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Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#131

Post by hansbo »

yongjik wrote: post #62
_bxg1 wrote: post #7

My personal favorite "old science" theory: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether > Luminiferous aether or ether[1] ("luminiferous", meaning "light-bearing") was the postulated medium for the propagation of light.[2] It was invoked to explain the ability of the apparently wave-based light to propagate through empty space, something that waves should not be able to do. The assumption of a spatial plenum o…

It wasn't that far-fetched as it sounds now: using Maxwell's equation, one can easily derive the speed of light, c. But then the question is: speed relative to what ? Because Maxwell's equation doesn't tell exactly what it is relative to. But, as we all know, speed is relative, so it must be relative to something - then the something ought to be the medium for light. So people started looking for it - and it refused…

I always found this fascinating. The enormous shift in physics that occurred in the early 20th century must have been so exciting to experience first hand.

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#133

Post by [deleted] »

tlb wrote: post #83

Just checkin' the math: >>> sun_output = 3.828e26 # watts >>> sun_mass = 2e30 # kg >>> coal_energy_density = 30e6 # W*s/kg >>> year = 365*86400 >>> sun_mass * coal_energy_density / sun_output / year 4970.1868313110635 So (assuming a magical supply of oxygen) a lump of coal the mass of the sun could burn with the brightness of the sun for 4970 years Numbers from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun and https://en.wikiped…

[deleted]

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#134

Post by QuesnayJr »

DiabloD3 wrote: post #23
empath75 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not all that far off from the electromagnetic field.

Not only that, cosmic plasma filaments carrying charged dust around is the most likely explanation for the "missing" matter and energy that two Nobels were handed out for the, continued, non-discovery. I do not understand why the Aether was ridiculed, but Dark (Matter|Energy) are not. They both depend on something we can't see or detect in any way, and Occam's Razor dictates that, without further evidence, I have to…

It's wrong to ridicule aether. It was a theory, the theory was tested, and it turned out to be wrong. Lots of theories are wrong. It's not like scientists at the time were stupid. James Clerk Maxwell believed that an aether was required, and he was literally the first person to write down the full set of equations for electromagnetism. Occam's razor doesn't tell us that aether is less parsimonious than "Literally, time slows down when you go faster. Also, light is a particle and a wave at the same time. Kind of."

Aether suffered from clear problems as an idea as the long list of weird properties it had to satisfy, and the list only got longer and longer. Dark matter isn't like that at all -- it's easy to add to our theories that there's a particle that is invisible but has mass. There's no Michaelson-Morley experiment that's extremely hard to explain.

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#136

Post by Ovah »

AareyBaba wrote: post #90
philipkglass wrote: post #60

Here is the longer original article, scanned by Google Books and hosted by the HathiTrust project: "Age of the Sun -- Force and Heat" Scientific American Vol IX -- No. 7 August 15 1863 https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uva.x001601382&view=1...

Interesting to read. The Sun is referred to as 'he' and people were just beginning to understand how heat energy and mechanical energy could be transformed into one another. "He has enlightened our globe from one generation to another without any apparent diminution of strength, and we have formed the instinctive belief that no limit in the past or any in the future can be assigned to his functions. No proof of progr…

In old Swedish (~19th century) nouns were divided into three grammatical genus: femininum, masculinum and neutrum. Dead objects could be referred to as either he or she:

- earth, sun and time are feminine words and can to this day still be referred to as 'she'

- heaven, road and stone were referred to as 'he', although this has disappeared from modern Swedish.

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#138

Post by redis_mlc »

michaelmrose wrote: post #128
tialaramex wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure it's helpful to describe this 1863 article as "reasoned bollocks" In this same timeframe Kelvin supposes the Earth cannot possibly be billions of years old because it's warm underground. You can measure and verify that the Sun can't be keeping the Earth this warm, if it was just down to the Sun this place would be uninhabitable. Nothing could be this warm after cooling down for billions of years with jus…

Kelvin also publicly stated we would never have heavier than air flying machines.

To be fair to Kelvin, it was a reasonable opinion at the time:

1) Half of the aviation pioneers died trying.

2) The Wright brothers were truly overachievers, devising a control system, early aviation engine (1903) and wind tunnel.

3) Producing light-weight, reliable and powerful aviation engines took over 20 years. The Atlantic crossing only became survivable after the Wright Brothers made the Whirlwind J-5 radial engine (1925):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wright_R-790_Whirlwind

For millennia, the pursuit of flying was about as successful as perpetual motion or alchemy.

What's interesting is that it was possible to make gliders for thousands of years. The secret ingredient is to glue fabric along the frame, not sew.

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#139

Post by riffraff »

ardy42 wrote: post #124
AareyBaba wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to read. The Sun is referred to as 'he' and people were just beginning to understand how heat energy and mechanical energy could be transformed into one another. "He has enlightened our globe from one generation to another without any apparent diminution of strength, and we have formed the instinctive belief that no limit in the past or any in the future can be assigned to his functions. No proof of progr…

> The Sun is referred to as 'he' I wonder if they picked pronouns for the planets in accordance with the associated gods of Greco-Roman mythology? IIRC, the Greco-Roman sun gods were all male (e.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helios ). If I'm correct they'd use male pronouns for the sun, Mars, and Jupiter; and female pronouns for Earth, the Moon (Luna), and Venus.

Latin has grammatical genres, "Sol, Solis" is masculine and "Luna, Lunae" is female.

It seems more likely to me that people just kept using the latin genres since old scientific literature was in latin.

Re: Experts Doubt the Sun Is Burning Coal (1863)

#140

Post by kd5bjo »

Ovah wrote: post #136
AareyBaba wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting to read. The Sun is referred to as 'he' and people were just beginning to understand how heat energy and mechanical energy could be transformed into one another. "He has enlightened our globe from one generation to another without any apparent diminution of strength, and we have formed the instinctive belief that no limit in the past or any in the future can be assigned to his functions. No proof of progr…

In old Swedish (~19th century) nouns were divided into three grammatical genus: femininum, masculinum and neutrum. Dead objects could be referred to as either he or she: - earth, sun and time are feminine words and can to this day still be referred to as 'she' - heaven, road and stone were referred to as 'he', although this has disappeared from modern Swedish.

Icelandic retains the full 3-gender system to this day, and it’s generally incorrect to refer to gendered inanimate objects as “it”, rather than “he” or “she”.
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