Obama At The Naval Academy May 27, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold, Old Lyme, Op-Ed.add a comment
I have now had the privilege of seeing two different presidents make commencement addresses at military academies. I saw George W. Bush in 2007 at the Coast Guard Academy and I saw Barack Obama at the Naval Academy this year. This gives me a chance to compare the two, not only from my own perspective but also based on the comments other people made about each of them.
Bush was an eloquent speaker, not at all like his critics like to portray him. His speech was well delivered and he did not exhibit any of the claimed misspeaks and mispronunciations that are frequently attributed to him, even though his speech included many people and places with difficult to pronounce names. Obama was a very charismatic speaker with a pleasant voice. He delivered this speech quite well. As speakers, I would rate the two as being equal.
But, the they were really far apart on the topic of their speeches. Bush’s speech was very substantive. He gave a speech that dealt with acts of terrorism that had been prevented. This information was classified up until the day of the speech. Obama gave what amounted to a campaign speech. There was no substance and their was no message. He was all over the place and made a bunch of feel-good statements that are appealing to a crowd, but really mean nothing. When it comes to substance, Bush was way ahead of Obama and there is no debate, Bush’s speech was much superior.
You might chalk it up to Bush’s more than six years experience in the Whitehouse in 2007 to Obama’s four months worth. That would be fine, but there were several comments that Obama made that I found interesting. For instance, when he said,
It’s a promise that as long as I am your Commander in Chief, I will only send you into harm’s way when it is absolutely necessary, and with the strategy, the well-defined goals, the equipment and the support you need to get the job done.
I really hope this was just a statement to please the crowd and that he doesn’t really mean it. This country has been sending its military into combat without the necessary training and equipment since the first Continental Congress and every president since then has followed suit. The first thing you do when there’s a military situation is send a military force there in the hope that if you can’t stop it quickly, you can at least get some control over the situation. I hope the commander-in-chief of this country would never decide that he was not going to take the necessary actions to defend the country because he didn’t feel the troops had the necessary training or equipment.
The crowd, I thought, was friendly, but not enthusiastic. The biggest cheer of the day occurred when Senator McCain was introduced by the graduating class (Senator McCain’s son graduated this year). I read once that McCain carried over 80% of the military vote and this reaction would reflect that (By the way, how I actually voted is my business, but I’ll say that I was not part of the 80%).
I talked to several people after both speeches and I heard mostly the same thing, so it wasn’t just my perception of the speeches. I think the conclusion I can reach is that Bush’s reputation for bad speeches was not warranted and Obama needs to put more effort into his military academy speeches.
But, if you just want a nice sounding speech without substance, it was a fine speech.
Did A Meteor Kill The Dinosaurs? May 12, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Science.1 comment so far
The popular theory is that a massive meteor struck the Earth 65 million years ago near what is now known as Chicxulub, Mexico. The effects of this impact destroyed the environment and caused the extinction of about 85% of the world’s lifeforms in what is known as the Cretaceous-Tertiary, or K-T, extinction.
The evidence that a large impact occurred is conclusive. It is also clear that this impact caused widespread destruction of an unbelievable magnitude. Gigantic tsunamis ringed the world, earthquakes of a severity that we can’t imagine radiated out from the impact, returning debris caused firestorms, the suspended dust in the air caused climate change. And, of course, the impact site itself was totally obliterated with absolutely nothing surviving.
I became aware of this theory over 25 years ago and, at first, was skeptical. I read the comments that geologists and paleontologists made and they argued the evidence did not support the theory. As I continued with my education, I learned more and more about this theory and remained skeptical. I met many of the people that were involved with investigating it and even met Walter Alvarez, who first proposed the theory with his father, physicist Louis Alvarez, and got to talk to these people first hand. I have read a great deal about it and have studied the evidence.
This is one case when the evidence was enough to cause me to change my opinion. Or, at least to stop voicing my opposition. Many times, when I came up with an objection to the theory, the investigators were able to find the necessary evidence to show I was wrong.
One of the principle claims of the theory is that the impact put so much dust in the air that it blocked out the sunlight and caused what is known as a ‘nuclear winter.’ The idea of the nuclear winter has been discredited and found to be wrong. Placing giant amounts of dust in the air will not cause the world to go into massive climate change on the scale that was being proposed. When people pointed at some volcanic eruptions that had caused some climate change, I argued that it wasn’t the dust, it was the sulfur that was the source of the effect. Investigation later showed that the impact area had very large sulfur deposits which would have been put into the atmosphere as an aerosol. I argued this still would not cause a winter lasting for decades, as claimed, but my objections were not as strong.
I argued that the fossil evidence showed that many of the animals that went extinct actually survived the impact by as much as hundreds of thousands of years. Further analysis of those fossil records showed that the fossil beds had been disturbed, possibly even by the impact itself, and this disturbance had relocated the fossils out of the geologic sequence.
On and on it went. I made objections and they were able to counter them. Eventually, I began to accept they might have been right, after all. The answer to all of my objections, I decided, was just still buried and was simply waiting to be discovered. The fact that we didn’t know all of the answers didn’t make the theory invalid. It just meant we had to continue the research.
And yet, I always had a nagging problem with the whole scenario. Some of their claims did not make sense to me under the laws of physics.
One of the greatest problems I have had and continue to have is the description of worldwide firestorms that would, in essence, incinerate everything in the world. Under this scenario, the debris lifted out of the crater would rain back down all over the world with so much energy that it would turn the world into an oven with temperatures as high as thousands of degrees. This, I said, was not possible.
The amount of debris excavated by the impact, when distributed over the entire planet, would be very thin. It is not possible that it could carry enough energy to cause the temperature of the entire planet to skyrocket. But, they were able to show there was a layer of soot that dated to just after the impact. The claim is that this is soot from the worldwide fires. Not so, I said. All this shows is that soot was deposited. The accuracy of the thin sedimentary layer cannot show if that soot was deposited over 1 year or 100 years. It is undeniable that the impact occurred and it would certainly have caused enormous destruction. Certainly, entire forested regions would have been killed by the resulting cataclysm. With all of this dead wood sitting around, it would only be a matter of time before it caught fire. This kind of event would be repeated all over the world, resulting in just such a layer of soot as was observed.
I did some calculations of the amount of energy released by the impact. My estimates came in around 5 x 10^23 joules of energy. The accepted value is that it was probably around 4 x 10^23 joules, so I was very close. This is a truly unbelievable amount of energy. To put this in context, a 100 mega-ton atomic bomb, larger than any ever detonated, would release about 10^17 joules. In other words, the impact released the amount of energy in one million such bombs. This amount of energy is about 50 times as much as the second largest know explosion in history, the La Garita Caldera in Colorado. This was an explosive volcanic event that occurred some time about 26 million years ago and released around 10^22 joules, about 1/50th the size of the Chicxulub impact. This caldera is so large that geologists studied it for decades before they realized what it is.
But, even this extreme amount of energy would not result in the cataclysm that is claimed. Using a radius of the Earth of 6400 kilometers and an atmosphere thickness of 150 kilometers, I find that this would have resulted in about 10^3 joules per cubic meter, on average. This is enough to melt about 10 ice cubes and is far below what would be needed to result in the devastation claimed. Plus, the overwhelming majority of the released energy would have been concentrated in the immediate vicinity. This would have been a very large vicinity measuring many hundreds of miles across, but still small on a global scale. The resulting amount of energy for most of the planet to absorb would have been much less than the average.
So, I have listened to the theories and even teach it in my astronomy class, but there has always been a nagging problem in my mind that it just didn’t fit the laws of physics, at least not the way they were claiming. Now, evidence is starting to mount that the theory might be wrong after all and I read a recent NSF release with great interest. This report tells of how researchers have shown that the impact occurred long before the extinction, maybe as much as 300,000 years before. They have done some very nice research and uncovered some very strong evidence to support their claims. It will be very difficult to explain away what they have produced.
So, it looks like my gut instincts might have been right after all. I believe the impact occurred and that it was devastating. But, I’m skeptical about its role in the K-T extinction. I just don’t think this theory fits the laws of physics. There clearly is more research that needs to be done.
The Politics of Greed May 11, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Arnold, Op-Ed.add a comment
I consider myself to be an extreme optimist. My ex-wife was against me joining an optimist club because she thought they were pessimists compared to me. But, I find myself being a pessimist concerning the nation today.
I was having a conversation with a neighbor the other night and it left me depressed. What is most interesting to me is the fact that this guy was so optimistic and just bubbling with enthusiasm. The more I listened to him, the more troubled I was.
He was going on about how things are going so much better now and that the country is on the ‘right track.’ The stimulus bill and the spending by Congress and the President was going to make everything right. The mid-term elections in 2010, he said, would be really wonderful if things kept going the way they are. And, I realized he was right. And, that’s what made me depressed.
What I heard was someone that sounded like a teenager with a new credit card. Take that card and spend the money. Buy a new TV, new furniture, get a fancy car! While we’re at it, let’s buy a house on subprime terms so we can afford it. Life is good!
Of course, we all know the downside to this line of thought. Sooner or later, the card will be maxed out and you have to then pay the bills on it. The subprime loan becomes due and you find out you bought more house than you can afford, or even sell. And, since you’re spending a large percentage of your money on the finance charges, your standard of living begins to drop. Eventually, you are forced to file for bankruptcy.
We’ve seen all of this before. We’ve seen it on the personal level with the average person. We’ve seen it at the corporate level with all of the corporate greed gutting giant businesses. And, we’ve seen all of these entities collapse. But, now, we’re witnessing it at the government level and, somehow, people think its a good thing.
Tell me, what happens when the government can no longer make its payments? Do you really think that’s a crazy idea? Servicing the national debt is now the third largest item in the government budget. The amount of money spent on interest payments in 2008 was $412 billion. Obama and this Congress will have increased the national debt by 20% in the just the first year of his term. Servicing the national debt will be proportionally more expensive in the future and is about to become the largest single item in the budget. That is money that could have gone to something else.
But, you say, its OK as long as tax revenues increase enough to cover these payments. First, and most importantly, that is not the case. Interest payments have been growing faster than tax revenues. And, I’m very certain that tax revenues will not grow 20% this year.
But, that is a false argument to begin with. I am very conservative with my own money. With the exception of my mortgage, I have no debt. I don’t use credit cards, I pay cash for everything. When I bought my car I borrowed the money only because it was a 0% interest loan – there were no finance charges. I still have that car after six years and hope to keep it for another 7-8 years. I keep my money in interest bearing accounts so I don’t pay interest, I earn it. I live by a simply creed, ‘If I can’t pay cash for it, I don’t need it.’
How much difference does this make? You can probably see for yourself. Take all of your bills for the last month and add up the finance charges you paid. That is how much extra money I have in my pocket every month that you don’t. If you’re like most people, you may be paying over a thousand dollars every month for finance charges. I can do a lot with $1000 a month.
These same principles apply to the government. We need some debt to provide a sound financial system in the country. But, we don’t need to be spending this much every year. The effect has become to undermine the financial system, not support it. The government doesn’t even have to default on its payments, just the idea that government securities might be downgraded will be enough to cause a worldwide financial panic on a scale that has never been seen before.
And, this takes me back to the conversation with my neighbor. After everything we’ve seen the last year, you would think we would learn our lesson.
We’ve seen the collapse of the home mortgage industry as millions of people found they had bought more than they could reasonably afford. They, people said, were greedy fools.
We’ve seen the collapse of one giant corporation after another as the executives and unions have robbed the company of everything it had, diverting income streams into their pockets and benefits, instead of back into the company. They, people said, were greedy fools.
Now, the government is spending like crazy, giving everyone that can vote money for their pet projects. But, somehow, this is a good thing and the country is viewed as being on the ‘right track.’ How is it that we just don’t learn our lessons?
I really don’t need to go any further than my own family to witness the politics of greed first hand. My family is hard working. We all have jobs and don’t live on handouts. We’re all educated. All nine of us kids have at least some college education and there are several graduate degrees among us. I like to think that we are all intelligent. But, when the issue of the stimulus bill came up, I would hear my brothers and sisters say that they supported it because money was going to go to this or that, something they liked and supported. The fact that this was borrowed money that would have to be payed back was never mentioned.
And, that is why I think my neighbor is right about the 2010 elections. People don’t care that the money has to be paid back. They reason that it has to be paid back by the government, not by them. Of course, at least in theory, they are the government and the money the government spends is coming out of their pockets.
But, that isn’t the way people think. Taxes are taken out automatically and people never see that money, so they don’t feel like they lost anything. But, if they had to sit down every month and write a check to the government to pay for their taxes they would have a very different opinion. Take a look at your earnings statement. Compare the amount of taxes withheld from your pay to the amount of money you have to spend after all of your bills are paid.
And, of course, that money won’t have to be paid back by 2010, or even 2012. That will be left for some future administration and they will have to be the villains that cut the budget to pay for today’s politics of greed.
Do We Have A Soul? May 2, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Musings.add a comment
Certainly, that is an age-old question and I won’t be able to give a definitive answer here. But, I do have some thoughts.
I cannot prove the existence of the world. Its is possible that everything I witness is an illusion created in my mind. I wouldn’t say that its very possible, but I cannot completely discount it either. The fact stands, I cannot prove without doubt that you exist, that the Internet exists, that the room around me exists. I cannot even prove that my body exists. It could all be a very elaborate illusion.
But, I can prove one thing without question, if only to myself. I can prove that I think. I can’t prove it to you and you can’t prove to me that you think. But, I know, without any doubt, that I think. And, following the eloquent argument of Rene Descarte, ‘I think, therefore I am,’ I can then prove without question that I exist. Again, I can prove it to me, but not to you.
So, I know that I exist. There is something inside this body that is me. But, is that something a soul? In other words, is the something separate from the body and will it continue to exist after the body ceases to function? Is it possible that I am nothing more than animated chemicals? Again, I have to conclude that it is possible. It is possible that I exist only while this body continues to live. I don’t think it is very likely, but it is possible.
But, let’s go back to my earlier conclusion. I know that I exist. I cannot come up with any other possibility. Any form of alternative always leads back to that conclusion. You cannot take away my existence and leave my thinking in place.
So, if I exist, where did I come from? What is the ‘I’ that exists? If I loose my legs, I am still me. If I then loose my arms, I still exist. If I loose my eyes and ears and tongue, I still exist. Take away all body parts that are not necessary for the immediate demands of my living body (even if it would eventually die) and I still exist. This certainly seems to show that the body and the ‘I’ are not one and the same.
But, of course, if you take away the brain, the body can live for a long time, but the person is gone. This would seem to indicate the brain and the consciousness are linked. Is the ‘I’ in the brain? Or, is the brain merely the means for the individual to inhabit the body? Even then, not all parts of the brain are critical to this. You can loose parts of the brain and still be the person you were.
Its a conundrum and I don’t have an answer.
But, if there is an ‘I’ inside this body, it begs a couple of questions: “Where did I come from?”, and “Where am I going?”
I have no memory of any past lives. I have met people that claim they have such memories. I cannot do anything to prove or disprove those claims. And, there have been many people over the years that have made such claims. General George Patton, for instance, claimed to remember six prior lives. But, look at the list of lives he said he remembered: A prehistoric warrior who “battled for fresh mammoth” and “warred for pastures new”; a Greek hoplite who fought the Persians of King Cyrus; a soldier of Alexander the Great at the siege of Tyre; a legionnaire with Julius Caesar in northern Gaul; an English knight at the battle of Crecy during the Hundred Years’ War; and a Napoleonic marshal at a time “when one laughed at death and numbers, trusting in the emperor’s star.” All of these memories are of soldiers. Patton was a great scholar, especially of military matters. As far as I know, he never had memories of non-soldiery activities. All of these ‘memories’ could be explained as being recollections from his studies over the years. These ‘memories’ certainly don’t constitute proof.
There are many stories of people that had detailed memories of prior lives that were investigated and confirmed. There are stories of people that had some kind of knowledge, such as fluency in a foreign language, that could not be explained. The problem with all of these stories is that they are just that. None of this stuff has ever been rigorously confirmed. And, there have been frauds that have been revealed, indicating that there really are people that would fake these kinds of things. Again, there is no proof there.
The same for life after death. Lots of people claim to have near-death experiences where they claim to have seen the after-life. There have been many scientific investigations into this with some results indicating its merely brain activity in the dieing brain. But, the scientific results cannot prove it one way or another. I have never experienced it myself, so I don’t have any comments about it.
So, we can’t prove anything about where we come from or about where we’re going. But, that still takes me back to my original conclusion. I know I exist. Based on that absolute, I must have come from somewhere, and it is necessary that I will eventually go somewhere. If I exist, both of these conclusions are inescapable. I don’t know where those places are, but the fact that I came and will go indicates there is more than just a body to me, there is an ‘I’.
In other words, I believe I have a soul and that soul is separate from my body. And, just like everyone else, someday I will get a definitive answer to the question. Hopefully, not for quite some time, though.
National Science Foundation Report on Climate Change May 1, 2009
Posted by physics309 in Global Warming.add a comment
I’ve written numerous reports concerning climate change and global warming. Click on the link to the right to see a list of them. I submitted a proof that man is responsible for global warming and have responded to at least two people that argue that mankind’s activities are not changing the climate. I’ve tried to include links and references to scientific data and refereed resources in this debate.
So, I thought I would include a link to the NSF report on climate change. I found it to be very interesting and a valuable resource.
It is becoming increasingly more difficult for the skeptics to deny the issues of global warming. I have stated that it is impossible for any skeptic to successfully challenge global warming based on a scientific argument and using scientific data. I have defended that statement and continue to stand by it. This report only strengthens the validity of that statement.
I would be very interested in having a skeptic show why this report is not valid. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll be doing something more worthwhile during the long wait.
