We previously saw a Fox News pie chart that had a couple extra slices (here). Now, fair and balanced math adds up to 120 percent of voters indicating that they view the science on global warming to be rigged.
This is an interesting Rasmussen poll when you add up the number and discover that you are in a parallel universe.
The question is: “In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data?” According to the poll, 35 percent thought it very likely, 24 percent somewhat likely, 21 percent not very likely, and 5 percent not likely at all (15 percent weren’t sure).
This rather dubious poll is offered to show that people are dubious about the science and math of global warming experts.
For the full story, click here
Bob Esq., said “Where is the requisite SUSTAINED SOURCE OF HEAT?”
Bob, That is the problem with Slarti’s analysis. That is the problem with trying to conserve energy where it cannot be conserved. The fallacy of an isolated system. Slarti considers the energy to become PE in the rubble. It feeds itself like some chemical reaction. Why? Because he doesn’t comprehend where it went, and the books he read failed to exit the bogus isolated system.
If the universe is the isolated system; what energy arrived on Mars? Last time I checked, it was part of the “universe” and, therefore, fair game to place in the equation.
Problem: “A 100 kg block of steel is launched at 100m/sec to the north off the top of a 1000 meter tall building. What was the total energy of the block when it was launched, and what was the total energy of the block immediately before it hit the earth?”
Slarti’s answer: Neglecting friction wind resistance, the block (which may be launched in any direction, incidentally) will have 1.5 mJ of KE in the instant before it hits the ground if I haven’t dropped an order of magnitude somewhere. It will be going a factor of 3^(1/2) faster than when it was launched.”
Initially, the object had both potential and kinetic energy.
Kinetic Energy =1/2m(v^2)=1/2(100kg)(100m/sec^2)=500,000 Joules.
Potential Energy = Mass x Gravitational acceleration X Height = 100 x 9.8 x 1000 =980,000 Joules
The total energy of this block of steel was 500,000 joules + 980,000 joules = 1,480,000 joules of combined energy. (that would be about 1.5 MegaJoules, represented as 1.5 MJ, not 1.5 mJ(which would represent millajoules or 10^-3 joules)
You final analysis “It will be going a factor of 3^(1/2) faster than when it was launched” is not supported by any math. How did you arrive at this conclusion? Show your work! I didn’t ask how fast it would be going. I asked what the total energy would be immediately before impact with the earth. Your answer of 3^1/2 times (or 1.73) faster IS INCORRECT. If you would have shown your work, you’d probably see your error. Is there a point at which the object will be moving north as fast as it is moving towards the earth? Is the object going to hit the earth in the same amount of time as it would from simply being dropped? Does a bullet, fired out of a gun, fall to the earth in the same amount of time as a bullet that was dropped from the same height?
I presented you with a problem that involves an initial velocity of 100 m/sec in a horizontal direction, and a zero velocity in the vertical direction. (Velocity is speed in a direction) We know that the vertical velocity will increase, and the horizontal velocity will decrease. Your answer must include the horizontal and vertical velocities. You cannot eliminate one from the answer without accounting for it.
If the object was just dropped from a height of 1000 meters, (not accounting for friction), it would accelerate at a rate of 9.8 meters per second per second.
The formula is t = √(2x/g) = √(2(distance/gravitational acceleration)= √(2(1000/9.8)= 14.286 seconds (In reality, friction would determine terminal velocity, which occurs in roughly 5 seconds) The vertical speed immediately before impact can be calculated using this formula. v = gt = 9.8 (14.286) = 140 meters per second.
The rest should be an easy calculation for a scientist with a complete understanding of the forces acting upon the object. It requires you to consider momentum.
Slarti,
I have no idea what you spoke to your ‘friend in the physics department’ about, but I’m sure, nay positive, that he would not agree with your theory when showed the methodology at how you arrived at your conclusions; what you ignored in your analysis, and how it falls far from being universal, even universal to the extent that it fails to explain the glaring anomalies per the third building within the single event — WTC 7 (a building whose pile of rubble was hotter than one of the towers.)
One point Buddha alluded to was the improbability of asymmetrical damage leading to a symmetrical collapse — twice and in the same symmetrical fashion despite having two distinct asymmetrical damage patterns.
What Buddha failed to bolster his argument with was the problem with your implicit assumption with your theory of the collapse; i.e. that the building somehow in that moment wasn’t DESIGNED to exert OPPOSING NEWTONS OF FORCE upwards so as to keep it standing for nearly three decades of existence.
Assuming, and I mean ASSUMING, an entire single floor magically gave way from all support simultaneously (i.e. symmetrically) and fell to the floor beneath, do you really think that amount of force wasn’t accounted for within the design? 47 vertical steel columns just began shredding away and kept on going till they hit bottom? And how did this ‘disaster waiting to happen’ building survive hurricanes?
Newton for newton, your theory of Pe becoming Te is a pyramid scheme begging the existence of FREE WORK; i.e. you ignore the basic maxims of architecture itself — ignoring the path of greatest resistance from the roof down to the basement foundation of said building necessitated by architecture itself.
You see the free fall and you assume no resistance in the fall because that’s what you saw. You never ask the question HOW. You’re like a liberal playing foot loose and fancy free with the constitution; i.e. you never give deference to the structure of the subject you’re analyzing.
And that’s where you put your foot in your mouth with your quick segue from Pe to Te by ignoring ALL THE ENERGY THEORETICALLY NECESSARY to rip through the PATH OF GREATEST RESISTANCE to account for the collapse in the first place.
No matter what you saw, it is not true that buildings merely shred themselves to pieces. Not even Disney would attempt a fiction like that.
Finally, your defense is relying more and more on my alleged ignorance of physics while claiming I’ve been insulting you. Does Byron, an engineer, share your view? Buddha? Robert? Intersubjectively speaking, you’re shit out of luck. Yet you continually fail to comprehend why an attorney would focus on something as non-dramatic as the molten metal existing for nearly six months and how the law Q=mc(delta-T) could be held in abeyance for that time by bureaucrats and those who support their falsehoods.
You’re so wrapped up in the bedtime story you’ve been fed, with the “oh let us cry for the people on flight 93 and the firemen and the policemen” appeal to emotion tripe that you didn’t even flinch when I showed you how NIST LITERALLY TAP DANCED around and denied the existence of a physical anomaly that even you were forced to concede.
And if NIST passed on what you’re attempting; i.e. didn’t dare attempt to construct an argument based on fallacious slights of hand like you, what makes you so sure you can get away with it?
One last thing; in the class that I read that book “Physics and its 5th Dimension” we had a little experiment regarding the universality of scientific theories. We took all Horoscopes for each sign and simply wrote out the text for each one, without an identifier, on a scrap of paper. After handing them out to the members of the class, it was amazing to see how many thought that horoscope applied to them even though the odds were 11:1 against. Why? Because just like you THEY WANTED TO BELIEVE.
Just imagine Slarti, how easy it would be to ‘strip the horoscope labels’ from the pseudo scientific crap regarding the collapse of the towers, and a whole host of stories regarding 9/11, i.e. kept the empirical facts the same but changed the names, faces and removed that 9/11 label for submission to a truly blind/impartial scientific panel for analysis?
How would they react to an attorney asking “what happened to Q=mc(delta-T) that day and for the next six months?” “Where is the requisite SUSTAINED SOURCE OF HEAT?”
Do you really believe that any self respecting scientist would formulate an argument like the one you’ve set forth here? Remember, there’s no ‘fear of being labeled a conspiracy theorist’ because they’re blind to the, how shall we say, ‘horoscope labels’–i.e. their sole desire would be to believe in the consistency of the scientific theories they’ve held so dear their entire lives in lieu of buying into a ‘political fairy tale’ holding itself above the laws of nature itself.
That’s why I start with Q=mc(delta-T) Slarti.
Slarti,
If I come across as frustrated, I am. I despise arrogance. One of the worst attributes of a scientist is arrogance. Instead of saying “I don’t know” a scientist will disguise ignorance by arrogance. Permit me to give an example:
Hook a seismograph to the foot of a bed. Hit the mattress with a hammer and record the readings. Now hit the frame of the bed with the same hammer using the same amount of force. Record those readings. Are they the same? Are they even close? (If you don’t have a seismograph handy, put your hand under the bed post and perform the experiment. :>)
The surface of the earth will distort. The bedrock will not. To use seismic readings caused by an earthquake, and try to equate them to something that occurred on the surface is like hitting the mattress vs. hitting the frame. To claim that you have accounted for the energy without even acknowledging the difference is arrogant.
Drop the BS “isolated system” and you may start to see reality. To not drop it is to avoid reality.
I cannot accept “heat in the rubble pile” as an acceptable answer.
Nowhere, and I mean NOWHERE in the Slarti Calculations is energy simply transferred into the atmosphere. That’s where most of the energy goes, and it happens instantaneously. However, the Slarti Calculations don’t account for it. It’s not what you see, it’s what you don’t see, that absorbs most of the energy.
What happens to the Slarti Calculations when you consider that, unlike earthquakes that start in the bedrock, this started in the surface, and requires many times more energy to create the same seismic energy readings?
Last but not least. The numbers for sound energy do not take frequency into account. Does anyone think it takes the same amount of energy to transmit a low frequency sound as it does a high frequency sound?
Deal with one tower at a time. I know this makes your numbers lower, but it does a much better job of permitting unaccounted variables to withstand comparative tests.
I thought we had accepted 400 billion joules of GPE as a realistic number.
Look at this video and tell me what is happening to the energy. Is it all going down? Is some going up? Where is the Slarti calculation for energy expended to send rubble up and sideways?
Look at the arc of the debris and tell me where in the “Slarti Calculations” it has been accounted for.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7g9XZB3yrY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Slarti,
“I have accounted for all of the energy stored as gravitational potential in the WTC on the morning of 9/11. This energy is (like all energy existing that morning) still around (by which I mean in the universe).”
This is not acceptable accounting. It’s liken to a parent asking where the money was spent, and the child responding “on things”. To make matters worse, the child really does consider “on things” to be an acceptable answer and pats them-self on the back for being so honest.
Saying that the energy exists in the rubble pile is (a) a bullshit dismissive answer, or (b) a demonstration of the limits of the interactions at play in the real world. I suspect that in this case the answer is (b).
Today, Professor Turley posted the high-speed video of a water droplet landing on a pool of water. Slarti would have called this an inelastic collision. In reality, the water droplet, just like the rubble from the WTC towers bounces. (unaccounted energy)
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5bsQ_YDYCI&hl=en_US&fs=1&]
Bob,
I was talking with a colleague (who happens to have a Ph.D. in physics) earlier today, and on the off chance that there was some massive hole in my understanding of physics, I asked him what he thought happened to the gravitational potential energy stored in the WTC the morning of 9/11. He replied that it was dissipated as heat. I went on to outline my thesis about the distribution and ultimate disposition of the GPE in the WTC collapse and he agreed with my analysis. He added that his advisor told him that there are three things you should never discuss: religion, politics, and thermodynamics. There have been times during this discussion that I wish I had abided by that saying. They say that ignorance is bliss, and I really wish that I was ignorant of your nirvana-like bliss. I’ve tried my best to treat you with the respect that you have utterly failed to show me, but I will not let your egregious misunderstanding of physics go unanswered.
Bob posted:
[Me] “what, in your opinion, is the proper way to apply the law of conservation of energy? (Both in general and in this case.)”
[Bob] “Good accounting practices without resorting to convenient fictions hidden within argument by verbosity.”
As I showed in my post to Robert, I have kept good accounting practices in tracking the GPE stored in the WTC pre-9/11. Unfortunately, because of your talent at misinterpreting my meaning, I have had to engage in verbosity in order to carefully qualify what I said. Also, my writing style is better suited to scientific papers and is dry. Sorry. And what convenient fictions am I supposed to have buried in my verbose prose?
Bob posted:
[Me] “And what does the phrase ‘heat death of the universe’ mean to you?”
[Bob]”Same thing it meant to the world when they first heard of it, or at least as I read they reacted while reading of it in:
[link]
Only I know better. What’s your point?”
What a perfectly unhelpful answer. My point was just to ask if you understood what the concept of ‘heat death of the universe’ means – that entropy has reached maximum due to all of the energy having been dissipated as heat spread evenly throughout the universe. The ‘end state’ of all energy is as evenly distributed heat – this is when energy ceases to be useful because it can no longer be transformed (do work). The last bit of work that any energy does is generally the work that results in its conversion to heat.
Bob said:
“I will post a proper reply some time today, but let me give you a small taste of the tripe you’re selling:
I hope that the above comment was not your ‘proper’ reply, because that would just be lame.
Bob posed:
[Me] “Kinetic energy provides power to forces which do work bending and shearing steel beams, the kinetic energy is thereby converted into (mostly) thermal energy in the beams.”
[Bob] “This is categorically WRONG.
Why, because by definition the majority of the Ke is being converted into WORK, not thermal energy. Thermal energy is a frictional BYPRODUCT.”
You know the words, but you clearly don’t understand the concepts. I have cited numerous quotes from Wikipedia giving definitions in support of my arguments. Like this one from the ‘thermal energy’ entry:
“James Joule studied the relationship between heat, work, and temperature. He observed that if he did mechanical work on a fluid, such as water, by agitating the fluid, its temperature increased. He proposed that the mechanical work he was doing on the system was converted to “thermal energy”. Specifically, he found that 4200 joules of energy were needed to raise the temperature of a kilogram of water by one degree Celsius.”
Or this one from the ‘work’ entry:
“In thermodynamics, work performed by a system is the quantity of energy transferred by the system to another due to changes in the external parameters of the system.”
Or the ‘friction’ entry:
“When contacting surfaces move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into thermal energy, or heat.”
Or this one from the entry on ‘kinetic energy’:
“Kinetic energy can be best understood by examples that demonstrate how it is transformed to and from other forms of energy. For example, a cyclist will use chemical energy that was provided by food to accelerate a bicycle to a chosen speed. This speed can be maintained without further work, except to overcome air-resistance and friction. The energy has been converted into kinetic energy – the energy of motion – but the process is not completely efficient and heat is also produced within the cyclist.
The kinetic energy in the moving cyclist and the bicycle can be converted to other forms. For example, the cyclist could encounter a hill just high enough to coast up, so that the bicycle comes to a complete halt at the top. The kinetic energy has now largely been converted to gravitational potential energy that can be released by freewheeling down the other side of the hill. (Since the bicycle lost some of its energy to friction, it will never regain all of its speed without further pedaling. Note that the energy is not destroyed; it has only been converted to another form by friction.) Alternatively the cyclist could connect a dynamo to one of the wheels and also generate some electrical energy on the descent. The bicycle would be traveling more slowly at the bottom of the hill because some of the energy has been diverted into making electrical power. Another possibility would be for the cyclist to apply the brakes, in which case the kinetic energy would be dissipated through friction as thermal energy.”
What definition did you mean?
Friction is a process in which work is done that converts kinetic energy into thermal energy. Energy is converted into other forms of energy by the process of doing work. Work is the action of energy conversion, not a destination form of energy. If I lift a mass, the work I am doing is converting mechanical energy in my muscles (itself the result of the work done to convert chemical energy into mechanical energy and heat in my muscles) into gravitational potential energy (and heat in my muscles). In your car’s engine, work is done which converts chemical energy into mechanical energy (and heat in the engine and exhaust). What happens to that mechanical energy, you might ask? After it is converted to kinetic energy (and heat in the tires and roadway – are you sensing a theme here?) most of it is dissipated as heat through work done by the brakes. Photosynthesis is a process in which work is done resulting in the conversion of electromagnetic energy into chemical energy (and heat in the plant). Look at any instance of work being done and you will find energy being converted from one form into another (and usually some heat). So my question to you is, if the work being done bending steel beams isn’t converting kinetic energy (ultimately) into heat, then where does that energy go? That energy still exists in a quantifiable form. Where is it? What form is it in?
Robert said:
“If you want to use the law of conservation of energy, you must be willing to account for ALL of the energy. I want to know how much went into the pyroclastic cloud, and when the cloud disipated, where did the energy go. It’s YOUR isolated system, so it’s YOUR responsibility to account for ALL of the energy.”
I have accounted for all of the energy stored as gravitational potential in the WTC on the morning of 9/11. This energy is (like all energy existing that morning) still around (by which I mean in the universe).
Assuming that there was half a teraJoule of GPE in each one tower, this is its approximate disposition:
Sonic energy: 60 megaJoules (mJ)
ejected from system
Seismic energy: 5.9 gigaJoules (gJ)
ejected from system
Collapse energy: 80 – 250 gJ
Destroying structure – energy dissipated as heat in debris
Pulverizing materials – energy dissipated as heat in debris
Ejecting pyorclastic flow* – energy ejected from system
Impact kinetic energy: 245 – 415 gJ
energy dissipated as heat in debris
In the end 493.5 gJ of GPE less what was ejected in the pyroclastic flow (a significant part of 80-250 gJ) and what GPE remained in the rubble pile was dissipated as heat in the debris pile. As you can see, I’ve accounted for all of the energy, and no one has mentioned a valid destination energy that I am not accounting for.
* I don’t really care about where this energy went (it was mostly dissipated as heat in the pyroclastic flow) – just that it left the system and so did not end up as heat in the rubble pile.
Robert said:
“When you’re done, try this.
A 100 kg block of steel is launched at 100m/sec to the north off the top of a 1000 meter tall building. What was the total energy of the block when it was launched, and what was the total energy of the block immediately before it hit the earth?”
Neglecting friction wind resistance, the block (which may be launched in any direction, incidentally) will have 1.5 mJ of KE in the instant before it hits the ground if I haven’t dropped an order of magnitude somewhere. It will be going a factor of 3^(1/2) faster than when it was launched.
Bob,Esq.,
The Fifth Dimension? I was just getting used to things falling and you had to bring a song about a hot air balloon into the picture.
“what, in your opinion, is the proper way to apply the law of conservation of energy? (Both in general and in this case.)”
Good accounting practices without resorting to convenient fictions hidden within argument by verbosity.
“And what does the phrase ‘heat death of the universe’ mean to you?”
Same thing it meant to the world when they first heard of it, or at least as I read they reacted while reading of it in:
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Its-Fifth-Dimension-Society/dp/0201067676/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1262897924&sr=8-1
Only I know better. What’s your point?
Buddha,
One who is about to fight for your amusement salutes you!
HAIL BUDDHA!
(and you grudgingly have my pardon for the pun…)
Excellent. I’ll have some fun reading later. I’m glad you guys are sticking with this thread. It’s a blast, pardon the very inappropriate but very deliberate pun.
Slarti,
If you want to use the law of conservation of energy, you must be willing to account for ALL of the energy. I want to know how much went into the pyroclastic cloud, and when the cloud disipated, where did the energy go. It’s YOUR isolated system, so it’s YOUR responsibility to account for ALL of the energy.
When you’re done, try this.
A 100 kg block of steel is launched at 100m/sec to the north off the top of a 1000 meter tall building. What was the total energy of the block when it was launched, and what was the total energy of the block immediately before it hit the earth?
Bob,
I’ll reply to your incipient post in due course, but there are a couple of things that I would like to ask – what, in your opinion, is the proper way to apply the law of conservation of energy? (Both in general and in this case.) And what does the phrase ‘heat death of the universe’ mean to you?
I will post a proper reply some time today, but let me give you a small taste of the tripe you’re selling:
“Kinetic energy provides power to forces which do work bending and shearing steel beams, the kinetic energy is thereby converted into (mostly) thermal energy in the beams.”
This is categorically WRONG.
Why, because by definition the majority of the Ke is being converted into WORK, not thermal energy. Thermal energy is a frictional BYPRODUCT.
As I alluded to with a quote in my earlier post, in science we generally use Ockham’s razor to decide between preliminary hypotheses. In our entire discussion, this is the context in which I’ve been talking about Ockham’s razor. My original statement was that Ockham’s razor favored the hypothesis that no additional heat sources were required to account for the observed heat in the rubble. Your response was to lecture me about Ockham’s razor and imply that I was making a knee-jerk decision to ‘trust the man’. You told me that I was incorrect about what Ockham’s razor implied in this situation and obviously had no sound reasoning on which to base my assertion. The negation of my hypothesis is that additional heat sources would be required to account for the observed heat in the rubble. Thus these are the two hypotheses at bar – and by deriding the hypothesis I favored, you were asserting its negation. I have constructed a falsifiable model and used it to quantify some of the heat sources that I claim, in total, could have accounted for the observed heat. I have presented what I think is convincing evidence and what even you must admit is extensive and reasoned evidence that Ockham’s razor favors my hypothesis. Along the way, you have repeatedly accused me of being unscientific with absolutely no legitimate grounds to do so. You have ridiculed my attempts to use concepts like conservation of energy and mechanics to understand events that obey conservation of energy and are governed by the laws of mechanics. You have offered no evidence that Ockham’s razor shaves away my hypothesis, and you are now even disavowing the negation of my hypothesis. Your ‘irrefutable’ evidence is a residue consisting of substances that were present in the rubble in large amounts (this alone, in my mind, shifts the burden of proof – this makes the ‘thermic’ material innocent until proven guilty rather than the reverse). I’ve laid out my theory completely and I believe that it is far more plausible that explosives were not used given:
1) That the available sources of heat (in my opinion) were sufficient to account for the observed heat.
2) That it would take an enormous amount of explosives/incendiares to substantially increase the amount of heat in the rubble.
3) There was (in my opinion) sufficient available energy to account for observed effects of the collapse if it is viewed as the collapse of a 30 or 15-story building on top of an 80 or 95-story building, which is the mode of failure that the observations suggest.
4) There was (in my opinion) sufficient initial and secondary damage to have initiated the collapse and the observed collapse was consistent with this mode of failure.
5) It seems unreasonable/implausible to go to the trouble and expense of covertly planting and precisely detonating tons of explosives/incendiaries to achieve a mode of failure that, in my opinion, most controlled demolition experts would tell you would be the likely result of failure via damage from the impacts of the jetliners.
5) The evidence for ‘thermic materials’ is a residue made up of substances plentiful in the collapse.
6) Any eyewitness accounts from 9/11 must be viewed with extreme skepticism. Eyewitness accounts can differ under the best of circumstances, I think that it is fair to say that 9/11 was far from the best circumstances to obtain accurate eyewitness testimony.
7) None of the visual evidence contradicts the ‘natural’ explanation (given the energies involved in the collapse, things like the so-called ‘squibs’ or the pyroclastic flow are reasonable).
8) In my opinion, the similarities between the collapse of the WTC towers and controlled demolition, is simply that the WTC came down in a gravitational collapse, just like all buildings taken down by controlled demolition.
Now I’d like you to ask yourself which one of us has had a knee-jerk reaction and which one of us has a position based on reasoning and evidence? I think your whole strategy of calling me an ignorant tool who doesn’t understand the law of parsimony while attacking my reasoning and understanding of physics with specious arguments, and while flagrantly demonstrating your own ignorance of the application of Ockham’s razor is hypocritical and disingenuous.
I’m going out shopping now, but I just thought I’d clarify for the NTH time that I never “[asserted] that the heat seen in the rubble can only be accounted for by thermite”
Ockham’s razor would never allow me to take such a stance. If I said anything at all regarding the evidence of thermitic material found at ground zero, it’s only that it’s existence, i.e. evidence of it’s use, makes for a far more plausible theory than the impossible ones fronted earlier.
Shopping now…
Buddha,
I am surprised that you didn’t say that “This Happened One Evening” I have had a few Fords to sell in my life. The Porcelain Buick Bowl was beneath me, so to speak and lordy, lordy the FORD went all over.
Slarti,
No further corrective action is required.
And the NYE wasn’t so bad except for the horrid weather. Nothing finer than cold sideways rain and drunk drivers. Aside from that a good time was had by all. Except the one person in the party who drank way way too much and ended up “selling Buicks” out in the parking lot in said lovely weather while insisting that he do so without shoes or a jacket. He got to both vomit and catch a cold for his efforts. Now THAT is a bad NYE. One that could have only been made worse by the addition of ice/sleet, the cops, a hospital, and/or my ex-wife.