Public Release: 13-Aug-2017
Goldschmidt Conference
New geochemical research indicates that existing theories of the formation of the Earth may be mistaken. The results of experiments to show how zinc (Zn) relates to sulphur (S) under the conditions present at the time of the formation of the Earth more than 4 billion years ago, indicate that there is a substantial quantity of Zn in the Earth’s core, whereas previously there had been thought to be none. This implies that the building blocks of the Earth must be different to what has been supposed. The work is presented at the Goldschmidt geochemistry conference in Paris.
The researchers, from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris (IPGP) melted mixtures of iron-rich metal and silicate compounds, containing Zn and S, at high temperatures and pressures up to 80 GPa and 4100K* to experimentally simulate core-mantle differentiation at the time of the Earth’s formation. They then measured how these elements were distributed (partitioned) between the core and mantle of their experiments. When they fed their results into computer models of the Earth’s formation, they found that none of the canonical models can sufficiently reproduce the S/Zn ratio of the present-day mantle. This means that the current estimates of the Earth’s composition, including its core, need to be modified, and therefore the way the core and mantle – i.e. the Earth – formed may also need to be revised.
“Most theories are based on the Earth being formed from only two types of stony meteorite, the CI chondrites or enstatite chondrites. However, this new work indicates that the Earth needs to have formed from a more S-poor source; in terms of the geochemistry, the best candidate for this material is the metal rich CH chondrites”, said Brandon Mahan (Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris).
“CH chondrites were first classified in 1985, and only a few dozen examples have been identified. They are rich in metallic iron and poor in easily vaporized elements, which indicates formation at very high temperatures, but they also contain a few percent of water-bearing minerals, which paradoxically indicates low temperatures.
This means that the CH chondrites — much like the Earth — have a very complex formation history which has given them features from both extremes of hot and cold. If our results are valid, this indicates that the building blocks of the Earth may be a bit more exotic than we thought” Existing theories of the Earth’s formation are largely based on geochemistry. One of the major geochemical clues to the Earth’s formation lies in the way elements such as Zn and S in meteorites are associated in a relatively well-known ratio, meaning that if you know the amount of Zn in a meteorite, you can estimate the amount of S. “We decided to test if that ratio was the same for the growing Earth as it is today using various possible source materials.”, said Brandon Mahan.
“We found that under conditions similar to those estimated when the Earth formed, Zn has a tendency to be distributed between the core and mantle differently than we had thought, i.e. there will be a significant amount of it bound up in the Earth’s core. Based on previous models, if we can place more Zn in the core, then by association you place more S in the core as well, much more in fact than most current observations suggest.
Most leading estimates cap the amount of sulphur in the Earth’s core at around 2%. If this is true, then using most known meteorites as a source material for Earth puts the S/Zn ratio of the mantle way above current accepted values, because too much S ends up in the mantle, indicating that perhaps the Earth cannot be made from any of the solar system materials that have previously been proposed as its source material.
But if the building blocks of the Earth were something like the CH Chondrites, this could give us an Earth pretty similar to the one we see today.”
*For comparison, 80GPa is around x1.5 the typical pressure needed to synthesise diamonds. The temperature of the surface of the Sun is around 5800K.
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… When they fed their results into computer models of the Earth’s formation, they found that none of the canonical models can sufficiently reproduce the S/Zn ratio of the present-day mantle. …
Ah. All they need is a little data manipulation to get the answer they want. Step forward, climate scientists…
What we think / claim we know about the original formation of the Earth and the composition of its core is 98% speculation.
“When they fed their results into computer models of …..” Where have we heard this before?
Note that they fed the results into the models to test the modelsーand the models failed. And when the models failed to match experimental results, they said the models need reworking, not the data.
Press and Seiver was a top undergrad book. Even explained Laplace….!!
Katherine – Yes, and they are to be applauded for standing behind the raw data. FACTS DO NOT LIE. Raw data IS facts (are facts?). Measurements are measurements. Quantified data is GOD. All models must bow to that god. Yes. Kudos to them.
One of the serious problems with global warming is that they adjust the raw data, giving what they think is solid reason for doing it. But ANY TIME raw data is adjusted then BOTH sets of data – raw and adjusted – need to be presented. THIS the warmist scientists failed to do, all along the way. Both need to be presented so that interested other scientists can review it and review the adjustments.
Even after Stephen McIntyre showed that Michael Mann used a screwed up statistical process, Mann never did retract or correct. And people still refer to Mann.
Well Zinc is a pretty poor excuse for a metal anyway; so who would want to build planet out of it.
But I would say it is better than Bismuth.
g
What about gold? – but then we would not have a magnetosphere to shield us from solar winds and cosmic rays.
But not as purdy.
http://www.bismuthcrystal.com/n23-566d.jpg
All that calc-al-mag and H2_O stuff frothin up…. First, they came for your carbon dioxide…
These computer models seem even more difficult to test than climate models.
The above paper describes using models for an unknown process using guesstimates.
They then jump to assumptions.
I did not read they also modeled an Earth collision that sent much of Earth’s surface into orbit around the Earth, (moon).
Without definitive observations this modeling exercise is all illusion.
Reminds me of the “Mark Twain”, aka Samuel Clemens quote published around recently regarding the assumptions science derives from very little fact.
You basically said everything I would have said. Thumbs up.
My first take on this was, “Have they verified that the experiment was set up to EXACTLY match the Earth’s early constitution? And of course, they didn’t. The Earth included all sorts of other elements. They used a simplified model/assumption, as is almost always done. The universe dumbs itself down for us, so that our math will handle things. NOT.
I have BIG problems accepting the nebular solar system idea, too, much less the somewhat reasonable idea of how the planets formed out of the nebula. Way too many assumptions have been made. They THINK the assumptions are reasonable, but that doesn’t make it so.
Supposedly, all the heavier elements came from supernovas. However the escape velocity of supernova is 10,000 kps. All the planets and asteroids are traveling at about 40 kps – a 99.6% reduction in velocity (and therefore, energy). I have a hiuge problem with the Sun “catching” (decelerating and diverting) such materials and slowing them down by 99.6%. Where did all the energy go? With the escape velocity of the Sun (at 1 AU) being 42.1 kps, that 10,000 kps doesn’t compute. They have to shed too much energy.
And yet, how ELSE could heavier elements have gotten here? Probably some way that no one has thought of yet (me included!).
The whole thing we will be centuries in figuring out. We have barely begun, and only tried a few simplistic ideas so far. (The assumption that we ‘almost’ have it all figured out is a con job, at least in terms of the public.)
“The assumption that we ‘almost’ have it all figured out is a con job, at least in terms of the public.”
Just like climatology .
Steve,
Protoplanetary disks have been observed in space around other young stars, so the hypothesis that the planets, asteroids and other solar system bodies formed in that way has been repeatedly confirmed by actual observation of other such systems.
Besides which, every possible line of evidence supports the same conclusion. The hypothesis has never been shown false, but repeatedly confirmed.
No, the whole accretion model is crap. Why? Because the relative velocities of particles flying around at 30-40 kps is like 8 or 10 times as energetic as bullets and military shells. They overwhelmingly overcome the material unit strength of the target materials. Those rounds do what they do is that they obliterate the target materials. Now, take an object going 8 times faster and try to accrete a super-hi-velocity bullet into a stone.
And don’t leave out the brittleness of the stone materials. The materials science part of that accretion model just doesn’t work. When any solar system bodies NOW hit each other, one puts a crater in the other and the materials are ejected at escape velocities so high that the crater materials are gone out into space, never to return. The crater is a removal of about 200 times the volume of the impactor.
They claim that such impacts THEN were CONstructive while all the present observations are DEstructive. The material strengths didn’t change. Especially when the particles were microscopic. You hit ANYTHING at 30 kps and it gets obliterated. It is a violation of uniformitarian principles to assert that during the co-called accretion period the impacts were accreting the two bodies together, but that now the aren’t. It is simply not tenable. So, since NOW they are destructive, they had to be destructive then, too.
Add to that the infinitesimal gravity of any particle. Even the asteroids and comets we’ve tried to land on show this. The Philae lander of the Rosetta mission tried to land at ONE METER per second (0.001 kps). What happened? It BOUNCED about a km off the surface and almost escaped, never to be landed again. That is 0.001 kps, much less 30 kps. A 30 kps landing would have possibly broken off a large part of the 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet body. The gravity was too small, even for a comet 4 km long. Try hitting two pieces of materials together at 30 kps if the two are only 2 cm long. You get destruction first, and then the bits fly off never to come together again, since the escape velocity would be like 0.000000001 kps.
If you took two 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko comets and crashed them into each other right now at 30 kps, you would 100% expect the two bodies to destroy each other. Not accrete.
Nope. Accretion is not a viable hypothesis, based on ultra-low gravity and ultra-high velocities at impact. And it IS an impact – not a nestling of two feathers softly caressing each other. The whole accretion model falls apart in the physics. You can’t turn a destructive impact into a constructive accretion.
I don’t give a shit if they don’t have an alternative idea. THAT one fails. On its own. You can’t hang onto it because you don’t have some better idea yet. Throw it in the dumpster and look around.
As Richard Feyman teaches, “If it disagrees with experiment or experience, IT IS WRONG.” Go ahead, crash two rocks together at bullet speeds. See what kind of accretion you get. NOT.
ALMA image of very young star HL Tauri.
Fraction of stars that show some evidence of having a protoplanetary disk as a function of stellar age (in millions of years). The samples are nearby young clusters and associations. Figure taken from review of Mamajek (2009).
http://aip.scitation.org/doi/abs/10.1063/1.3215910
Initial Conditions of Planet Formation: Lifetimes of Primordial Disks
ABSTRACT
The statistical properties of circumstellar disks around young stars are important for constraining theoretical models for the formation and early evolution of planetary systems. In this brief review, I survey the literature related to ground‐based and Spitzer‐based infrared (IR) studies of young stellar clusters, with particular emphasis on tracing the evolution of primordial (“protoplanetary”) disks through spectroscopic and photometric diagnostics. The available data demonstrate that the fraction of young stars with optically thick primordial disks and/or those which show spectroscopic evidence for accretion appears to approximately follow an exponential decay with characteristic time ∼2.5 Myr (half‐life ∼1.7 Myr). Large IR surveys of ∼2–5 Myr‐old stellar samples show that there is real cluster‐by‐cluster scatter in the observed disk fractions as a function of age. Recent Spitzer surveys have found convincing evidence that disk evolution varies by stellar mass and environment (binarity, proximity to massive stars, and cluster density). Perhaps most significantly for understanding the planeticity of stars, the disk fraction decay timescale appears to vary by stellar mass, ranging from ∼1 Myr for >1.3 M⊙>1.3 M⊙ stars to ∼3 Myr for <0.08 M⊙<0.08 M⊙ brown dwarfs. The exponential decay function may provide a useful empirical formalism for estimating very rough ages for YSO populations and for modeling the effects of disk‐locking on the angular momentum of young stars.
I think the evidence for protoplanetary disks is pretty solid. However, I’m not clear that it’s ever been settled what sets them spinneg. IIRC, the question was raised by Newton and Descartes 500 years ago. They disagreed about how planets formed. My impression is that they disagreed about pretty much everything.
Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 1:32 pm
“Steve,
“Protoplanetary disks have been observed in space around other young stars, so the hypothesis that the planets, asteroids and other solar system bodies formed in that way has been repeatedly confirmed by actual observation of other such systems.”
I quote wikipedia because it presents the consensus:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protoplanetary_disk
“A protoplanetary disk is a rotating circumstellar disk of dense gas and dust surrounding a young newly formed star, a T Tauri star, or Herbig Ae/Be star. The protoplanetary disk may also be considered an accretion disk for the star itself, because gases or other material may be falling from the inner edge of the disk onto the surface of the star. This process should nevertheless not be confused with the accretion process thought to build up the planets themselves”
Wiki then does some SPECULATING:
“The nebular hypothesis of solar system formation describes how protoplanetary disks are thought to evolve into planetary systems. Electrostatic and gravitational interactions may cause the dust and ice grains in the disk to accrete into planetesimals. This process competes against the stellar wind, which drives the gas out of the system, and gravity (accretion), which pulls material into the central T Tauri star.”
I note that there is no consensus as to how planets form. Reading further:
“Gas-poor disks of circumstellar dust have been found around many nearby stars—most of which have ages in the range of ~10 million years (e.g. Beta Pictoris, 51 Ophiuchi) to billions of years (e.g. Tau Ceti). These systems are usually referred to as “debris disks”. Given the older ages of these stars, and the short lifetimes of micrometer-sized dust grains around stars due to Poynting Robertson drag, collisions, and radiation pressure (typically hundreds to thousands of years), it is thought that this dust is from the collisions of planetesimals (e.g. asteroids, comets). Hence the debris disks around these examples (e.g. Vega, Alphecca, Fomalhaut, etc.) are probably not truly “protoplanetary”, but represent a later stage of disk evolution where extrasolar analogs of the asteroid belt and Kuiper belt are home to dust-generating collisions between planetesimals.”
So, whether disks form planetesimals or planetesimals form disks is decided by the apparent age of each system.
Therefore, I think you are overstating your case.
SR
Stevan,
Nothing you quoted suggests that planets and asteroids don’t form from planetary disks. The issue is precisely how, although that’s not as controversial as your citation suggests.
As noted, scientists have actually observed planets forming from disks around young stars. That fact is not at issue.
Gloateous, show me all the images you want. Then tell me how that former supernova ejecta slowed down from 10,000 kps to 30 kps.
The big picture isn’t good if it falls apart at the individual event level. Come on. Give me a mechanism/force that will slow an iron molecule down from 10,000 kps to 30. It ain’t gonna be gravity, I can tell you that.
What puts the brakes on?
What keeps that iron from continuing on its way? Not the Sun’s gravity.
Steve,
Accretion has been observed, and recreated in the lab. So, it’s not crap, but a fact.
https://flightopportunities.nasa.gov/technologies/122/
Nor do collisions need to be energetic. The highlands on the dark side of the moon arose from basically a space rockfall at low speed.
Observation of a protostar’s accretion disk, from June 2017:
https://www.space.com/37294-protostar-gorges-itself-on-space-hamburger.html
Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 4:30 pm
As noted, scientists have actually observed planets forming from disks around young stars.
Gloateus, nothing you have presented confirms this. A photo of a protoplanetary disc surely doesn’t, as planets are not visible in that photo. A graph of protoplanetary disks’ diminishing with age also says nothing about formation of planets. That article about rotating jets emanating from a protostar is speculating about the protostar eating its protoplanetary disk. I say “speculating” because some material getting ejected does not confirm anything is absorbed. Either way, that article does not address planetesimal formation.
You are conflating theoretical star formation and theoretical planetesimal formation. In both cases you are accepting speculation as observation.
SR
Steve:
“Supposedly, all the heavier elements came from supernovas. However the escape velocity of supernova is 10,000 kps.”
“Escape velocity” does not mean that the material is (necessarily) traveling at 10,000 kps when leaving the nova for outer space. It only means that this is the “initial” velocity near the star required to escape the star. In other words the elements could be traveling at close to zero velocity when it finally “escaped”.
Steve:
Yes and no.
You are stuck on a word, accrete. That the word is badly defined, badly understood, badly used is likely.
That does not dispel or refuse the fact that solar systems and galaxies form accretion disks that become suns, planets and even worlds.
The basic scenario for accretion clouds eventually forming into planets and solar systems is decidedly violent. There is nothing gentle in the process.
Reference volcanic flows on our moon. There is theory that the orbital collisions were frequent and violent enough that collision energy kept the moon and the Earth molten for a very long time.
The speeds you refer to, e.g. 40+ kilometers per second are the speeds of orbital debris in our solar system. Those orbital debris speeds are likely different elsewhere.
When a sun goes supernova, nuclear debris is ejected outward at extremely high speeds, even approaching the speed of light.
That’s almost 300,000 kilometer per second.
Solar debris orbiting through the solar system at 40kps is incredibly slowed from supernova debris; and it doesn’t just slow down in space’s vacuum. Gravity, impacts, whatever slowed that matter down.
You are right to question and doubt. Do not stop trying to work out “how”.
Last thought for you. Consider the use of bolos. Weights tied at the ends of twine, whiled around then thrown. If the line catches, the weights circle at speed until they impact, delivering their energy to the target.
The end result of whirling dust, debris, rocks, asteroids, mountains, whatever are collisions, impact energy converted to heat and likely an increasing central mass.
Similar size masses slamming into each other will destroy each other, but lose speed and energy when they do so.
Gloateous: “Accretion has been observed, and recreated in the lab. So, it’s not crap, but a fact.
https://flightopportunities.nasa.gov/technologies/122/
Nope. The premise of that experimentis crap. It says:
The earliest stages of planet formation involved the accretion of dust into larger and larger objects, eventually forming kilometer-sized planetesimals that grew into planets via their mutual gravitational attraction. The early stages of planetesimal formation require the adhesion of particles through surface contact forces. We propose an experimental study of the sticking of dust particles onto larger objects with a microgravity experiment for parabolic airplane flight.
They made up the idea of the surface contact forces. They’ve got lots of whatever in a cylinder maybe 4″ x 15″ long. The walls of the cylinder prevent the particles from escaping. That is horseshit. Sorry, but it is. That doesn’t replicate ANYTHING like particles traveling at 30 kps with unlimited space to escape to.
WTF kind of analog is THAT to a plnetary nebula?
I did lots of experiments in my work, and the experiments had to mimic the actual conditions. That fails on every front.
Also Gloateous: “Nor do collisions need to be energetic. The highlands on the dark side of the moon arose from basically a space rockfall at low speed.”
What does a late “rockfall” have to do with dust traveling at 30 kps or more and banging into each other 4 billion years earlier?
For your non-energetic collisions, what do you base that on, in the planetary nebula?
Steve,
All collisions have energy. It’s just that some are at low energy.
Two ships drifting at sea will be gravitationally attracted to each other. Eventually they will make contact, but at low collision speed.
Two particles travelling at whatever speed need not hit head on. Their relative impact speed can be quite low.
But if actual observations of planetary nebula in space and experiments in the lab won’t convince you, then I guess nothing can shake your faith that the best science is crap.
Steve Garcia August 14, 2017 at 5:05 pm
I’m guessing that actually having studied physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy and astrophysics in college might have helped you understand the science behind planetary formation.
There are still important outstanding questions in the evolution of the solar system, but your concerns aren’t among them.
BFL, sorry, but as an engineer I don’t believe in miracle braking. You assert a slowdown but provide no mechanism for doing the braking.
If the ejecta LEAVES at 10,000 kps, please inform us of what the braking force comes from.
The gist of your argument is invoking “something”. Not very scientific, actually.
I will rebut your “something” and raise you solar system Sun-centered escape velocities. Earth’s is 42.1 kps .
@ATheoK August 14, 2017 at 6:33 pm
“You are stuck on a word, accrete. That the word is badly defined, badly understood, badly used is likely.
Their word not mine. I prefer “aggregate”
“That does not dispel or refuse the fact that solar systems and galaxies form accretion disks that become suns, planets and even worlds.”
In no way do I deny that such gaseous/dust disks exist. I challenge the current interpretation. I do this based on the fact that they gloss over the interconnecting processes that they should have nailed down before ever mentioning it in public.
“The basic scenario for accretion clouds eventually forming into planets and solar systems is decidedly violent. There is nothing gentle in the process.”
I am saying that what THEY propose is beyond any violence we could know. Lik e I’ve said here, 30 kps is about 8-10 times the velocity of most bullets – and that the damage bullets do is they OBLITERATE. They shred materials apart by ovwerwhelmingly overstressing the unit strength of the materials. THIS IS A BASIC OF MATERIALS SCIENCE – what is the stress limit for this material, whether you call it Yield Strength or Utlimate Strength, a bullet will exceed that. Normally. Now multiply that kinetic energy by 8 or 10. Then aim it at a brittle ROCK. That rock is f***ed.
“Reference volcanic flows on our moon. There is theory that the orbital collisions were frequent and violent enough that collision energy kept the moon and the Earth molten for a very long time.”
Like you said, that is one theory.
“The speeds you refer to, e.g. 40+ kilometers per second are the speeds of orbital debris in our solar system. Those orbital debris speeds are likely different elsewhere.”
Of course. Unless they aren’t different. Each of the planets actually has a different orbital velocity.
“When a sun goes supernova, nuclear debris is ejected outward at extremely high speeds, even approaching the speed of light.
That’s almost 300,000 kilometer per second.”
Every source I’ve looked at set it at 10,000 kps.
“Solar debris orbiting through the solar system at 40kps is incredibly slowed from supernova debris;”
Your source for this assertion? I highly doubt this is true. For one thing, in the vast distances from a supernova, the ejecta dust spreads out in 360°-360°. Its density by the time it passes Sol is near zero. And if it is traveling at 10,000 kps, it passes EXACTLY ONCE and that only takes a few days to get through our entire solar system – and then it never comes back.
“and it doesn’t just slow down in space’s vacuum. Gravity, impacts, whatever slowed that matter down.”
See? That is a shrug and a guess. Not allowed. Mechanisms. Name a mechanism and HOW it works.
“You are right to question and doubt. Do not stop trying to work out “how”.”
Oh, no, I don’t stop. I genuinely want to know this, and I haven’t seen anything even close to an actual answer. When I hear the real answer, I will know it.
“Last thought for you. Consider the use of bolos. Weights tied at the ends of twine, whirled around then thrown. If the line catches, the weights circle at speed until they impact, delivering their energy to the target.”
You actually mean “circle at orbital speed”, I think.
“The end result of whirling dust, debris, rocks, asteroids, mountains, whatever are collisions, impact energy converted to heat and likely an increasing central mass.
Similar size masses slamming into each other will destroy each other, but lose speed and energy when they do so.”
Your last phrase is the closest anyone has come to making a stab at it. Though I’ve considered that energy loss idea, I have not seen it written up anywhere. Something to think on.
See, the point is that planets EXIST, and they didn’t spring up fully formed out of nothing. And the cloudy looking disks DO exist, too, so I don’t try to deny those. But it is the small mechanisms/processes that are not well explained. 99% of the time the explanation is “dust accreted into planets” which is like the proverbial black box – WTF is inside it that makes it work? I can’t deny the black box nor the magician’s smoke (the dust disks). But that doesn’t explain jack.
SG, sorry to hack in so late. But your logic is offensivly wrong in two ways.
First, lets posit your escape velocity. Then every second thereafter escaping from a now neutron star or black hole will slow that velocity,via gravitational drag, Surely you do not think there is nothing left behind?
Second, speeding matter will slow via gravitational drag as it enters a ‘cloud’ of matter condensing a new star. That is just how gravity works–mutual attraction, or in general relatiivity terms, a growing space/time sump. Now, conservation of angular momentum is a different issue. BUT, if particles originate sufficiently far away from the new nascent star, there,isn’t very much AM, by definition. The,old,spinning figure skater analogy, with VERY long arms extended.
So neither of your ‘explanations’ works very well at a basic physics level. Please up your game, or,go elsewhere.
I’m a little confused about the argument here. 10,000 KPS may be the escape velocity but that is only part of the final velocity issue. Escape velocity is the initial velocity an object must have to not fall back. It is not a velocity that must be maintained throughout its departure. As the object is departing it slows due to gravity. Usually this is stated as its increased ‘altitude’ results in an increase in potential energy that is subtracted from its kinetic energy. As long as that kinetic energy (relative to the planet the object is escaping) does not go to zero, the object will escape. It can be traveling very slowly relative to the planet it just left. Of course, what goes on with the initial stellar mass as the star is exploding while the particle is leaving complicates things a little.
Second. In the accretion disk, particles are moving fairly close to the same velocity as those nearby. 40 KPS relative velocity within the accretion disk seem a little high.
Anyway, that is my take on this.
My apologies for screwing up the blockquotes. I even used the irritating wordpress editor.
Your orbital velocity assumption is correct; for an object heading directly away from the main gravity source, a rare occurrence.
Orbital velocities are vector or angular velocities. They are the result of an object’s original or ejecta velocity and effects of gravity.
Don’t overlook that there are multiple velocities involved.
There is the velocity and gravity of Earth orbiting the sun with Jupiter and Saturn gravity effects.
There is the velocity and gravity of the Sun’s solar system through space; including planets and Oort cloud.
There is the velocity of the sun’s orbit in our Milky Way Galaxy.
There is the velocity of our Milky Way Galaxy through space.
There is also the impending collision course of our Milky Way galaxy with the larger Andromeda Galaxy. Galaxies that are local orbits in our local Universe galaxy cluster.
A vector velocity is the combination and offset of all the velocities and gravity combined. While there may be local limitations to velocity, the overall upper physical velocity limit is the speed of light.
Our common references to orbital velocity are usually relative to our specific position and the object in question’s position.
There is no straight path. Collisions or captured orbit is the destiny of all space traveling matter, sooner or eventually.
Returning to your 40kps reference; that typically refers to either orbital velocity around the sun or an objects return speed via a highly elliptical path. That object may have been heading sunward for centuries.
Jupiter orbits the sun at 13kps.
Apophis, a wandering asteroid orbits the sun at 30kps.
Halley’s comet passes Jupiter’s orbit achieving a speed over 24kps as it approaches the sun. That’s after traveling for 37 years from out in the Oort cloud.
@Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 6:57 pm
“All collisions have energy. It’s just that some are at low energy.”
When everything out there is traveling at more than Earth escape velocity, you don’t get to say anything about low energy collisions,. They can’ exist except in rare, RARE instances. Sorry, that is a fail.
“Two ships drifting at sea will be gravitationally attracted to each other. Eventually they will make contact, but at low collision speed.”
That is a TERRIBLE analogy. You pretend that there is no wind and there are no currents? No gyres?
Shame on you. Eventually the combination of forces will affect where each ship goes. And what if they are in different oceans?
“Two particles travelling at whatever speed need not hit head on. Their relative impact speed can be quite low.”
And you base this on what? Are you going to take a weak possibility and project it out into the gazillions of particles? “Not head on” includes a lot of still energetic impacts, when nothing is traveling at less than double the speed of bullets and most is traveling at 8 or 10 times bullet speed. A 90° impact would obliterate the HELL out of them. Don’t try to explain the trillion trillion trillion trillion impacts by pointing at one exception that you made up. Sorry. Fail again.
“But if actual observations of planetary nebula in space and experiments in the lab won’t convince you, then I guess nothing can shake your faith that the best science is crap.”
What actual observations? That there seems to be a nebula? I don’t doubt THAT. I already SAID that. They have not observed that dust cloud impacting particles. If you assert that, you are exaggerating what the observations observed.
And it’s NOT the best science. They observe something from 12 or 100 light years away – something that 10 years ago they couldn’t even SEE. The visual acuity from here is like 20:10,000,000 on an eye chart. It may be the best science NOW, but it isn’t the best science possible. Give us a break and stop giving them credit for being at this low level of science accomplishment. The best now compared to the best 100 years ago? Yeah. Compared to 100 years in the future? Note even. We are only 350 years into the scientific age. measured from the Royal Society. We have thousands of years ahead of us. Therefore we are like just leaving “GO” on the scientific Monopoly board. “Park Place” an “Reading Railroad” aren’t even on the horizon. There IS no best science yet. Don’t let your hubris get the best of you.
@Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 7:00 pm:
“I’m guessing that actually having studied physics, chemistry, geology, astronomy and astrophysics in college might have helped you understand the science behind planetary formation.”
I applied to three universities after having a fine education up until then. Two were Harvard and MIT. I took the third, having not gotten into those fine institutions. Which is a shame. Many of my theoretical physicist heroes went to such schools. The third was a piece of shit college, and I left, QUITE disappointed. But I’ve never stopped learning. EVER. In the last year I’ve read at least part of at least 250 journal papers. What was over my head, I taught myself. And filed away. Obviously, with ‘only’ 250 papers, I don’t know much. But what I know, I know well.
“There are still important outstanding questions in the evolution of the solar system, but your concerns aren’t among them.”
I didn’t come here on this thread to have anyone give me an attaboy. I came to see what the state of the science is, and to play off what I uncovered. I neither expect nor desire anyone to be concerned about my presence. I am here to learn. So far nothing you’ve said changed my mind. Mostly because you yourself didn’t pay attention and just stood there like a street sign pointing out what they’ve told you and taught you out of books. In my career I used physics every day for 40 years. 40 years counts a little bit. Real world physics. A LOT of working with Newton’s Laws.
Along with absorbing what they pour into you, try doing your own thinking. IT IS ALLOWED. Be skeptical – it is science’s default position. If you only know what they poured into your brain, how are you different from an evangelical or a Creationist?
@Rud Istvan August 14, 2017 at 11:35 pm:
“SG, sorry to hack in so late. But your logic is offensivly wrong in two ways.
First, lets posit your escape velocity. Then every second thereafter escaping from a now neutron star or black hole will slow that velocity,via gravitational drag, Surely you do not think there is nothing left behind?”
Hahaha – Sorry to laugh, but how much of an explosion in space is left at ground zero? Next to none. The energy of the explosion is applied to every particle within.
Back on Earth, how much is left in an impact crater? Answer: The quick and easy scaling factor for impact craters is 20:1. An impactor of 10 meters makes a crater 200 meters across. And with walls exceeding 45°, the depth can be whatever. Let’s give it 50 meters. That is a vloume of about 1.5 million mcubic meters. Of material that – even in a gravitatinal field – isn’t there anymore. How much of the impactor is still there? Almost none.
When a massive star goes supernova, how much is left at ground zero? Look at the Hubble images. Basically a very small remnant.
Let’s say 5% is left. Okay, the greatest gravitational pull it has is at time 0.0000 sec. At time 1.00000, going 10,000 km/sec, the gravitational pull is based on that 5% acting on any given particle. At time 2.0000 the gravitatinal pull is 1/4. At T=4.000, the pull is 1/16. On and on, the gravitational pull is LESS AND LESS. So, if it didn’t have the pull to brake the particle at T=0.00001second, what in th world makes you think that that is going to some day 10 billion years later drag on the particle (the time of the birth of the solar system). 10 billion years is (3.17e-17)^2 of what it was at T=1.00000. About 10e-34. At what point does the drag kick in? Your argument is poppycock.
“Second, speeding matter will slow via gravitational drag as it enters a ‘cloud’ of matter condensing a new star.” NO, actually fisrt it is accelerated as it is on its approach. THEN after it passes the center of gravity, it decelerates – approximately (if not exactly) equal to its earlier acceleration. So, net? It basically stays going the same velocity.
ALSO, if it is exceeding the escape velocity of the new system, the system has NO CAPACITY TO KEEP IT THERE. Even something going “ONLY” 100 kps cannot be held by a system that has an escape velocity of 42.1. That is what escape velocity MEANS – that it LEAVES if the object has more velocity than that. You don’t understand that?
“That is just how gravity works–mutual attraction, or in general relativity terms, a growing space/time sump.”
Geezus, this has nothing to do with general relativity. Keep on topic if you are going to try to hammer me down.
“Now, conservation of angular momentum is a different issue. BUT, if particles originate sufficiently far away from the new nascent star, there,isn’t very much AM, by definition.”
Of course not. I agree. And in the vastness of space, what are the chances that the bypassing particles are going to be close enough for an angular momentum to occur? Between zilch and zero.
If two neighboring particles are 1 micron apart at 1 second (10,000 km), how far apart are they after 10 billion years?
“The,old,spinning figure skater analogy, with VERY long arms extended.”
Has nothing to do with this. FIRST the particles have to be UNDER the escape velocity, to be “captured”. And remember, the escape velocity of 42.1 kps is at 1 AU, the radius of Earth. Farther out it decreases. Now, put your 10,000 kps particles through that system. NOTHING of them remains.
“So neither of your ‘explanations’ works very well at a basic physics level. Please up your game, or,go elsewhere.”
No, your rebuttal failed, UTTERLY. Your basic physics is something you don’t understand well enough to argue here. Sorry. You are misapplying things and tossing in things like general relativity that don’t even apply at all.
Shit, I was HOPING that someone here could teach me something I don’t already know. No luck today.
You are correct to laugh Garcia. Only the joke is on you.
You have effectively declared your ignorance regarding star, white dwarf, neutron star, black hole formation.
A significant portion of the star going supernova is left as a remnant, whether a neutron star, white dwarf or black hole.
Stars undergoing supernova collapse, not explode. Just as the old vacuum TV’s used to implode yet spread shards of glass across a room.
At this point Garcia, you’ve made a fool of yourself as you base your arguments from a position of ignorance and opinion. It is a waste of time responding to your wild claims.
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2017/04/iPTF16geu_composite670.jpg
A quote that is over simplified. There is not an upper size limit to stars that go supernova. The bigger the star, the quicker it achieves supernova.
Steve Garcia August 14, 2017 at 5:00 pm
“Nope. Accretion is not a viable hypothesis, based on ultra-low gravity and ultra-high velocities at impact. And it IS an impact – not a nestling of two feathers softly caressing each other. The whole accretion model falls apart in the physics. You can’t turn a destructive impact into a constructive accretion.
“I don’t give a shit if they don’t have an alternative idea. THAT one fails. On its own. You can’t hang onto it because you don’t have some better idea yet. Throw it in the dumpster and look around.
“As Richard Feyman teaches, “If it disagrees with experiment or experience, IT IS WRONG.” Go ahead, crash two rocks together at bullet speeds. See what kind of accretion you get. NOT.”
Such a violent temper! Why the hostility?
NASA has actually done the experiment, and it works, so where do you get off quoting Feynman? Accretion has been demonstrated experimentally and observed in nature.
We know that collisions form larger bodies, as happened in the case of Earth and a Mars-sized planetesimal, which spun off the Moon. We also know that at even higher than orbital speeds, collisions between hard objects can lead to their fusion. When two deuterium nuclei are shot at each other they have some probability of fusing into a He nucleus. And ricochet shots in the disk of matter around the forming sun would have been at lower speed.
“For comparison, 80GPa is around x1.5 the typical pressure needed to synthesise diamonds. The temperature of the surface of the Sun is around 5800K.”
It’s dependant on the combination of pressure and temperature
http://www.cefns.nau.edu/geology/naml/Meteorite/Images/CarbonPhase.jpg
Pretty fancy phase diagram there Vuc, so what the heck is the stuff with the zebra stripes ?
G
As for the sun not being able to catch all those heavy elements as they come whizzing by.
Nobody suggested that the sun was jus sitting there playing with its finger toys, and it decided to grab some passing heavy elements and build some planets to keep it company.
I would guess the sun was sort of busy forming itself, and was too busy to decelerate passing heavy elements to make planets. Maybe they both formed out of the same stuff that had already somewhat coagulated.
G
I found this:
“Bridging between these two allotropes of carbon (graphite and diamond) lie a whole variety of carbon materials which include, among others, amorphous sp^2 bonded carbon (such as thermally evaporated carbon), micropolycrystalline sp^2 bonded graphite (such as glassy carbon), nanodiamond films, and amorphous sp^3 bonded carbon (sometimes referred to as amorphous diamond), which is structurally analogous to amorphous Si and is formed during low energy carbon ions deposition.”
Aren’t you glad you asked?
A nice example of science questioning the theory and without an apparent agenda. Hopefully one day we wil have sent probes to see how nascent solar systems and planets develop. And the Universe being as diverse as it is there are likely to be several paths to development. And all equally fascinating. WUWT thanks for posting this.
Surely its turtles all the way down?
Griff got it wrong again
As opposed to his usual turtally ridiculous comments.
You forgot the vital element of elephants. It’s not turtles all the way down. It’s just one turtle at the bottom. Sheesh!
My model suggests their used to be a fifth, but it slipped and landed in überwald.
That would explain a lot.
Wars are liable to fought over the four or five elephant systems.
Would probably been wooly mammoths rather than elephants, or maybe mastodons.
So what is the difference between mastodons and mammoths anyway ??
g
George,
There is a lot of different between mammoths and mastodons. Both groups belong to the Order Proboscoidea, but to different families. Mastodon means “breast tooth”. Confusingly enough, they’re in the extinct family Mammutidae. They were more forest creatures, while mammoths were steppe and tundra beasts.
Mammoths are one of the three genera in Family Elephantidae. The other two still exist, Elephus, the Asian elephants, and Loxodonta, the Africans. Unlike mammoths, some African and Asian elephants do inhabit forest or savanna habitats.
‘mammoth’ was a student’s project so large one never managed to complete.
‘mastodons’ were university dons engaging in certain ‘unmentionable’ activity
CH chondrites were first classified in 1985, and only a few dozen examples have been identified. They are rich in metallic iron and poor in easily vaporized elements, which indicates formation at very high temperatures, but they also contain a few percent of water-bearing minerals, which paradoxically indicates low temperatures.
Let me break this down. They have a few dozen samples of what they want to claim as being a major component of Earth’s planetary formation. They also cannot explain the chemical makeup of those selfsame samples. The authors should thank their stars that I wasn’t reviewing.
You object to their proposal because it incorporates highly unlikely and/or contradictory assumptions? Actually, those characteristics put this proposal in line with every proposal for the origin of the universe and everything within it. Examples:
Our universe began as a gigantic concentration of energy – completely contradictory to known laws of thermodynamics.
In order to get the dispersing hydrogen to clump into galaxies as early as is believed requires a degree of perturbation in the dispersal of hydrogen that would have put most, if not all, of the matter in the universe within black holes by now.
The universal background microwave radiation is also far too smooth to be consistent with the minimum clumpiness of the early universe required to get galaxies by now, yet the universe is far too young for the background radiation to be so uniform.
Rotation rate of galaxies requires postulation of undetectable dark matter to provide sufficient gravity to hold them together for their calculated ages.
Expansion rate of universe is increasing. This requires postulation of dark energy as expansion rate should be decreasing.
Initiating the condensation of a hydrogen cloud to form our sun requires postulation of a previous sun going nova. How hydrogen clouds could have been caused to condense to form earliest suns…
Rotational rate of our sun contradicts law of conservation of rotational energy. Even the smallest amount of rotation in the sun’s originating gas cloud would have resulted in a much greater rate of rotation.
Earth’s moon is an obvious exception to all other known moons, requiring postulation of an extremely unlikely manner of collision of another planet with the Earth. How that collision could have resulted in the orbit of the moon having such low eccentricity is a puzzle as the time required to reduce the expected initial eccentricity to its current value exceeds the maximum possible age of the moon considering its rate of tidal recession.
The coincidence of the apparent size of the moon matching that of the sun is an unlikely event of very high order.
Improbability and inconsistency are the norm for speculations on origins of most everything in the universe, including the universe itself.
SR
You say, “You object to their proposal because it incorporates highly unlikely and/or contradictory assumptions?”
WTF? And why WOULDN’T any reasonable person object? Those objections should ALWAYS be welcome, if for no other reason than to challenge the consensus to put up or shut up.
I could add a few to your list. Having a list of unlikely explanations does not make them more possible or less possible. But the fact that our present state of the science is based on so much FLUFFY explanations does not bode very well for our current consensus to be correct, does it?
As I understand it, the planetary collision thing is the least unsatisfactory of the several hypotheses they tried to model. (e.g.independent formation of a binary planet pair, formation of two planets at one AU from the sun followed by capture, … etc).
I guess that MIGHT be a valid use of computer modeling …
Don K – Just in case I misstated, be clear that I was not addressing the formation of the Moon.
As to that, I think (perhaps too simplistically) that the sphericity of the Moon is too perfect for it to have been ripped out of the Earth in an impact event. ALL other planets (and the Moon IS a planet) are spherical due supposedly to the process of planetary differentiation, which I more or less agree with (so far). But THAT process has to be done mostly (if not totally) when the planet is in a liquid state, very early in its formation. Otherwise the gravitational forces cannot exceed the resistance mechanically within the body – in which case the body ends up non-spherical. To have a round Moon requires, then, that it was a separate body while it was differentiating and “slumping down” to become a sphere.
Steve Garcia August 14, 2017 at 12:58 pm
“But the fact that our present state of the science is based on so much FLUFFY explanations does not bode very well for our current consensus to be correct, does it?”
You expressed very well the very point I intended. I guess I should have incorporated a sarc tag.
SR
Stevan – I didn’t register the sarcasm at all.
I am both respectful of science and impatient when science is done weakly – and don’t understand how it can be accepted in a journal when it is weak. I’ve dealt with over 250 journal papers in the last year or so, and easily half of them are not up to snuff (by my standards, anyway). But I’ve done R&D (7 years plus), and I understand the pitfalls and how tricky it can be. But that is why they pay them the big bucks – to bloody do it right. My PhD guys and I sometimes guessed wrong on which way experiments would go, and it taught me a LOT about expectations and about “reasonable” arguments. Reasonable arguments just plain are NOT science, no matter WHOSE mouth they came out of. Reasonable is only a starting point. Basically they are equal to questions – they may have correct answers/results, and they may not.
‘Reasonable’ is sort of putting two previously unconnected pieces of evidence together in the mind and asking if they are compatible in any way. If they seem good together, we assume we are onto something. That is the beginning of science in that case – but it needs real-world verification. Thus, experiments are needed. In some fields – and geology is one of them – experiments simply are not yet possible. Astronomy is another. Bringing stars and flying planets and flying asteroids into the lab isn’t possible – so THEN what? People make reasonable arguments and hypotheses and have no way real-world to test them out, but they go with them anyway. (When I heard about the way the astronomers gauge the distances to stars, I was horrified.) And then someone else agrees about the reasonableness of the arguments and adds another layer. 30, 40, 50 years later, it’s a pile of reasonableness piled on reasonableness, and somehow it has gotten far removed from reasonableness. Physics – the most reality-based of sciences – has gone that way, too.
This papers seems to be part experiment and part assumption. Glass half full and glass half empty. The experiment part is worth considering. But it fell apart, IMHO, when the assumptions and modeling took over.
I used to make models of physical reality. As long as EVERY point involved is solid work backed up by decades of real-world application, models are terrific. Such as building structures made from 98% consistently made steel beams and columns and angle iron. The moment they near the frontiers of what is known, models begin reflecting the assumptions of the researchers, more and more. This is not good. Then it is necessary to ask if the researchers employed all the facts, or did they just pick out the ones that were easy to work with? I’ve seen a LOT of the latter in those 250+ papers.
Like that ice-free corridor that Clovis Man was supposed to have traveled down when entering the New World? It was ~20 years before anybody got around to checking for evidence of humans, or even plants, in that corridor. With gazillions of scientists looking for the evidence, what little came out was that the evidence was missing in that open corridor period. It didn’t show up for about 5,000 years. But you don’t hear about that one.
That one is a little like when Mann erased the LIA and the MWP with his Hockey Stick. The warmists never even THOUGHT to verify that the LIA and MWP had disappeared. They took Mann’s fiddled data output at face value. That was the side the money was coming from, after all. You don’t want to bite the hand that feeds you. When skeptical scientists looked for evidence of the LIA and MWP, it was EVERYWHERE. and the silence on the warmist (money flow) side was deafening.
At the beginning of the universe there weren’t ANY known laws of thermodynamics, or anyone to know them. And it began out of nothing; not out of a big clump of energy.
Eventually I think it was Heisenberg who said that dE.dt > h/2pi
G
george e. smith August 14, 2017 at 2:48 pm
“At the beginning of the universe there weren’t ANY known laws of thermodynamics, or anyone to know them. And it began out of nothing; not out of a big clump of energy.”
Are you positing that the universe can do anything it wants until some human proposes a law that constrains it?
Actually, the big bang theory only postulates back to an initial big clump of energy (occupying infinitely small “space”). The theory specifically notes it is NOT addressing how or from what the energy came to be, not even that it came out of nothing.
SR
Steve Garcia August 14, 2017 at 3:46 pm
” People make reasonable arguments and hypotheses and have no way real-world to test them out, but they go with them anyway. (When I heard about the way the astronomers gauge the distances to stars, I was horrified.) And then someone else agrees about the reasonableness of the arguments and adds another layer. 30, 40, 50 years later, it’s a pile of reasonableness piled on reasonableness, and somehow it has gotten far removed from reasonableness.”
Exactly.
That what goes for Known Scientific Fact is often speculation piled upon speculation is the point I was trying to make. I am especially incensed when a flaw is pointed out in some hypothesis and the response is to produce a covering hypothesis rather than scrap that hypothesis. I mentioned dark matter and dark energy – both covering hypotheses. I left out Inflation “theory” and others because my response was already wordy. Whenever covering theories are employed it is a de facto acknowledgement that we are seeing failed speculation.
Covering hypotheses abound in the Big Bang Theory, in Evolutionary theory, and CAGW theory. They are especially egregious when employed to protect CAGW theory because we are not talking about the untestable reaches of space, nor the untestable past, but Earth here and now. Proponents of CAGW who deploy covering hypotheses are revealing they cannot find a real measurement that explains a CAGW failing.
SR
What covering theories do you imagine exist in biological evolution?
Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 4:30 pm
What covering theories do you imagine exist in biological evolution?
I only have time to mention 1 right now as I have to get to dinner:
“Common traits prove common descent” – until a case is presented where it is noted that common descent is impossible. Then the covering theory of “Convergent Evolution” is presented. As Einstein noted, only one contrary example is needed to nullify a hypothesis.
SR
Stevan,
Enjoy your dinner, but your alleged instance is entirely invalid. Convergent evolution was realized to occur at the same time that common descent was recognized. The two facts are in no way mutually exclusive.
Convergent evolution doesn’t mean that the convergent structures are identical. The vertebrate and mollusk eye are similar, hence convergent, but differ so fundamentally that they cannot be shared, derived traits.
Shared, derived traits demonstrate the fact of common descent, along with every other possible line of evidence. Convergent evolution demonstrates the power of the fact of natural selection.
Today we can also distinguish between convergent evolution and shared, derived traits, if the issue ever be in doubt for any structures, by comparing genomes. While all animals share basic genes for vision, the divergent evolution of sight in different metazoan lineages is plainly visible, as it were, in our genes.
@co2isnotevil August 14, 2017 at 6:22 pm
(I like the username)
In this comment you touch on some things that need discussion…
As the dust is leaving the SN, they are NONE on parallel trajectories. Every one is slightly angled away from its neighbors. If traveling 10,000 kps, then every second, they are 10,000 km time the sine of that angle farther away from the closest neighbor (the only one worth talking about). Let’s assume that they are traveling almost parallel but not quite – say a 0.000001° spread angle. Understand that each one’s gravity is about the gravitational attraction of one of my eyelashes here to a regolith dust particle on the Moon. And the farther they travel, the farther spread out they are – wider and wider apart, ever second. At 10,000 kps, the the distance covered OUTWARD in one week is about 6 billion km. And that times the sine of 0.000001° is 105 km more spread out – 105 km more distant from each other than one week earlier. And what is the gravitational attraction? 105 km LESS than before, times the gravitational formula. IOW, their attraction gets less and less, the farther they go. And since they had such TINY mass to begin with – not enough to move them toward each other BEFORE, they are going to start with zilch and go down from there. At no point does the gravitational force get higher than before; it can only get LOWER. So, if they didn’t clump just as they left, forget it.
@Stevan Reddish August 14, 2017 at 5:24 pm
“I mentioned dark matter and dark energy – both covering hypotheses. I left out Inflation “theory” and others because my response was already wordy. Whenever covering theories are employed it is a de facto acknowledgement that we are seeing failed speculation.”
That is not exactly incorrect. Speculation is NECESSARY in science. As a pointer and ONLY as a pointer.
It’s not science until an experiment gives the results that the speculation suggests – and then does so REPEATEDLY. I know of one UN-peer-reviewed paper by an undergraduate student in 1977 that is referred to often as a source. In the experimental stage, the kid ran 8 cycles of the experiment – equivalent to about 4 overall cycles, and then when he saw something similar to what he wanted, he stopped it and drew his conclusions. He needed to run thousands of overall cycles. And he did 4. One side in that contentious area uses it like it was Genesis to a Creationist.
Newton said that you need to do your experiments both directions – from particulars up to the general and then the general back down to the particulars – AND THEN DO IT AGAIN, both directions, and the more times BOTH WAYS, the better. It’s not science until it keeps giving the results that the speculation dictated.
…Regarding dark matter and dark energy, those IMHO are what I call “crowbars” – I guess “covering hypotheses” is close enough. When they can’t find an actual explanation for some observed anomalous phenomenon, they reach deeper within their paradigm and come up with the closest easy solution and crowbar it as much as they need to to get others to accept it. DM and DE are just monumentally DUMB. And SO FAR REMOVED from real-world that they should be embarrassed,
“Covering hypotheses abound in the Big Bang Theory, in Evolutionary theory, and CAGW theory. They are especially egregious when employed to protect CAGW theory because we are not talking about the untestable reaches of space, nor the untestable past, but Earth here and now. Proponents of CAGW who deploy covering hypotheses are revealing they cannot find a real measurement that explains a CAGW failing.”
I am the farthest thing from a Creationist. It doesn’t help in that battle when the scientists come up with silly season stuff. It gives the Creationists the utterly wrong notion that they are winning. No, they are not winning. The scientists not having a ready answer does not mean that Creationists win by default. It only means the science is weak. Scientific principles are NEVER wrong. Newton’s Laws. 99% of engineering is Newton’s Laws. It is never wrong. Unless someone misplaces a decimal – makes an error. The farther away from Newton’s Laws you get, the more squirrely science gets. And when scientists make any appeal to authority (like the 97% claim in CAGW), they make the same mistake that Creationists make: Thinking that because people ACCEPT what an authority says, that makes it so. The Bible, the 97% – it’s all crap and has nothing to do with real reality.
Steve,
Creationists have no valid arguments. They have no science. Evolution has already “won”, long ago. There is no issue which creationists raise that has any scientific merit, whatsoever. It is all anti-science, purely religious.
Professional creationists are liars, making a crooked living off the simple, blind faith of people who have never studied science, so don’t know any better. They’re shameless charlatans.
Stevan,
Do you know of an instance in which a characteristic was originally cited as an example of common descent, then later changed to an example of convergent evolution?
That is, are there cases of features once considered analogous which are now regarded as homologous, as per your “covering theory”?
And if so, was the change in classification because of theoretical problems, or simply new information?
You must have some examples, since you claim there are instances of this alleged covering theory in evolution.
I’d like to read them. Thanks.
Sixto Vega August 14, 2017 at 8:37 pm
“Do you know of an instance in which a characteristic was originally cited as an example of common descent, then later changed to an example of convergent evolution?”…
“You must have some examples, since you claim there are instances of this alleged covering theory in evolution.”
I guess this is my reward for trying to be brief.
I will answer your question, but first I have to point out that I did not state traits identified as examples of common descent were later reclassified as convergent evolution. I was pointing out that whenever common descent is known to be impossible a common trait is instead claimed to be proof of convergent evolution.
When asked to point out an example of the use of a covering theory in evolutionary theory I said:
“Common traits prove common descent” – until a case is presented where it is noted that common descent is impossible. Then the covering theory of “Convergent Evolution” is presented.
The expanded and improved version of that statement of mine is:
A frequent argument made in support of biological evolution is “Common traits prove common descent”. That is, a similar physical trait found in different species is claimed to be evidence of their descent from a shared ancestral species and is thus confirmation of the theory of biological evolution. However, in the case where a similar physical trait is observed in different species that cannot possibly be descended from a common ancestral species – say the wing of a bat and the wing if a pterosaur – then the argument that common traits prove common descent is proved false. It is not a proof if it only works most of the time. In this situation the covering argument is made that whenever a common trait is found in unrelated species, this is proof that natural selection works to make a creature’s form fit for its lifestyle and is thus confirmation of the theory of biological evolution.
By “covering theory” i mean a theory or argument that is made for the purpose of covering over an instance where the primary theory is disproved.
Now, to answer your question. When archaeopteryx was classified as a bird, its wing was considered to be convergent with the wing of pterosaurs. Now that archaeopteryx has been reclassified as a dinosaur, its wing
has become an example of parallel evolution, or of common descent, depending on who is talking.
The change was not based on new evidence, but on new theory. The reclassification had to go against the evidence, as archaeopteryx is bird hipped, yet was reclassified as lizard hipped.
SR
Stevan Reddish August 15, 2017 at 3:26 am
Thanks for your long reply.
You assert that “whenever common descent is known to be impossible a common trait is instead claimed to be proof of convergent evolution”. Since I know of no instance of such a thing, I asked for examples. Unfortunately, yours is not such an instance.
For starters, you’re wrong that “common traits” are said to “prove” common descent. This is incorrect. Among the overwhelming evidence for common descent is that related organisms share “derived” traits, that is their common ancestor had just the same trait, not something similar enough to it to show convergent evolution.
A good example is the inability of tarsers, monkeys and apes to make their own vitamin C, unlike the prosimian primates lemurs and lorises, which retain this ability, shared with most other mammals. And those other mammal groups which also lack this ability are related to each other (1. guinea pigs and their capybara South American rodent kin, and 2. bats), and their vitamin C gene is broken in different ways from the primate mutation.
Your instance of Archaeopteryx fails on a number of counts. First off, its wing was never said to be convergent with a pterosaur wing. No anatomist would make such a gross error, given a whole wing. Pterosaur wings are totally different from bird wings.
What you might be thinking of is that the first paleontologist who looked at very partial material, later recognized as Archaeopteryx, thought it was from a pterosaur, since they were the only flying vertebrates then known from the Jurassic. Pterosaurs are closely related to dinosaurs, both being ornithodire archosaurs, so some other parts of their anatomies are similar, but their wing structure could hardly be more different.
Second, that analysis was made before Darwin and Wallace published their paper on natural selection, so could not be an instance of a covering theory for a theory which didn’t publicly exist yet. It was simply a misclassification by a worker not a specialist in either pterosaurs or dinosaurs, to include birds. There was no “convergence” assumed, nor could there have been.
When a more complete skeleton of Archaeopteryx was uncovered a few years later, after Darwin and Wallace’s paper and “Origin”, the beautifully preserved specimen showed feathers and some other avian features, but also characteristic dinosaurian traits. Darwin’s colleague Huxley recognized that birds were dinosaurs, but that observation lost favor for a century. Rather, Archie was considered the oldest bird rather than a feathered dino. Birds were known to be close to dinosaurs, since they are clearly archosaurs, but until 1968 were generally considered to lie outside the Superorder Dinosauria.
You’re also confused about bird-hipped v. lizard-hipped. The two orders of dinosaurs were erected in 1889 based upon hip structure as the naming feature, and a suite of other shared, derived traits. “Lizard-hipped” dinosaurs in the Order Saurischia (with suborders for theropods and sauropods) were even then known to include theropods which later evolved bird-like hips. Some “bird-hipped” dinosaurs in Order Ornithischia similarly evolved lizard-like hips. But in both instances, their other traits showed to which order newly discovered dinos belonged.
Birds evolved from theropods (mostly bipedal carnivores) which had already evolved “bird-hips”. It’s now known that at least the vast theropod group Coelurosauria had feathers, and quite possibly other theropods and even ornithischians did, too.
Maybe you know of an instance of your “covering theory” hypothesis, but none spring to my mind. When evolution is convergent, it’s usually obvious that the similar traits arose separately. When traits are shared and derived from a common ancestor, that too is usually clear.
Gloateus August 14, 2017 at 7:30 pm
“Creationists have no valid arguments. They have no science. Evolution has already “won”, long ago. There is no issue which creationists raise that has any scientific merit, whatsoever. It is all anti-science, purely religious.”
Evolution wasn’t won long ago. Nor was uniformitarianism. The old catastrophists died out. Lyell and his followers put such a taint on them that younger scientists understood which side their bread was going to be buttered on and followed Agassiz and Lyell. The last catastrophists died out around 1920. But by 1980 neo-catastrophists arrived.
Uniformitarianism failed when Bretz showed them the Scablands, and they had to admit it was real.
Uniformitarianism failed when Wegener showed them the moving continents, and they had to admit it was real.
Uniformitarianism failed when Alvarez showed them the dinosaur killer comet in 1980, and they had to admit it was real.
Uniformitarianism failed when Jupiter was hit by Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994, and they had to admit it was real. Then Jupiter was hit twice more in the next 15 or so years.
Catastrophes happen. After getting upper-cutted each time, within a short time uniformitarians have pretended like “Oh, we knew that all along.” No, actually they didn’t.
“Professional creationists are liars, making a crooked living off the simple, blind faith of people who have never studied science, so don’t know any better. They’re shameless charlatans.”
You stoop low to start name calling.
I won’t defend Creationists. I’ve already said what I think of them, which is that they are wrong and really wrong, at that. But Bill Nye is also a shameless charlatan, and will you defend him? He is just a hack, and you all know it. And the handful of professional skeptic charlatans, like Shermer – will you defend those “making a crooked living off the simple, blind faith of people who have never studied science” but who look to others to do science for them and trust them?
I am not attacking anyone. I am pointing out flaws that I see.
Steve,
It’s not name calling to say that professional creationists are liars. It’s a fact. They have to be liars, or they are totally ignorant of biology, the subject they claim to speak upon.
I know them, and I know that they aren’t that ignorant. They are liars.
Your fractured fairy tale version of the history of geology is a case of little learning.
Lyell acknowledged that catastrophes occur. Modern geology is both uniformitarian and catastrophic. The role of catastrophes looms larger now than before Bretz and Alvarez. Uniformitarian geologists did resist Bretz until the ’50s or ’60s, but some came around before they died.
Wegener’s hypothesis of continental drift was resisted for lack of a mechanism, despite mounting evidence if favor of it. Once seafloor spreading was discovered however, geologists both young and old accepted its reality.
It was similar with evolution. The observation that fossils found in rock strata changed over time was called “development” in the early 19th century. The hypothesis of “transmutation” of species to explain this observed sequence was not accepted because it lacked a good explanation. Lamarck’s hypothesis failed to provide one. Darwin and Wallace’s discovery of natural selection did so, with Darwin’s later sexual selection to boot.
Almost everywhere, the obvious fact of evolution was embraced by scientists in the late 19th century. The only holdout country was France, where it was not universally accepted until the 1950s, thanks to Monod. This despite the Modern Synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinian evolution with statistics in the 1920s.
Since there is no evidence against the fact of evolution and all the evidence in the world in favor of it, it was perverse of some French biologists to hold out, and even in the 1960s at least one French mathematician. For a long time it has been an observation, ie a scientific fact, as well as a body of theory explaining that fact.
The theory of evolution is much better understood than the theory of gravity. Indeed, I could say infinitely better understood, since physicists don’t even know yet what gravity is.
Stevan and Sixto,
Here is a comparison of just one derived trait (forelimb bones) shared by Archaeopteryx and Deinonychus, which convinced Ostrom, and eventually all palenotologists, that birds arose among the feathered maniraptoran theropod dinosaurs:
This is a pretty good summary of current understanding of Archaeopteryx:
https://www.livescience.com/24745-archaeopteryx.html
It doesn’t mention the partial material discovered in 1857 and assigned by Meyer to Pterodactylus and Rhamphorhynchus and by Wagner to other genera. The holotype was long the lone feather found before the skeletal remains, but that was officially changed, since it’s now pretty clear that the feather doesn’t belong to Archaeopteryx, but to some other feathered dino in its island and lagoon habitat.
It also doesn’t mention that in 2011 Chinese paleontologists argued that Archaeopteryx should be classified in Deinonychosauria (“raptors”) rather than Avialae (birds and their closest protobird ancestors). I was fairly convinced by the 2011 study, largely on the basis of the well-developed characteristic second toe “killer claw”. But in 2013, a phylogenetic analysis including the latest discoveries recovered it at the base of Avialae:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7454/full/nature12168.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20130620&foxtrotcallback=true
Abstract
The recent discovery of small paravian theropod dinosaurs with well-preserved feathers in the Middle–Late Jurassic Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning Province (northeastern China)1, 2, 3, 4 has challenged the pivotal position of Archaeopteryx3, 4, regarded from its discovery to be the most basal bird. Removing Archaeopteryx from the base of Avialae to nest within Deinonychosauria implies that typical bird flight, powered by the forelimbs only, either evolved at least twice, or was subsequently lost or modified in some deinonychosaurians3, 5. Here we describe the complete skeleton of a new paravian from the Tiaojishan Formation of Liaoning Province, China. Including this new taxon in a comprehensive phylogenetic analysis for basal Paraves does the following: (1) it recovers it as the basal-most avialan; (2) it confirms the avialan status of Archaeopteryx; (3) it places Troodontidae as the sister-group to Avialae; (4) it supports a single origin of powered flight within Paraves; and (5) it implies that the early diversification of Paraves and Avialae took place in the Middle–Late Jurassic period.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v498/n7454/carousel/nature12168-f3.2.jpg
Maybe I was mistaught, or misunderstood, but I never took “uniformitarianism” to be anything like a “law”, that it must always be “as it is today, was then, and forever shall be.”
I thought it was just a useful starting point, as in: “Rather than assume some bizarre, never-before-witnessed catastrophe, let’s see what we can explain just with what we have lying around today. . . . And if/when we exhaust ways in which currently-known processes could cause these features, then let’s explore stranger possibilities.”
I never thought it was in any way forbidden to look into catastrophic processes. Apparently many people did, though.
mellyrn August 16, 2017 at 12:32 pm
In 18th and 19th century geology, scientists fell into two rough camps (and some others), ie those like Cuvier who emphasized catastrophes, and those like Lyell, who were “uniformitarians”. But neither group positively ruled out the others’ favored mechanisms for change on earth. As noted, Lyell himself mentions catastrophic events.
All “uniformitarianism” really means is that its supporters assumed that processes visibly operating today also happened in the past, such as weathering by wind and water at a fairly steady, gradual rate. And of course, this is what indeed happens.
But catastrophists felt that unusual events were at least as important as the constant background mountain building and erosion thereof in sedimentation. Unfortunately, religious overtones got involved on both sides. Creationists preferred catastrophism, naturally, because of the biblical flood myth, while those who sought only naturalistic explanations for geologic developments favored uniformitarianism. It’s possible that geologists resisted the Bretz floods in part due to its uncomfortable similarity to Noah’s flood, although of course the ice-dammed Lake Missoula outburst floods occurred before creationists even think the earth existed.
Jökulhlaups on a smaller scale still occur today, and big ones will again during the next glacial advance.
As noted, geology today combines both outlooks. It is not as if catastrophism overthrew the dominant uniformitarian paradigm. Most of the time, the crust does change due to gradual processes observable daily. Now we can even measure the rate of motion of tectonic plates in real time, in between earthquakes.
Comparison of Compsognathus (left), another small theropod which shared Archaeopteryx’ environment, with Archaeopteryx (center) and a chicken:
Most obvious difference is the “early bird’s” longer arms.
Similarity with Deinonychus is greater, despite Archaeopteryx’ being from the Late Jurassic and Deinonychus from the Early Cretaceous, separated by about 40 million years. But both are maniraptors. Compsognathus is a fellow coelurosaur, but not a maniraptoran.
Deinonychus, from a maniraptoran group closely related to Paraves, the group containing birds and their ancestors:
Some shared, derived traits in the dinosaur lineage leading to birds:
?w=538&h=654
Hope this works:
A more detailed cladogram:
I am not sure about this. It doesn’t square with any of various moon formation via giant impact theories, themselves supported by similarbstable isotope ratios of Earth and Moon and the fractionated Moon Zn isotopes. The impactor would have been about 10% of earths mass (Mars sized) and woild have had a massive impact on chemical ratios.
My take on this that small bodies like asteroids and comets are the direct remnants of supernova explosions and that their specific composition is dependent on how far from the center of the exploding star the object condensed and/or solidified. The expanding gas and plasma from the exploding star should cool relatively quickly (thousands of years is relatively quick in this case) and was most likely emitted as small blobs of plasma leading to the formation of chunks. This also means that planetary formation did not start from dust, but from relatively large chunks of variable, but mostly homogeneous, composition. All are subject to ‘cold processing’ over the eons, although the metal dominant chunks remain largely unchanged while the carbon rich ones change the most.
This hypothesis says that rocky asteroids formed from condensing material that arose close to the center where larger atomic weight elements were being formed during the explosion. Iron rich asteroids formed further out from the center, where the fusion of heavier elements was not occurring. Carbonaceous asteroids (and comets) formed in the outer reaches where lighter elements arising from previous fusion products were not subject to further fusion. This being the case, Carbonaceous objects should be the most numerous and based on what seems to be in the Ort cloud, this appears to be the case. Based on this model, the CH Chondrites condensed from material in the region between where the iron rich and carbon rich bodies arose.
I would point out that the escape velocity of supernovas is in the range of 10,000 kps, while the Sun’s escape velocity is 41 kps at 1 AU. Can you please explain what happened to the 99.6% of the kinetic energy that had to be shed in order for that material to stop here in our solar system? What put the brakes on? Not the Sun. Anything even a little over 42 kps would not stay. Material traveling 10,000 kps could not possibly stay. This is basic physics. And if the material couldn’t stay, this idea falls flat on its face. There would be no material and no nebula from which to condense the planets.
Another point: Asteroids and comets are supposed to be the remnants of the early solar system. The Allende meteorite (the largest carbonaceous chondrite ever found) has peridotite in its chondrules. For those to form requires VERY high pressures and also high temps. Such conditions do not exist except 40-100 km deep within a planet. Based on the existence of the perdidotite, the Allende meteor’s materials came from inside a planet.
Translated: Even the UPPER mantle doesn’t have conditions amenable to formation of the kind of peridotite found in a rock that was flying around in outer space and then landed on Earth. You have to go DEEPER inside a >3,000 km radius planet to make this material.
This is a huge hole in the idea that asteroids are remnants of the early solar system. It seems that somehow some of the material in Allende meteorite were created inside a planet and then extracted or ejected. They could not possibly have formed in the low temps and low pressure of space.
co2isnotevil August 14, 2017 at 11:12 am
…”most likely emitted as small blobs of plasma leading to the formation of chunks. This also means that planetary formation did not start from dust, but from relatively large chunks of variable, but mostly homogeneous, composition. “…
How would matter of high enough temperature to be plasma form into blobs? Plasma has enough energy to separate electrons from nuclei. Neither electrons nor nuclei can clump, as like charges repel. Even if the electrons remain intermixed with the nuclei, no clumping is possible until after de-ionization occurs.
Why would gravel make a difference wrt planetary formation? Gravel is more unlikely to stick together upon colliding in space than dust is. Van Der Waals forces are effective at forming molecular sized particles into dust, but not effective at larger sizes.
SR
High temperature by gravitation effects isn’t absolutely necessary for plasma to form. Electrical charge also produces plasmas under the right conditions. It’s not inconceivable that charge differences could occur between areas of the early solar system and generate enough current flow to produce plasmas, along with a whole host of other effects that could potentially explain a number of mysteries about the early solar system.
Maybe.
What makes plasma is high temperature. Whether that high temperature comes from gravitational compression or electron flow produced by an electrical charge matters not to the clumpability of plasma.
SR
How else can you explain the mostly uniform composition of so many individual meteorites, whether they be metal, rock or carbonaceous?
I don’t think the nova expansion would be perfectly uniform in a way that would blow atoms apart in all directions. Instead, the expansion is directed from the center out, so regions of adjacent material that were subject to the same explosive forces would tend to stay close to each other. They would also tend to be material of similar density having started from the same place within the exploding star. When we look at super nova remnants, they aren’t uniform, but have visible structure, often as intersecting shells of material which seems to be indicative of density variations.
Some day mankind may get close enough to a remnant to know for sure what the precise results of a nova are in terms of what’s produced. All we can do now is hypothesize.
Gravity and collisions are what cause larger chunks to collect together. Otherwise, once dust was formed, it would never collect into larger pieces.
I comprehended all you wrote, and I agree.
Gravel flying at 30 kps hitting other gravel is going to obliterate both pebbles. Even a glancing blow would pulverize them. With dust flying everywhere. At much greater than escape velocity. And how SMALL is the gravity from a piece of gravel?
Philae traveling at ONE METER PER SECOND bounced off of 67/Churyumov–Gerasimenko about an entire km. 1.0 mps = 0.001 kps. Now send Philae into that comet at 30,000 times as fast. Does the probe settle onto the surface and smile? Not even. See all the regolith on the surface? See all the craters? Those craters are excavated/obliterated pockets. Is the regolith from the craters? From the impactors that made the craters?
Now tell me how did the body of the comet solidify into a ROCK under a gravity field that almost couldn’t hold a probe going at 0.001 kps?
There is a lot more going on, and they blow it off with a blithe “Well, everything accreted from there on in. End of story. Let’s go get a beer.”
Wait, I thought science ended with models, who needs actually experiments anymore?
I guess you missed the part where they said that this (at least in part) is based on laboratory experiments.
Even the title of this article starts with “Experiments…”.
They got “the conditions present at the time of the formation of the Earth more than 4 billion years ago” from Washington Post (most likely). While it looks more scientific than the Book of Genesis, it is an equally reliable source.
They got that date from actual scientific measurement, not from the WaPo.
Even the “date” is derived from the age of oldest known rocks on the surface. It does not strike me as particularly reliable – but we don’t have anything better yet. The “conditions” back than are a pure (scientific) fantasy. This experiment models one particular fantasy and casts doubt at another particular fantasy. At least they got some data; their interpretation is another matter.
The date is not from earth surface rocks, except for very few. It’s the average of many meteorites collected and dated. It is also confirmed by the physics of the sun.
A date of 4.54 billion years ago, plus or minus a bit, is a very robust measurement of the age of the solar system. As an observation, it’s a scientific fact.
Do we really know more about the center of the Sun than about the center of the Earth? You seem to hypothesize that meteorites and the Earth have a common origin – not unreasonable, but not a proven fact. The age should be the age of the oldest known meteorite, not an average.
George,
Yes, we do know that meteorites and earth are of the same age, since the protoplanetary disk from which they formed is a reality.
The average is because they’re all about the same age, but have different compositions, which can affect the dating process. But it’s highly accurate and precise.
As noted, we can cross check the meteorite dates with the physics of the sun and with the oldest rocks on earth. All methods gibe.
http://www.meteoritestudies.com/protected_dating.htm
Thanks for a nice discussion. While I do believe in a protoplanetary disk, I don’t believe that it can condense in “planets” of an arbitrary size. Specifically, that an iron meteorite could be created that way. Even a theory that the asteroid belt (and most meteorites) are remnants of an exploded fifth planet looks more probable.
You’re welcome.
The asteroid belt didn’t result from an exploded planet. It resulted from the inability of a planet-sized body to form there due to Jupiter’s gravity, with further breaking up thanks to collisions.
There was iron dust in the interstellar medium after the supernova explosion(s) which created the Local Bubble and provided material for the sun and its system. As you know, even sun-like stars produce elements up to iron.
I have no problem with iron, but with big iron crystals – Widmannstätten pattern.
George,
The iron in meteorites is in alloy with nickel, just like in the core of the earth, and probably other planets. In meteorites, the alloy occurs in two mineral phases: kamacite and taenite. Iron meteorites are chunks of the planetary cores of planetesimals. Hence, they’re good simulacra for the core of our planet.
A big crystal usually grows when a molten rock cools slowly. I can’t imagine such a growth from random collisions in a protoplanetary disk. Planetesimals? Why are planetesimals colliding at a high speed more likely than an exploding fifth planet?
George,
The theory, and observations supporting it, don’t require high speed collisions. Indeed, while those did eventually happen as the accretions grew larger, the basic theory envisions accretion at low speed.
The theory, or hypothesis, well supported, envisions a protoplanetary disk in which material is gradually pulled together by gravity to form small chunks. These chunks grow until they form planetesimals. Many of the objects break apart when they collide, but some continue getting larger. Some of these planetesimals go on to become planets, moons, etc.
There is every reason to posit that iron meteorites came from the cores of planetesimals which didn’t get incorporated into planets, ie asteroids, which then broke up after repeated collisions over billions of years.
For instance, Vesta, the second largest asteroid, was originally big enough to form a sphere, but later suffered a massive collision which rendered it not perfectly spherical. Thus bits of her iron-nickel core contributed to the masses of such objects in the asteroid belt.
Big crystals form when a molten rock cools slowly. A planetesimal has to be quite large to acquire a molten iron core. A large enough planetesimal can only break at a high speed collision. When broken, pieces would cool fast. Do you believe that large asteroids (or are planetesimals something else?) have an iron core that is molten – or used to be? Did the heat come from radioactive decay as it is believed to be the case of the Earth? Does the Moon have a molten iron core?
George,
While it’s small, the moon has a core structured like earth’s, with a liquid outer core and solid inner core.
The moon however is mostly made up of crust lofted into space during the collision, which is why we have tectonics on earth. Most of the missing crust which causes the Pacific Ocean is now up there, moving away from us.
Mercury is similar:
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7396/images/485052a-f1.2.jpg
It may well be so. But we don’t know yet.
Well I guess this bit of sci3ence is – sort-of – settled. Ish.
Based on Models, which may have some value, downhill, with a following breeze.
Mifht be right? Yes.
Probably right? Hmm. Don’t bet the ranch.
Auto – no lover of models with rather small interaction with reality.
Well – often zero interaction with reality, it seems.
Ask them to explain rogue planets and how they formed. Then I’ll pay attention to them.
How much grant money did this rake in?
No mystery there. Either they are ejected from the planetary-stellar system in which they formed, or they form as do brown dwarfs. Observations show that the latter, ie “sub-brown dwarf” rogue planets, form in a star-like manner down to a few Jupiter masses. Smaller rogues are star or brown dwarf system ejects.
Gloateus, you can’t just dive in and do that. Then THEY don’t have to do the work themselves! Naughty, naughty! If they don’t use their own brains, their small amount of brain tissue will atrophy worse than it already has!!
My bad.
But seriously, how many brain cells would it take to hypothesize that rogue planets most likely emerged in one of two ways?
I feel sorry for both the star system rejects, ejected for no fault of their own, and those poor, bigger bodies condemned to orbit the center of mass of the galaxy, solely because they never made it to brown dwarf status, let alone stellar mass.
However, at least the sub-brown dwarfs (dwarves?) are not alone, since many have their own “moon” systems. So might some of the smaller rogues, but their satellites might have gotten stripped off by the gravitational attraction of their sister bodies on the way out of their birth systems.
But “they” said that that the science was settled.
Now where have I heard that before?
The ONLY way you are going to find out what the inside of the earth looks like is with a very very very long drill. Any experiments or models are pointless as there is no way of verifying them, you will never know if they are good or pure BS unless you actually go and have a look. This is of course difficult and expensive.
Or they could read some Jules Verne
TRB, not completely true. The Kola Superdeep borehole project reached 12,220 meters, about 1/3 of the way through the mantle.We can study kimberlite pipes, seafloor spreading basalts, and the Siberian and Deccan traps for magma composition below the mantle. We can study magnetic fields/reversals and earthquake ‘sound waves’ for some mantle/core deductions. That is how we know the core is iron based and partly solid and partly liquid. We will surely never know the S/Zn chemical ratio of the actual liquid core.
Do you mean below the crust, rather than mantle?
I agree, Gloteous. He must be thinking the crust, or perhaps the lithosphere, which is usually said to be 40-100 km deep. But the 40 km is usually under the ocean, not continental. Continental seems to be in the 90-110 km range. That would put this assertion of 1/3 of the way to the mantle in the ‘Incorrect’ category. 12.2 km is more like 1/8th of 100 km.
At the same time, the bottom of the lithosphere is the LAB, the lithosphere-asthenosphere boundary. That is also equated to the Gutenberg Discontinuity. And geologists seem to not all agree that the asthenosphere is upper mantle or not. I’ve been dealing with this a fairly lot recently, and dammit if the designations and demarcations are all over the map. Some say the asthenosphere is upper mantle and some label it differently. If the asthenosphere is considered part of the upper mantle, then the LAB represents the top of the mantle. But it is still 100 km down, not three times 12.2 km.
A new tool is being used to map out the LAB depth in multiple continental plates, doing what might be called transects across the countryside. The tool is called magnetotellurics, which uses electrical signal changes to map this depth. It can so far only measure one thing – the LAB depth – but it is a big step forward, because they were still relying almost totally on seismic and seismic tomography methods. To me, seismic is like having 20-1000 vision.
Sulphur oxidizes and is spewed by volcanic activity as SO2. Does the same thing happen to the Zinc? Haven’t heard of Zinc Oxide being spewed by volcanos. Perhaps Volcanic activity could be the final separator between relative concentrations of Zinc and Sulphur on the core and mantle
Elemental zinc has high vapor pressure, boiling point just above melting. Sulfur decreases vapor pressure.
Planetary geologists aren’t too concerned with compounds as that happens ex post facto. Elemental ratios are the key to origin. The old Alpher, Bethe and Gamov publication got the ball rolling.
“they found that none of the canonical models can sufficiently reproduce the S/Zn ratio of the present-day mantle”
OK, if I recall correctly the Mohole Project never actually made it to the mantle. So how do we know the S/Zn ratio of the present-day mantle? Maybe there’s a simple answer, but I’m not coming up with one (maybe because it’s been about 35 years or more since my last geology class).
has anyone gotten deeper than the kola project in straight down bore?
few years back (2013??) was billion$$ project supposedly to do so but have not heard any updates on it.
Project dates from 2011, but not expected to be completed until 2020:
https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/84100-scientists-plan-to-reach-the-earths-mantle-by-2020
Okay, what could POSSIBLY go wrong with THAT project?
How about we create a tube for mantle material under
The inferred temperature at the asthenosphere-mantle boundary is 2500°C ~(4500°F). To get to the mantle, they have to go THROUGH the asthenosphere. No material I know of can withstand 4500°F. I helped to design industrial kilns and none of them went higher than about 3300°F. And all metals bombed out way before that. Whatever materials they use for their drills, it has to be some sort of ceramic.
But I don’t see it happening. Too hot, too much pressure. And if they DID break through, holy shit, what happens THEN, with a straight tube to the surface?
Not yet.
“has anyone gotten deeper than the kola project in straight down bore?”
Yes and no. A gas well drilled in Qatar in 2008, -BD04A, is a few meters deeper, but my impression is that it isn’t easily compared to Kola.
Don K
That Maersk well BD04A in Qatar had a vertical depth of only about 4000 ft (1220m), actually. The well was a horizontal borehole so the remaining ~36000 ft was drilled laterally, maintaining that ~4000ft vertical depth line. So that Kola project well is still the deepest, I think. Prior to that, it was the Bertha Rogers well in Oklahoma (~9600m TVD) drilled in 1974 which was plugged back when it hit a molten sulphur deposit at about 25ksi.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7304/abs/nature09216.html?foxtrotcallback=true
Diamonds are formed under high pressure more than 150 kilometres deep in the Earth’s mantle and are brought to the surface mainly by volcanic rocks called kimberlites. Several thousand kimberlites have been mapped on various scales1, 2, 3, 4, but it is the distribution of kimberlites in the very old cratons (stable areas of the continental lithosphere that are more than 2.5 billion years old and 300 kilometres thick or more5) that have generated the most interest, because kimberlites from those areas are the major carriers of economically viable diamond resources. Kimberlites, which are themselves derived from depths of more than 150 kilometres, provide invaluable information on the composition of the deep subcontinental mantle lithosphere, and on melting and metasomatic processes at or near the interface with the underlying flowing mantle. Here we use plate reconstructions and tomographic images to show that the edges of the largest heterogeneities in the deepest mantle, stable for at least 200 million years and possibly for 540 million years, seem to have controlled the eruption of most Phanerozoic kimberlites. We infer that future exploration for kimberlites and their included diamonds should therefore be concentrated in continents with old cratons that once overlay these plume-generation zones at the core–mantle boundary.
Yes, and peridotite is associated closely with diamonds and kimberlite. You find one and you probably are going to find the others. And if diamonds form at 150 km down, so, too, does peridotite – or at least close.
And YET, the largest chondrite known, the Allende meteorite – supposedly formed out in space in the early days of the solar system – has peridotite in its chondrules. The two “facts” are mutually incompatible. You have the super low pressure of space added to the super low temps in space on one side. On the other you have peridotite within an asteroid/meteorite, and peridotite MUST be created in the LOWER mantle (Agee 1995) of a planet at least 6,000 km in diameter. These two realities are incompatible. How did the peridotite get into the Allende meteor?
I’ve been arguing this one quite a while now, with some friends. We can’t figure it out. The peridotite seems to have been formed deep inside a planet and then somehow ended up out in space.
Steve,
There is no peridotite in the Allende or any other meteorite.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S003192019603230X
https://www.livescience.com/21197-allende-meteorite-panguite-mineral.html
You have been seriously misinformed.
My bad. I sometimes get olivine and peridotite mixed up. And forget the peridotite-diamond connection.
Gloateus said, “Diamonds are formed under high pressure … and are brought to the surface mainly by volcanic rocks called kimberlites. …, but it is the distribution of kimberlites in the very old cratons (stable areas of the continental lithosphere that are more than 2.5 billion years old…”
Carbon 14 should not be present in objects this old because it would have decayed long ago. But, the Carbon 14 is present and it generates a date of formation around 55,000 years ago, if one assumes that environment carbon 14 formation was the same back then as it is now. One theory says that neutron capture created the Carbon 14 inside the diamonds. But, even uranium ore is not radioactive enough to do the job.
Something is up with these theories regarding diamond formation. The data does not match the theory.
There are actually a few places where fragments of the upper mantle are available. Ophiolites and xenoliths int kimberlite pipes for example (diamonds are a rather extreme case of the latter). The most fascinating place is probably Macquarie Island where an virtually complete cross-section of oceanic crust is exposed due to exceptional tectonics. St Pauls Rocks is another example, though much less complete.
Rocks from the dawn of terrestrial time:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/08/100812-worlds-oldest-rocks-magma-earth-nature-science/
The Mohole Project wasn’t planned to go to the Mantle, only to the Mohorovičić discontinuity.
ok, I’ll confess. I created it.
amazing….anything you can’t see, feel, contact, or directly observe in any way
There’s a computer game for it!
Yeah. Or maybe, no.
Watever, our main problem is currently with people who do not have a clue about how to conduct an experiment, yet are cocksure about how the earth is going to end.
Sorry ~ctm, when I got to “When they fed their results into computer models of the Earth’s formation” I stopped reading. I know you will understand.
The existing theories of the formation of the earth are all based on the accretion of material from space. What specific materials were accreted has no impact on the theory.
‘This means that the current estimates of the Earth’s composition, including its core, need to be modified, and therefore the way the core and mantle – i.e. the Earth – formed may also need to be revised.’
Nope.
I believe they are making a mistake here in assuming one sort of object is responsible for the formation of Earth. That the CH chrondrites are rare, maybe we didn’t form from those but from a mixture of different rocks, some containing more S, some containing less, until we see the mixture Earth has today.
About 5GY before God said ‘let’s there be light’ sun was a dull (not very bright place) it wasn’t very hot either, made of stuff a bit like baker’s dough. It’s ‘day’ was about same as Jupiter’s or Saturn’s about 10 hours. Centrifugal force was so great that the heavy stuff ended in the outer layer and eventually lumps of it were flung into nearby space, the gravity held it back but the bigger lumps ended further away.
More research needed, computer modelling work is not in progress due to absence of sponsorship.
is /sarc necessary?
If you just add “… and therefore it can be seen that continued greenhouse gas emissions will cause the end of life as we know it.” to your hypothesis, I’m sure your grant will be approved.
It’s centripetal force. There is no such thing as cetrifugal force. One of my physics professors threatened to flunk me if I ever used the other trem again.
It is centrifugal force.
When you stop centripetal force abruptly, then you will experience what distressingly resembles centrifugal force.
CENTRIFUGAL FORCE: an apparent force that acts outward on a body moving around a center, arising from the body’s inertia.
Newton talked about “UNBALANCED forces”. An object at rest or in motion, blah, blah, blah.
People tend to forget OPPOSING forces. What is an opposing force? When you design a building you carefully assess the weights and their configurations, and total them up as to how much weight there is bearing down on the ground. But you also need to consider, “Is the ground strong enough?”
The ground PUSHES BACK. And the ground just happens to push back with just enough force to withstand the weight. It is called THE REACTION FORCE. It is the balancing force. If the ground is too weak, you will find out to your deep chagrin – or you will design to cover that weakness. Which is done all the time.
So, balancing force. Yes, the outward tendency (the centrifugal force) is also due to Newton and his Laws. In fact it is nothing other than the First Law. That planet or moon really DOES want to keep going in a straight line. And SOMETHING is opposing that, isn’t it? BALANCED FORCES!!!! WHAT is counterbalancing the centrifugal force? What is preventing that straight line motion?
DUH. Gravity. In that model of a planet, what is it that is opposing that planet from flying off on that tangent?
Gravity. HOW?????
Newton’s very famous quotation in his letter to Dr. Bentley about “action at a distance” (regarding gravity reads,
Misspellings are in the original.
So, what is the opposing force, the BALANCING force that keeps a planet in its orbit? Gravity.
Gravity, The centripetal force in the model.
If you look only at the sling effect, you are missing half of what is going on. Without gravity – without that centripetal force – there is no solar system. All planets would have left in the first week.
Your science teacher was only half right. And Newton would liked to have agreed with him – except for one thing: Action at a distance is REAL. Gravity SOMEHOW reaches across the void and ATTRACTS THINGS. Newton could only shake his head and TRY to deny that it does what it does. But it DOES.
For the following 150 years or so after Newton, scientists tried to figure out just WTF gravity IS. They never did. They basically just threw up their hands eventually and gave up on it. And no one has really tried to do it since then.
*********
MY own physics teacher argued that there was no such thing as PULL. Every example we showed him, he refuted. Pulling a door handle? Nah, you are PUSHING it with your wrapped fingers. Pushing it toward you.
That cartoon is centrifugal force acting on Mr. Bond. The centripetal force is the reaction force from the wheel pressing on his body. Like when you’re standing on a floor. The ‘action’ force is your weight, the ‘reaction’ force is the normal force exerted by the floor on your feet. Both action and reaction forces are real. Physics teachers should know better. Some think only the action force is real and the reaction force is “hypothetical”
In orbiting bodies, it’s the reverse. Centripetal force is the action force. Centrifugal force is the reaction force. Again, both are real forces.
Bollix. The centrifugal force balances centripital, which in the case of the solar system is gravity. I was told the same stuff about centrifugal by my physics teachers.
When you push on a wall, the wall pushes back with an equal and opposite force. If you push harder and harder and you exceed the strength of the wall, it falls over (and without its ability to hold you up, you fall over, too.)
A thought exoeriment: When a pitcher throws a ball using a certain force, it propels the ball toward the batter and if he swings and misses, the ball hits the catchers glove with a certain force. If he hits it with a force greater than that imparted by the the pitcher, it flies in the return direction propelled by a force which is the batter’s force minus the that imparted by the pitcher. If the pitcher instead walks up to the batter and presses the ball against the bat and the batter pushes back withe same force, the ball stays there.
If you and your friend push against each others palms, who is causing the force?
Both of you are causing the action force. If I push and you don’t, I feel the reaction force. If you push too, I feel the reaction force plus your action force.
The moving baseball doesn’t have force. It has momentum. The swinging bat also has momentum. When they collide, there’s transfer of momentum from bat to ball and they obey the conservation of momentum. Pushing a stationary baseball has no momentum. Action and reaction forces act on the ball.
At least the scientists involved aren’t demanding $500 trillion dollars, the end of industry, the end of electricity, a massive reduction in human population and totalitarian control of the rest of humanity in order to “save the planet”.
Yet.
Good points, Pat! 🙂
O/T but I’ve just been thinking about the Global Energy Diagram
A simple mathematical exercise leads to the following conclusion
396 W/M^2 radiates from the surface in the diagram and 341 W/M^2 arrives from the sun so if all the interactions in the atmosphere were removed we’d be left with Boltzmann only and a simple calculation 288*((341/396)^(1/4)) shows that our surface temperature of 288 deg K would reduce to about 277 deg K ie all our net warming from everything else is 11 deg C in equilibrium when we keep albedo fixed.
Now we have 400ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere and I’ll assume warming TCO2 =A*Log(CO2) since CO2 is meant to be the driver of temperature rise. So T400 = 11= A*ln (400) and Doubling CO2 will give T800= A*ln(800) ie T800 =11*(ln(800))/ln(400) which means T800= 12.3 ie doubling CO2 gives a rise of 1.3 deg C.
What is unreasonable about my method and assumptions? Should changes to positive feedbacks become more pronounced compared to negative feedbacks? Why?
And if we add to this that Hoyt and Larin created completely different theory of early Solar system ( metal-hydride theory), then any “conventionally accepted” Earth formation theory is nothing more than glorified science fiction of Mr. Jules Verne.
It did “form”, we are on it currently standing on it and how much of my money was pissed away on this bullshite?
I thought this was settled science.
I see the problem.
They should’ve put Slartibartfast in charge of the Zn/S ratio.
That guy’s got a real eye for detail. He wouldn’t have screwed it up so badly.
Steve Garcia,
“Supposedly, all the heavier elements came from supernovas. However the escape velocity of supernova is 10,000 kps. All the planets and asteroids are traveling at about 40 kps – a 99.6% reduction in velocity (and therefore, energy). I have a hiuge problem with the Sun “catching” (decelerating and diverting) such materials and slowing them down by 99.6%. Where did all the energy go? With the escape velocity of the Sun (at 1 AU) being 42.1 kps, that 10,000 kps doesn’t compute. They have to shed too much energy.”
Apologies in advance if these are stupid questions: I’m not a scientist, and I don’t have any real knowledge about the subject.
Since stars form from the material in vast clouds is it possible that the existing clouds, in which the previous two generations of stars formed, would be large enough and dense enough that the momentum of matter from a supernova would mostly be distributed by collisions as it traversed the cloud? I wonder how dense a cloud would have to be if it were many light years across?
There is no actual hard evidence there is even anything existing called a supernova.
They are hypothesis, not even a theory.
The huge problem with supernova is the very things in space claimed to be supernova.
The profile of the event does not show an explosion
This is all they have to go on, events that happened and we have 0 evidence as to why they happened.
http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2016/g11/Historic_Supernova.jpg
Apologies, but I think this is one that, if you are interested enough, you need to go read up on yourself.
I am a retired engineer who has never stopped being interested in science, and I approach science from the POV of an engineer. Which means – toward scientists, “Please show me how all parts of your idea work”. When they can’t do that well enough, I see what can be done with their incomplete understandings/holes in their hypotheses.
In your reading, be skeptical. Compare what you read to everything else yo know so far. Skeptical doesn’t mena rejection. It means don’t accept it at face value – and look for ways of testing their ideas.
The scientists of 100 years ago were wrong in many of their understandings. (I know; I’ve read a bunch of it.
I understand WHY they thought as they did, but they were wrong – in quite a few ways.) We can see all their errors from our present position in history.
100 years from now, others will look at our present state of science, and they will see flaws in what we understand today. It can be amusing, but it can also be a lesson: We are on a continuum, and not very far along it. Thus it goes and will continue, on into the future. They simply will know more in the future. And things we are certain that we know NOW – some of that is going to turn out to be wrong.
OK, we accept that the escape velocity of a supernova is 10 000 kps, and since matter does escape then that velocity is reached by at least some of its matter. But this is the velocity reached by the outer shell of the supernova. As the supernova expands, some will be shed into space as rings – which we see. Eventually what is left will expand and expand, but this may not be accelerating so greatly, and in any case, as the mass decreases, so the escape velocity will be lower.
Eventually you will reach the case where chunks of the supernova core are being ejected at low speeds, and rather than being in a plasma state, or a gas state, will be liquid. While solid rocks hitting each other will break, liquid chunks will be more likely to coalesce.
The possibility is that rather than the outer parts of the supernova having become planets, or become dust/granules that could become planets, it is the core which disintegrated and collected bits and pieces over the next few million years that became the planets as we know them. That is, we are now standing – or sitting – on the remains of the core of a supernova. And the radioactivity which existed upteen billion years ago – perhaps 10B – has now reduced to virtually nothing.
Also a far out possibility, that the uniform (or nearly so) 4 degree temperature now observed in space is not due to the original big bang, but to the remains of the supernova that created us so many B years ago. The outer shell has cooled and we are getting the result of radiation back from the cold outer shell.
you can’t accept that really, because there to date is not one jot of any kind of real evidence supernova are even physically real
They have been observed, so, yes, they are real.
Supernova are a direct result of tragically bad theory.
The sun is not all gas, the latest imagery from the Swedish telescope shows what appears to be condensed matter, and if there is any condensed matter on the sun, it cannot collapse in on itself as per the standard model.
Theoretical astrophysics is in crisis, no denying that. It’s largely a joke field.
Plasma cosmology is the way of the future.
Everything is made from plasma, elements the lot.
To believe earth’s spin has been so consistent without an external driver is laughable. Our spin is too consistent to be merely momentum.
Every planet and the sun are in a circuit, the latest findings are showing this to be true.
Wow. Your opening paragraph is misunderstanding several things.
“…since matter does escape then that velocity is reached by at least some of its matter.”
Well, THEY assert that OUR heavy elements got made IN that supernova AND got here, so OUR heavy elements must have been some of those “that got away”, right?
“But this is the velocity reached by the outer shell of the supernova.”
There is no outer shell. It’s an explosion. There is a blast front, an expanding blast front. Nearly all material escapes. Since the explosion is “out in space” it is not confined. Which directions do the particles get ejected? Answer: 360°x 360°. SOME movies get this right, and when there is an explosion out in space they show a SPHERE. On Earth an H-bomb will make a mushroom cloud, but that has to do with both gravity and the reflection off the ground. In space, with no ground, the mushroom cloud doesn’t exist; it is a spherical blast front instead.
If you explode a bomb out in space, how much remains at the ground zero? Not much, right? This holds true, no matter if it is an M-80 or if it is a 4th of July fireworks display or a nova or a supernova. Think of that: How much of each fireworks explosion stays at the center. LOOK FOR IT NEXT TIME.
“As the supernova expands, some will be shed into space as rings – which we see.”
I think you are mistaking a shell – seen edge-on – for a ring. That is a SPHERE. What you see is the blast front, still expanding. just like with fireworks, only with more material and more equally spread out. It looks stationary, but it isn’t. It is like an expanding BUBBLE.
Look at photos of bubbles or videos. Most of what you see is reflection, usually. I found some images minus a lot of reflection. Take a look here: http://www.taftpubliclibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/bubble_mania.jpg
See? That looks a lot like a ring, but it is a SPHERE, a shell. In astronomy when we see such things, try viewing them as bubbles, bubbles of the blast front. If it is a supernova, and if they are right, then those are moving outward at AT LEAST 10,000 kps.
“Eventually what is left will expand and expand, but this may not be accelerating so greatly, and in any case, as the mass decreases, so the escape velocity will be lower.”
Ask yourself what is left. How much is left in the center of each firework explosion? Almost nothing. It is just sitting there. And then gravity takes it and it falls.
“Eventually you will reach the case where chunks of the supernova core are being ejected at low speeds, and rather than being in a plasma state, or a gas state, will be liquid. While solid rocks hitting each other will break, liquid chunks will be more likely to coalesce.”
That is an interesting theory.
AT LAST. The current theory is complete and utter nonsense as is the guessed age of the earth.
The age is pretty well established by assays of nuclear decay products from independent sources. Zircon crystals with specks of uranium and the right isotope of lead which decayed from it are used to date old granite rocks of the Precambrian shield. The ratios of isotopes of lead, and decay of radioactive potassium into argon in feldspars. These and other nuclear assays are well established.
Get a good, simplified essay on the subject. You will be convinced. Try the geology departments of any university. They all have readable stuff on this and o her topics. This isn’t climate science!
“This isn’t climate science!” It appears somebody wants it to be, though!
The age of the earth isn’t guessed. It’s measured.
PROXIES are measured. They MEASURE/count radioactive decay remnants in rocks, then compare that to calculated values of half-lives.
As an example, Willard Libby, around 1950, for radioisotope Carbon14 used a value of 5668 years as the half-life of Carbon 14. This was later, in the 1960s, corrected to 5730 years. It was assumed early on to be a straight line calibratino curve, but from experience they found out that the factors influencing C14 decay were not constant. The nuke testing in the 1950s and 1960s was part of how they discovered the variations. Now they use calibration curves, which are updated every few years to include new data from around the world. The last three times the calibration curves were changed in 2004, 2009, and 2013. They also use a different curve for underwater carbon dating.
They work very hard to get the calibration curves correct. When they change it, sometimes it changes calibrated dates by as much as 100 years, for the same exact radiocarbon result from a lab.
That is radiocarbon, and it doesn’t apply to anything older than about 57,000 years – about ten half-lives. Even at that age, readings are suspect.
So they use other radioisotopes for the ages of rocks. I am not up to snuff on those, though I run into it a lot. I have other things on my plate right now. If I needed to know it, I would.
Getting ahead of ourselves.
Has anyone actually established the formation of the Earth?
Eggheady and flawed. The earth’s shells were formed 4Bya and they have evolved from transfer of material into and out of the mantle and crust and new material from space, Volcanic material intrudes from below the crust, subducted crust goes into the mantle, meteors and almost constant meteorite dust silently raining down on us and pummeled by asteroids.
Volcanic ‘exhalative’ massive sulphide deposits, dominantly copper and zinc sulphides, by the way, from the mantle and deposited on ancient sea floors provide much of our zinc metal and a heck of a lot of Sulphur today. Sulphide ‘smokers’ continue to share ft zinc and other metals and Sulphur out of the mantle. The guys are 4B yrs out of date. Inexcusable.
This subject is certainly related to the global warming debate. I will quote from an article in National Geographic.
Three Theories of Planet Formation Busted
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2011/02/110222-planets-formation-theory-busted-earth-science-space/
Actually, Wikipedia lists 15 theories over the years, that have been proposed. I think the National Geographic article is about the ones that are still popular. The article describes how data from our fairly recent ability to detect extra-solar planets has impacted the theories.
“Still, some experts aren’t quite ready to give up on current theories…
Hal Levison, a planet-formation theorist from the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado.
‘The only thing we can say for sure is that those models don’t work,’ Levison said. ‘Those are crappy models.’
It seems that reliance on crappy models, and asserting that they show absolute fact, is the norm for modern science.
-joe
Your comments’ statements are worth filing away, at the least.
When 15 theories – or even as few as 4 – exist, then there IS no theory. It is still in the “chaos period”, like Thomas Kuhn described the early 15 or so decades of investigations into electricity. The evidence about electricity was quite varied and only after collecting a lot more evidence did a coherent idea come about. After that the current paradigm about electricity took hold. The planetary formation theories are not to that paradigm stage yet, and they need to stop pretending that it is.
Gloateus is here as the Defender of the Faith, but which of the four (or more) is he defending? He spells things out clearly, and I applaud that effort. I haven’t had time to read all his comments, but from what I’ve read so far, he hasn’t swayed me one iota. I consider the one that is presented the most as a crappy model. When any theory glosses over the FUNCTIONAL and detailed connections between one state and the next, and when those connecting steps don’t hold water, I consider it a crappy model.
In designing in industry (my career), every step of every machine or piece of equipment must work. ANY aspect that doesn’t work means you did a crappy design job. Any sub-assembly that doesn’t work has to be MADE to work – whatever it takes. In the end, when they don’t work, people get REALLY f***ing pissed. And you lose a LOT of street cred. I fortunately never had any major screw-ups. I was around a few, though. It wasn’t pretty.
Science should not be any different. These theories need to be revised until they work. There are literally MILLIONS of scientists in the world today. You’d think they could get this right.
Maybe the problem is that scientists don’t have their feet held to the fire. Maybe they get the same pay if their hypotheses work out or not. There will be more government money next year. Just keep publishing and you get some of it. Even if your papers don’t hold water.
Y’all are forgetting about the dark matter and its forces.
Well it seems to be working fine now so I’m happy.
James Bull
I liked the theory that the Earth itself was a collapsed Star.