due to the fact that it's energetically more viable than all alternatives.

But let's just go a step further and assume the crust does split open, then would you get plate tectonic behaviour by expansion/contraction oscillations?

 

Probably not ...

 

Why wouldn't your divergent boundary during the cycle of expansion not become a convergent boundary during the contraction phase? Think of it, it's a new part of crust that has a lower thickness, perchance it hasn't cooled down completely, it's much weaker. Why would convergent boundary form anywhere else?

I think we see a pattern emerging here. Arc's entire theory is nothing but a house of cards. Assumption upon assumption. Dismissed at a glance.

Please can you be as brief as possible.

You must be joking?

 

No you have a serious problem. Hiding behind walls of text is no excuse for bad science. Make it brief and stay on point: you might get more response.

 

 

 

 

And I still wait for you to make even one prediction of observation using the standard model ...

Why would I waste my time? It wouldn't help assess your speculation one bit.

So you are using an obvious local measurement and suggesting that the rate has some bearing to the global effect.

Surely you are not suggesting that rate is the global rate!

 

I'm not wanting you to prove anything. I just want you to describe the basic principles behind your hypothesis, the ones you have stuck with up to this stage.

Please can you be as brief as possible.

 

Are you still needing a oscillating temperatures of the Earth's inner parts?

Have you been able to link this to the Earth's magnetic field?

 

He found a paper with the word "oscillation" and "mantle" in and then completely bastardised it. This is the quality of science we are having to deal with here.

There are many lines of evidence that the Earth is indeed a spinning ball. For a thorough investigation one could start with the field of geodesy.

 

A more abstract line of evidence comes from seismology (something I can personally vouch for having worked with the data and coded up simulations). Whenever there is a large earthquake the Earth "rings like a bell" (this motion can be decomposed into normal modes which are essentially the "tones"). In fact by studying these tones it can be deduced that the Earth is spherical -- what's more -- a close look at this data can even show that the Earth is spinning! Intuitively one can imagine that a tubular bell sounds different to a triangle, a cow bell, or a cymbal -- just by listening you could tell the shape of the "bell" being struck. This is the exact same concept as applied to the Earth. Whenever there is a large earthquake the earth "sounds" like a sphere. No other shape would sound the same.

Watch a baseball game sometime. Especially if the pitcher throws a knuckleball.

 

Of course, I should have added the standard caveat "on a planet with no air"!

I think what you are looking for is the Coriolis Effect

This is the apparent deflection of a moving object due to the rotation of the Earth.

 

Also I'd like to see you try to throw a ball in curve that was not a parabola!

Yes, I was thinking of that paper. Great abstract!

One can't help but call "bullshit" to the questioner. It's as though he's said something profound "noise is the symmetry of music" -- but it is meaningless. I think that is the technical definiton of bullshit (at the extreme end of the spectrum).

If there were some reversable mathematical operation that converted "music" into "noise" then you could turn the "noise" back into "music". (I'm going to assume that's what you mean by symmetry.) However, that wouldn't mean that you could just take any random noise and turn it into music. So generally speaking I guess my answer would be "no".

Arc,

 

In the argument about fast mountain building and episodic growth spurts:

1) You show some problems with the standard model. Great, very interesting!

2) You add some kind of alternative explanation (in the form of cartoons). OK good you're thinking at least! Now just add the maths!

3) You add some evidence -- midocean ridges bulge upwards.

 

Here are the problems:

• The evidence does not support your theory because your model is nothing more than cartoons -- you really need those numbers!

• One obvious consequence of your model is that there would need to be compressive faults at the mid ocean ridges to accomodate the crustal shortening. There aren't any observed in nature. BOOM your theory is wrong. (truth hurts sometimes)

• There is already a perfectly good *quantitative* description of the mid ocean ridge bulge (Parsons and Sclater).

 

This latter point relates to your second argument about the height of transform ridges. Here you:

1) You show that transform ridges bulge upwards and this is not explained by the Parsons and Sclater model. Great, how interesting!

2) You ramble on for a while without making a coherent point.

 

Presumably here you mean to destroy the standard model again and thereby free your path to our hearts and minds. However, just because the Parson and Sclater model does not explain EVERYTHING does not mean that it explains NOTHING. To me, the failure of the Parsons and Sclater model at the these locations reveals that the underlying physics used in that model does not apply in these situations. Parson and Sclater model is a thermal model of topography, and therefore the bulges at tranform faults are not thermal features. Besides, non of this helps you to escape the fact that there are still no compressive faults at the mid-ocean ridges. And that for me is the killer blow to your theory. You could disprove Parsons and Sclater all day long and it wouldn't make the darndest difference.