---Epsilon---
What proof of climate change?
You don't have to supply proof, I believe the climate is changing.
That's a given from recorded history. The Earth goes through periods of warming and cooling. The last cooling period seems to have ended in the 1970's and the current warming period started.
What I don't belive is that the current warming trend is a problem created by man and that the Kyota accords is a solution.
The current temperatures aren't nearly as warm as when Greenland was colonized, most of the hype is about computer models that say it's going to continue and get worse not reversing itself as in the past.
I find it hard to believe the 30 year predictions of these computer models when these same models can't help me plan my crop 3 months in advanced.
Really weather prediction isn't even fully effective for 7 days. After planting we need roughly 7 days of no rain to successfully get a crop above the ground. We have several thousand dollars invested in the ground and the weather forecasters can't even predict a 7 day period with enough accuracy to keep me from having to replant or try and break the rain formed crust with a rotary hoe on a regular basis.
Why should I trust a forecast to the tune of billions of dollars set 30 years in the future, when it can't predict the next 7 days accurately enough to guide me in a several thousand dollar investment?
---Ayiekie---
Consensus? a general agreement or opinon of all the people consulted.
My point is that the peer review system which determines if a paper will actually be published only consults reviewers with the consensus opinion. When that consensus is currently wrong and very strongly held it can suppress information for years, decades or even centuries.
Mapemba Effect
It's a very good example do you not see how BLIND the thermodynamics engineers or scientist and for that matter all Engineers or scientist had to be.
Water is one of the most heavily used and carefully studied materials we have and you don't see anything wrong with the fact it wasn't until 1969 that it was noticed by professionals that hot water can freeze before cold water?
Over the centuries we will never know how many papers on experiments where the oddity of hot water freezing first was noted and resulted in the paper not being published because the reviewing peer's consensus opinion belived it could not be true.
In my training as an engineer both Mapemba and Dr. Osbourne were given as shining and exceedingly rare examples of what scientist or engineers should be.
BALL LIGHTNING
The early days of studying electricity such as you mention there was no consensus about it. In fact in 1753 I believe the majority of scientist were trying Benjamin Franklin's experiments with lightning to determine what it was. The incident you mention was in all likelyhood related to trying to reproduce Benjamin Franklin's 1752 experiment with a kite in a thunderstorm.
As the coming decades and centuries moved forward and research proved that lightning and the electricity generated by man were closely related a consensus was reached about both lightning and electricity.
That consensus opinion of lightning and electricity for many decades had no room for ball lightning with its eyewitness descriptions of never before seen effects.
These effects were not repeatably reproducable so all eyewitness accounts were discounted.
You mention Tesla and that proves my point Tesla like Mapemba is famous for not bowing to the consensus opinion. He is provided to engineers especially electrical engineers as an example of a brilliant scientist and engineer and also as an example of how not to present that ability to the people who pay for your research and buy your inventions. Tesla was known both for great skill and outlandish claims that cost him both in money and reputation.
I've had a few close encounters with ball lightning and that started a personal research campaign back in the mid 1980's. As a personal hobby I spent a couple of years methodically digging in the University Library's journal Archives and book collection trying to find every report and article dealing with lightning in general and ball lightning in paticular.
If I remember correctly up until the late 1920's or early 1930's the majority of the books, articles and other types of reports held the opinion that all descriptions of "ball lightning" were mental mistakes from the extreme conditions during observation. Most of the archived material I remember supported the idea that Tesla was making a mistake and he had been inspired to go up a blind alley researching something that was clearly at best a mental effect induced in the observer.
I believe most of the published books at my university had a "breakover" in the 1940's before that with very few exceptions they held to a consensus that is was a mental effect.
howard melton
What proof of climate change?
You don't have to supply proof, I believe the climate is changing.
That's a given from recorded history. The Earth goes through periods of warming and cooling. The last cooling period seems to have ended in the 1970's and the current warming period started.
What I don't belive is that the current warming trend is a problem created by man and that the Kyota accords is a solution.
The current temperatures aren't nearly as warm as when Greenland was colonized, most of the hype is about computer models that say it's going to continue and get worse not reversing itself as in the past.
I find it hard to believe the 30 year predictions of these computer models when these same models can't help me plan my crop 3 months in advanced.
Really weather prediction isn't even fully effective for 7 days. After planting we need roughly 7 days of no rain to successfully get a crop above the ground. We have several thousand dollars invested in the ground and the weather forecasters can't even predict a 7 day period with enough accuracy to keep me from having to replant or try and break the rain formed crust with a rotary hoe on a regular basis.
Why should I trust a forecast to the tune of billions of dollars set 30 years in the future, when it can't predict the next 7 days accurately enough to guide me in a several thousand dollar investment?
---Ayiekie---
Consensus? a general agreement or opinon of all the people consulted.
My point is that the peer review system which determines if a paper will actually be published only consults reviewers with the consensus opinion. When that consensus is currently wrong and very strongly held it can suppress information for years, decades or even centuries.
Mapemba Effect
It's a very good example do you not see how BLIND the thermodynamics engineers or scientist and for that matter all Engineers or scientist had to be.
Water is one of the most heavily used and carefully studied materials we have and you don't see anything wrong with the fact it wasn't until 1969 that it was noticed by professionals that hot water can freeze before cold water?
Over the centuries we will never know how many papers on experiments where the oddity of hot water freezing first was noted and resulted in the paper not being published because the reviewing peer's consensus opinion belived it could not be true.
In my training as an engineer both Mapemba and Dr. Osbourne were given as shining and exceedingly rare examples of what scientist or engineers should be.
BALL LIGHTNING
The early days of studying electricity such as you mention there was no consensus about it. In fact in 1753 I believe the majority of scientist were trying Benjamin Franklin's experiments with lightning to determine what it was. The incident you mention was in all likelyhood related to trying to reproduce Benjamin Franklin's 1752 experiment with a kite in a thunderstorm.
As the coming decades and centuries moved forward and research proved that lightning and the electricity generated by man were closely related a consensus was reached about both lightning and electricity.
That consensus opinion of lightning and electricity for many decades had no room for ball lightning with its eyewitness descriptions of never before seen effects.
These effects were not repeatably reproducable so all eyewitness accounts were discounted.
You mention Tesla and that proves my point Tesla like Mapemba is famous for not bowing to the consensus opinion. He is provided to engineers especially electrical engineers as an example of a brilliant scientist and engineer and also as an example of how not to present that ability to the people who pay for your research and buy your inventions. Tesla was known both for great skill and outlandish claims that cost him both in money and reputation.
I've had a few close encounters with ball lightning and that started a personal research campaign back in the mid 1980's. As a personal hobby I spent a couple of years methodically digging in the University Library's journal Archives and book collection trying to find every report and article dealing with lightning in general and ball lightning in paticular.
If I remember correctly up until the late 1920's or early 1930's the majority of the books, articles and other types of reports held the opinion that all descriptions of "ball lightning" were mental mistakes from the extreme conditions during observation. Most of the archived material I remember supported the idea that Tesla was making a mistake and he had been inspired to go up a blind alley researching something that was clearly at best a mental effect induced in the observer.
I believe most of the published books at my university had a "breakover" in the 1940's before that with very few exceptions they held to a consensus that is was a mental effect.
howard melton