Slashdot Mirror
Recipe for Making Symetrical Holes in Water
scottZed writes "Danish researchers found a simple way to make curiously shaped air holes in a bucket of water. Simply rig the bucket to have a spinning plate at the bottom, and depending on the speed, you can get an ellipse, three-sided star, square, pentagon, or hexagon. The effect may help explain such shapes seen in atmospheric disturbances on Earth and other planets. One practical use: really trippy washing machines."
One, it's not a recipe. Two, the holes are not symetrical. At least you got the water part correct.
It is the same question. If there are no more disapearances there, there is no need for any consideration of unusual circumstances. Unusual circumstances are only needed to explain unusual numbers of disapearances, and there aren't any. Looking for extraordinary explanations of ordinary statistics is unscientific and pointless.
Let's suppose that it's not unusual for five people to disappear at a particular train station every year (they "disappear" in the sense that they are running away and are last seen there). At a second train station many miles away there are also five people disappearing every year, on average. However, in actuality those people going missing at the second station are actually kidnapped. Of course since five people disappearing is not unusual, you would not care to investigate this at all? Even if many suggested that there may be some foul play involved?
You could easily come up with many more similar scenarios to illustrate my point. Not investigating mysteries, even if just to dispel the myth surrounding them, is what is unscientific.
So sure, there may be absolutely nothing extraordinary about the Bermuda Triangle and there may be no more disappearances there than anywhere else. If there are unusual circumstances surrounding all or nearly all of those that do take place there though, does that not suggest that there may be something interesting to look at?
Maybe it's pirates! Arrr!