Facile also means : "Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial". and "Readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth".
The swirling clouds are mostly ammonia and the colors are thought to be caused by various phosphine and sulfur compounds. Yes there is a very tiny amount of water in Jupiter's upper atmosphere, less than 0.1%. There is an equally small amount of methane (less than a tenth of a percent I think) too. Not really what I would call "huge amounts" though. Also, the compounds are being continually created then destroyed again when they fall back down to lower altitudes and very high temperatures. Compare to Titan where organic goop coats everything, methane is several % of the atmosphere and literally flows down rivers on the surface (a surface with "water sand" and huge boulders of water ice everywhere!).
"There's ice on the moon you know. Yes. The Moon. The moon was part of the Earth once, so you can be pretty sure that the moon has ice on it. Maybe not a lot, but it's there."
That is rather facile logic. By the same token we should expect life on the moon shouldn't we? After all it was "part of the earth". The Moon was formed in the fiery inferno of a planetoid collision with earth, any water that didn't volatilize off and remained after coalescence couldn't be readily held by the weak gravity and intense solar irradiation at its (relatively) close orbit to the sun. Furthermore, the only place where water has been SUGGESTED to possibly occur on the moon is at the poles in permanently shaded bottoms of craters in the form of hydrated minerals and in fine and sparse ice dust among the dirt. There is nothing absolutely certain and derministic about the presence of water on any solar system body (except earth) without examining that object first. Io (right next to europa!) has no water because its a flaming hell full of superhot volcanoes produced by the tidal flexing of its mantle; an effect from the orbits of Europa and its proximity to Jupiter. This is a completely non-intuitive phenomenon and no one really suspected it was happening until we went there with the Voyagers.
"Same goes for carbon which is why if a planet's not drenched in water, ten to one it's flooded with methane or some other hydrocarbon."
I wouldn't take THAT bet! The only place we know of in the solar system which is "flooded with hydrocarbons" is Titan. An absence of water is absolutely by no means a determinant factor in whether a world has lots of hydrocarbons! (eg. Venus, the Moon, Mercury, Io, Phobos, Neptune, Jupiter...... all have no water and NO huge amounts of hydrocarbons!) The solar system seldom lends itself to easy characterization by the application of overly simple maxims of the sort you seem to have affection toward.
Shamefully, in my haste to post such a curmudgeonly criticism I failed to congratulate you on the achievement your organization has accomplished. Very well done!! and I hope to see more of the same from ESO in future:)
"This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made/., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government..."
And....Do they maybe see a connection here....?
I love the stuff ESO and ESA are doing but honestly, they have a LOT to learn about pr. They made watching the live Huygens Titan landing (surely the achievement of this decade for them in terms of planetary/moon exploration) into a boring coffee hour. The image and data release from Mars Express has been extremely disappointing at best. There have still been no images released from the high res imager HSRC. The ion-drive lunar orbiter Smart-1 which has been in stable orbit for months has released like what...4 lunar images? nice. If I were a tax paying member of a ESA member country I think I'd be a little pissed off at the data (non?)disclosure practices of the agency. NASA, on the other hand, while not perfect, does do a hell of a lot better job at data release.
It is not really accurate to say that "Jupiter itself is a net producer of energy". Is Jupiter a net EMITTER of energy? Yes, but this energy is the leftover heat of formation from the protoplanet nebula. D+D fusion does not happen in Jupter. Incidentally I predict "planet" imaging simillar to this will become commonplace in about 2 years when VLTI interferometric imaging comes online.
I'm sorry I don't regularly get my news from that bastion of journalistic integrity the NY Sun *cough tabloid*cough*
Spitzer is the ATTORNEY GENERAL of NY. It is not his job to write and push bills through the legistlature. It IS his job to enforce the laws of NY state and he is doing a damn good job if you ask me. Also, if "the legislature is so appalled at his idea", why have I heard absolutely nothing to that effect in the past two years since that particular issue has even been talked about?
A visit to your website reveals your One True Righteous Crusade to apparently be concealed carry gun laws and their preservation. Aparently when you saw Spitzer took some action which was even remotely anti-gun, you decided he must be evil. You offer an interesting study on the irrational, complete black or white mindset of so many people. Do I completely agree with every last syllable uttered by the guy? No certainly not. But, shockingly enough, I am able to make the rational, sane assessment that he's doing a lot of good and is therefore worthy of my support even though he may not agree with me on the minutia of every last issue I'm interested in. See how that works? It's what we call a small logical compromise. Furthermore I actually live in New York, YOU seem to live in Oklahoma. Why do you even care? Ohhh right, because you're irrationally fixated with single issue zealotry. shame, that.
Seriously. Almost every time I see Mr. Spitzer's name in the media I like what I see. He is what I view as the embodiment of what it means to be a TRUE American. A genuine good-guy who isn't afraid to stand up for what's right and fuck everyone who doesn't like it. It's pretty sad, but I've never voted for someone who I really wanted to see in some particular office, just mostly against the person who I wanted to prevent from attaining that office. If Spitzer runs for Gov. of NY it would be the first time I would be voting for someone who I really thought completely deserved to win.
Glad you like it. Though I do believe my previous submission holds that record... I try to make interesting stories I submit as informative and fact filled as possible without being too dense and inaccessable at the same time. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't.:o)
thermonuclear ignition will be achieved in the laboratory in the year 2010 (+or- 2 years). so yes, there will be a breakthrough in fusion in the next 10 years but it will not be due to 60$ a barrel oil. it will be a result of slow and steady progress in the field over the last 40 years and a decision in the early 90s to build the NIF. is this the breakthrough you were talking about? no perhaps not. but the breakthrough you were probably referring to (economical fusion power) is possible and it is still a good bet that this type of breakthrough will also occur in the next 10 years. the Univ. of Rochester's lab for laser energetics will switch on the most powerful laser in the world in 2 years. this laser, at ~3 PETAwatts will be equivalent to about 2% of the total power recieved by the earth from the sun and will be used to attempt "fast ignition" experiments which may indeed make fusion power economical.
Here's my argument: In a nutshell, you're a self-absorbed, pseudointellectual, fuzzy-thinking, pretentious, self-righteous, phony, moron. have a nice day!:)
I don't know. I think I'd disagree. I think Sokal DID do something valuable. He exposed charlatanism and intellectually dishonest egotistical frauds to the light of day. Prior to knowing exactly what postmodernism and "postconstructualism" were I'd occasionally seen a paper or two in the field (or related field) and while they seemed bizzare and mostly incomprehensible to me, I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. ie.-maybe I was just too DUMB to understand it and it was all perfectly legit. Sokal blew those preconceptions out the window and I think I have a (slightly) greater understanding of the fallibility of certain academic fields because of it. I think Noam Chomsky hit the nail directly on the head in his essay "Rationality/Science" when he says:
"Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed. Perhaps the explanation lies in some personal inadequacy, like tone-deafness. Or there may be other reasons. The question is not strictly relevant here, and I won't pursue it."
Are you exhibit "A" in the case of the absurdly moronic apologetics obsessed postmodernist Vs. reality?
If you don't find the statment:"But all this is only a first step: the fundamental goal of any emancipatory movement must be to demystify and democratize the production of scientific knowledge, to break down the artificial barriers that separate ``scientists'' from ``the public''. Realistically, this task must start with the younger generation, through a profound reform of the educational system. The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics95, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist, queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques."
UNBELIEVEABLY, hilariously absurd and nonsensical then you sir, are either an idiot or a hugely pretentious buffon. Sokal roudly humiliated the "postmodernists" and it was well deserved. It should be no surprise I guess, that some who had thier fragile egos badly brused in this incident pathetically continue to claim that "No! Sokal was really right! He just didn't seeee it!!!". unbelieveable.
"OK, bright guy, tell me this, then: Why would the topic study be such a big deal if the scientific community generally agreed that the early Earth atmosphere was depleted of oxygen? Why does one news report [earthtimes.org] state that this study, "could lead to a revival of interest in an experiment conducted by University of Chicago graduate student Stanley Miller in 1953," if there were never a reason to question the relevance of Miller's experiment? What would have led people to question the relevance of Miller's experiment?"
DUH?? READ THE ARTICLE!! The news here is a reconsideration of the concentration of H2 in the early atmosphere. Previously it was thought to be very little because of the assumed high removal rate of H2 from the early atmosphere. Tian et. al. have shown here that this assumption was TWO orders of magnitude off!!! (ie. BIG!) ad the concentration was probably much higher. Because this re-establishes a strongly reducing early atmosphere therefore Urey-Miller is once again very relevant! None of this has anything to do with O2 concentratio of early earth which thermodynamically must have been allowed only at extremely low concentrations. (ie. PPM....Maybe)
As your sig suggests it appears that you have in fact, been blinded by science.:) Let me help. Firstly, congradulations, your post is the only one here out of the (currently) ~250 which is actually ON TOPIC and doesn't devolve into idiotic religious ranting! Now, you said "Is this a case of scientists looking for data that supports a particular theory? They know that life could arise much more easily if hydrogen was more plentiful on early earth, so they pose theories and look for data to support that?" to which I would respond>So what?! This is how science works! You formulate a hypothesis and then look for data which might support it by conducting experiments. Sometimes you find said data....Sometimes you find something completely contradictory. In fact this appears to be what happened in this case as the author is quoted as saying "I didn't expect this result when we began the study," (!). It doesn't matter a whit what someone's motives for forming a hypothesis are. All that matters is that the evidence used to support said hypothesis is reasoned and valid. Second I don't know where you got the idea this has anything to do with "climate science" it is far removed from that field. The athors are not making any statment on the climate of early earth. They are contsraining themselves to the question of hydrogen concentration of the early atmosphere only. This value is not dependant upon the myriad chaotic systems climate prediction is based on. In fact it is based on only a few variables, as reading the paper illustrates. The concentration of H2 in the early atmoshere depends heavily upon the rate of H2 escape from the atmosphere. This is what they have recalculated using values of UV influx among a couple other things. Honestly this report is very exciting to me and I congradulate the author greatly. As the report says, this tips the favor of the origin of life hypothesis back into the hands of Urey-miller and I confess to personally favoring the abiogenisis theory of life on earth over the "it came here on a comet or meteorite from mars" theories.
Jeez who knew/. was crawling with so many anti-science anti-intellectualist nocluebies. sad. Ever think that maybe you're shot down "every time" you have pointed out your pet theory to "evolutionists" is possibly because you're dead wrong? Please cite a scientific source which says "early Earth had an oxygenating atmosphere". There are none because its preposterous. Just about all the oxygen in the atmosphere came from autotrophic organisms. ie. PLANTS!! It can only have accumulated after life appeared. The data on O2 concentration in the atmosphere of ancient earth is WELL constrained. Jeez, the arrogance of some people....
Where are the heavy metals? I see graphite (carbon) manganese dioxide and nickel compounds in a steel case(iron). Mn, Fe and Ni are first row transition metals. There are no heavy metals used at all. These things are pretty innocuous considering most other battery chemistries (Pb-H2SO4, NiCd, Hg cell, etc.)
Slashdot Mirror
Facile also means : "Arrived at without due care, effort, or examination; superficial". and "Readily manifested, together with an aura of insincerity and lack of depth".
Though, fallacious also works.
The swirling clouds are mostly ammonia and the colors are thought to be caused by various phosphine and sulfur compounds. Yes there is a very tiny amount of water in Jupiter's upper atmosphere, less than 0.1%. There is an equally small amount of methane (less than a tenth of a percent I think) too. Not really what I would call "huge amounts" though. Also, the compounds are being continually created then destroyed again when they fall back down to lower altitudes and very high temperatures. Compare to Titan where organic goop coats everything, methane is several % of the atmosphere and literally flows down rivers on the surface (a surface with "water sand" and huge boulders of water ice everywhere!).
Hmmmm! I had always heard it was co2 and never checked it myself! I stand duly corrected. apologies. :)
"There's ice on the moon you know. Yes. The Moon. The moon was part of the Earth once, so you can be pretty sure that the moon has ice on it. Maybe not a lot, but it's there."
That is rather facile logic. By the same token we should expect life on the moon shouldn't we? After all it was "part of the earth". The Moon was formed in the fiery inferno of a planetoid collision with earth, any water that didn't volatilize off and remained after coalescence couldn't be readily held by the weak gravity and intense solar irradiation at its (relatively) close orbit to the sun. Furthermore, the only place where water has been SUGGESTED to possibly occur on the moon is at the poles in permanently shaded bottoms of craters in the form of hydrated minerals and in fine and sparse ice dust among the dirt. There is nothing absolutely certain and derministic about the presence of water on any solar system body (except earth) without examining that object first. Io (right next to europa!) has no water because its a flaming hell full of superhot volcanoes produced by the tidal flexing of its mantle; an effect from the orbits of Europa and its proximity to Jupiter. This is a completely non-intuitive phenomenon and no one really suspected it was happening until we went there with the Voyagers.
"Same goes for carbon which is why if a planet's not drenched in water, ten to one it's flooded with methane or some other hydrocarbon."
I wouldn't take THAT bet! The only place we know of in the solar system which is "flooded with hydrocarbons" is Titan. An absence of water is absolutely by no means a determinant factor in whether a world has lots of hydrocarbons! (eg. Venus, the Moon, Mercury, Io, Phobos, Neptune, Jupiter...... all have no water and NO huge amounts of hydrocarbons!) The solar system seldom lends itself to easy characterization by the application of overly simple maxims of the sort you seem to have affection toward.
Viking saw dry ice frost (CO2), not water frost. And the water seen at the poles is not a small amount, it is thought to be HUGE amounts.
" if Dr. Hoffenheimer wins the Nobel Prize in physics for his work in anti-positron flux through a silicone wafer"
:)
So....eletron flow through boob implants? Was Dr. Hoffenheimer studying celebrity lightning strike victims??!!
Yeah I was talking about the highres capability. but I haven't seen some of those images on that page so..was interesting anyway!
Shamefully, in my haste to post such a curmudgeonly criticism I failed to congratulate you on the achievement your organization has accomplished. Very well done!! and I hope to see more of the same from ESO in future :)
"This is a major event for them up there- (I'm surprised it made /., they usually discourage it as they discouraged me from posting about the Venus Transit last year) . Generally, they have to fight hard to get funding from the government..."
And....Do they maybe see a connection here....?
I love the stuff ESO and ESA are doing but honestly, they have a LOT to learn about pr. They made watching the live Huygens Titan landing (surely the achievement of this decade for them in terms of planetary/moon exploration) into a boring coffee hour. The image and data release from Mars Express has been extremely disappointing at best. There have still been no images released from the high res imager HSRC. The ion-drive lunar orbiter Smart-1 which has been in stable orbit for months has released like what...4 lunar images? nice. If I were a tax paying member of a ESA member country I think I'd be a little pissed off at the data (non?)disclosure practices of the agency. NASA, on the other hand, while not perfect, does do a hell of a lot better job at data release.
It is not really accurate to say that "Jupiter itself is a net producer of energy". Is Jupiter a net EMITTER of energy? Yes, but this energy is the leftover heat of formation from the protoplanet nebula. D+D fusion does not happen in Jupter. Incidentally I predict "planet" imaging simillar to this will become commonplace in about 2 years when VLTI interferometric imaging comes online.
I'm sorry I don't regularly get my news from that bastion of journalistic integrity the NY Sun *cough tabloid*cough*
Spitzer is the ATTORNEY GENERAL of NY. It is not his job to write and push bills through the legistlature. It IS his job to enforce the laws of NY state and he is doing a damn good job if you ask me. Also, if "the legislature is so appalled at his idea", why have I heard absolutely nothing to that effect in the past two years since that particular issue has even been talked about?
A visit to your website reveals your One True Righteous Crusade to apparently be concealed carry gun laws and their preservation. Aparently when you saw Spitzer took some action which was even remotely anti-gun, you decided he must be evil. You offer an interesting study on the irrational, complete black or white mindset of so many people. Do I completely agree with every last syllable uttered by the guy? No certainly not. But, shockingly enough, I am able to make the rational, sane assessment that he's doing a lot of good and is therefore worthy of my support even though he may not agree with me on the minutia of every last issue I'm interested in. See how that works? It's what we call a small logical compromise. Furthermore I actually live in New York, YOU seem to live in Oklahoma. Why do you even care? Ohhh right, because you're irrationally fixated with single issue zealotry. shame, that.
Seriously. Almost every time I see Mr. Spitzer's name in the media I like what I see. He is what I view as the embodiment of what it means to be a TRUE American. A genuine good-guy who isn't afraid to stand up for what's right and fuck everyone who doesn't like it. It's pretty sad, but I've never voted for someone who I really wanted to see in some particular office, just mostly against the person who I wanted to prevent from attaining that office. If Spitzer runs for Gov. of NY it would be the first time I would be voting for someone who I really thought completely deserved to win.
Glad you like it. Though I do believe my previous submission holds that record... I try to make interesting stories I submit as informative and fact filled as possible without being too dense and inaccessable at the same time. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I don't. :o)
I hear that the other reason is because most people don't usually walk around holding their credit cards face up above their heads. :o)
Yeah because, you know, people totally see animals killing eachother all the time and then think it's ok to do because of that. Idiot.
way to liven up the atmosphere Dr.Killjoke. :)
here is a pic for those too lazy to click the link ---> .
thermonuclear ignition will be achieved in the laboratory in the year 2010 (+or- 2 years). so yes, there will be a breakthrough in fusion in the next 10 years but it will not be due to 60$ a barrel oil. it will be a result of slow and steady progress in the field over the last 40 years and a decision in the early 90s to build the NIF. is this the breakthrough you were talking about? no perhaps not. but the breakthrough you were probably referring to (economical fusion power) is possible and it is still a good bet that this type of breakthrough will also occur in the next 10 years. the Univ. of Rochester's lab for laser energetics will switch on the most powerful laser in the world in 2 years. this laser, at ~3 PETAwatts will be equivalent to about 2% of the total power recieved by the earth from the sun and will be used to attempt "fast ignition" experiments which may indeed make fusion power economical.
Here's my argument: In a nutshell, you're a self-absorbed, pseudointellectual, fuzzy-thinking, pretentious, self-righteous, phony, moron. have a nice day! :)
I don't know. I think I'd disagree. I think Sokal DID do something valuable. He exposed charlatanism and intellectually dishonest egotistical frauds to the light of day. Prior to knowing exactly what postmodernism and "postconstructualism" were I'd occasionally seen a paper or two in the field (or related field) and while they seemed bizzare and mostly incomprehensible to me, I was willing to give the benefit of the doubt. ie.-maybe I was just too DUMB to understand it and it was all perfectly legit. Sokal blew those preconceptions out the window and I think I have a (slightly) greater understanding of the fallibility of certain academic fields because of it. I think Noam Chomsky hit the nail directly on the head in his essay "Rationality/Science" when he says:
"Quite regularly, "my eyes glaze over" when I read polysyllabic discourse on the themes of poststructuralism and postmodernism; what I understand is largely truism or error, but that is only a fraction of the total word count. True, there are lots of other things I don't understand: the articles in the current issues of math and physics journals, for example. But there is a difference. In the latter case, I know how to get to understand them, and have done so, in cases of particular interest to me; and I also know that people in these fields can explain the contents to me at my level, so that I can gain what (partial) understanding I may want. In contrast, no one seems to be able to explain to me why the latest post-this-and-that is (for the most part) other than truism, error, or gibberish, and I do not know how to proceed. Perhaps the explanation lies in some personal inadequacy, like tone-deafness. Or there may be other reasons. The question is not strictly relevant here, and I won't pursue it."
Are you exhibit "A" in the case of the absurdly moronic apologetics obsessed postmodernist Vs. reality?
If you don't find the statment:"But all this is only a first step: the fundamental goal of any emancipatory movement must be to demystify and democratize the production of scientific knowledge, to break down the artificial barriers that separate ``scientists'' from ``the public''. Realistically, this task must start with the younger generation, through a profound reform of the educational system. The teaching of science and mathematics must be purged of its authoritarian and elitist characteristics95, and the content of these subjects enriched by incorporating the insights of the feminist, queer, multiculturalist and ecological critiques."
UNBELIEVEABLY, hilariously absurd and nonsensical then you sir, are either an idiot or a hugely pretentious buffon. Sokal roudly humiliated the "postmodernists" and it was well deserved. It should be no surprise I guess, that some who had thier fragile egos badly brused in this incident pathetically continue to claim that "No! Sokal was really right! He just didn't seeee it!!!". unbelieveable.
"OK, bright guy, tell me this, then: Why would the topic study be such a big deal if the scientific community generally agreed that the early Earth atmosphere was depleted of oxygen? Why does one news report [earthtimes.org] state that this study, "could lead to a revival of interest in an experiment conducted by University of Chicago graduate student Stanley Miller in 1953," if there were never a reason to question the relevance of Miller's experiment? What would have led people to question the relevance of Miller's experiment?"
....Maybe)
DUH?? READ THE ARTICLE!! The news here is a reconsideration of the concentration of H2 in the early atmosphere. Previously it was thought to be very little because of the assumed high removal rate of H2 from the early atmosphere. Tian et. al. have shown here that this assumption was TWO orders of magnitude off!!! (ie. BIG!) ad the concentration was probably much higher. Because this re-establishes a strongly reducing early atmosphere therefore Urey-Miller is once again very relevant! None of this has anything to do with O2 concentratio of early earth which thermodynamically must have been allowed only at extremely low concentrations. (ie. PPM
As your sig suggests it appears that you have in fact, been blinded by science. :) Let me help. Firstly, congradulations, your post is the only one here out of the (currently) ~250 which is actually ON TOPIC and doesn't devolve into idiotic religious ranting! Now, you said "Is this a case of scientists looking for data that supports a particular theory? They know that life could arise much more easily if hydrogen was more plentiful on early earth, so they pose theories and look for data to support that?" to which I would respond>So what?! This is how science works! You formulate a hypothesis and then look for data which might support it by conducting experiments. Sometimes you find said data....Sometimes you find something completely contradictory. In fact this appears to be what happened in this case as the author is quoted as saying "I didn't expect this result when we began the study," (!). It doesn't matter a whit what someone's motives for forming a hypothesis are. All that matters is that the evidence used to support said hypothesis is reasoned and valid. Second I don't know where you got the idea this has anything to do with "climate science" it is far removed from that field. The athors are not making any statment on the climate of early earth. They are contsraining themselves to the question of hydrogen concentration of the early atmosphere only. This value is not dependant upon the myriad chaotic systems climate prediction is based on. In fact it is based on only a few variables, as reading the paper illustrates. The concentration of H2 in the early atmoshere depends heavily upon the rate of H2 escape from the atmosphere. This is what they have recalculated using values of UV influx among a couple other things. Honestly this report is very exciting to me and I congradulate the author greatly. As the report says, this tips the favor of the origin of life hypothesis back into the hands of Urey-miller and I confess to personally favoring the abiogenisis theory of life on earth over the "it came here on a comet or meteorite from mars" theories.
Jeez who knew /. was crawling with so many anti-science anti-intellectualist nocluebies. sad. Ever think that maybe you're shot down "every time" you have pointed out your pet theory to "evolutionists" is possibly because you're dead wrong? Please cite a scientific source which says "early Earth had an oxygenating atmosphere". There are none because its preposterous. Just about all the oxygen in the atmosphere came from autotrophic organisms. ie. PLANTS!! It can only have accumulated after life appeared. The data on O2 concentration in the atmosphere of ancient earth is WELL constrained. Jeez, the arrogance of some people....
Where are the heavy metals? I see graphite (carbon) manganese dioxide and nickel compounds in a steel case(iron). Mn, Fe and Ni are first row transition metals. There are no heavy metals used at all. These things are pretty innocuous considering most other battery chemistries (Pb-H2SO4, NiCd, Hg cell, etc.)