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<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>I apologize to all of you for sidetracking your
group, but another common example of what I recently tried to describe is
prominent now. Alll sorts of "scientists" claim that countless meterorites
they find, especially in <BR>Antarctica, came from Mars. No one seems to
have done ANY of the math necessary to make such a statement. First,
they must not realize the enormous and powerful rockets we must use in gettingn
to Mars. Most of the "speculators" claim that asteroids crash into Mars,
and such impacts cause incredibly ferocious volcanoes, which then launch chunks
of Mars out innto space. Have they not calculated the "escape
velocity" of Mars? You can't assume that you can simply throw a rock
up and expect it to escape Mars gravitation. Fairly simple math shows how
hard that is to do. Worse, thhey add in that other complication, of
blaming inbound asteroids of causing such hypersonic shock waves to pass through
Mars to initiate a volcanic eruption that would be momentous. Doing the
math regarding such things, incluuding the rarity of huge asteroids crashing
into the tiny planet Mars, is sort of hilarious. All that math is fairly
simple, so why haven't they done it before making declarative statements?
They don't even say "I think" but simply ASSUME that they are correct about
everything.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Next, say that somehow, Mars actually
lauhches some rock at enormous velocity upward. Do they not realizee what
a terrribly tiny dot in the sky the Earth is? Sure, if Mars is "spraying
out billions of objects every day", an occasional one may crash into
Antarctica. But clearly they have not donen the mamth which is necessary
to MAKE such a declarative stastement. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Third, they FIND their objects near the surface
of Antarctic. Do they not realize that such a meteorite had just
gone through our atmosphere and gotten white hot with friction, and it is coming
down at 20,000 mph or faster. In a continent which is covered with
thousands of feet thick ice, I would tend to wonder whether it might get
entirely through the thick ice in a twenty-thousandth of a second to hit
bedrock. But they wander around Antarctica looking for objects at or near
the surface. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>How can such people call themselves "scientists"
when they do such sloppy thinking. Yes, I realize that people without
education are excited about "pieces of Mars" available to us. So such
ideas get world news headlines, even without any merit.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>NONE of such people ever explin WHY they believe
what they do. Simply calculating the "space angle" that Antarctica
represents in the Martian sky, can show the actual chance that ANYTHING from
Mars might hit here. I did that math as a teenager long ago. You should
innstead plan on winning thousands of Lotteries, as the odds are far better
there. Yes, when a significant meteorite hits Earth, like Tunguska in
1908, some materials ARE launched upward a few thousand feet, per Newton.
And Earth Volcanoes DO launch small rocks a few miles upward, like
Krakatoa. But "escape velocity" is so much faster, no. It might have
happened ONCE in the Earth's four billion year life. Mars is even
recognized as being a COLD planet, so maybe even less likely there.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Again, if you preface a comment with "I think",
then you have the responsibility of explaining WHY in the next paragraph, so a
reader might see if there is any merit in your logic. And, in science,
vietually all that WHY is centered in math. </FONT></DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial></FONT> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT size=2 face=Arial>Carl Johnson</FONT></DIV>
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