181–190 of 244 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
He didn't say things heavier than air can't fly. Just that we can't make them... (and at the time, we didn't have any success making them - we did however had great success with "lighter than air" air displacement vehicles, namely hot air balloons).
If nature did it 3 times (more, we now know), it’s a bit presumptuous to say humans won’t be able to.
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...
So just keep in mind, what's written does not necessarily represent the scientific consensus, but the opinion of an enthusiastic amateur.
That said, given the explanation of the conservation of energy in the opening paragraphs, I wonder if this the original purpose was actually partly to convince the readers of The Presbyterian, presumably religious people familiar with the Genesis accounts of creation, that "young earth" creationist theories are incorrect: i.e.:
1. If the sun were burning a fuel -- even coal, one of the highest-energy fuels we know* -- it would be less than 5000 years old.
2. If rather the sun is incandescent, then it is at minimum 100 million years old.
3. Either way, 6000 years old doesn't fit.
(* I have no idea if this would have been true in 1863 or not)
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…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. This is somewhat misleading because the Sun is pretty much the sole energy source for keeping the surface of the Earth warm: > Despite its geological significance, this heat energy coming from Earth's interior is actually only 0.03% of Earth's total energy budget at the sur…
GP stated because it's warm underground
> if it was just down to the Sun this place would be uninhabitable
which implies surface.
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...
It's also worth noting that this is not an extract from a technical paper, but from the "Canadian Presbyterian", apparently a Christian journal; and not written by a professional scientist, but "Principal Leich". Someone feels the need to justify including information from such a source by prefacing it with: "Principal Leich seems to be perfectly familiar with mechanical science." So just keep in mind, what's written…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
If nature did it 3 times (more, we now know), it’s a bit presumptuous to say humans won’t be able to.
Nature has created conscious beings. It would be a bit presumptuous to assume humans will be able to do so too
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.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My older brother has founded two separate isotope dating companies, one for C-14 dating and the other for rare isotopes. At this point, he has about 15 years of experience in the field and a decent clientele. He believes the Earth is 6000 years old, though. He rationalizes the science he works on as (the biblical) God testing his faith. My father, who works at his C-14 company, also believes this. I will never unders…
Honestly, if God created the universe 6,000 years ago and made everything seem as if it were older—I mean, that’s just a fundamentally unfalsifiable metaphysical hypothesis. For all we know, God did that last week or maybe 5 seconds ago. There’s nothing stopping that hypothesis from being true, it just makes, by definition, no measurable or practical difference and is hence irrelevant to scientific inquiry.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's also worth noting that this is not an extract from a technical paper, but from the "Canadian Presbyterian", apparently a Christian journal; and not written by a professional scientist, but "Principal Leich". Someone feels the need to justify including information from such a source by prefacing it with: "Principal Leich seems to be perfectly familiar with mechanical science." So just keep in mind, what's written…
The 6000 year claim does not appear in Genesis, I do not know enough history to say but it's possible that YEC-ism is based on a modern invention of interpretation.
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…
Thanks! — Any idea how they worked this one out? > Assuming that the heat of the sun has been kept up by meteoric bodies falling into it, it is possible from the mass of the solar system to determine approximately the period during which the sun has shone. The limits lie between 100 millions and 400 millions of years.
The energy of a meteorite falling into the sun should be about 1/2 its escape velocity squared.
>>> sun_escape_vel = 617.5e3 # m/s
>>> sun_infall_energy = 0.5 * sun_escape_vel**2 * sun_mass # kg m/s^2 or J
>>> sun_infall_energy / sun_output / year
31586055.04077674
So mass falling into the sun could sustain its output for 31 million years.