My buddy Dennis McCarthy just had a paper come out in Journal of Biogeography, and he's working on some videos that he'll soon be putting up on his website, www.4threvolt.com. Don't miss the revolution this time around.
9 comments:
Anonymous
said...
It's sad to see when a guy like Dennis with everything going for him (beautiful wife, dynamic personality, one of the best backhand hucks i've seen), starts hanging out with biogeographers. These are the people that your 8th grade physics and chemistry teachers warned you about!!!
The current standard theory of the exact motions of the continents over time could certainly be wrong -- I think there are struggles over it in the mainstream geologic literature. It can't be easy to figure out exactly what a given chunk of earth's crust was doing ninety million years ago.
But to suggest that the whole picture is bogus and that the earth has expanded by a huge amount...that just seems wacky. Every now and then a wacky idea turns out to be right, but those cases are really, really rare. Usually wacky ideas are just ridiculously wrong.
Thanks for the comments. Henry, I still have the cocktail napkin framed above my desk. It inspires me every time I think of slacking. ;-) I don't know if you remember, but during our talk at the bar a few years back, I think I harrassed you with the "ether sink" view of gravity -- pointing out how gravitational (as well electromagnetic systems) and black holes have very precise fluid dynamic analogies. Essentially, the fluid (or ether) is flowing toward a sink (gravitating object) from all directions -- and when the sink is strong enough and that fluid (ether) reaches the speed of sound (light), then sound (light) cannot escape. Well that exact theory and description just made the cover of Scientific American. Check out:
Their tag-line actually reads: "Sound waves in a fluid behave uncannily like light waves in space. Black holes even have acoustic counterparts. Could spacetime literally be a kind of fluid, like the ether of pre-Einsteinian physics?" By Theodore A. Jacobson and Renaud Parentani
Your money is still safe, but you should start feeling the heat. ;-)
Dennis, maybe it takes an EE guy posting on a frisbee website to solve the worlds problems. But have you ever thought about the implications of a pangaea type world? Woldn't it wobble like a taco'd disc? All of the world's continents sticking out on one side spinng at the earth's (then higher) rotational velocity would lead to quite a shake up, I would think.
That's my one constructive thought for the day. Back to the dishes (yeah 14 people over for dinner yesterday, where were you?).
I did look at a few of your papers, but there are a lot of very basic things about the "expanding earth" theories that I'm missing. I guess the big ones are: (1) is more matter supposed to have been created inside the earth, or is the earth supposed to have become much less dense while it expanded? (2) if there were no oceans, then where did all of the aquatic dinosaurs live? (3) Where did all the water come from, and when?
As for the tendency to dismiss theories as crackpot if they contradict conventional ones, you're right, and that's generally a good thing! Most theories that seem crackpot are crackpot. There are a lot more wackos than Galileos...not that those are the only two choices.
Sometimes reigning scientific theories are really in trouble: they can't explain the Michelson-Morley experiment, or why aquatic fossils are found on tall mountains, or why there's not an infinite amount of energy in ultraviolet radiation. When current explanations just can't be right, then yeah, you need to look for a revolutionary new theory, and you should keep in mind that that theory might look, well, wacky, if you're used to the old one. That might be the situation with reconciling gravity with quantum mechanics; can't be done with the current explanations, so we need to be open for something "crazy," though any particular crazy idea is still unlikely to be right, of course. As far as I know, though, plate tectonics isn't in this kind of trouble.
Meanwhile, the expanding earth theory relies on, well, an expanding earth...if the surface area has gone up by about a factor of 4, then that means the radius has gone up by a factor of 2, and the volume by a factor of 8, and all within the past few hundred million years. I can think of many seemingly ridiculous implications. (E.g.: Gravitational acceleration was twice as strong as it is now, as recently as a couple hundred million years ago). Maybe all the laws of physics have changed with time in exactly the right way to mitigate those? Or maybe the PT explanations are more or less correct and can be fixed with a bit of tinkering. To me, the latter seems far more likely.
Suppose I would like to find out more, but without becoming an expert. How can I dip my foot into the waters, and find out just the basics of the expanding Earth theory (including answers to my questions, above?) I'm interested, but...sorry, I still think it's wacky.
Oops, of course I meant "gravitational acceleration at the earth's surface was half as big" (not "twice as big"), if we assume m was lower by a factor of 8 and r was lower by a factor of 2. Of course, if we assume m was the same that it is now, and r was lower by a factor of 2, then g would have been 4 times bigger (rather than 2 times smaller).
Whatever. The point is, g would have been very different, with all kinds of ramifications for things like erosion, retention of earth's atmosphere, skeletal evolution, and on and on.
I will be donating to you soon, but I wanted to tell you you have definately changed my perceptions. Just looking at the ocean fllor age causes you mind to go "Thats not right"...
That alone is impressive.
The Ether Sink idea, makes sense, but it seems that perhaps Ether itself, generally massless, would no assist well. Perhaps it is replenishing the "Dirac" shells of electrons, allowing the thesis of "The Electric Cosmos" Theory to be powered.
9 comments:
It's sad to see when a guy like Dennis with everything going for him (beautiful wife, dynamic personality, one of the best backhand hucks i've seen), starts hanging out with biogeographers. These are the people that your 8th grade physics and chemistry teachers warned you about!!!
Justin R.
McGill University
BA Geography '91
The current standard theory of the exact motions of the continents over time could certainly be wrong -- I think there are struggles over it in the mainstream geologic literature. It can't be easy to figure out exactly what a given chunk of earth's crust was doing ninety million years ago.
But to suggest that the whole picture is bogus and that the earth has expanded by a huge amount...that just seems wacky. Every now and then a wacky idea turns out to be right, but those cases are really, really rare. Usually wacky ideas are just ridiculously wrong.
I know which way I'm betting.
The article lives here.
Hey Henry and Justin,
Thanks for the comments.
Henry, I still have the cocktail napkin framed above my desk. It inspires me every time I think of slacking. ;-) I don't know if you remember, but during our talk at the bar a few years back, I think I harrassed you with the "ether sink" view of gravity -- pointing out how gravitational (as well electromagnetic systems) and black holes have very precise fluid dynamic analogies. Essentially, the fluid (or ether) is flowing toward a sink (gravitating object) from all directions -- and when the sink is strong enough and that fluid (ether) reaches the speed of sound (light), then sound (light) cannot escape. Well that exact theory and description just made the cover of Scientific American. Check out:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&colID=1&articleID=000ADA62-D854-137C-962A83414B7F0000
Their tag-line actually reads:
"Sound waves in a fluid behave uncannily like light waves in space. Black holes even have acoustic counterparts. Could spacetime literally be a kind of fluid, like the ether of pre-Einsteinian physics?"
By Theodore A. Jacobson and Renaud Parentani
Your money is still safe, but you should start feeling the heat. ;-)
--Dennis
No, go right ahead. It'l only show up on the comments page, not the main page, so it's no bother.
WARPED DISC!
Dennis, maybe it takes an EE guy posting on a frisbee website to solve the worlds problems. But have you ever thought about the implications of a pangaea type world? Woldn't it wobble like a taco'd disc? All of the world's continents sticking out on one side spinng at the earth's (then higher) rotational velocity would lead to quite a shake up, I would think.
That's my one constructive thought for the day. Back to the dishes (yeah 14 people over for dinner yesterday, where were you?).
-Justin
Dennis,
Nice hearing from you, too.
I did look at a few of your papers, but there are a lot of very basic things about the "expanding earth" theories that I'm missing. I guess the big ones are: (1) is more matter supposed to have been created inside the earth, or is the earth supposed to have become much less dense while it expanded? (2) if there were no oceans, then where did all of the aquatic dinosaurs live? (3) Where did all the water come from, and when?
As for the tendency to dismiss theories as crackpot if they contradict conventional ones, you're right, and that's generally a good thing! Most theories that seem crackpot are crackpot. There are a lot more wackos than Galileos...not that those are the only two choices.
Sometimes reigning scientific theories are really in trouble: they can't explain the Michelson-Morley experiment, or why aquatic fossils are found on tall mountains, or why there's not an infinite amount of energy in ultraviolet radiation. When current explanations just can't be right, then yeah, you need to look for a revolutionary new theory, and you should keep in mind that that theory might look, well, wacky, if you're used to the old one. That might be the situation with reconciling gravity with quantum mechanics; can't be done with the current explanations, so we need to be open for something "crazy," though any particular crazy idea is still unlikely to be right, of course. As far as I know, though, plate tectonics isn't in this kind of trouble.
Meanwhile, the expanding earth theory relies on, well, an expanding earth...if the surface area has gone up by about a factor of 4, then that means the radius has gone up by a factor of 2, and the volume by a factor of 8, and all within the past few hundred million years. I can think of many seemingly ridiculous implications. (E.g.: Gravitational acceleration was twice as strong as it is now, as recently as a couple hundred million years ago). Maybe all the laws of physics have changed with time in exactly the right way to mitigate those? Or maybe the PT explanations are more or less correct and can be fixed with a bit of tinkering. To me, the latter seems far more likely.
Suppose I would like to find out more, but without becoming an expert. How can I dip my foot into the waters, and find out just the basics of the expanding Earth theory (including answers to my questions, above?) I'm interested, but...sorry, I still think it's wacky.
Oops, of course I meant "gravitational acceleration at the earth's surface was half as big" (not "twice as big"), if we assume m was lower by a factor of 8 and r was lower by a factor of 2. Of course, if we assume m was the same that it is now, and r was lower by a factor of 2, then g would have been 4 times bigger (rather than 2 times smaller).
Whatever. The point is, g would have been very different, with all kinds of ramifications for things like erosion, retention of earth's atmosphere, skeletal evolution, and on and on.
Dennis,
I will be donating to you soon, but I wanted to tell you you have definately changed my perceptions. Just looking at the ocean fllor age causes you mind to go "Thats not right"...
That alone is impressive.
The Ether Sink idea, makes sense, but it seems that perhaps Ether itself, generally massless, would no assist well. Perhaps it is replenishing the "Dirac" shells of electrons, allowing the thesis of "The Electric Cosmos" Theory to be powered.
Just a thought...
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