Crap. The above, where it says T(w), should have been:
T(w) [is less than] T(p) [is less than] T(s).
Yes, I know Slashdot character handling is a pain in the ass, and it catches me often too, when I try to express "greater than" or "less than". Even so, I'm not installing Sage right now. Better things to do. I have reasons for wanting it public-readable, and I will accept nothing else.
I've already showed you that the outer surface of an enclosing shell with an area ratio similar to Earth's warms to ~149.6F. I've explained that neglecting area ratios is a tricycle: a simple approximation that helps us learn. It's like the "frictionless pulley" or "massless rope" or "blackbody" approximations. Again, in this case the tricycle isn't too inaccurate compared to the bicycle, it's much easier to learn, and it provides a sanity check on the more complicated calculation. As the area ratio approaches "1.0" the bicycle should give the same answer as the simpler tricycle. And it does.
Bullshit. I quoted your exact words above. You don't get to plug later calculations back into your original erroneous analysis and call it good. And I have already explained why it is not possible to do this and still get valid answers. 2 * X is not the same as 1 * X. It is not valid to multiply your power output with no further power input. It's a violation of conservation of energy. So you're still falling off your tricycle.
Repeat: if we give the sphere which is the heat source, at 150 deg. F, an area of 1 m**2, and the outer area of the enclosing sphere an area of 2 m**2, and (as YOU have said), power in = power out, then the exterior surface cannot be the same temperature. This is not even advanced physics, it's simple damned algebra.
And even Spencer did not assume net heat transfer from the exterior walls, which is fine because the exterior walls cannot be of greater temperature so according to the S-B law there is no net heat transfer to the interior objects. T(w)
All else being equal, the amount of power input necessary to heat an object with 1 m**2 surface to 150 deg. F is not enough to heat an object of similar material with 2m**2 surface area to the same temperature! If you try to assume the same radiative temperature over greater area, you must have greater input, or else you have done your math badly. I have stated this to you a number of times. Your attempt at analyzing this challenge violates conservation of energy. Period. This is unequivocal.
And no, it's not like the blackbody approximations because we're talking about real objects here, so emissivity will not be same as absorptivity, BUT that's really irrelevant to this particular point. You're just clownishly hand-waving again, because even if they were black bodies, they would still have to obey S-B and you would still be wrong.
I quoted your actual analysis above, which you wrote some time ago and claimed it was a refutation of Latour. Your math is wrong. Further, it is not valid to take other calculations you did later, using different assumptions, plug them back into the original problem and claim that all is good. If you want to change your figures, then START OVER AND DO IT RIGHT. It isn't valid to make other assumptions then just plug those calculations back into the original problem as though that made no difference.
You are only illustrating why I have said all along that you're full of bull, and you have been all along. Either you are incapable of doing this properly, or you're just bullshitting everybody for reasons of your own. And as I have stated before, I believe it is your own strange way of further harassing me.
No, you linked to another PSI Sky Dragon Slayer.
Hahahahaha! Now, THIS is ad-hominem at its finest. I did write NASA when I meant ESA, but that is beside the point. It is the information content you must refute, not the person, and the information is clear: the chart (straight from ESA) contains a 0.5 factor because a plate has 2 sides, and you have to calculate emittance from BOTH sides. No matter what the shape of your object, you have to calculate emittance from ALL its surfaces if you want to get the correct answer for temperature. You don't get to take the total emittance and multiply it, which you implied in the analysis I quoted.
If you can do it better NOW, then do it better. Don't j
I've already showed you that the outer surface of an enclosing shell with an area ratio similar to Earth's warms to ~149.6F. I've explained that neglecting area ratios is a tricycle: a simple approximation that helps us learn. It's like the "frictionless pulley" or "massless rope" or "blackbody" approximations. Again, in this case the tricycle isn't too inaccurate compared to the bicycle, it's much easier to learn, and it provides a sanity check on the more complicated calculation. As the area ratio approaches "1.0" the bicycle should give the same answer as the simpler tricycle. And it does.
Bullshit. I quoted your exact words above. You don't get to plug later calculations back into your original erroneous analysis and call it good. And I have already explained why it is not possible to do this and still get valid answers. 2 * X is not the same as 1 * X. It is not valid to multiply your power output with no further power input. It's a violation of conservation of energy. So you're still falling off your tricycle.
Repeat: if we give the sphere which is the heat source, at 150 deg. F, an area of 1 m**2, and the outer area of the enclosing sphere an area of 2 m**2, and (as YOU have said), power in = power out, then the exterior surface cannot be the same temperature. This is not even advanced physics, it's simple damned algebra.
And even Spencer did not assume net heat transfer from the exterior walls, which is fine because the exterior walls cannot be of greater temperature so according to the S-B law there is no net heat transfer to the interior objects. T(w)
All else being equal, the amount of power input necessary to heat an object with 1 m**2 surface to 150 deg. F is not enough to heat an object of similar material with 2m**2 surface area to the same temperature! If you try to assume the same radiative temperature over greater area, you must have greater input, or else you have done your math badly. I have stated this to you a number of times. Your attempt at analyzing this challenge violates conservation of energy. Period. This is unequivocal.
And no, it's not like the blackbody approximations because we're talking about real objects here, so emissivity will not be same as absorptivity, BUT that's really irrelevant to this particular point. You're just clownishly hand-waving again, because even if they were black bodies, they would still have to obey S-B and you would still be wrong.
I quoted your actual analysis above, which you wrote some time ago and claimed it was a refutation of Latour. Your math is wrong. Further, it is not valid to take other calculations you did later, using different assumptions, plug them back into the original problem and claim that all is good. If you want to change your figures, then START OVER AND DO IT RIGHT. It isn't valid to make other assumptions then just plug those calculations back into the original problem as though that made no difference.
You are only illustrating why I have said all along that you're full of bull, and you have been all along. Either you are incapable of doing this properly, or you're just bullshitting everybody for reasons of your own. And as I have stated before, I believe it is your own strange way of further harassing me.
No, you linked to another PSI Sky Dragon Slayer.
Hahahahaha! Now, THIS is ad-hominem at its finest. I did write NASA when I meant ESA, but that is beside the point. It is the information content you must refute, not the person, and the information is clear: the chart (straight from ESA) contains a 0.5 factor because a plate has 2 sides, and you have to calculate emittance from BOTH sides. No matter what the shape of your object, you have to calculate emittance from ALL its surfaces if you want to get the correct answer for temperature. You don't get to take the total emittance and multiply it, which you implied in the analysis I quoted.
If you can do it better NOW, then do it better. Don't j
Of course the counter-counter argument is that the patent laws are so bad that this is happening anyway because trolls can threaten anyone with millions of dollars in legal expenses over a patent that's not terribly good (or possibly even relevant to the case at all) which ends up crushing the new-comers anyways.
The patent laws aren't necessarily bad. (Although the recent first-to-file rule sure as hell isn't good.) It's that they're not being enforced.
These people should never have been given a patent. It's so obviously invalid I have to wonder whether the patent examiner was a grade-schooler working in his spare time. That doesn't mean the law is bad, it means the law wasn't followed.
Patents are supposed to be for inventions, not just "useful things".
The problems we have been experiencing have not been due to the idea of patents, they are due to deliberate abuse of the patent system, and the relative incompetence of patent examiners today.
ANY system I am aware of can be abused. That doesn't mean the concept of the system is invalid.
Just like corporations today have abused their corporate money to lobby Congress and form virtual monopolies and oligopolies. That doesn't mean the concept of capitalism is flawed. It's a pretty good analogy. Actual capitalism requires antitrust laws, and requires them to be enforced. Lack of enforcement doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the idea of capitalism, it just means the politicians are corrupt bastards. Two different things.
In the same way, giving patents to shysters isn't attributable to the concept of patents. It just means the system isn't functioning the way it was designed to function. It functioned just fine for a very long time.
But let's also be clear about this: even given potential misunderstandings, your prior analysis was still wrong. It is VERY easy to show this.
Presume you have an initial source at T = 150 deg. F. It has a surface area of 1 m**2. Therefore (let's just assume your figure for power output here, it doesn't really matter and it's good enough for this illustration): it's emission is 509W/m**2. Let's say the EXTERIOR of your enclosing shell has an area of 2 m**2.
However, your words (though in a slightly different context): power in = power out. Since the total power (W/m**2 times X m**2) must be the same in as out, the exterior of your shell cannot have the same irradiance. The same must be true if this were just one solid sphere, rather than a hollow sphere enclosing another sphere.
Solving for the Stefan-Boltsmann relation at 509W/m**2 times 1 m**2 is total number of watts. If you try to multiply the same emission rate over 2 m**2 you get a DIFFERENT answer. That's just a fact. By assuming an external temperature of 150 deg. F, you have just created tangible energy from the vacuum. Congratulations.
Let's be very clear, just so we understand each other here:
In your descriptions you keep assuming things rather than calculating them. And some of your assumptions do not appear to be valid. You may have meant something other than how I interpreted your words, but that's why it's pretty damned hard to prove anything without calculating it all the way through.
Further, you have had a strong tendency to use imprecise terms, which causes confusion. For example: power (W) is not the same as irradiance (W/m**2) and they may not be willy-nilly conflated. So why don't you draw a diagram, and simply perform all the calculations? No more beating around the bush, no more introduction of new elements. I'll even go with your own example of the passive plate enclosing the heat source, for now. I consider that to be a pretty major concession that I don't think you deserve.
So, there is a heat source of area X. Go ahead and assume it's a sphere if you like. Like Spencer, we can assume that the electrical power in is constant, and enough to heat the source to 150 deg. F, inside a larger enclosure which is kept (by means of which we need not concern ourselves), at 0 deg. F. We can also assume, like Spencer, that the properties of our materials do not change with temperature.
Then an enclosing plate is introduced, at a temperature (initially) less than that of the source. We can, if you wish, assume it is a hollow sphere, of some reasonable thickness, so the interior and exterior areas differ, and of a smaller external radius than the outside wall, so again they don't touch. Vacuum in between. And we begin our analysis. The starting point and equilibrium are both relevant points that should be calculated.
Since this is supposed to be an approximation of a real-world situation, we should use real materials with real emissivities and absorptivies. Just to keep everybody honest.
I don't insist, but to avoid ambiguity and to make things expressible on a standard keyboard, this is how *I* would label things: S for heat source, so radiative temperature T of S would be T(s). Passive plate (or shell) P. Outside enclosure or wall W. Absorptivity A so absorptivity of P would be A(p). Emissivity E.
Radiant power = (sigma)T**4, where sigma = approx. 5.67 * 10**-8 W/m**2 K**-4
None of your canards explain why Swiss RE, a non-American company and huge re-insurer, also has concluded that Greenhouse Warming is a significant recognised risk that they are not ignoring. To wit, from the MIT article: "Swiss Re identified climate change as an emerging risk more than 20 years ago, long before most financial and insurance companies -- or most businesses in general. A vocal advocate of mitigation strategies, climate change is now a significant component of the companyâ(TM)s long-term risk management strategy."
I'm not a crackpot, you just don't know how to make a logical argument. This doesn't prove anything.
I already gave ONE reason why an insurance company has very strong motivation to claim risks wherever they can. The fact that they claim global warming as a risk -- because they can -- is not proof that it exists.
Your actuaries have no valid way to calculate legitimate risk of global warming. The ONLY thing they can do is take the word of the "climate scientists" about whether it is a real risk or not. There are no objective probabilities here to calculate.
What makes it doubly hilarious (there's that word again), is that you try to factor absorption for EACH surface, interior and exterior, but then just willy-nilly assume that the TOTAL emission is then emitted from each side.
No, the PSI Sky Dragon Slayers told you it's the engineering textbook answer. I showed you MIT's final expression which reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies, and is consistent with these equations and Eq. 1 in Goodman 1957. Physicists and engineers have been using thermodynamics for decades in the real world that contradicts Dr. Latour's Slayer nonsense.
Utter nonsense. You showed me an answer for a completely different problem which does not apply here. You keep doing this. I said I wouldn't do this, but here are just SOME ways your analysis is completely full of shit. Here is what you stated on your website and elsewhere:
Electric input of 509 W/m2 is constant and the walls are held at 0ÂF (255K). Therefore, the second plate has to radiate the same power out as the heated plate did before it was enclosed. So energy conservation at equilibrium requires that the second plate be at 150ÂF (339K).
Utter nonsense. The temperature of the outside of your enclosing sphere is determined entirely by its absorption minus its emission, with absorptivity and emissivity factored in. If your interior heat source were emitting at (your figure) 509W/m^2, and that is being absorbed by the interior surface of your enclosing sphere (which MUST have larger radius than the source, since they can't contact), then your outside surface, being of even larger area, must therefore be colder. (This is if we assume a black body and can ignore emissivity and absporptivity... which Spencer did not actually do. He mentioned black bodies but did not say he was applying the idea to his thought experiment. I am saying that even if they were black bodies, this would be true.)
So you're INVENTING ENERGY OUT OF THIN AIR. Then, as if that were not enough, you try to pull off THIS gem, which is really quite hilarious. I know I keep using that word, but that's because it's hilarious:
But the second plate also radiates the same power in, toward the enclosed heated plate. Just like the cold chamber walls do. Now consider conservation of energy just inside the second plate (but outside the first) at equilibrium. We can solve for the insulated heated plateâ(TM)s temperature using Eq. 1 by setting Tc = 150ÂF (339K). That yields an insulated heated plate temperature of 235ÂF (386K).
No, it doesn't! The irradiation is total for the entire hollow sphere, not for each surface. You have to divide the total irradiance by the entire surface area, including the interior and exterior!!! You can't say the total is emitted by BOTH surfaces! You have just multiplied its power output, from nothing!
If (just for example) the enclosing sphere were very thin, so that the interior area were nearly the same as the exterior, then you would have just nearly DOUBLED the total power output! That is NOT VALID. It violates conservation of energy.
As I stated before: it is YOUR treatment of this experiment that is absolute fantasy. Not only are you creating energy by assuming your exterior temperature of the shell, you compound your error by then creating energy from the vacuum by saying your hollow sphere radiates its total power (W/m^2) power inward AND outward at the same time.
I'm really not sorry to say this after your past behavior, but showing you're wrong is just plain dirt simple. And not JUST wrong, but so ridiculously wrong that I can (and will, believe me!) use it as entertainment for certain of my friends.
Latour's answer is ridiculous Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense which violates conservation of energy, as I've shown.
It is the engineering textbook answer. Claiming it is nonsense does not make it so. It was your own model that violated conservation of energy. But to see why, it's easiest to solve the general case first, then look at a specific case. I told you I had reasons to solve the general case first.
But you're just continuing to refuse, as I expected. After 2 years, I consider that to be an admission of defeat. Asking me to assume anything else is asking far too much.
Once again, solving a problem without spherical symmetry means you'll have to solve for equilibrium temperatures which aren't constant across the heated and passive plates. Those equilibrium temperatures wouldn't be simple numbers. They'd be complicated functions that would vary across the plate surfaces. Contrast that with a spherically symmetric enclosing plate, where equilibrium temperatures are just simple numbers.
Derived equations are available which give approximations with reasonable precision. Or you can assume particular dimensions of the general case which simplify the math. I said that was a bullshit excuse, I meant it when I said it, and I still mean it.
Are you disputing that equilibrium temperatures for a non-enclosing plate would vary across the plate surfaces rather than being simple numbers like with a spherically symmetric fully enclosing plate?
I am disputing that given reasonable chosen dimensions it is anywhere near an intractable problem.
Because, unless you dispute the above facts, that would require a complicated finite element model due to its lack of spherical symmetry. I simply don't have that much time left. And again, we'd have to test that complicated model in a case where an analytic solution is available anyway...
Well, then, I guess you do admit defeat. It doesn't take much time to obtain a textbook on the subject (you were given references 2 years ago and it's not that hard to find others). But you choose what you want to do. I warned you that if you really do have limited time, you would be better off spending your time elsewhere.
I don't wish harm on anybody. But I have a low tolerance for bullshit and I don't appreciate being attacked under false pretenses. The only "attacks" I have made against you have been in self defense. Just maybe it's time to leave me alone.
You'd have to build a turbine hall under the sea with all the ongoing maintenance arrangements. Easier said than done.
Yes, indeed. I did mention that it would involve major construction. But I am convinced that if they can do oil wells, they can do this.
The majority of the construction, though, is of course a massive concrete and steel wall. We do have the requisite experience to do that well enough underwater, or (more likely? I'm not sure) above ground and hauled out in sections.
No you did not. He has a valid question which you fail to address.
Yes, I did. I specifically answered his question. I am not responsible for your failure to understand my response, which was about why the market does NOT adjust for the factors he mentioned, if there isn't a real market.
Saying "market forces will drive them out of business", when the insurance companies today are nearly as oligopolistic as cable companies, is like saying "market forces" will force Comcast to invest more of their profits in infrastructure. If there isn't a free market, those market forces simply don't exist. Your cable bill (probably, depending on your area) is a very good illustration of this.
Jane, I will agree that the insurance industry is heavily regulated. They are regulated on the subject of capital reserves and what they must cover. But given my personal experience in this precise industry, I must say that you traffic in myths. On the subject of risk tolerance and premium rates they are not regulated and since this directly equates to their ability to survive, they do indeed enjoy a free hand in setting their premium rates and their tolerance for risk.
None of this has anything to do with what I said. You keep taking different ideas I have talked about and pasting them back together in ways that don't represent what I was actually saying.
I didn't say their risk assessments and premiums were regulated. In the health care arena they certainly are regulated now to some extent, but that wasn't my point at all. I was speaking of anti-trust regulation, not regulation of premiums or risk tolerance.
Never mind. I see you simply aren't absorbing what I was saying. I don't want to spend the time to keep explaining what I have already said.
Again, I don't have enough time to program a finite element model to account for the fact that a non-fully-enclosing plate would cause plate temperatures to vary across their surfaces.
I've already explained why this is BS excuse. Latour didn't need finite element modeling to come up with a reasonably precise answer, and neither would you. Further, you don't have to explain to me what finite element modeling is. I was doing large-scale finite element models back in the 90s.
By the way, since you keep insisting that only a particular geometry could refute Dr. Latour's treatment
There you go again. Same shit different day. I have written no such thing. Back to the original context: I asked you to refute Latour's treatment of Spencer's challenge, as shown in his diagrams and descriptions of his original article on the subject. I did not claim "only" this would refute Latour. But this is indisputably true: only this would refute Latour about this. Not the "enclosing" variant of the problem. I'm simply sticking to the original challenge. I am not claiming it's the "only" thing that could possibly refute Latour at all. It's just that it is the specific thing I challenged you to refute. I have no reason to apologize or make excuses for sticking to the original challenge as I first presented it to you.
The challenge originally described by Spencer (including his diagrams) represents approximately the general case. You claim (I disagree but I don't want to get into that here, because it's irrelevant to this challenge) that you have refuted Latour in a specific case but not in the general one.
I simply asked why you refuse to show where Latour was wrong in Spencer's original challenge, not the "enclosing" variant of it. That was my original challenge to you, and there is no ambiguity about it. I have stuck to that and haven't changed it.
I am aware Latour's equations allow for K=1, but that's just one special case, not the general solution, and not the original challenge Spencer described. Both Spencer and Latour say "even if..." but again that is not the general case. I had reasons for bringing up the specific problem that Spencer originally described but those reasons are my own, and I don't really owe you an explanation. You can take the challenge or pass on it, but if you pass on it, you haven't met it.
could you please show where he specified the dimensions of the plates?
Why? It might be convenient, but it's hardly necessary to demonstrate the point. Just the general geometry and some rough ratios. Neither party stipulated a "specific" geometry, just a general description of the basic problem. And that's fine, because that is all that is actually needed. If you want to solve for specific dimensions go ahead. You might find it easier to do that way, and the answer would be unambiguous. I don't really care.
It's a partial solution. Hydro power is only really available in certain areas, and transmission losses kill some of the gains. BC makes a good amount of money this way. North America's hydro capacity is probably as large as it will ever be, because it's extremely destructive of wildlife habitat and of arable land.
There is a variation on this which has huge potential and can be done on a large scale. It requires large construction efforts, but what hydro-power options don't?
Construct a huge vertical cylinder in the ocean. During periods of surplus, pump water OUT of the cylinder. During peak periods, let water back in (and of course turn turbines with it).
I read about this not long ago, and I think (I am not certain) someone is building one right now, or has applied to build one.
and transmission losses kill some of the gains
This is true of any storage solution. It is hardly unique to pumped storage.
Since you indirectly brought it up, I will say that even though I am generally an honest person, there is one thing I admit to lying about on Slashdot, both overtly and (I flatter myself) rather subtly, and that is my location.
Because there are some real bastards out there. As I say, I am sure you understand.
Yes, as I have already explained in plain English, in response to your question about free markets.
If there is no free market in your industry (or not much of one left, anyway), then you don't get to claim free market forces would correct such imbalances. You're like those people who blame corporatism and "crony capitalism" on the concept of capitalism itself, when both of those things don't represent capitalism, but rather egregious deviations from capitalism.
Adam Smith (i.e., free-market) capitalism requires a robust, responsible, and enforced body of anti-trust law in order to keep people playing within the rules. When that enforcement breaks down (as it has, most notably during the last 2 administrations), then you get the kind of abuses of the system that we see. And the insurance industry, as a whole, has been one of the worst offenders.
So yes, I disagree. Your free-market corrections will only work in a free market. Trying to claim insurance is a free market today is a belly laugh. They are in government pockets (and vice versa) at all levels of government.
OP and TFA, therefore this discussion, are all about Antarctic ice. This whole discussion is about Antarctic ice. I admitted that I accidentally stumbled over a mention of Arctic ice, so where is your problem?
If anything, it was the comments to which I was replying that were off-topic.
Again, we'll have to agree to disagree about thermal superconductors. That's why I've repeatedly pointed out that I've already solved [dumbscientist.com] this problem with an aluminum enclosing shell, and it also warms the heated plate (aka Jane's "source") to ~233.8F.
You solved part of the problem, under different conditions, as I have repeatedly pointed out.
Let's get this straight: rather than tackling the actual problem you claimed to have refuted, you solved a different problem under different conditions, and called that refutation.
Even if your analysis of that problem were 100% correct, this is the very definition of a straw-man argument.
So why do you refuse to just take Spencer's original challenge, with two non-enclosing plates (i.e., the challenge I originally presented to you), and simply show me where Latour was wrong about it, as you have so often claimed? After 2 years I can only conclude that you are not able to do it. I don't know of a single other plausible reason why you have refused to do this.
Again, Dr. Spencer's actual, original experiment included the possibility of a fully-enclosing passive plate.
That got a minor mention later in his article, is not included in his diagrams, and is NOT the problem I originally presented to you. As I have said many times before, AFTER you refute Latour's calculations regarding Spencer's original challenge, which did not have the passive body enclosing the heat source, I would be happy to move on to the other issue... with no additional stipulations or additions to the problem Spencer describes. But you haven't gotten there yet. Cart before the horse, with a straw-man riding the cart.
That was the challenge I presented you you. For 2 years now, you have been going far out of your way to do everything BUT that, which leads me to believe that is your new custom definition of "rebut". (I would say that last sentence is a jest, but in fact it is only partly so.)
We can agree that one should solve simpler problems before moving on to more complex problems, but we seem to disagree about which of the scenarios in Dr. Spencer's original experiment is simpler.
That wasn't my point. I'm not saying we should solve simpler problems before moving on to more complex problems. I'm saying the challenge originally given to you is to be met before moving on to something else and claiming it irrelevant. I only wrote that "in a way" it's not simpler. But again that is beside the point, which you appear to be attempting to sidestep again.
Again, solving a problem without spherical symmetry means you'll have to solve for equilibrium temperatures which aren't constant across the heated and passive plates. Those equilibrium temperatures wouldn't be simple numbers. They'd be complicated functions that would vary across the plate surfaces. Contrast that with a spherically symmetric enclosing plate, where equilibrium temperatures are just simple numbers.
I only claimed Latour was correct "with a reasonable degree of precision". He states himself in his original article that these are working approximations used for engineering, which in practice must have minor adjustments made experimentally for final product (when dealing with things like furnaces, which often have complex internal geometry). It's good enough for real world engineering, according to both Latour and the textbooks. So you don't get a pass on that basis, either.
Why don't you just shut up and do it? Why have you been so mightily struggling, like a fish on a hook, to avoid it?
So are you really trying to suggest that corporate lobbying is pushing insurance companies to fake that climate change is real?
No, that isn't what I wrote. Try reading more carefully.
You asked me about free markets. I was explaining why it's pretty difficult today to honestly characterize the insurance industry, by and large, as a free market.
The other thing (claiming problems where there might not be any) is a different issue, and it's not valid to paste them together as you just did.
And I'm going to repeat this, just one more time, in the (probably vain) effort to get you to get it straight:
Take Spencer's original experiment, with two separated, non-enclosing plates, and show SPECIFICALLY where Latour was wrong in his calculations. THEN, if you like, you can move on to the enclosed-source situation.
I'm not buying anything else. No straw-man, no moved goalposts, no new introduced factors like "thermal superconductors".
How long has it been since the insurance industry in the United States actually represented a free market?
Corporate lobbying, government subsidies, "market capture" (which is another way of saying oligopoly)... all these things have been common for decades.
I defy you to find me a big insurance company taking that gamble. They're not because they know climate change is a real danger.
We both know that's not going to happen, for the reason I explained to you in my last comment, and just now here. So that doesn't prove anything.
Funny how you react to a comment about Arctic ice with a study of Antarctic ice.
I should have read more carefully. Certainly that was my mistake. But I think it was forgivable considering that it was a comment about Arctic ice in the middle of a discussion about Antarctic ice.
Slashdot Mirror
Crap. The above, where it says T(w), should have been:
T(w) [is less than] T(p) [is less than] T(s).
Yes, I know Slashdot character handling is a pain in the ass, and it catches me often too, when I try to express "greater than" or "less than". Even so, I'm not installing Sage right now. Better things to do. I have reasons for wanting it public-readable, and I will accept nothing else.
I've already showed you that the outer surface of an enclosing shell with an area ratio similar to Earth's warms to ~149.6F. I've explained that neglecting area ratios is a tricycle: a simple approximation that helps us learn. It's like the "frictionless pulley" or "massless rope" or "blackbody" approximations. Again, in this case the tricycle isn't too inaccurate compared to the bicycle, it's much easier to learn, and it provides a sanity check on the more complicated calculation. As the area ratio approaches "1.0" the bicycle should give the same answer as the simpler tricycle. And it does.
Bullshit. I quoted your exact words above. You don't get to plug later calculations back into your original erroneous analysis and call it good. And I have already explained why it is not possible to do this and still get valid answers. 2 * X is not the same as 1 * X. It is not valid to multiply your power output with no further power input. It's a violation of conservation of energy. So you're still falling off your tricycle.
Repeat: if we give the sphere which is the heat source, at 150 deg. F, an area of 1 m**2, and the outer area of the enclosing sphere an area of 2 m**2, and (as YOU have said), power in = power out, then the exterior surface cannot be the same temperature. This is not even advanced physics, it's simple damned algebra.
And even Spencer did not assume net heat transfer from the exterior walls, which is fine because the exterior walls cannot be of greater temperature so according to the S-B law there is no net heat transfer to the interior objects. T(w)
All else being equal, the amount of power input necessary to heat an object with 1 m**2 surface to 150 deg. F is not enough to heat an object of similar material with 2m**2 surface area to the same temperature! If you try to assume the same radiative temperature over greater area, you must have greater input, or else you have done your math badly. I have stated this to you a number of times. Your attempt at analyzing this challenge violates conservation of energy. Period. This is unequivocal.
And no, it's not like the blackbody approximations because we're talking about real objects here, so emissivity will not be same as absorptivity, BUT that's really irrelevant to this particular point. You're just clownishly hand-waving again, because even if they were black bodies, they would still have to obey S-B and you would still be wrong.
I quoted your actual analysis above, which you wrote some time ago and claimed it was a refutation of Latour. Your math is wrong. Further, it is not valid to take other calculations you did later, using different assumptions, plug them back into the original problem and claim that all is good. If you want to change your figures, then START OVER AND DO IT RIGHT. It isn't valid to make other assumptions then just plug those calculations back into the original problem as though that made no difference.
You are only illustrating why I have said all along that you're full of bull, and you have been all along. Either you are incapable of doing this properly, or you're just bullshitting everybody for reasons of your own. And as I have stated before, I believe it is your own strange way of further harassing me.
No, you linked to another PSI Sky Dragon Slayer.
Hahahahaha! Now, THIS is ad-hominem at its finest. I did write NASA when I meant ESA, but that is beside the point. It is the information content you must refute, not the person, and the information is clear: the chart (straight from ESA) contains a 0.5 factor because a plate has 2 sides, and you have to calculate emittance from BOTH sides. No matter what the shape of your object, you have to calculate emittance from ALL its surfaces if you want to get the correct answer for temperature. You don't get to take the total emittance and multiply it, which you implied in the analysis I quoted.
If you can do it better NOW, then do it better. Don't j
I've already showed you that the outer surface of an enclosing shell with an area ratio similar to Earth's warms to ~149.6F. I've explained that neglecting area ratios is a tricycle: a simple approximation that helps us learn. It's like the "frictionless pulley" or "massless rope" or "blackbody" approximations. Again, in this case the tricycle isn't too inaccurate compared to the bicycle, it's much easier to learn, and it provides a sanity check on the more complicated calculation. As the area ratio approaches "1.0" the bicycle should give the same answer as the simpler tricycle. And it does.
Bullshit. I quoted your exact words above. You don't get to plug later calculations back into your original erroneous analysis and call it good. And I have already explained why it is not possible to do this and still get valid answers. 2 * X is not the same as 1 * X. It is not valid to multiply your power output with no further power input. It's a violation of conservation of energy. So you're still falling off your tricycle.
Repeat: if we give the sphere which is the heat source, at 150 deg. F, an area of 1 m**2, and the outer area of the enclosing sphere an area of 2 m**2, and (as YOU have said), power in = power out, then the exterior surface cannot be the same temperature. This is not even advanced physics, it's simple damned algebra.
And even Spencer did not assume net heat transfer from the exterior walls, which is fine because the exterior walls cannot be of greater temperature so according to the S-B law there is no net heat transfer to the interior objects. T(w)
All else being equal, the amount of power input necessary to heat an object with 1 m**2 surface to 150 deg. F is not enough to heat an object of similar material with 2m**2 surface area to the same temperature! If you try to assume the same radiative temperature over greater area, you must have greater input, or else you have done your math badly. I have stated this to you a number of times. Your attempt at analyzing this challenge violates conservation of energy. Period. This is unequivocal.
And no, it's not like the blackbody approximations because we're talking about real objects here, so emissivity will not be same as absorptivity, BUT that's really irrelevant to this particular point. You're just clownishly hand-waving again, because even if they were black bodies, they would still have to obey S-B and you would still be wrong.
I quoted your actual analysis above, which you wrote some time ago and claimed it was a refutation of Latour. Your math is wrong. Further, it is not valid to take other calculations you did later, using different assumptions, plug them back into the original problem and claim that all is good. If you want to change your figures, then START OVER AND DO IT RIGHT. It isn't valid to make other assumptions then just plug those calculations back into the original problem as though that made no difference.
You are only illustrating why I have said all along that you're full of bull, and you have been all along. Either you are incapable of doing this properly, or you're just bullshitting everybody for reasons of your own. And as I have stated before, I believe it is your own strange way of further harassing me.
No, you linked to another PSI Sky Dragon Slayer.
Hahahahaha! Now, THIS is ad-hominem at its finest. I did write NASA when I meant ESA, but that is beside the point. It is the information content you must refute, not the person, and the information is clear: the chart (straight from ESA) contains a 0.5 factor because a plate has 2 sides, and you have to calculate emittance from BOTH sides. No matter what the shape of your object, you have to calculate emittance from ALL its surfaces if you want to get the correct answer for temperature. You don't get to take the total emittance and multiply it, which you implied in the analysis I quoted.
If you can do it better NOW, then do it better. Don't j
Of course the counter-counter argument is that the patent laws are so bad that this is happening anyway because trolls can threaten anyone with millions of dollars in legal expenses over a patent that's not terribly good (or possibly even relevant to the case at all) which ends up crushing the new-comers anyways.
The patent laws aren't necessarily bad. (Although the recent first-to-file rule sure as hell isn't good.) It's that they're not being enforced.
These people should never have been given a patent. It's so obviously invalid I have to wonder whether the patent examiner was a grade-schooler working in his spare time. That doesn't mean the law is bad, it means the law wasn't followed.
Patents are supposed to be for inventions, not just "useful things".
The problems we have been experiencing have not been due to the idea of patents, they are due to deliberate abuse of the patent system, and the relative incompetence of patent examiners today.
ANY system I am aware of can be abused. That doesn't mean the concept of the system is invalid.
Just like corporations today have abused their corporate money to lobby Congress and form virtual monopolies and oligopolies. That doesn't mean the concept of capitalism is flawed. It's a pretty good analogy. Actual capitalism requires antitrust laws, and requires them to be enforced. Lack of enforcement doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the idea of capitalism, it just means the politicians are corrupt bastards. Two different things.
In the same way, giving patents to shysters isn't attributable to the concept of patents. It just means the system isn't functioning the way it was designed to function. It functioned just fine for a very long time.
But let's also be clear about this: even given potential misunderstandings, your prior analysis was still wrong. It is VERY easy to show this.
Presume you have an initial source at T = 150 deg. F. It has a surface area of 1 m**2. Therefore (let's just assume your figure for power output here, it doesn't really matter and it's good enough for this illustration): it's emission is 509W/m**2. Let's say the EXTERIOR of your enclosing shell has an area of 2 m**2.
However, your words (though in a slightly different context): power in = power out. Since the total power (W/m**2 times X m**2) must be the same in as out, the exterior of your shell cannot have the same irradiance. The same must be true if this were just one solid sphere, rather than a hollow sphere enclosing another sphere.
Solving for the Stefan-Boltsmann relation at 509W/m**2 times 1 m**2 is total number of watts. If you try to multiply the same emission rate over 2 m**2 you get a DIFFERENT answer. That's just a fact. By assuming an external temperature of 150 deg. F, you have just created tangible energy from the vacuum. Congratulations.
Let's be very clear, just so we understand each other here:
In your descriptions you keep assuming things rather than calculating them. And some of your assumptions do not appear to be valid. You may have meant something other than how I interpreted your words, but that's why it's pretty damned hard to prove anything without calculating it all the way through.
Further, you have had a strong tendency to use imprecise terms, which causes confusion. For example: power (W) is not the same as irradiance (W/m**2) and they may not be willy-nilly conflated. So why don't you draw a diagram, and simply perform all the calculations? No more beating around the bush, no more introduction of new elements. I'll even go with your own example of the passive plate enclosing the heat source, for now. I consider that to be a pretty major concession that I don't think you deserve.
So, there is a heat source of area X. Go ahead and assume it's a sphere if you like. Like Spencer, we can assume that the electrical power in is constant, and enough to heat the source to 150 deg. F, inside a larger enclosure which is kept (by means of which we need not concern ourselves), at 0 deg. F. We can also assume, like Spencer, that the properties of our materials do not change with temperature.
Then an enclosing plate is introduced, at a temperature (initially) less than that of the source. We can, if you wish, assume it is a hollow sphere, of some reasonable thickness, so the interior and exterior areas differ, and of a smaller external radius than the outside wall, so again they don't touch. Vacuum in between. And we begin our analysis. The starting point and equilibrium are both relevant points that should be calculated.
Since this is supposed to be an approximation of a real-world situation, we should use real materials with real emissivities and absorptivies. Just to keep everybody honest.
I don't insist, but to avoid ambiguity and to make things expressible on a standard keyboard, this is how *I* would label things: S for heat source, so radiative temperature T of S would be T(s). Passive plate (or shell) P. Outside enclosure or wall W. Absorptivity A so absorptivity of P would be A(p). Emissivity E.
Radiant power = (sigma)T**4, where sigma = approx. 5.67 * 10**-8 W/m**2 K**-4
None of your canards explain why Swiss RE, a non-American company and huge re-insurer, also has concluded that Greenhouse Warming is a significant recognised risk that they are not ignoring. To wit, from the MIT article: "Swiss Re identified climate change as an emerging risk more than 20 years ago, long before most financial and insurance companies -- or most businesses in general. A vocal advocate of mitigation strategies, climate change is now a significant component of the companyâ(TM)s long-term risk management strategy."
I'm not a crackpot, you just don't know how to make a logical argument. This doesn't prove anything.
I already gave ONE reason why an insurance company has very strong motivation to claim risks wherever they can. The fact that they claim global warming as a risk -- because they can -- is not proof that it exists.
Your actuaries have no valid way to calculate legitimate risk of global warming. The ONLY thing they can do is take the word of the "climate scientists" about whether it is a real risk or not. There are no objective probabilities here to calculate.
And if you don't believe that you have to divide the total emission by the total area, then maybe NASA can convince you.
What makes it doubly hilarious (there's that word again), is that you try to factor absorption for EACH surface, interior and exterior, but then just willy-nilly assume that the TOTAL emission is then emitted from each side.
No, the PSI Sky Dragon Slayers told you it's the engineering textbook answer. I showed you MIT's final expression which reduces to my Eq. 1 for blackbodies, and is consistent with these equations and Eq. 1 in Goodman 1957. Physicists and engineers have been using thermodynamics for decades in the real world that contradicts Dr. Latour's Slayer nonsense.
Utter nonsense. You showed me an answer for a completely different problem which does not apply here. You keep doing this. I said I wouldn't do this, but here are just SOME ways your analysis is completely full of shit. Here is what you stated on your website and elsewhere:
Electric input of 509 W/m2 is constant and the walls are held at 0ÂF (255K). Therefore, the second plate has to radiate the same power out as the heated plate did before it was enclosed. So energy conservation at equilibrium requires that the second plate be at 150ÂF (339K).
Utter nonsense. The temperature of the outside of your enclosing sphere is determined entirely by its absorption minus its emission, with absorptivity and emissivity factored in. If your interior heat source were emitting at (your figure) 509W/m^2, and that is being absorbed by the interior surface of your enclosing sphere (which MUST have larger radius than the source, since they can't contact), then your outside surface, being of even larger area, must therefore be colder. (This is if we assume a black body and can ignore emissivity and absporptivity... which Spencer did not actually do. He mentioned black bodies but did not say he was applying the idea to his thought experiment. I am saying that even if they were black bodies, this would be true.)
So you're INVENTING ENERGY OUT OF THIN AIR. Then, as if that were not enough, you try to pull off THIS gem, which is really quite hilarious. I know I keep using that word, but that's because it's hilarious:
But the second plate also radiates the same power in, toward the enclosed heated plate. Just like the cold chamber walls do. Now consider conservation of energy just inside the second plate (but outside the first) at equilibrium. We can solve for the insulated heated plateâ(TM)s temperature using Eq. 1 by setting Tc = 150ÂF (339K). That yields an insulated heated plate temperature of 235ÂF (386K).
No, it doesn't! The irradiation is total for the entire hollow sphere, not for each surface. You have to divide the total irradiance by the entire surface area, including the interior and exterior!!! You can't say the total is emitted by BOTH surfaces! You have just multiplied its power output, from nothing!
If (just for example) the enclosing sphere were very thin, so that the interior area were nearly the same as the exterior, then you would have just nearly DOUBLED the total power output! That is NOT VALID. It violates conservation of energy.
As I stated before: it is YOUR treatment of this experiment that is absolute fantasy. Not only are you creating energy by assuming your exterior temperature of the shell, you compound your error by then creating energy from the vacuum by saying your hollow sphere radiates its total power (W/m^2) power inward AND outward at the same time.
I'm really not sorry to say this after your past behavior, but showing you're wrong is just plain dirt simple. And not JUST wrong, but so ridiculously wrong that I can (and will, believe me!) use it as entertainment for certain of my friends.
Latour's answer is ridiculous Sky Dragon Slayer nonsense which violates conservation of energy, as I've shown.
It is the engineering textbook answer. Claiming it is nonsense does not make it so. It was your own model that violated conservation of energy. But to see why, it's easiest to solve the general case first, then look at a specific case. I told you I had reasons to solve the general case first.
But you're just continuing to refuse, as I expected. After 2 years, I consider that to be an admission of defeat. Asking me to assume anything else is asking far too much.
Once again, solving a problem without spherical symmetry means you'll have to solve for equilibrium temperatures which aren't constant across the heated and passive plates. Those equilibrium temperatures wouldn't be simple numbers. They'd be complicated functions that would vary across the plate surfaces. Contrast that with a spherically symmetric enclosing plate, where equilibrium temperatures are just simple numbers.
Derived equations are available which give approximations with reasonable precision. Or you can assume particular dimensions of the general case which simplify the math. I said that was a bullshit excuse, I meant it when I said it, and I still mean it.
Are you disputing that equilibrium temperatures for a non-enclosing plate would vary across the plate surfaces rather than being simple numbers like with a spherically symmetric fully enclosing plate?
I am disputing that given reasonable chosen dimensions it is anywhere near an intractable problem.
Because, unless you dispute the above facts, that would require a complicated finite element model due to its lack of spherical symmetry. I simply don't have that much time left. And again, we'd have to test that complicated model in a case where an analytic solution is available anyway...
Well, then, I guess you do admit defeat. It doesn't take much time to obtain a textbook on the subject (you were given references 2 years ago and it's not that hard to find others). But you choose what you want to do. I warned you that if you really do have limited time, you would be better off spending your time elsewhere.
I don't wish harm on anybody. But I have a low tolerance for bullshit and I don't appreciate being attacked under false pretenses. The only "attacks" I have made against you have been in self defense. Just maybe it's time to leave me alone.
You'd have to build a turbine hall under the sea with all the ongoing maintenance arrangements. Easier said than done.
Yes, indeed. I did mention that it would involve major construction. But I am convinced that if they can do oil wells, they can do this.
The majority of the construction, though, is of course a massive concrete and steel wall. We do have the requisite experience to do that well enough underwater, or (more likely? I'm not sure) above ground and hauled out in sections.
No you did not. He has a valid question which you fail to address.
Yes, I did. I specifically answered his question. I am not responsible for your failure to understand my response, which was about why the market does NOT adjust for the factors he mentioned, if there isn't a real market.
Saying "market forces will drive them out of business", when the insurance companies today are nearly as oligopolistic as cable companies, is like saying "market forces" will force Comcast to invest more of their profits in infrastructure. If there isn't a free market, those market forces simply don't exist. Your cable bill (probably, depending on your area) is a very good illustration of this.
Jane, I will agree that the insurance industry is heavily regulated. They are regulated on the subject of capital reserves and what they must cover. But given my personal experience in this precise industry, I must say that you traffic in myths. On the subject of risk tolerance and premium rates they are not regulated and since this directly equates to their ability to survive, they do indeed enjoy a free hand in setting their premium rates and their tolerance for risk.
None of this has anything to do with what I said. You keep taking different ideas I have talked about and pasting them back together in ways that don't represent what I was actually saying.
I didn't say their risk assessments and premiums were regulated. In the health care arena they certainly are regulated now to some extent, but that wasn't my point at all. I was speaking of anti-trust regulation, not regulation of premiums or risk tolerance.
Never mind. I see you simply aren't absorbing what I was saying. I don't want to spend the time to keep explaining what I have already said.
Again, I don't have enough time to program a finite element model to account for the fact that a non-fully-enclosing plate would cause plate temperatures to vary across their surfaces.
I've already explained why this is BS excuse. Latour didn't need finite element modeling to come up with a reasonably precise answer, and neither would you. Further, you don't have to explain to me what finite element modeling is. I was doing large-scale finite element models back in the 90s.
By the way, since you keep insisting that only a particular geometry could refute Dr. Latour's treatment
There you go again. Same shit different day. I have written no such thing. Back to the original context: I asked you to refute Latour's treatment of Spencer's challenge, as shown in his diagrams and descriptions of his original article on the subject. I did not claim "only" this would refute Latour. But this is indisputably true: only this would refute Latour about this. Not the "enclosing" variant of the problem. I'm simply sticking to the original challenge. I am not claiming it's the "only" thing that could possibly refute Latour at all. It's just that it is the specific thing I challenged you to refute. I have no reason to apologize or make excuses for sticking to the original challenge as I first presented it to you.
The challenge originally described by Spencer (including his diagrams) represents approximately the general case. You claim (I disagree but I don't want to get into that here, because it's irrelevant to this challenge) that you have refuted Latour in a specific case but not in the general one.
I simply asked why you refuse to show where Latour was wrong in Spencer's original challenge, not the "enclosing" variant of it. That was my original challenge to you, and there is no ambiguity about it. I have stuck to that and haven't changed it.
I am aware Latour's equations allow for K=1, but that's just one special case, not the general solution, and not the original challenge Spencer described. Both Spencer and Latour say "even if..." but again that is not the general case. I had reasons for bringing up the specific problem that Spencer originally described but those reasons are my own, and I don't really owe you an explanation. You can take the challenge or pass on it, but if you pass on it, you haven't met it.
could you please show where he specified the dimensions of the plates?
Why? It might be convenient, but it's hardly necessary to demonstrate the point. Just the general geometry and some rough ratios. Neither party stipulated a "specific" geometry, just a general description of the basic problem. And that's fine, because that is all that is actually needed. If you want to solve for specific dimensions go ahead. You might find it easier to do that way, and the answer would be unambiguous. I don't really care.
It's a partial solution. Hydro power is only really available in certain areas, and transmission losses kill some of the gains. BC makes a good amount of money this way. North America's hydro capacity is probably as large as it will ever be, because it's extremely destructive of wildlife habitat and of arable land.
There is a variation on this which has huge potential and can be done on a large scale. It requires large construction efforts, but what hydro-power options don't?
Construct a huge vertical cylinder in the ocean. During periods of surplus, pump water OUT of the cylinder. During peak periods, let water back in (and of course turn turbines with it).
I read about this not long ago, and I think (I am not certain) someone is building one right now, or has applied to build one.
and transmission losses kill some of the gains
This is true of any storage solution. It is hardly unique to pumped storage.
Since you indirectly brought it up, I will say that even though I am generally an honest person, there is one thing I admit to lying about on Slashdot, both overtly and (I flatter myself) rather subtly, and that is my location.
Because there are some real bastards out there. As I say, I am sure you understand.
Stuff happens. Thanks for at least mentioning it.
I don't give out my email address on Slashdot. Nor my location, or phone number. Nothing personal. I am sure you understand.
Do you disagree with me so far?
Yes, as I have already explained in plain English, in response to your question about free markets.
If there is no free market in your industry (or not much of one left, anyway), then you don't get to claim free market forces would correct such imbalances. You're like those people who blame corporatism and "crony capitalism" on the concept of capitalism itself, when both of those things don't represent capitalism, but rather egregious deviations from capitalism.
Adam Smith (i.e., free-market) capitalism requires a robust, responsible, and enforced body of anti-trust law in order to keep people playing within the rules. When that enforcement breaks down (as it has, most notably during the last 2 administrations), then you get the kind of abuses of the system that we see. And the insurance industry, as a whole, has been one of the worst offenders.
So yes, I disagree. Your free-market corrections will only work in a free market. Trying to claim insurance is a free market today is a belly laugh. They are in government pockets (and vice versa) at all levels of government.
OP and TFA, therefore this discussion, are all about Antarctic ice. This whole discussion is about Antarctic ice. I admitted that I accidentally stumbled over a mention of Arctic ice, so where is your problem?
If anything, it was the comments to which I was replying that were off-topic.
Again, we'll have to agree to disagree about thermal superconductors. That's why I've repeatedly pointed out that I've already solved [dumbscientist.com] this problem with an aluminum enclosing shell, and it also warms the heated plate (aka Jane's "source") to ~233.8F.
You solved part of the problem, under different conditions, as I have repeatedly pointed out.
Let's get this straight: rather than tackling the actual problem you claimed to have refuted, you solved a different problem under different conditions, and called that refutation.
Even if your analysis of that problem were 100% correct, this is the very definition of a straw-man argument.
So why do you refuse to just take Spencer's original challenge, with two non-enclosing plates (i.e., the challenge I originally presented to you), and simply show me where Latour was wrong about it, as you have so often claimed? After 2 years I can only conclude that you are not able to do it. I don't know of a single other plausible reason why you have refused to do this.
Again, Dr. Spencer's actual, original experiment included the possibility of a fully-enclosing passive plate.
That got a minor mention later in his article, is not included in his diagrams, and is NOT the problem I originally presented to you. As I have said many times before, AFTER you refute Latour's calculations regarding Spencer's original challenge, which did not have the passive body enclosing the heat source, I would be happy to move on to the other issue... with no additional stipulations or additions to the problem Spencer describes. But you haven't gotten there yet. Cart before the horse, with a straw-man riding the cart.
That was the challenge I presented you you. For 2 years now, you have been going far out of your way to do everything BUT that, which leads me to believe that is your new custom definition of "rebut". (I would say that last sentence is a jest, but in fact it is only partly so.)
We can agree that one should solve simpler problems before moving on to more complex problems, but we seem to disagree about which of the scenarios in Dr. Spencer's original experiment is simpler.
That wasn't my point. I'm not saying we should solve simpler problems before moving on to more complex problems. I'm saying the challenge originally given to you is to be met before moving on to something else and claiming it irrelevant. I only wrote that "in a way" it's not simpler. But again that is beside the point, which you appear to be attempting to sidestep again.
Again, solving a problem without spherical symmetry means you'll have to solve for equilibrium temperatures which aren't constant across the heated and passive plates. Those equilibrium temperatures wouldn't be simple numbers. They'd be complicated functions that would vary across the plate surfaces. Contrast that with a spherically symmetric enclosing plate, where equilibrium temperatures are just simple numbers.
I only claimed Latour was correct "with a reasonable degree of precision". He states himself in his original article that these are working approximations used for engineering, which in practice must have minor adjustments made experimentally for final product (when dealing with things like furnaces, which often have complex internal geometry). It's good enough for real world engineering, according to both Latour and the textbooks. So you don't get a pass on that basis, either.
Why don't you just shut up and do it? Why have you been so mightily struggling, like a fish on a hook, to avoid it?
So are you really trying to suggest that corporate lobbying is pushing insurance companies to fake that climate change is real?
No, that isn't what I wrote. Try reading more carefully.
You asked me about free markets. I was explaining why it's pretty difficult today to honestly characterize the insurance industry, by and large, as a free market.
The other thing (claiming problems where there might not be any) is a different issue, and it's not valid to paste them together as you just did.
And I'm going to repeat this, just one more time, in the (probably vain) effort to get you to get it straight:
Take Spencer's original experiment, with two separated, non-enclosing plates, and show SPECIFICALLY where Latour was wrong in his calculations. THEN, if you like, you can move on to the enclosed-source situation.
I'm not buying anything else. No straw-man, no moved goalposts, no new introduced factors like "thermal superconductors".
Corporate lobbying, government subsidies, "market capture" (which is another way of saying oligopoly)... all these things have been common for decades.
I defy you to find me a big insurance company taking that gamble. They're not because they know climate change is a real danger.
We both know that's not going to happen, for the reason I explained to you in my last comment, and just now here. So that doesn't prove anything.
Funny how you react to a comment about Arctic ice with a study of Antarctic ice.
I should have read more carefully. Certainly that was my mistake. But I think it was forgivable considering that it was a comment about Arctic ice in the middle of a discussion about Antarctic ice.