Copy of a post to http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/blog/ (in case it is deleted for being 'off-topic' ;).
‘... The draw of string theory isn’t its strong scientific credentials, it is the weakness of any competition.’-Gavin
Dirac had a sea of particles and holes to visually use his equation to predict antimatter. Similarly, to the holes and electrons model of a semiconductor, the outward flow of matter in the big bang gives an inward flow of spacetime fabric. If you consider a sealed corridor with loads of people at one end, walking towards the other end, the mass of air flows the opposite way to the way the people are going. You know this not only from the fact that air flows around you to fill in the space behind you as you move, but also because the corridor starts full of people at one end and air at the other, and ends up the other way around.
The surrounding Higgs field similarly pushes inwards as stars go outward. In any explosion there is some outward pressure, and if we multiply this by the spherical surface area, we get outward force. Newton's 3rd law says there’s equal inward force (the rocket effect). This is the zone of inward ‘reversed wind’ phase in an air burst, but is the inward Higgs field pressure/force in a big bang. I've a couple of simple calculations at http://nigelcook0.tripod.com/ which predict gravity from this mechanism fairly accurately (1.7% error using convenient data from the literature for the Hubble parameter and density) as well as predicting other stuff about cosmology.
Strong competition is not science but religion. I predict string theory will disappear when the Pope issues a dictum stating spacetime is just 4 dimensional. Real science is a messy business, with retrogression to new interpretations of old "obsolete" ideas. People are ‘branewashed’ by superstringers and other cranks about the nature of reality, they want a final theory in the form of abstract equations and extra dimensions, not obsolete mechanism, so string theory is infallible. This is not good!
UPDATE: I'm not planning to continue with this weblog any longer. All I get is ignorant arguments from Kevin (http://electrogravity.blogspot.com/2005/10/electrons-pass-pulse-of-energy-along.html) which go nowhere. Kevin does not know anything about explosion physics. I respect freedom so will let people comment what they want, which will mean people will 'branewash' each other into discrediting science and believing instead on speculations without evidence.
posted by nige @ 4:28 AM
9 comments
9 Comments:
http://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=286 -
Bryan Says:
October 29th, 2005 at 7:40 am
The argument above seems to rely on the assumption that the Higgs field and real matter like quarks can’t occupy the same volume, just as air can’t occupy the volume filled by people. This must be useless as it is infallible logic, or is Popper wrong?
From: "Nigel Cook"
To: "Ivor Catt"
Sent: Friday, October 21, 2005 10:37 AM
Subject: Re: The Catt has landed
... You have to accept reality whatever it turns out to be. If you don't accept that reality, then you are going into religion. For example, dismissing the evidence of nuclear
physics and astronomy is crackpotism, and religiously "believing" in ... Halton Arp who doesn't have an ounce of horseshit to counter the big bang is horseshit.
Likewise, Hawking screwed up the maths of the big bang in the 1970s by assuming that he could apply Penrose's black hole theory to the universe - which ignores a gravity mechanism within the universe and so is false.
Hawking went off the religion end in 1976 with a paper showing that a black hole destroys causality, and since he thought the universe was a black hole, he thus thought there was no causality to be had.
Felix Bloch professor of theoretical physics Dr Lenny Susskind seized Hawking as an excuse to dismiss causality altogether, then in July 2004
Hawking admitted he had made an error with his dismissal of causality, and was wrong. ...
Kevin or anyone else who wants to know the facts on the reversed blast winds in the suction phase following the pressure phase (they are NOT generated by fireball rise) should check out Dr Hal Brode's computer calculations (referenced to in the comments of the previous post on this blog: Ann. Rev. Nuc. Sci. v18 pp153-202) or see the general discussion in chapter 3 of Glasstone and Dolan .
Notice that the links in the page hyperlinked to previously don't work any longer, as I just found out. The horses***ters are banning knowledge of the association between science and explosions.
Glasstone and Dolan (1977) is full of errors, which I've discussed by email with Hal Brode. The problem is that nuclear effects studies cost a lot of money and brainpower and are therefore on the "restricted" list under the US Atomic Energy Act of 1954 (classification of details is generally Secret-Atomic in the UK and Secret-Restricted Data in US).
None of the effects help anyone make a bomb, but may help an enemy use x-ray ablation of a missile surface to shoot down our weapons, so the details of the 1962 space bursts such as Starfish (1.4 Mt, 400 km altitude), Checkmate (7 kt, 150 km), Kingfish (410 kt, 95 km), and Bluegill (410 kt, 50 km) are classified. The fireball phenomena were carefully filmed from KC-135's aircraft (which suffered EMP induced electronic disruptions at 300 km from Bluegill and Kingfish!).
Glasstone was 80 years old in 1977, and Philip Dolan (a military scientist who served as a weapons effects poject officer in the US Army) was curtailed by secrecy from including full info. Dolan's secret manual DNA-EM-1 "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons" (1972-81) has been declassified, with minor deletions. (A new edition with improved cratering, blast, heat, and EMP data is still classified as "Handbook of Nuclear Weapons Effects" EM-1.)
I first came across Brode's papers in 1992 after having Glasstone's book for years. In 1994, while researching my first Electronics World article, I came upon Dolan's declassified "Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons" with a fascinating secret appendix that attempts to derive the Rankine-Hugoniot shock equations in two different ways. Secret maths!
Kevin,
I've worked on the hydrodynamics of air bursts, and the info you cite is wrong. Take a look at some films:
Free download of commercial DVD about 1962 space tests
Bits of declassified film about the tests
Another US Gov film of less relevance
I'll be giving the maths of blast waves analytically in a new post, plus more on Newton's work.
Bests,
Nigel
Kevin,
Brode says in Annual Review of Nuclear Science, v18, 1968, that computer simulations which ignore fireball rise still show a reversed blast phase.
Initially in an air burst, you have a region of hot air all at the same temperature (thus what they call the "isothermal sphere").
This expands in all directions, because there is no void in the middle at first, so the outward blast force to the North of ground zero is compensated for by the outward blast force to the South of ground zero. Action and reaction are possible in this way, because there is no void in the middle.
However, as soon as the blast or shock front forms, in which the net outward speeds of gas molecules vary linearly (at first) from zero to maximum as distance varies from ground zero to the shock front, you get this void forming in the middle.
This void consists of a near vacuum. Brode's computer calculations show that the air density after a few seconds at ground zero drops to 1% of normal density. (This enhances the radiation near ground zero, which is then travelling virtually through a vacuum without absorption.)
However, the outward force now needs to be compensated by an inward force, since there is no longer any pressurised connection between the blast wave going North and that going South.
The blast still has an outward pressure which knocks down your house, HOW CAN THIS BE SO ACCORDING TO NEWTON'S 3RD LAW?
The outward force is F = PA, where P is outward pressure and A is the area of the blast hemisphere or sphere (surface burst or air burst).
The answer is that there is an inward blast wave phase. Your link is to chapter 2 of Glasstone and Dolan. You need to see chapter 3 which has a graph showing how you get an outward pressure pulse followed by a fall to below normal pressure (suction) accompanied by reversed (inward) winds. It is the inward wind phase which provides the reaction of Newton's 3rd law. Although the reversed pressure is lower than the outward pressure, the inward directed pressure lasts several times longer, which keeps the forces balanced.
Dr Brode does not quite get to this understanding. His PhD supervisor was Hans Bethe, who was too far into Copenhagen doctrines about good maths being obscure equations, to grasp the underlying physics. However, it is very simple to my mind.
Here are some comments on Newton's Principia.
‘I am inclined to think that scientific discovery is impossible without faith in ideas which are of a purely speculative kind and sometimes quite hazy; a faith which is quite unwarranted from the scientific point of view.’ – Karl Popper.
Newton’s Principia (final edition corrected English translation from the Latin), from which I have pruned the waffle and ‘roughage’ (so as to prevent you from declining to look at it, on the basis of excessive length, and insufficient time available to you).
This is the revised 2nd edition, 1713. What remains is: Contents [Book 1: The Motion of Bodies; containing Newton’s crucial proof of the inverse square law, i.e. equal areas in equal times for elliptical orbits not just for the circular orbits that Hooke had used to get the inverse square law of gravity; Book 2: The Motion of Bodies (In Resisting Mediums); air drag is proportional to say the square of velocity, i.e. wind pressure, calculations for fluid hydrostatics, etc.; Book 3: The System of the World; tides are due to moon’s gravity, plus Newton’s valuable comments on the problems of electric forces and how they will be sorted out in the future].
Preface dated 8 May 1686 Trinity College to first edition, Newton ends: ‘I heartily beg that what I have here done may be read with forbearance; and that my labours in a subject so difficult may be examined, not so much with the view to censure, as to remedy their defects.’ (Interesting, when you consider that Hooke had earlier ridiculed Newton’s arrogant paper on light; pointing out an error and humiliating him. Was Newton paranoid, or genuinely trying to avert censure? Today’s historian simply says ‘Newton was humble’.)
P.5: Definitions: 1. Mass = density x volume, 2. Momentum = velocity x mass, 3. Inertia = force opposing acceleration of mass, 4. Force = action causing the acceleration of mass, 5. Centripetal force = force directed from all directions towards a point.
P. 8: ‘[Def.8] ... I here design only to give a mathematical notion of those forces, without considering their physical causes and seats.’
P. 8: Scholium: ‘... I. Absolute, true, and mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external, and by another name is called duration: relative, apparent, and common time, is some sensible and external (whether accurate or unequable) measure of duration by the means of motion... II. Absolute space, in its own nature, without relation to anything external, remains always similar and immovable. Relative space is some movable dimension or measure... III. Place is a part of space which a body takes up... The motion of the whole is the same with the sum of the motions of the parts... IV. Absolute motion is the translation of a body from one absolute place into another...’
[I agree with Newton’s distinction between absolute truth of time and distance, and relative measures of time etc based on motion. The Lorentz Transformation merely arises because time in an atomic or mechanical clock is based on motion in the ether of space.]
P. 11: ‘The effects which distinguish absolute from relative motion, are the forces of receding from the axis of circular motion. For there are no such forces in a circular motion purely relative...’ [Newton disproved ‘relativity’ by saying you can always tell if you are spinning or not by holding a bucket of water and checking to see if the water is flat or up the sides (and presumably if you are dizzy). Of course Einstein gets around Newton by introducing the epicycle that ‘special relativity’ excludes circular motion. How clever?]
P. 14: Axioms, or Laws of Motion: ‘Law I. Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it. [Plagarised without acknowledgement from René Descartes’ Principia Philosophiae of 1644, where Descartes discussed ‘rules of Nature’, writing: ‘If at rest we do not believe it is ever set in motion, unless it is impelled thereto by some cause. Nor that there is any more reason if it is moved, why we should think that it would ever of its own accord, and unimpeded by anything else, interrupt this motion.’] Projectiles continue in their motions, so far as they are not retarded by the resistance of the air, or impelled downwards by the force of gravity. [Obvious to the cave man. Also this patronising ‘observation’ is a step backwards from Aristotle’s actual mechanism for the projectile, whereby some type of ether – air was not understood – moves around a moving object as a wave that pushes the arrow onwards, causing inertial resistance and momentum.] A top, whose parts by their cohesion are continually drawn aside from rectilinear motions, does not cease its rotation, otherwise than it is retarded by the air. [Rubbish! A spinning top is not retarded by the air to any significant extent, but by heat friction of the point or bearing in motion!] The greater bodies of the planets and comets, meeting with less resistance in freer spaces, preserve their motions both progressive and circular for a much longer time.’
‘Law II. The change of motion is proportional to the motive force impressed; and is made in the direction of the right line in which that force is impressed. ...
‘Law III. To every action there is always opposed an equal reaction: or, the mutual actions of two bodies upon each other are always equal, and directed to contrary parts. ... If you press a stone with your finger, the finger is also pressed by the stone. ... the changes of the velocities made towards contrary parts are inversely proportional to the bodies.’ [I.e., momentum conservation means v2/v1 = m1/m2. This is very important, correcting the gross error in Descartes’ second ‘law of Nature’ of 1647. Descartes had written: ‘1. If two bodies have equal mass and velocity before they collide then both will be reflected by the collision, and will retain the same speeds they possessed beforehand. 2. If two bodies have unequal masses, then upon collision the lighter body will be reflected and its new velocity become equal to that of the heavier one. The velocity of the heavier body remains unchanged.’ This latter is wrong.]
P. 32: Book I. The Motion of Bodies. ‘Section II. The Determination of Centripetal Forces. Proposition 1. Theorem 1. The areas which revolving bodies describe by radii drawn to an immovable centre of force ... are proportional to the times on which they are described. For suppose the time to be divided into equal parts ... suppose that a centripetal force acts at once with a great impulse, and, turning aside the body from the right line... in equal times, equal areas are described... Now let the number of those triangles be augmented, and their breadth diminished in infinitum ... Q.E.D.’ [Newton ‘proves’ this using a Euclid-style geometric diagram instead of using differential calculus. The proof could be ridiculed by a bigot as being wishy-washy as it assume that it is permissible to treat a true elliptical orbit as if it is composed of lots of triangles with the force being assumed to act discretely as lots of small discrete impulses (causing each deflection of the planet towards the sun), instead of a continuously acting force! (By the same bigotry, you could deny that the exponential curve and sine curve are composed of lots of steps from a TEM wave charging a capacitor or going through inductor.) Newton nowhere writes the F=mMG/r2 law. Laplace introduced G in the eighteenth century. Planet speed, v = (circumference of orbit, 2 pi R)/(time taken for orbit, T). By Kepler’s third law, T squared over R cubed is constant. Hence centripetal acceleration (velocity squared over radius) for gravity does as the inverse square of radius. (Newton did not know the mass of the earth or sun very well and like Catt, didn’t get involved with anything which he felt might censure him as a charlatan, falling down only with the particle nature of light, false non-adiabatic equation for speed of sound, and other trifling factual errors.)]
P. 371: Book III. The System of the World (In Mathematical Treatment). General Scholium. ‘... Hitherto we have explained the phenomena of the heavens and of our sea by the power of gravity, but have not yet assigned the cause of this power. This is certain, that it must proceed from a cause that penetrates to the very centres of the sun and planets, without suffering the lease diminution of its force [he is getting close to Modern Physics here, with big void spaces for the ether to travel between atomic wave/particles]; that operates not according to the quantity of the surfaces of the particles upon which it acts (as mechanical causes used to do), but according to the quantity of the solid matter which they contain, and propagates its virtue on all sides to immense distances, decreasing always as the inverse square of the distances. ... But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I frame no hypotheses; for whatever is not deduced from the phenomena is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy. In this philosophy particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena, and afterwards rendered general by induction. [I agree with Newton, who rightly sides with Archimedes against Popper.] ... And to us it is enough that gravity does really exist, and act according to the laws which we [he means ‘Newton’ but is trying humility] have explained, and abundantly serves to account for all the motions of the classical bodies, and of our sea. [No, it has limitations in general relativity.]
‘And now we might add something concerning a certain most subtle spirit which pervades and lies hid in all gross bodies; by the force and action of which spirit the particles of bodies attract one another at near distances, and cohere, if contiguous; and electric bodies operate to greater distances, as well as repelling as attracting the neighbouring corpuscles; and light is emitted, reflected, refracted, inflected, and heats bodies...’ [This final paragraph in the Principia, about the need to formulate electric ‘laws’ using experimental data, was of great sentimental interest to Maxwell, leading ultimately to the Maxwell equations. A big issue for you?]
Best wishes,
Nigel
FOUND WORKING LINK TO GLASSTONE & DOLAN 1977 (no thanks to stupid Google, which is only good at ignoring or censoring good info!):
Uncle Sam's hosting of Glasstone & Dolan (whole book - see chapter 3) in pdf format
Dr Triffet's fallout report on Operation Redwing, weapon test report WT-1317, 1961 (this is better than Glasstone and Dolan's chapter on fallout - for those of you interested in experimental facts and measurements rather than theoretical waffle, that is
Kevin,
The blast wave is moving outward. If the equal-reaction (3rd law) is at the interface (boundary between ambient pressure and shock front), it will stop the blast.
It doesn't. So you are wrong. The fact you got your maths A-level when I was 3 does not mean you are better at maths than I am, I also did it. In fact you don't seem to be thinking straight.
Here's some funny comments insulting me, which I quoted in my latest post on Peter's blog (in case he deletes it). It might give you more sensible ideas!
Nigel Says:
October 30th, 2005 at 5:56 pm
Ranger:
OK, so you can treat the passage of time as the expansion of the fourth dimension (time). Since the universe appears to be expanding and we see to earlier times with increasing distance in astronomy, this is very neat. I’ve had an idea that the expansion of the universe means we’re looking back in time with distance, so that the variation in recession velocities (from 0 up to c) is per corresponding times (t = 15 Giga years to 0 in age), so what Hubble was observing really an outward acceleration a=c/t = 10^-10 m/s^2. Using F=ma and the 3rd law, we get the LeSage gravity mechanism in terms of the Higgs field around fundamental particles exerting an inward pressure towards us, which gives rise to teh correct strength of gravity where this pressure is shielded by the Earth, etc. It also gives rise to the contraction in GR where the Earth is compressed radially by (1/3)GM/c^2 = 1.5 mm by the Higgs field pressure of space.
I’m not too sure what accurate quantitative predictions you are making or if you are happy with my interpretation of this. Physics forums’ moderator amusingly stated at http://physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=36524 that the defence of scientific fact against nonsense is ‘delusions of grandeur, paranoia, and utter lack of consideration for fellow posters’. The so-called ‘fellow posters’ like ‘AntonB’ and ‘Anticrank’ consisted of people coming into a scientific discussion thread I started and stating I was wrong without having bothered to check the facts themselves. I never went on to somebody else’s theory thread and said they were wrong or stupid, and I would not even suggest such a thing without first ascertaining this. A typical false claim by these guys is ‘Anticrank’ saying: ‘In one of your claims, you state that for spherical symmetry, dx = dy = dz = dr. As anyone with a half-baked understanding will tell you, spherically, dr^2 = dx^2 + dy^2 + dz^2.’
This is like saying 1+1 is not 2 because 2+2 = 4. These forums are moderated by intolerant bigots who don’t know anything. Here’s a little more from that ‘Anticrank’ posting:
‘Reading segments of your magnum opus however has given me good laughs, whereby you demonstrate that your scientific knowledge stems from quotes from Kepler and anecdotes from Einstein. I have yet to see any letter from Physical Review Letters (I have been keeping an eye on this just in case), but I can probably fill in the blanks. From what I can see, they haven’t forwarded your paper to peer reviewers because they know it’s useless blathering. They know full well that there isn’t enough scientific knowledge in them to fill a thimble, and whoever places your used sheets of paper in the recycle bin know that the editors don’t have the time nor want the time to read them. These people have meaningful things to do, and because the peer-review system is a thankless job at best, they don’t want to spend their time needlessly and uselessly. As for me, I know that in the same token I will never compare to them, but if I and a whole lot of other people aren’t willing to waste brain cells that would get more use by watching the Fox network, I don’t think they would either.
‘One thing that I can’t possibly understand at this point is your apparent obsession with the Nazi regime. Your continuous references to it and everything associated to it bring me continual puzzlement to no end. Applied here, your many references between the struggle of the Allied forces in WWII and your supposed “crusade” against the oppressors of this place tell me that you are in serious need of help. Those Allied war leaders would probably be dismayed that you are associating yourself with them…’
Now notice that Dr Arnold Lynch (Catt’s co-author) who helped me with my papers died in January 2005, and had designed a major portion of the Colossus computer which helped defeated Hitler in Europe by decoding enigma messages. Now Lynch had a problem with dictators, especially fascists, which is why he helped Catt. Catt didn’t help defeat Hitler, unlike Lynch, but Catt saw first-hand the Japanese fascism in 1942, just escaping while his father on the airbase had to stay behind and became a POW. So the crackpots like me, trying to write articles such as http://www.ivorcatt.com/ about life-saving technology, as dismissed as nutters.
For the historical record, it is useful to determine that with string theory fascism in charge of science, there is no escape. The harder you try to break down barriers, the harder the barriers are reinforced. This is why Kuhn et al are writing horseshit. http://nigelcook0.tripod.com/
Kevin,
By the way, I love the editorial in today's Sunday Express newspaper (p26, 30 Oct 05), by the editor Martin Townsend.
He starts about a woman who took antiseptic handwash into hospital to avoid MRSA, but the woman was "laughed at" by the doctors and nurses who knew better than to wash their hands before handling her seriously-ill son.
Then he rants about the fact that last week he took his family to Bournemouth and the hotel played "double X-rated" film to his kids aged 5, 9, and 11. What really annoyed him was that the hotel's staff "laughed" at him when he complained!
Then the editor says he had more problems with a waitress at tea. The waitress went to get them jellies for the kids, and never returned. When the waitress was next seen, just as they were leaving, she was serving another customer. They asked for the jellies and she said she "we ran out!" and:
"And she laughed. One of those high-pitched, isn't-it-hilarious giggles.
"Now I don't know about you, dear readers, but I am getting mightily fed up of everything being 'a laugh'. I'm fed up with incompetence and poor service and utterly inappropriate behaviour all being so incredibly funny."
He then goes on to say he had another problem while queuing up in a shop, with the staff not serving anyone, being too "busy" laughing and joking with their pals on mobile phones.
"In the end - feeling like Michael Douglas in Falling Down - I simply snapped [and asked for service]. A young man who was also in the queue said to me, "Oi, mate, don't talk to her like that. Chill out." "
That editor finishes by writing that he is 45 and expects better service and less laid back attitudes.
I personally don't mind either way, but feel that we have to be clear what we are decide to do. If we are going to go wild-west, let's all get guns and shoot first, ask questions later. Otherwise, people should be responsible. I've got a big chip on my shoulder, bigger than that Sunday Express newspaper editor, so it is just as well that I'm completely suppressed by Google and other self-appointed censorships and loonies like you. Basically, I'm at war with all the ignorant big mouthed dictators in the world, regardless of creed, colour, political standing, scientific status etc. I have a burning desire to expose the corruption and the horses*** sellers from Jeremy Webb of NS to Stanley Brown of PRL. If I do ever gain any recognition at all, it will be so funny, a really good laugh. Yes I'm mad, but mad with anger rather more than with insanity.
Best wishes,
Nigel
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