Posted on 02/16/2007 11:23:52 PM PST by neverdem
I'm sorry, I didn't understand your post. That second sentence doesn't seem to hang together. Could you expand please? And were you tending to agree with me or Dunn?
LOL...
"I didn't bother to read further" ... [if i had, i would risk being educated]
I wouldn't use the term 'false', how about incomplete? At non relativistic speeds Newtons equations are extremely accurate, but I am quibbling :( I know your scientific understanding may exceed mine.
Congruent conflation, pot calling the kettle black, they are two different things but they are both black. Yes I know that Special and General Relativity are two separate ideas but most people would be hard pressed to explain the difference. So I would probably have to agree with you when you say, "But my point was that Dunn doesn't understand the two theories and doesn't even understand that they're different.
My take on his statement was that except for the date he cited he used the General Relativity Theory properly. He also used the word 'proved' improperly and that is why I changed the word to 'supported' in my reply :) Despite those two errors (and there are more, I am sure) I thought the article was relatively interesting and worthy of more than an instant dismissal.
I judged, based on the fundamental scientific ignorance he'd shown in the first couple of paragraphs that it was a waste of time.
So, you did not answer, what had you asked me that you didn't need to ask further?
As for the dim bulb remark, I'll gladly compare mine to your own. It took me a few weekend hours to solve this problem. Can you do as well?
Ahh... so you're willing to spend "a few weekend hours" to play a game, but you're unwilling to spend 3-5 minutes to educate yourself... great call.
It's easy to spot propaganda because 100% negatives or positives are presented, whatever supports the purpose of the manipulation. If they were smarter they would give 10 to 20% to the other side to throw off this detection but they never do. For one thing they're too insecure to do that.
There are many advantages and disadvantages of any climate change. If the change is warming the net benefits for life on Earth likely fall overwhelmingly on the advantage side.
Because building rockets creates high paying jobs for mostly smart male American engineers, intensifying world-wide envy. That will never do. Global warming on the other hand appears to be useful to the envious to destroy American prosperity. Unfortunately for them the rocket engineers instead will be hard at work developing climate management technologies such as cloud, snow, and saltwater algae making.
The real problem with a mass rushing toward Earth is that it is unguided. We do not need to deflect or stop such a body; we only need to alter its course to a slight degree.
Like cancer, early detection for this problem is needed. Once an oncoming body is detected and its course calculated, it should be relatively simple to also calculate the optimum course correction which would lead it to a better location.
One might even hope it could be used to further other goals of future space activity.
Anyway, as to moving it, even the slight amount necessary, there is a procedure which can be guaranteed to work, if given sufficient resources and time in which to act.
That is the landing on the oncoming body of a mass-driver. Whether using solar power or nuclear power, the driver would steadily dismantle the object, flinging the small portions away in a direction calculated to achieve the course correction desired.
If need be, swarms of such devices could be employed.
Since we would be using the asteroid's own mass as a reaction fuel, it would be impossible to run out. The only thing we could run out of is time.
It is for this reason that many who are concerned would like to see additional resources made available to search the skies, and to prepare the simple machines that could prevent our sharing the dinosaurs' fate.
Science at its basic level is based on knowns and/or a model/formula to explain observations of unknowns based on knowns. With string theory (for everything) and gaia theory (for earth) and other models/formula, true scientist may have reached the limits of knowns. This seems to lead to a "politicalization" of models/formula to explain unknowns. Thus, the issue of global warming is as political as Iraq WMDs and the 70s issue of "does smoking cause cancer?".
What are you talking about? As a research scientist, myself, I can tell you that he almost 100% gets it. To get to 100%, I would have added the phrase"...until contradictory new data is obtained."
There are no "Laws" to explain global warming. However, Lawyers may decide if global warming exists and who is to blame. This puts humans above "Mother Nature" and/or "God".
Where does he conflate the two? He talks only of General Relativity.
The neat thing is that the farther out you start the diversion the less power is required to divert the object sufficiently.
These same devices will be useful if we wish to bring water-ice to Mars as part of a Terraforming project.
It might increase their economic palatability to equip them with assaying equipment to analyse rocks and asteroid materials.
Then we would simply be "surveying."
You're correct in many ways. However...
1. Detection network will be VERY expensive to achieve and maintain for (say) a thousand years. How do we do it? Who pays?
2. Prediction of the course of bodies detected far enough off is almost certainly going to be subject to "chaotic" motion problems. Determination of mass/velocity/position as well as mass/velocity/position of all significant gravitational influences with precision sufficient is going to be very expensive (both time and money), and by necessity in most cases, the modelling of the path is going to result in a range of probability of striking Earth.
3. Who decides (for the next thousand years) what constitutes a threat we will respond to and which do they determine to ignore? What is the benefit or cost of correct calls?
4. Who designs and pays for the "mass drivers" or whatever other technology is used. Who decides how many of these devices to send up in the "swarm"? Surely, it will be to reduce the probability to some amount. Who determines that probability?
Got the idea? Though it may be a wonderful thought experiment, designing a way to deal with these events seems well beyond our ability right now... Of course, if you were dictator, and had a well defined and certain line of succession for the next millenium, you might be able to pull it off!
Any p[ractical asteroid-deflection program would greatly increase our abilities to do other things in space.
I linked it in comment# 1.
I don't think that's an appropriate term to apply here. "Incomplete" implies that you can add on to obtain a complete theory but the difference between Newton's and Einstein's conception is not additive. Einstein gives a fundamentally different description of the phenomenon.
non relativistic speeds Newtons equations are extremely accurate
What do you mean by "extremely accurate?" That for non-relativistic speeds we can't tell it's wrong? That's not correct.
most people would be hard pressed to explain the difference.
True, but would those people try to instruct us on scientific matters? I think anyone who doesn't know the difference between two of the greatest scientific ideas of the past century should keep his mouth shut about science.
I thought the article was relatively interesting and worthy of more than an instant dismissal.
In what way specifically?
Who pays for the system of detecting and tracking North Atlantic icebergs? The longer it is maintained, the cheaper it will be to maintain it, as further assets come on line.
2. Prediction of the course of bodies detected far enough off is almost certainly going to be subject to "chaotic" motion problems.
True, just as air traffic control is somewhat chaotic and costly. However, automated analysis programs can highlight suspected objects, and decisions can be made at the appropriate time, depending on the threat level assessed.
3. Who decides (for the next thousand years) what constitutes a threat we will respond to and which do they determine to ignore? What is the benefit or cost of correct calls?
Essentially, what would be needed is a semi-military force, similar in function to our Coast Guard, with clear guidelines for how to assess threat levels in a timely fashion designed to provide ample time to take action.
Needless to say, the benefit of correct calls is the survival of billions of human beings.
4. Who designs and pays for the "mass drivers" or whatever other technology is used.
Whoever is far-sighted and responsible enough to realize there is a threat to be responded to. Bear in mind, while we have been discussing the avoidance of having asteroids target Earth, that is not the only possibility. It may be advisable to have a Home System Defense Network to prevent cranky and obstreperous pranksters from sending multi-megatons down as a playful greeting to an old girlfriend.
"... designing a way to deal with these events seems well beyond our ability right now..."
Nothing I have discussed has been even remotely difficult, except for a certain level of anticipated scale of activity. The mass-drivers could easily be assembled from essentially off the shelf components.
The easy way to address all your concerns is to open the space portals to economic enterprise. Then it would be a simple matter to task the investors in space activity with the burden and responsibility of policing their surroundings. There is but one obstacle to that. The 1967 Outer Space Treaty prevents profit-seeking activities in space. The United States should withdraw from that treaty, and allow investors to follow their dreams.
It will be to the benefit, and possible survival, of all of us.
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