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I’ve been receiving more e-mails than usual asking about chemtrails, the supposed clandestine spraying of chemicals by jet aircraft, so I thought I would talk a little about the issue.
I was at a townhall meeting a couple years ago, and some biker dude got up and demanded that our congressman do something about chemtrails (the congressman said he had never heard of the issue before). Based upon the level of interest I have seen, there is considerable popular support for the view that chemtrails exist.
First let me say there are such things as “conspiracies”…some people conspire together with all kinds of nefarious motives, both inside and outside government. But not everything that happens in life is a conspiracy.
Jet aircraft at high altitudes produce condensation trails (contrails) which form from water vapor, one by-product of combustion. Some of these clouds can be colorful at sunrise or sunset, just as natural clouds are. Contrail activity has increased dramatically since the 1950s, for the obvious reason that high altitude jet traffic was almost non-existent before that time.
It is indeed possible that the high altitude cirrus clouds formed by jets might have contributed to warming in recent decades due to the greenhouse effect produced by cirrus clouds (thin cirrus reduce outgoing infrared radiation more than they reflect sunlight), although research on this has a large amount of uncertainty.
Now, I suppose it’s possible the Air Force or some other entity has experimented with spraying of chemicals from jets for various purposes. For example, chemical defoliants were sprayed by aircraft from low altitudes during the Vietnam War. But there is no evidence I am aware of that any of the jet contrails you see in the sky on a daily basis is anything other than the passive (and necessary) result of combustion.
Contrails don’t always form behind a jet because sometimes the air is so dry that it absorbs the water vapor from aircraft without condensation taking place. When I was the lead scientist on a microwave radiometer we used to fly over thunderstorms on a modified U2 aircraft, the U2 pilots told us stories of flying spy missions; if the U2 started forming a contrail, they would return home because the aircraft would be too easy to spot from the ground.
I was looking at some of the claimed evidence for chemtrails, for example a 1990 USAF chemistry course outline entitled “Chemtrails”. This indeed seems to establish that the USAF coined the term “chemtrail”, but it was simply a play on “Contrails”, a handbook routinely distributed to cadets. I looked through the chemistry course materials and there was no mention of “chemtrails” in the modern sense of the word.
And graphic artists don’t help when they come up with spoofs, like this one showing airline pilots marching against chemtrails:
Another supposed proof is patents related to spraying of chemicals from aircraft. There is some truth to this claim, because with talk of geoengineering the climate system to offset global warming, there has been considerable interest in spraying a variety of substances into the stratosphere as a way to reflect sunlight in the manner of a large volcanic eruption. As a result, private companies are patenting methods for performing this spraying if it ever becomes a funded project.
But the claim that daily, routine jet traffic involves the secret spraying of chemicals for population control by the government, or to keep us sick to support the pharmaceutical industry, etc., is pretty wild. There is much more information debunking various chemtrail claims at a website called contrailscience.com.
So how do flying saucers fit into this? Well, it was pointed out that a patent for a chemtrail (or any other) device does not mean that a device has ever been developed…or that it would even work. I’d be interested in hearing some physicists’ opinions on the patent for a Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state:
But, I suppose conspiracy is in the eye of the beholder, and I’m sure someone in comments below will claim I am part of the conspiracy that perpetuates the “myth” of the greenhouse effect. Oh, well.
Several years ago, I was listening to a 9/11 Truther expound on how it was impossible for jet fuel to melt steel. I pointed out that those planes had just taken off, so were full of Chemtrail mixture, and that nobody knew how hot a Chemtrail fire was. The beatific look on his face at this revelation was something to behold. Glad I could make his day. It certainly made mine!
Treg
Retired Airline Captain
Excellent!
It’s fun to play games with them but when you don’t have time just show this video to them to get them scratching their heads – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=51Zs8iaydt0&list=TLXMert7H67Yo
Gee, molten steel WITHOUT jet fuel, electricity, thermite or etc. Where’d all the heat come from? Have them rub their hands together real fast – oh THERE it is!
Didn’t California already form an inflationary vacuum state?
Thanks for the entertaining post Doc 😉
Only in our heads.
What about those who try to perpetuate the myth that
“…Earth and its ecosystemscreated by Gods intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earths climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.
“http://www.cornwallalliance.org/articles/read/an-evangelical-declaration-on-global-warming/
Where’s the evidence for any of that?
Don’t forget the claim that “The role of the IPCC in climate studies is similar to that of the Jesus Seminar in New Testament scholarship in the 1990s and Darwinism for the past century.”
http://www.cornwallalliance.org/docs/a-call-to-truth-prudence-and-protection-of-the-poor.pdf
It always cracks me up thinking of someone willing to compare IPCC with evolution in order to try to discredit IPCC.
Why you ask about evidence for that?
They are believers not scientists, they profess in the name of their faith in God.
What worry me instead, is that until today climate scientists don’t have proven that those believers are wrong indeed. And some of those very same scientists are asking for a massive reduction of wellness to our communities to fight a just simulated hypothesis, not a really measured danger.
Science is the pursuit of truth, so scientists should never present their discoveries arguing by “consensus”.
Scientists should always explain their discoveries by sounding measurements of the reality which is one and unarguable.
IMHO, such sounding measurements for the purpose of demonstrating that CO2 is so dangerous haven’t been made until today.
This is much worrying than what a religious community thinks about climate.
Have nice day.
Massimo
Indeed. Believing in chemtrails is easy compared to what the Cornwall Alliance is pushing.
(Don’t expect Roy Spencer to answer you.)
So, are you an atheist?
Are you sure that God doesn’t exist at all?
I don’t know that indeed, because I’m not one who could be defined a “good believer”, but at the same time I can’t tell for sure if a kind of God exists or not.
But as I said that’s not a question of science, just a question of belief.
This post was just a Dr. Spencer joke about a silly myth of a little group of almost paranoids people who sees conspirations everywhere.
Even if you are a perfect atheist you should respect the faith in God of the billions who believes instead.
I personally admire who truly believe in God because he/she has a nice answer about the meaning of death.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Surely the problem is obvious : how can someone who believes that their god is looking after our planet and wouldn’t allow us to damage it in the way that we are doing by releasing so much CO2, be taken seriously? Such a person already believes something and so will never accept any evidence against that belief – how can they? And it is even more of a problem when that person also dismisses evolution because of those same beliefs.
http://theevolutioncrisis.org.uk/testimony2.php
I don’t understand you.
Maybe it’s because I’m Italian and it’s possible that I misinterpreted your words.
Why do you question the Dr.Spencer belief in God’s creation?
I could understand if he used that for prove that CO2 is less important than the AGW crowd suppose to be, but he always did science instead.
For what I can understand, his is the very same statistical approach done by the pro AGW scientists.
He just tried different methods, because he didn’t find the evidence that CO2 is so terrific, as some other scientist believe to have found (note that I wrote “believe”, because tell what you want, but no one ever proved nothing in this context).
If you want to attack Dr. Spencer about climate, do it criticizing his research eventually explaining because he should be wrong, not trying to minimize his professional integrity just because of his faith in God.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
(This is to Massimo below, because I couldn’t find a reply button under his comment)
Read that first paragraph from the Cornwall Alliance again :
“We believe Earth and its ecosystemscreated by Gods intelligent design and infinite power and sustained by His faithful providence are robust, resilient, self-regulating, and self-correcting, admirably suited for human flourishing, and displaying His glory. Earths climate system is no exception. Recent global warming is one of many natural cycles of warming and cooling in geologic history.”
They believe that Earth and its ecosystems cannot be detrimentally affected in any way because their god will protect it. So, why worry or care about any effect man can have on it (not that they believe that man CAN possibly have any effect on it), because their god will make everything better anyway?
They also state that recent global warming IS natural, so no evidence of any effects man are having will be acceptable or believed by them.
Are those beliefs consistent with someone who is a genuine sceptic about AGW, and who is genuinely trying to find out whether man can affect the climate of the planet in a harmful way?
Hi JMurphy.
It seems that I already had your point.
What is disturbing me about you is that you are arguing that Dr. Spencer can’t be reliable not because of what it say about the climate with his researches, but just because you believe that having his faith in God he couldn’t be honest.
The final goal of a scientist is to write the paper which have the results of his research for a peer-review.
IMHO peer review must only pertain the argument of the research without taking account of any reference to the personal life of the researcher.
You ask: “Are those beliefs consistent with someone who is a genuine sceptic about AGW, and who is genuinely trying to find out whether man can affect the climate of the planet in a harmful way?”
My answer is yes.
If the things he wrote can’t be demonstrated false, of course.
You wrote:
“They believe that Earth and its ecosystems cannot be detrimentally affected in any way because their god will protect it. So, why worry or care about any effect man can have on it (not that they believe that man CAN possibly have any effect on it), because their god will make everything better anyway?”
Because “the man” Roy Spencer is a christian, while Dr. Spencer is an estimated professional scientist who also received the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA, I don’t believe that NASA gave him that medal just for a joke.
Maybe you are not aware of that, but following your principle christians should be avoided to enter any university and express any scientific opinion at all.
I already heard something like that in a recent history, it was against hebrews. Someone called that ideology “nazism”.
Of course, I’m not accusing you to be a nazi, but please think a little about what you wrote, it’s not so different respect that insane ideology.
Note that it has been largely demonstrated by the Climategate e-mails that on the other side many so-called “scientists” played very dirty peer-review processes for a long time in the name of the religion of GAIA, that is “CO2 is the cause of all odds”. They excluded from those processes the scientists who don’t agree with them. Well, despite someone asked him a comment about it, AFIK Dr. Spencer never officially did it. That despite climategate is a fact not just an unfounded hypothesis like your about Dr. Spencer.
For me that behavior is a sign of moral integrity.
Scientific evaluations of a research should never take account of who wrote it, should be always objective despite the results sometimes aren’t those that the reviewer would they be.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Hoops.
I missed a line in the above comment, so I’m not been clear:
You wrote:
They believe that Earth and its ecosystems cannot be detrimentally affected in any way because their god will protect it. So, why worry or care about any effect man can have on it (not that they believe that man CAN possibly have any effect on it), because their god will make everything better anyway?
I don’t believe it means a thing.
Because the man Roy Spencer is a christian, while Dr. Spencer is an estimated professional scientist who also received the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal from NASA, I dont believe that NASA gave him that medal just for a joke.
Sorry.
Again my:
“For me that behavior is a sign of moral integrity.”
was about the silent Dr. Spencer, not about the Climategate scientists, of course.
I should reread by post before press the submit button. 🙁
It never ceases to amaze me that people like you, JMurphy, openly display the bankruptcy of your position by indulging in this sort of attack. Could you demonstrate any more clearly that you are incapable of engaging Dr. Spencer on the science? Having done so, do you think to impress anyone with this tripe?
Pathetic.
Space vehicle propelled by pressure of inflationary vacuum state is science fiction. Vacuum energy and Casimir Effect are real but no practical technology to exploit it. Casimir effect produced a force equal to weight of an ant in lab experiments. Still long way to go to power a spacecraft.
Really? As a rough estimate, I’d say it would only take 340 billion ants to get a human into space.
Roy implied the contrails are caused by the byproduct of aircraft engine combustion. This is not correct.
Contrails are caused by the air undergoing compression and expansion as it passes over the wing. Water vapor in the air condenses to liquid/solid water partials.
Visible proof of significant water vapor at high altitude.
The inventor who patented Space vehicle propelled by the pressure of inflationary vacuum state should publish his work in this peer reviewed journal. After all it is peer reviewed so it has to be right.
http://www.americanantigravity.com/link/ias-spes
Quoting from the web site:
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Space, Propulsion and Energy Sciences, founded by Glen Tony Robertson, annually hosts the SPESIF Conference to review peer-review scientific research on antigravity, warp-drives, and other concepts in Breakthrough Propulsion Physics.
Peer-review papers presented at SPESIF are published in the American Institute of Physics Conference Proceedings, with abstracts available online from the AIP website.
– See more at: http://www.americanantigravity.com/link/ias-spes#sthash.cg0B6wYQ.dpuf
There is the small issue that you can SEE the contrails originating from the engines. Then again, there are those lying eyes again!!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
You should distinguish theoretical physics from aerospace engineering. Theoretically possible doesn’t mean we can build it in the next 100 yrs. Theoretical physicists have written about time machines. IMO it is science fiction. The physics is nonfiction but the technology is. Technology is applied science. It is not just theory.
I don’t know if chemtrails are “real” or not, but I have been observing them for 20 years. The two most obvious distinctions: contrails are pure white and chemtrails have a yellow (sulfur?) tinge. Also, contrails eventually dissipate and chemtrails sometimes continue growing, often becoming an solid overcast cloud cover.
The reason I tend to believe that there is something to the chemtrail issue is because I once saw a very low flying jet (too low to be contrails) emitting chemtrails and I reported it to the FAA. Almost immediately I had an Air Force Colonel call me back explaining that I had seen a plain old contrail. He called me repeatedly, emphatically denying that I had seen what I saw.
When is the last time ANY other government bureaucrat responded to a complaint so rapidly?
Not in my lifetime…
I would point out that Chemtrails is a large conspiracy where many aircraft flying normal routes are emitting chemicals. The occasional experiment or screw up is OK. 8>)
Surely there must be flying saucers powered solely by the energy derived from the adiabatic lapse rate of planetary atmospheres.
Though, they don’t work as well when it rains.
/sarc
In fact, there are flying objects (not necessarily saucer-shaped) powered solely by energy derived from adiabatic lapse rate of earth. They were invented in the 18th century and are called hot-air balloon.
Anthony is right.
The hot-air balloons aren’t _solely_ powered by the energy derived by the lapse rate, but by the hot-air inside them.
As the air cools they return to the ground.
Helium inflated balloons could be the case, but still is not a question of lapse rate, but of molecular weight indeed.
🙂
Have a nice day
Massimo
Adiabatic lapse rate is the change in temperature of air as it moves up or down. Of course the hot air is moving up because it is hotter than air outside the balloon. If the reverse is true, it will go down.
Yes, but it’s not right to say that the hot air balloons move up solely because of the lapse rate.
They move up because of the buoyancy due to the hotter air inside respect to the outside. When the air inside cools they fall down despite the lapse rate.
You wrote that they are flying object “powered solely by energy derived from adiabatic lapse rate of earth.”
No they don’t indeed, in fact they fly also in absence of any lapse rate, it suffices that the density of the air inside the balloon is lower than the air outside.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
“When the air inside cools they fall down despite the lapse rate.”
Air inside will not be cooler than outside unless you put in work. It will be equal to outside temperature. The balloon falls down because of its weight. But this is also true for a machine solely powered by lapse rate.
“in fact they fly also in absence of any lapse rate, it suffices that the density of the air inside the balloon is lower than the air outside.”
But a transparent balloon can be heated naturally by sunlight and lapse rate will lift it. We heat it artificially so we don’t wait too long and don’t have to use bigger balloon.
Hi Dr. Strangelove.
you wrote:
“Air inside will not be cooler than outside unless you put in work. It will be equal to outside temperature.”
Yes of course, I never told that.
I wrote that it happens when the air inside cools, not that it happens when it’s cooler than the air outside. I just omitted to specify that it happens when the whole weight (balloon+air inside) is heavier than the outside.
you wrote:
“The balloon falls down because of its weight. But this is also true for a machine solely powered by lapse rate.”
I don’t understand what you mean here. This thread started after your reply to Anthony because you stated that “there are flying objects (not necessarily saucer-shaped) powered solely by energy derived from adiabatic lapse rate of earth.” and now you wrote exactly the opposite. Are you joking with me?
“But a transparent balloon can be heated naturally by sunlight and lapse rate will lift it. We heat it artificially so we dont wait too long and dont have to use bigger balloon.”
Yes, it depends mainly on the capability of your “transparent balloon” to behave as a real greenhouse, but if it is fully transparent it can’t do that. It needs an high absorptive face inside the balloon to convert to heat the visible light and you need a good thermal resistance of the balloon “skin” to allow the heat to rise the temperature inside the balloon to a useful value.
In any case the lapse rate has nothing to do with the fact that it could fly. The balloon and the lapse rate are just the consequence of the very same energy source: the Sun energy flow through the atmosphere.
The lapse rate is present also without any perceptible ascensional wind speed.
IMHO as Anthony suggested you can’t use the lapse rate energy to fly anything.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
It’s been proposed.
http://www.fuellessflight.com/
In theory, you can indeed get energy from the temperature difference. The adiabatic lapse rate is itself driven by convection from the differential heating of equator and poles. Convection pushes a working fluid around a cycle of compression and expansion, creating a temperature difference like in a refrigerator. A heat engine working off that temperature difference is simply using a small part of that equator-pole entropy. But the temperature differences are small and the efficiency therefore very low. It would, inevitably, be a very slow flying saucer.
Regarding chemtrails, everyone knows that the chemical being sprayed from aircraft is carbon dioxide, which has a multitude of terrible effects, causing everything from shrinking sheep to vampire moths. Some people even think air travel ought to be banned or severely limited because of it. Some of the strangest beliefs are those we take for granted, seen from a slightly different perspective. Familiarity hides many things – in five hundred years time, people will likely see us and our beliefs the same way we see people of five hundred years ago.
Agree
Uhmmm… I took a quick look to that link…
Did you see his latest wind turbine?
If the airplane works that way, IMHO it will never take-off at all.
The turbine it’s simply a silly try to an efficient(?!??!) linear to rotational energy conversion.
Let’s apart the resistance to the eventual high winds, what’s about the big amount of energy lost in the aperture and closure of the turbine blades?
It’s almost all dissipated in heat after the blades flexion and their return to rest.
IMHO that approach, even resolving the blades flexion issue, is not reliable. The blades joints will rapidly break with rigid blades and/or high winds.
About their application on the airplane: I’m skeptical about the usefulness of those wind turbines, because he is too much optimist about the surplus of energy during its eventual fly.
It looks like the silly chinese electric car presented at WUWT some times ago. That car had a wind turbine in front of it, which was thought to “recover” the energy from it’s run.
Anyways, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe that that guy solved some fundamental issues, designing that airplane, that we can’t neither imagine and it finally works indeed.
Here in Italy we say: “if they are flowers then one day they will flourish” meaning that everything is possible, anyway let it there and just see what happens.
Just keep away it from public grants, if it was possible and affordable he will find a private businessman who give him the money to do it.
Have a nice weekend
Massimo
Oh yes, it’s not a practical suggestion. Besides the inefficiency of his turbines (which could easily be fixed), the power available from the basic idea is a lot smaller than he seems to think.
The temperature difference between the upper troposphere and surface is about 230 K to 290 K, giving a Carnot efficiency (theoretical maximum) of about 20%. I’d be surprised if in practice he got even 5% but let’s be generous.
So the basic idea is to build a helium airship supplemented by some lighter-than-air gas with a boiling point between 230 K and 290 K. At the surface, heat is absorbed to evaporate it. The amount of energy absorbed will depend on the mass and latent heat of vaporization of the gas. Let’s pick ammonia just for example. The boiling point is about 240 K which is fine. The latent heat of vaporization is 1371 kJ/kg, so let’s say we carry a 1000 kg of the stuff, we can take on about 1371 MJ per cycle. We can get no more than 20% useful work out of it, so we have 274 MJ/cycle to work with.
Ammonia is about 3/4 as dense as air, so we can get 2.5 N/m^3 of lift from it, and 1000 kg occupies about 750 m^3, so we have a total of 1.9 kN of vertical thrust to play with. (Helium would be used to balance the weight of structure and payload.) We want to split that between the upward and downward legs, so we have 1 kN (about the weight of a person) of vertical thrust each way.
The drag at low velocities is roughly density times area times velocity squared, ignoring the fine details, so if our airship has a cross-section of 100 m^2 and air is assumed to be 1 kg/m^3 (obviously this changes with altitude) we find velocity squared is 10 m^2/s^2, so we ought to get around 3 m/s top speed, rising vertically. If we want to use wings to change that to a shallow horizontal glide, the longitudinal component of the force will be somewhat smaller.
So to rise to the top of the troposphere along a shallow glide path (say 1/5) will mean traveling over 50 km at less than 3 m/s, taking at least 4-5 hours. The work done (force times distance) against drag is 1 kN * 50 km = 50 MJ. The average power is about 3 W. Even if we picked a different gas and somehow improved the efficiency, we’d not get more than double the speed.
All of the above is back-of-envelope calculation done carelessly, and I may have got something wrong. (In particular, the latent heat and air density I assume are for sea level.) But I think it’s clear enough that this isn’t a very practical scheme. Any such aircraft would be blown whatever way the wind was going.
But it *is* theoretically possible to power an aircraft from the atmospheric lapse rate, so this is an entirely different sort of silliness to using ‘inflationary vacuum pressure’. I know Anthony was just joking, but the joke sort of gave the impression that he thinks it’s the same sort of thing. And I thought it was an interesting enough concept to find it entertaining to talk about.
@Nullius in Verba.
I compliment with you, because despite you were aware of the inefficiency of the system you did the computations anyways. I’m not able to spent my time in computations (even not so complicated), when I already know that the results are not interesting to me. I’m too lazy.
Yes, as I already imagined much better apply my “just keep away it from public grants, if it was possible and affordable he will find a private businessman who give him the money to do it.”
Have a nice weekend
Massimo
chem trails – I yawn.
Dan’s statement that contrails aren’t produced by combustion in aircraft engines is contradicted here:
http://www.aviationexplorer.com/aircraft_airliner_contrails.htm
The same aviators also state that turbulence stirred up by the passing plane are also responsible for contrails. You could of course argue that there is turbulence aplenty in a jet engine. Nevertheless, H20 vapor is a product of combustion, and will obviously be released in copious quantities from the engines. An illustration on the above website clearly shows the contrails forming immediately behind the airliner’s jet engines.
Interesting blog, Roy Spencer!
– Jerry
I searched I found I was wrong I aplogize….
You’re a mensch, Mr Dan !
Now wouldn’t that be nice if the CAGW climate scientists could do the same ?
Dan
Fear not, you weren’t entirely wrong. You can get contrails that are formed by aircraft flying at high angles of attack.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wingtip_vortices#Visibility_of_vortices
These high angle of attack contrails are caused by shock waves interacting with high hummidity air. Dosen’t have to happen at high angle of attack just happens when the aircraft gets close to the speed of sound and the local air flow around the structure goes super sonic.
Inquiring minds want to know: does CO2-induced global warming acoount for the growth of Sasquatch sightings?
Climate change has caused the Sasquatch to move closer to human habitations, hence the greater number of sightings, You can do your part to save the Sasquatch by calling “Hooooo, Hoooooo, Huff, Huff, Huff” in wooded areas on moonlit nights. Use care, as this is sometimes misinterpreted as a mating call.
I hope that “misinterpreted as a mating call” is not based on experience. 🙂
Re the space vehicle patent, isn’t there that pesky little matter of “reduction to practice”?
But of course the chemtrails are real! All commercial(1) airplanes are required by law(2) to spray a chemical when they fly over an populated(3) area. Lack of that chemical(4) is known to cause public unrest, uprisings, and in extreme cases, death. All this is agreed by the governments(5).
1: Non-commercial, too
2: of physics
3: unpopulated, too
4: dihydrogen monoxide(1), also known as water
5: Hard to argue against facts
If chemtrails are real there must be a leaker out there who can get at the files of what chemicals are being put into the different military or civilian aircraft and get it on Wikileaks or at least some ground crews who know what chemicals are being mixed into the fuel (they may work for the fuel suppliers instead of being ground crews). Has anyone who is a believer ever heard from the people who are in the know?
Here is a link to a detailed study of many aspects of teleportaion which includes manipulation of the vacuum. Also has physical evidence of real teleportaion by chinese children. It may not be such quackery as most believe. It looks like some serious thought went into this study, not such a quick surface skim.
http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf
Regarding conspiracy theories in general, it is ironic that AGW promoters like to defend their position by suggesting skeptics say there is a ‘conspiracy of all the world’s scientists to push a hoax”. Yet among themselves, they say skeptic climate scientists conspire with the fossil fuel industry to lie about the issue. Of course, we see all the material to support claims made about the ClimateGate matter. But do we ever see a shred of evidence to prove industry money was paid in exchange for demonstratively false fabricated science papers for skeptics?
Thanks, Dr. Spencer. I had a good laugh!
I liked the space ship:
“4. The space vehicle of claim 1 wherein said power source is a nuclear generator.”
Very well thought, as the pressure of inflationary vacuum state must not be big enough near galaxies to power the ship.
For the quantitative impact of contrails see:
TRAVIS ET AL. 2004, Regional Variations in U.S. Diurnal Temperature Range for the 1114 September 2001 Aircraft Groundings: Evidence of Jet Contrail Influence on Climate, American Meteorological Society
Even Antoine de Saint-Exupry wrote in his novel Flight to Arras that contrails, in right conditions, will form clouds , and they last for hours. In 1942.
Whenever you see persistent “chemtrails”, check your nearest radiosonde station: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/raobs/
You will see that the dew point line is very close to the temperature line, at 300 hPa. That means that the air up there is very moist and the fine ice will not sublimate. Nothing to do with chemical spraying.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that you have to select the Skewt Plot to see the graph.
Ronald,
From what I could find I would have to agree with your understanding of persistent contrail formation.
In this article:
http://www.atmos-chem-phys.net/9/1357/2009/acp-9-1357-2009.pdf
onald,The authors determine that RHI (Relative Humidity with respect to Ice) determines what type of contrail formation takes place. Short lived, persistent non spreading and the evil persistent spreading contrails.
When the RHI reaches 100% or more (supersaturation) persistent contrails form. The spreading is caused by winds. When strong winds are present, the persistent contrail spreads out into a cloud.
I do keep an open mind to the possibility that some of these contrails may be artificially created using hygroscoptic materials added to fuel.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hygroscopy
Purpose could be weather manipulation and modification.
Weather disasters can become very costly (billions of dollars). If an enemy nation would gain an upper hand in weather enhancement they could slowly bleed the life out of a rival nation’s economy.
When contrails create this much cloud cover they could easily have a profound effect on weather patterns, changing what would have been had these clouds not formed.
http://www.themonsterguide.com/MAGAZINEFeaturesCrowdedSkypopup3.html
Report of how contrails can effect climate:
http://www.themonsterguide.com/MAGAZINEFeaturesCrowdedSky1.html
Actually… Chemrails make no sense.
Contrail dissipate rapidly but chemtrails stay aloft in the atmosphere…..
Um… Shouldn’t that be the other way around? If the purpose of chemtrails is to spray various chemicals upon the worlds human population, then don’t you want those to be the ones to NOT stay up in the sky, fall into the lower atmosphere, and end up on the ground where they can do their business on people????
People really need to go back to conspiracy school and get this one right! 🙂
“Contrail activity has increased dramatically since the 1950s, for the obvious reason that high altitude jet traffic was almost non-existent before that time.”
Actually, while air traffic is clearly a factor, the prevalence of contrails today has more to do with the high bypass turbofan engine design commonly used in modern aircraft. The higher water content of the core engine and mixing characteristics with respect to the shroud of fan air creates a substantially larger envelope of atmospheric conditions (T,P,RH) at which contrails form.
Looks like there’s one less conspiracy theory available now:
http://www.arrl.org/news/view/haarp-facility-shuts-down
Not too worry. They are moving it to the Magnetic North Pole as soon as the Arctic is ice free!!
I was looking over this patent information. I stopped at “gravitomagnetic field”. Apparently I missed the paper(s) on where someone united the gravitational force and the electromagnetic force together and managed to find a way to generate, control, and project this resulting “thing”. I guess that is why all UFO’s are saucer shaped and spin constantly.
Best,
phprof
I suppose that was chemicals the B-17’s over Germany were dropping when they formed these trails.
I wonder which is worse. A “chemtrail” or a row of 10 500 lb high explosive bombs dropped from 22000 feet.
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We don’t have to indulge in flying saucers. Sometimes science is more amazing than science fiction. A device that inputs ice and outputs heat at 20,000 C. Science or fiction? It’s real.
BTW the flying saucer was invented by the Nazis in World War II. The Americans stole the technology and built prototypes after the war. But it was slow and cumbersome, they abandoned the research. So it’s true flying saucer is an alien technology… from Germany.
Dr. Strangelove,
A plasma arc device will get to 19000 + C. Nuclear fusion reactions can probably reach such temperatures as well. Since you refer to a “device that inputs ice” I doubt the two previous guesses I made hit the target. One shouldn’t assume the ice/water must be broken down to it’s elements. Therefore, will you let us know the ice-machine that produces 20k Celsius temperatures?
As to the Viktor Schauberger’s Repulsine (apparently inspired the slow and cumbersome Avro car), the fancied Nazi “Bell” (supposedly rebuilt in the U.S. after WWII- it could supposedly move very quickly and in varying directions, and supposedly crashed in the desert somewhere) photos and many other Nazi innovations much has been written and speculated about it. Great sums of U.S. tax money gets funneled to all kinds of speculative quasi-military science projects every year in the U.S. federal budget yet “officially” the fastest most effective aircraft the U.S. ever flew, the SR-71 Blackbird was de-commissioned back in the 1990’s. The veil of budgetary nonsense may one day reveal where all the money went, but somehow I doubt if it’s flying saucers. Area 51, Wright Patterson Airforce Base and all the other supposed research facilities will likely one day be revealed to be large prostitution facilities for overpaid engineers. A friend of mind once worked for Allied Signal. Oh! the tales I’ve heard!
P.S. – Hopefully, I’m wrong about U.S. research. Very sophisticated advances in aircraft/drone technology is being made, much of it outside the public purview. Time will tell.
The amazing device is less sophisticated and less expensive than a fusion reactor. You can actually build one in your garage. Get a block of ice (40x20x10 inches). Assume 25 C ambient temperature in your garage. Put thermoelectric cells on two large sides of the ice. Total area about 1 sq. m. Ideal thermoelectric material is bismuth telluride 2.5 cm thick. This gives a thermal to electric efficiency of about 1%. This is enough to generate 12 volts and 12 watts.
Get a cars ignition coil and connect the high voltage terminal to a spark plug. Connect the input terminals of the ignition coil to the thermoelectric cells. The current will charge the coil. When you disconnect the wire to the cells, the magnetic field in the coil will collapse and induce 10,000 volts to the spark plug. This will ionize the air in the spark plug gap producing spark and plasma at 20,000 C. This is similar to lightning. The ordinary spark plug is a small-scale version of lightning. Thats the amazing part.
BTW you can also use a 9-volt alkaline battery instead of thermoelectric cells. I used ice to show that its possible for a device to input heat at 0 C and output at 20,000 C. Some think this violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Not really.
Despite the fascination of the Nazis and the USAF with flying saucers, I dont think theyve done much better than the Repulsine. Maybe science fiction rather than serious aeronautics motivated their research.
Yes, you can do it of course.
All the joke is about that temperature, which is no way energy.
Heat is energy instead.
The 20,000C energy of that tiny plasma is very low, much lower than the energy exchanged by the ice block to the ambient which did the work to produce the current that charged the coil, etc… etc…
The thermosphere is a good example, high temperature but very low energy.
Have a nice weekend.
Massimo
Thank you Dr. Strangelove (curiously, am I thanking the ghost of Peter Sellers, a Nazi nuclear holocaust survival enthusiast with orgiastic visions of a post apocalyptic rut or just a guy who likes Kubrick film monikers?),
Apparently my first guess proved partially correct. Plasma and or electric arc welding or incineration ( for example the Longo electric arc plasma incinerators for waste) would simply constitute larger versions of phenomenon similar to spark plugs. They all involve electric arcs or lightning. However, the “ice” threw me. I theorized separating the hydrogen from water to provide electric current via fuel cell or some other means but admittedly didn’t think about “thermoelectric cells.”
You mentioned: “I used ice to show that its possible for a device to input heat at 0 C and output at 20,000 C. Some think this violates the 2nd law of thermodynamics. Not really.”
Nah! The device simply exploits temperature differentials via the Seebeck effect.
All that said it can’t be a coincidence that Nazi’s and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics appear on the same post. In a finite and presumably (according to many communist and Nazi’s) materialistic universe the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics suggests linear time. After all many Nazi’s desperate to deny the theological implications of linear time retreated to cyclical time (like Eastern mystics and German philosophers such as Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche) and the Eternal Return. Unfortunately, denial of empirical data suggests cognitive dissonance. Which probably explains where Nietzsche ended up. Bertrand Russell realized the implications but didn’t seem comfortable with it. Mortality (death and/or disorder) whether personal or universal proves difficult to handle. Devolution will always prove much scarier to the psyche than evolution.
In any case, have a great day. I will part with a question derived from my favorite film director. What are the “39 Steps?”
@Massimo
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is about heat flowing from higher to lower temperature. It doesn’t say from higher energy to lower energy. It is the temperature, not the amount of energy, that dictates the direction of heat flow. 20,000 C is more relevant than say one joule of actual heat flow. Example, a hot flat iron emits more heat but a flashlight bulb is hotter (higher temperature). So net heat flow is from bulb to iron. The tungsten filament inside the bulb is over 1,800 C while the melting of iron is 1,538 C.
@john
The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not rule out cyclical time because it is not an absolute law. Statistical thermodynamics allow violation of the law but the event is extremely improbable. Poincare’s Recurrence Theorem, I think, is consistent with statistical thermodynamics. The theorem is a mathematical physics proof of the Eternal Return in philosophy. IMO just because something is possible doesn’t mean it is actually happening.
BTW if you’re not impressed with Seebeck effect, can you do the same trick (input ice, output temperature > 1,000 C)using a heat engine? No fuel, no electricity.
Uhmm…
maybe I’m not been clear.
I never think about energy equilibrium, I was talking about energy availability, which in few words refers to increase of entropy.
Have a nice day.
Massimo
Dr. Strangelove,
You claimed:
“The 2nd law of thermodynamics does not rule out cyclical time because it is not an absolute law.”
You simply expressed an opinion. Poincares Recurrence Theorem claims certain systems will, after a sufficiently long time, return to a state very close to the initial state. First his theorem doesn’t pertain to “all” systems. Second he never claims it returns to the initial state. Which would explain why he does not violate the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics, but does not prove the Eternal Return either. The 2nd Law states: In any closed system the amount of energy unavailable for useful work must always increase. It remains as valid as the Law of Gravity or any other Law of science til proven false. To conform with the 2nd Law and the Law of Identity cyclical time cannot be cyclical in an absolute sense. However, like Elliot’s gyre cyclical events can recur but never in the exact same way. You have yet show it’s possible.
You also wrote:
“BTW if youre not impressed with Seebeck effect, can you do the same trick (input ice, output temperature > 1,000 C)using a heat engine? No fuel, no electricity.”
I apologize if I did not make myself clear. The Seebeck effect impresses me a great deal. I simply agreed with you that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics doesn’t preclude the Seebeck effect from exploiting temperature differentials. Thank you for the information.
Have a great day!
P.S. – After all I wrote above, one recent (last few decades) observation claimed by astronomers may turn everything on it’s head. Many astronomers have claimed that careful Doppler readings of the universe’s expansion indicated that the expansion accelerates over time. It will be interesting to see how many theories will be generated to explain this apparent fact.
Mark Twain – “There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.”
Poincare recurrence theorem predicts in sufficiently long time or infinite time, the system will return to its initial state.
if the system has a fixed total energy that restricts its dynamics to bounded subsets of its phase space, the system will eventually return as closely as you like to any given initial set of molecular positions and velocities. If the entropy is determined by these variables, then it must also return to its original value, so if it increases during one period of time it must decrease during another.
You have to combine it with reversible entropy to return to exact initial state. In sufficiently long time, there is non-zero probability of return. In infinite time, it is a certainty it will return exactly. Thats why the theorem proves eternal return. Cyclical time is infinitely long because it has no beginning and no end.
Trying to prove reversible entropy by experiment is like trying to prove you can toss a coin quadrillion times and get all heads. You know its possible but you cant prove it by experiment. Thats how statistical thermodynamics know the 2nd law is not absolute. The biggest objection to eternal return is cosmology. As far as we know, the universe has a beginning and probably an end. But if Stephen Hawkings no boundary condition holds true, combine that with Poincare recurrence theorem and you get an eternal return universe. Existential philosophers obsessed with absurdity will be delighted. Imagine all events have already happened in the past and will repeat in the future infinite number of times like a broken film!
BTW without Seebeck effect, a heat engine can do the same trick.
Dr. Strangelove,
Thank you for an interesting reply, but it fails ultimately I believe in a number of points.
You couch part of your assertion in quotes without providing any source.
Your’ quote asserts without providing any empirical evidence that:
“if the system has a fixed total energy that restricts its dynamics to bounded subsets of its phase space, the system will eventually return as closely as you like to any given initial set of molecular positions and velocities…”
If by the system you mean a closed system such as the universe (space, time and matter) then numerous problems arise. The assertion assumes that the total energy dynamics will be bounded by subsets in phase space. However, science has known for some time that all aspects of the universe (space, time and matter) are in motion and all likely subject to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. FYI, Einstein already theorized with experimental support that space is mutable. If evidence continues to support this apparent fact then in what sense is the universe “bound?” Certainly not in any “fixed sense.” In short, the entire universe is subject to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics.
You go on to conclude:
“If the entropy is determined by these variables, then it must also return to its original value, so if it increases during one period of time it must decrease during another.
Again, you provide no empirical support for this claim. It remains conjecture and not science as you know by the fact that you began the statement with the word “if.”
You then assert without empirical evidence:
“You have to combine it with reversible entropy to return to exact initial state. In sufficiently long time, there is non-zero probability of return. In infinite time, it is a certainty it will return exactly. Thats why the theorem proves eternal return.”
No one has observed reversible or decreasing entropy in a closed system. If they had the 2nd Law would have been proven false and we would not be having this discussion. Given no empirical support for reversible entropy there can only be a zero “scientific” or “empirical” probability of return in any time period finite or infinite. That is why you still have to prove your case.
You then conclude without any evidence:
“Trying to prove reversible entropy by experiment is like trying to prove you can toss a coin quadrillion times and get all heads. You know its possible but you cant prove it by experiment. Thats how statistical thermodynamics know the 2nd law is not absolute.”
This series of statements proves to be a non sequitur on a moments reflection. Why? You know it’s possible to toss a coin a quadrillion times and get all heads because you’ve observed it being accomplished at least once. A coin with a side composed of heads and tails must as a result have an actual possibility of coming up heads, because the “head” side of the coin actually exists. However, the same cannot be said of a coin with both sides comprised of tails. In that case no “actual” possibility of heads coming up exists. Likewise since decreasing entropy in a closed system has never “actually” been observed empirically no actual existence of such a phenomenon can be claimed. Hence by the Law of Identity, contrary to your assertion, you cannot know “it’s possible.” In addition, you have yet to show that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is any less absolute than any other law of nature as I mentioned in a previous post. Conclusions from statistical thermodynamics like any other scientific discipline will only be as meaningful as the empirical data that supports it. No empirical data means by definition no statistical information and/or conclusions can rationally be possible.
Scientific knowledge by definition comprises only the facts and laws of nature. All conjecture (hypothesis, theories, theorums, wild-guesses, etc.) even though it may lead to discoveries and/or entertain people in no way constitute science.
You also wrote:
“BTW without Seebeck effect, a heat engine can do the same trick.”
Hmm! Yeah, that goes without saying. A heat engine like the internal combustion, steam engine, etc. can indeed provide energy to light the spark plug.
Thanks for the reply and have a great day!
BTW Poincare developed his theory in the mid 19th century. The recurrence theorem assumes volume-preserving phase space. This conflicts with the current understanding of mutable space as explained in the previous post.
Correction: Poincare developed his theories and did work in the later half of the 19th century and early 20th century from what I can tell.
Maybe the chemtrail wingnuts need a new cause to take up that has as much scientific validity as their current pet theory. It can fit in with the AGW crowd too.
http://www.bioresonant.com/news.htm
I found this website in a “global warming” google search.
@John
I will not reply anymore to explain. Apparently you cannot understand what Im saying or just refuse to believe. Disagreement is ok. Read the Physics of Immortality by Frank Tipler, a distinguished theoretical physicist. While his religious view IMO is nonsense, the book explains in detail the recurrence theorem, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics and cosmology much of what Im talking about here but will take too long to explain.
BTW your internal combustion engine and steam engine need fuel and spark plug needs electricity. As I said, no fuel, no electricity. But nevermind.
Oh yes Tipler also explained how all these relate to the concept of eternal return in philosophy.
Dr. Strangelove,
Thank you for the referral to Frank Tipler’s book. I was made aware of it some time ago.
Dr. Strangelove,
Thank you again for your reply. I have little time right now so I’ll try to be brief. Your post seems to contain multiple errors in logic and fact.
You wrote:
“Apparently you cannot understand what Im saying or just refuse to believe.”
That statement proves problematic. If your claims involved science belief and/or speculation would not be an issue. You would simply demonstrate by factual analysis based solely on known facts and scientific laws your claim. Which you failed to do. You should not need to rely on Frank Tipler.
You then complained:
“BTW your internal combustion engine and steam engine need fuel and spark plug needs electricity. As I said, no fuel, no electricity. But nevermind.”
This statement contains errors either deliberate or not. Your statement references my post on July 23, 2013 at 7:18 PM. In that post I referenced your quote to the effect:
BTW without Seebeck effect, a heat engine can do the same trick.
The quote mentions nothing about “no fuel, no electricity..” and neither does the entire post it came from dated July 23, 2013 at 2:15 AM. Your reference to “no fuel, no electricity” came from another prior post you made on July 22, 2013 at 12:27 AM. I don’t know if your mistake was intentional or not, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.
In addition, while internal COMBUSTION engines require COMBUSTIBLE/volatile fuel STEAM ENGINES DO NOT!
You may wish to research geothermal steam engines, solar steam generation engines, etc.
Thanks for your patience.
Sorry I don’t think further explanation will help since you cannot distinguish scientific laws from mathematical logic and proofs. Tipler’s work refer to the latter. Mathematical physics is more mathematics than physics. You refuse to believe that some logical deductions cannot be experimentally verified in principle or in practice. I had to refer to Tipler because I did not invent the recurrence theorem, statistical thermodynamics and cosmology. The ideas were taken from his book.
I’m referring to the same heat engine in all previous posts. No error there except your misunderstanding. Most steam engines use coal as fuel, except for the few powered by geothermal and solar. But my heat engine doesn’t need geothermal or solar either.
Dr. Strangelove,
Thank you for replying to my post.
You strangely wrote:
“Sorry I dont think further explanation will help since you cannot distinguish scientific laws from mathematical logic and proofs.”
Nothing could be further from the truth, I simply understand that mathematical logic and proofs can be derived from an assemblage of facts. No requirement exists for assumptions including any you, I or anyone else may make.
You went on to write:
“You refuse to believe that some logical deductions cannot be experimentally verified in principle or in practice.”
Au contraire! I’m quite certain numerous logical deductions cannot be experimentally verified.
In regards to Tipler, thank you again for the reference.
Need to rush! I’ll finish this post later. Thanks.
Dr. Strangelove,
To continue, you wrote:
“Im referring to the same heat engine in all previous posts. No error there except your misunderstanding. Most steam engines use coal as fuel, except for the few powered by geothermal and solar. But my heat engine doesnt need geothermal or solar either.”
Hmmh! You managed to make two erroneous statements in the first two sentences. First, the initial heat engine you discussed utilized thermoelectric cells employed with ice to generate current sufficient to ignite a spark plug. Your most recent heat engine apparently doesn’t utilize electricity. Second, I did not misunderstand your statement:
“BTW your internal combustion engine and steam engine need fuel and spark plug needs electricity.”
As to your heat engine that apparently does not require fuel and/or electricity and doesn’t require solar or geothermal input, please tell us what it is. I must confess, I tested you a little in a previous post. While, solar and geothermal energy heat engines do not require fuel their heat source does. Hydrogen apparently fuels thermonuclear reactions within the sun and geothermal heat likely involves fissile reactions deep within the earth. We observe emitted heat is an ELECTRO-MAGNETIC phenomenon (see James Clerk Maxwell). Since electricity/electrons represent the third part of atomic matter it seems unlikely that electro-magneticism will not play a role in your heat engine but I’m open minded. Thanks for your patience. I will be interested in your reply.
Please note this correction to my post above.
“We observe emitted heat as an ELECTRO-MAGNETIC phenomenon (see James Clerk Maxwell).”
Dr. Strangelove,
Regarding Frank Tipler, he did write:
“What you can show using physics, forces this universe to continue to exist. As long as you’re using general relativity and quantum mechanics you are forced to conclude that God exists.”
Frank Tipler
While general relativity and quantum mechanics remain theoretical constructs, the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics remains an ever present fact.
Thanks again.
If there actually was some conspiracy to add chemicals to jet fuel, ( and aviation gasoline – don’t forget all those B17 ‘chemtrail’ photos from WW2…) :
A) How does it survive being in jet fuel or combustion if it’s some form of biologic agent or complex molecule such as a nerve agent, (north of 1000 degrees C)?
B) Why has there not been a single known “whistle-blower” among pilots, jet fuel refineries, truckers/barge operators/pipeline techs, airplane mechanics/line service techs, private jet owners, etc.?
C) Why hasn’t someone gone aloft and collected a sample of the vapor or gotten a sample of the “poison” fuel?
D) Show me the FAA directive that allows for intentionally putting poison in jet fuel when in fact they are meticulous about keeping impurities OUT of aviation fuels?
E) Why aren’t people who work at large airports dying like flies by now from the poison exhaust of so many idling jet engines?
I think Occam’s Razor points to the answer for all of the above…
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