The Greenhouse Gas Effect is a Scientific Impossibility
The greenhouse gas theory( GHGT) is a theory claiming that certain gas molecules in the atmosphere are inhibiting the Earth from transmitting heat into space. There is great debate about what role different gases play in heating and cooling and the accuracy of certain assumptions of data. It turns out that these arguments are irrelevant because the basic assumption of the theory is wrong and based on ignorance of science.
Every object with a temperature above absolute zero radiates energy and every object absorbs radiated energy. Any movement of an atom creates a disturbance in the electromagnetic field that transmits energy to other objects. Energy tries to equalize between objects but radiating energy is not a very effective or efficient means of transferring energy. The distance between objects and the difference in their energy determine the effectiveness of the energy exchange. The further apart objects are and the smaller the difference between their energy levels, the less effective the transfer of energy by radiation.
The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy. In order for the Earth to lose heat, we expect it to transfer energy to an object that is cooler. This is basic conservation of energy and is a foundation of physics and the way heat or energy flows from higher levels to lower levels is basic thermodynamics. People’s ignorance of the distinction between radiating energy and losing heat is central to their belief in the GHGT.
Another factor contributing to the belief in this theory is people’s ignorance about the difference between heat and temperature. Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy. Objects radiate heat they do not radiate temperature. Temperature is not only a function of the kinetic energy striking the measuring device but also the number of molecules transferring energy to the measuring device. A two hundred degree oven and a two hundred degree pot of water have the same temperature but the amount of heat contained is completely different. You can put your hand into a two hundred degree oven without ill effect, but you do not want to put your hand into two hundred degree water.
Because there is over a million time less molecules in a gas than in a liquid temperature does not give an accurate measurement of heat in a gas. People who fly see evidence of this discrepancy. The state of water, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, depends of the balance between the attractive force between the gas molecules and the kinetic energy of the molecules. The attractive force is determined by the shape of the water molecules and is constant, so the state of water is an indicator of the kinetic energy of the molecules. If the attractive force is greater than the kinetic energy the water is a solid, if the two forces are approximately equal the water is liquid, and if the kinetic energy is greater the water is a gas. When flying at thirty thousand feet you often encounter rain storms where liquid water is hitting the plane. The pilot has told you that the temperature outside the plane is minus thirty degrees but the water tells you the kinetic energy of the molecules at thirty thousand feet is far greater than what the temperature indicates.
As there is an increase in altitude the density, or number of gas molecules per volume, decreases. If the kinetic energy of these molecules were also decreasing with increasing altitude a graph of the temperature/altitude would show a smooth decreasing exponential curve as the altitude increases. This is not the results we get when measuring temperature and altitude. A graph of the measured temperature/altitude show the temperature decreasing from two hundred eighty eight Degrees Kelvin to two hundred thirteen degrees Kelvin as the altitude increases to fifteen thousand feet. At this point the temperature begins to increase to two hundred twenty four degrees Kelvin until it reaches fifty thousand feet, where in again begins to descend.
This S curve is typical where a value is the result of two variables, one increasing while the other is decreasing. Since we know by measurement that the number of molecules, or density, is decreasing with increasing altitude, this graph would indicate the kinetic energy of the molecules is increasing with altitude. If we divide the measured temperature at an altitude by the density of the molecules at that altitude the graph converts to a smooth exponential increasing curve indicating that the kinetic energy, or heat of the molecules, increases with altitude.
This result is what should be expected. Since the atmosphere is transparent the molecules in it are exposed to the light from the sun longer than the molecules on the surface of the Earth. The reason it is light before sunrise and after sunset is because the sun is continuing to transfer energy to molecules in the atmosphere which are then radiating energy. The higher you go in altitude the longer the molecules are exposed to the energy of the sun and the greater the intensity of the energy striking the molecules. You would expect these molecules to have more heat than molecules lower in the atmosphere. Science demands that this be the case. When you heat an unconfined gas, adding energy to the molecules, it expands and becomes less dense. If you cool a gas, removing energy from the molecules, it contracts and becomes denser. The less dense molecules high in the atmosphere must be hotter than the denser molecules lower in the atmosphere.
Evidence supporting this conclusion is misinterpreted by meteorologist in reporting the weather. They report that the temperature will be higher on a cloudy night than a clear night because the clouds act as a blanket insulating the Earth from losing heat into space. A cloud may look like a blanket but that is where the similarity ends. The insulating properties of a blanket are from the gas pockets trapped in the fabric. Because the molecules in a gas are far apart they do not conduct heat well. The vacuum of the upper atmosphere provides great insulation. Adding water droplets, in the form of clouds, does not increase the insulation any more than by using a wet blanket will keep you warmer than a dry blanket. What the water droplets do is increase the number of molecules and their efficiency in transferring heat. Cloudy nights are warmer because the water in the clouds is more effectively transferring heat from the hotter molecules in the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.
If the surface of the Earth is surrounded by a hotter atmosphere then it is a thermodynamically impossibility for the Earth to be losing heat into space. The greenhouse gas theory is nonsense and no more time, effort or money should be wasted on it.
Governments have wasted billions and billions of dollars promoting this theory for political reasons, trying to buy support for it. Some people have even come to believe that it is a proven fact because of the propaganda and ignorance of science. A lot of the blames for this goes to scientist who are looking to get funding rather than advancing science and will use any preposterous or tenuous reasoning to connect to the government gravy train. Resurrecting the Woolly Mammoths will not impact climate change.
Trackback from your site.
Dave Burton
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How is it possible that the editors here cannot recognize that this article is nonsense? For example (one of many), consider this statement:
“The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy. In order for the Earth to lose heat, we expect it to transfer energy to an object that is cooler.”
Anyone who cannot recognize that as nonsense ought to have his high school diploma revoked.
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John O'Sullivan
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Dave, Much of thermodynamics deals with three closely related concepts: temperature, energy, and heat. Most people’s difficulty with thermodynamics comes from confusing these three concepts with each other. Radiation transfer should not be assumed to be the same as heat transfer. Radiation can travel without imparting heat. An example is that a cooler object cannot make a warmer object even warmer even if the cooler object is radiating towards the warmer object.
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Dave Burton
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John, he just said that if a hot object emits radiation, it doesn’t cool (lose energy) by doing so, unless and until the radiation it emits happens to be absorbed somewhere.
Surely you can see that’s absolutely nuts.
Imagine two identical stars, in deep space. One of them has lots of planets orbiting it, so a significant fraction of the light it emits gets absorbed. The other has no planets at all, and there are no “cooler objects” within many light-years, so almost none of the light it emits gets absorbed, ever.
By Mr. Rose’s logic, the star with no planets loses no heat. Even if its thermonuclear fires went out, it would not cool off. It would just keep shining forever, and never consume any helium its fusion furnace, and never cool off, endlessly radiating free energy to the infinite depths of outer space.
When matter absorbs radiation it warms: the EM radiation is converted to thermal (kinetic) energy.
When matter emits radiation it cools: the thermal (kinetic) energy is converted to EM radiation.
Come ON, you can’t tell me you never heard that in school — maybe sometime around the fifth grade?
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John O'Sullivan
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Dave, haven’t you heard of non thermalized radiation? The star is shedding energy, not heat. You’ve conflated the two distinct and separate physical terms.
Consider:
1. As two 100 watt incandescent light bulbs are brought together, their filaments continue
to radiate 100 watts each, no matter how close they are.
2. As two focused reflecting headlights are directed at and approach each other, neither
emits more brightly due to absorption from the other.
3. Moonshine does not warm hot surfaces during daytime.
4. GHG Theory back-radiation is never observed in natural gas fired furnaces, forges and
boilers, heating flames even more. Engineers do not design radiant heat transfer
equipment on that basis.
5. As colder IR emitting clouds pass overhead, their down-welling IR, detected by
photometers, is not observed to be absorbed by hotter ground surfaces and is not reradiated
back up, warming the cold clouds in any way
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Dave Burton
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John, you are so confused. “Non thermalized radiation” is gibberish. It’s like saying, “non-caramelized bicycles.” Electromagnetic (EM) radiation does not come in “thermalized” and “non-thermalized” flavors.
When an EM photon is absorbed by matter, the matter warms, and the EM photon ceases to exist as a photon. The energy quanta is no longer radiation, it is kinetic (thermal) energy.
When matter emits EM the reverse happens.
Moonshine does, indeed, warm hot surface sin daytime — just not by enough for you to notice.
As colder IR emitting clouds pass overhead, their down-welling IR certainly is absorbed by hotter ground surfaces, and that warming is easily observed. Surely you must be aware of the fact that ground temperature cools faster and further at night under a clear sky.
I am so sick of the contra-scientific garbage published by PSI. You do more damage to climate realism than any climate alarmist ever could. You give climate skeptics everywhere a bad name.
Physics teacher
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No it’s not gibberish, Dave Burton. The electro-magnetic energy in radiation from a cold object to a warmer target only temporarily becomes electron energy (raising an electron through one or more quantum states) and that electron energy then immediately becomes the energy in outward photons identical to the incoming photons. This is a resonating process about which Prof Claes Johnson wrote years ago. The original photon’s energy is not converted to kinetic energy in this process.
But if the source is effectively “hotter” than the target (after attenuation due to distance and/or absorption or reflection) then SOME of the incident photons do not resonate and are thermalized. Those that are thermalized are represented by the area between the effective Planck functions or source and target, and engineers and physicists have been using this calculation for about a hundred years or more to calculate the heat transfer which is only ever from effectively hotter sources to cooler targets when that heat is by way of radiation.
Dave Burton
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If you’re really a physics teacher, I’m the Pope.
geran
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Well Dave, you may not be the pope, but you are certainly preaching the pseudoscience of Lukewarmism. Here’s just one example of your proselytizing :
“I am so sick of the contra-scientific garbage published by PSI. You do more damage to climate realism than any climate alarmist ever could. You give climate skeptics everywhere a bad name.”
You are the one most confused about photon absorption. I tried to explain to you, years ago, that not all photons are always absorbed. You didn’t learn then, and likely a few years in the future, you will still not have learned.
Look at a tree. You see the green leaves because green wavelengths are being REFLECTED. Not all photons are always absorbed. Absorption depends on wavelength. You just can’t understand that simple fact from basic physics.
John O'Sullivan
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No Dave, It is you who is confused. “Non thermalized radiation” is not gibberish. Radiation means energy that can be transferred without a medium in between. Electromagnetic (EM) radiation only becomes heat when it encounters matter (a medium). It is non thermalized at emission and is why a ‘hot’ star does not heat the vacuum of empty space around it.
James McGinn
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This is a dumb non-argument.
Dave:
“As colder IR emitting clouds pass overhead, their down-welling IR certainly is absorbed by hotter ground surfaces, and that warming is easily observed.”
JMcG:
All of you silly nitwits seem to be incapable of comprehending that you are talking past each other based on semantics. Dave, your statement here (above) is both true and false depending on how one denotes the concept of warming. If one assumes that warming involves receiving photons and converting them to kinetic energy then your statement is true. If one assumes that warming involves an increase of the measurable temperature in the entity receiving the photon (the ground in this instance) then your statement is false.
This whole stupid discussion goes back 5 years (starting with Joe Postma) and completely pivots off which of these two very different denotations of “warming” one assumes.
John, Dave is correct within the context of the denotation of “warming” that he is assuming.
Dave, John is correct within the context of the denotation of “warming” that he is assuming.
If you two nitwits would take time to be more deliberate about which of these two denotations of warming you are assuming the pointlessness of this continuing non-argument will become obvious to both of you.
In other words, as I pointed out to Joe Postma way back in 2013, all of the confusion and talking past each other goes away if you are careful to properly denotate which of these two very different denotation of “warming” you are assuming.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Pauling’s Omission: The original sin of the atmospheric sciences
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16937#p124765
Rob
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Heat is better described as energy density. A unit volume of substance decreases in temperature when it radiates energy. It really is that simple…
James McGinn
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Dave stated:
How is it possible that the editors here cannot recognize that this article is nonsense? For example (one of many), consider this statement:
“The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy. In order for the Earth to lose heat, we expect it to transfer energy to an object that is cooler.”
Anyone who cannot recognize that as nonsense ought to have his high school diploma revoked.
JMcG:
I agree. This is an absurd statement. (Possibly the author was listening to that irrepressible crank Joe Postma.) But it is a drop in the bucket of the absurdity that comes out of the mouths of meteorologists and the mouths of the numerous environmental activists that pose as climatologists.
The author made a number of other false and/or ignorant statements about H2O (see what I quoted below). But misunderstanding of water is as common as water. I guess what I’m saying here, is that the real travesty has to do with silly notions that both you and the author would agree with.
Tell us Dave, how it is that you’ve managed to ignore the flood of BS that starts with the silly notion that moist air contains gaseous H2O despite being now where near hot enough to be gaseous? And this unmeasured substance is what powers the storms in their/your cartoonish convection model of storms. (You know what I’m talking about; the convection model of storm theory; the one you spent a half an hour discussing in your meteorology 101 course and that has never been tested or measured in the 170 year history of the cult of meteorology.)
So, the discrepancy that you noticed is not the most of it. It is relatively minor in comparison to the flood of BS that results from meteorology’s superstitious thinking about storms and H2O. And this author, Herb Rose, is (in my opinion) guilty of adding to that superstition in that the following quote represents blatant misunderstanding of H2O:
Herb Rose stated: “The state of water, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, depends of the balance between the attractive force between the gas molecules and the kinetic energy of the molecules. The attractive force is determined by the shape of the water molecules and is constant, so the state of water is an indicator of the kinetic energy of the molecules. If the attractive force is greater than the kinetic energy the water is a solid, if the two forces are approximately equal the water is liquid, and if the kinetic energy is greater the water is a gas.”
All things considered, however, I think the author’s main point holds true:
“The greenhouse gas theory( GHGT) is . . . wrong and based on ignorance of science.” And the fact that you found one thing that is erroneous does not mean that we ignore the blatant nonsense coming from the mouths of climatologists and meteorologists.
Are You Confused About Hydrogen Bonding In Water?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfNuWJDJvRw
Pauling’s Omission: The Original Sin of the Natural Sciences
https://youtu.be/iIQSubWJeNg
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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Dave Burton
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Re: “…the silly notion that moist air contains gaseous H2O despite being now where near hot enough to be gaseous?”
Are you kidding? You think humidity is a hoax?
That’s where I stopped reading.
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Physics teacher
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Yes Dave. Our friend James McGinn also has some strange ideas, but you yourself (as John O’Sullivan pointed out) need to read the work of Prof Claes Johnson (and my comment to you above) about how radiation can just resonate and be re-emitted in a process of resonant (or “pseudo”) scattering which does not involve any thermalization. If it were thermalized then there could be a subsequent loss of thermal energy by conduction or evaporation into those water molecules (which certainly are in gaseous form at temperatures below boiling point) but then the first process due to that radiation would have decreased entropy, now wouldn’t it? And that never happens in natural processes.
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jerry krause
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Hi Physics Teacher,
When I studied chemistry I was taught that when considering the increase of entropy one needs to ask: What is the source of the photons? Plants are an example; Clearly if one only considers the earth system, it seems plants naturally order matter. But one cannot ignore what is occurring in the Sun that produces the radiation absorbed by the plants to produce this ordering of matter in the earth system.
Have a good day, Jerry
James McGinn
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Doug Cotton:
“. . . into those water molecules (which certainly are in gaseous form at temperatures below boiling point) . . .”
James McGinn:
Nonsense. You are just another dumbass engineer sheepishly going along with what everybody else believes for no reason other than that that is what everybody else believe. Science involves verifiable facts, not collective stupidity.
James McGinn
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LOL. Typical brain dead meteorologist. You can’t address my point so you mischaracterize it and ignore it.
Meteorology’s theory of storms depends on the pseudo-scientific supposition that H2O magically turns gaseous at temperatures well below the boiling temperature of H2O. This is impossible. And this theory is unsalvageable without this supposition.
We are living in times of great and overwhelming stupidity.
Climatological stupidity grew natural from a long standing tradition of meteorological stupidity.
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Jim McGinn
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So Dave
Isn’t it actually true that there is no direct evidence for the cold steam of your cut of your fairy tail storm theory?
Be honest.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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Jim McGinn
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Answer the question you evasive twit.
Physics teacher
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You all need to catch up on your reading because all this talk about radiation is irrelevant in regard to what determines surface temperatures in planets like Earth that have an atmosphere and a solid surface.
As Dr Hans Jelbring (PhD in climatology) explained in his peer-reviewed article published in a 2003 issue of the journal “Energy and Environment” that the surface temperatures can be determined from the temperature at the radiating altitude extrapolated along the expected temperature profile with a gradient that is based on the force of gravity divided by the weighted mean specific heat of the gases. This calculation works for all such planets.
However, the actual process involving the necessary heat transfer into the surface is not radiation at all, but a process that people have been talking about these last five years that is a result of the entropy maximisation that occurs in all natural processes in accord with the Second Law of Thermodynamics.
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Bob Armstrong
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Claims without testable equations are not science .
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Richard111
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“”Cloudy nights are warmer because the water in the clouds is more effectively transferring heat from the hotter molecules in the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.””
Phooey! Night time temperature does increase if previous day was warm and sunny and cloud cover appears after sunset and is extensive, but note local temperature NEVER rises above day time maximum.
The explanation for this is latent heat of the surface and back radiation from the cloud base. Absolutely nothing to do with upper atmospheric air temperature.
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Squidly
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Not to quibble (but I will), this is not necessarily true, in fact, it happens all the time in south eastern Washington State when Chinook winds roll in at night. It even happens elsewhere occasionally without those Chinook winds, but I digress.
I know I’m nitpicking, however, this is to illustrate that what you write about is full of exceptions and infinitely complicated relationships. A very poor place to participate in the “greenhouse effect” discussion, as it is completely irrelevant.
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Squidly
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I understand what the author is getting at, but I think he could have written this a little better and more understandable. I will not critique his authorship here but I will highlight an important fact in support of his conclusion.
There is a very simple explanation of why it is impossible to have said “greenhouse effect”, as follows:
Given two molecules, molecule (A) and molecule (B) .. there is a fundamental physical law that is universally consistent and cannot, without external work, under any circumstances, be broken. This is indisputable, proven and very well understood.
The “greenhouse effect” is simply not possible within this universe … full stop.
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jerry krause
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Hi Squidly,
“The microscopic definition of temperature is only meaningful in the thermodynamic limit, meaning for large ensembles of states or particles, to fulfill the requirements of the statistical model.” (Wiki) This is what I remember learning so long ago. “In statistical mechanics, a grand canonical ensemble is the statistical ensemble that is used to represent the possible states of a mechanical system of particles.” (Wiki) And I can remember pondering how many particles are required to compose a grand canonical ensemble; but I knew it was many, many, more than two.
Have a good day, Jerry
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Physics teacher
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What absolutely pathetic “physics” this article contains !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Temperature is NOT determined by the number of molecules: it is determined ONLY by the mean kinetic energy of the molecules.
Heat is not kinetic energy – it is an effective transfer of kinetic energy.
Of course a body loses some of its kinetic energy as a result of its radiating, even to Space. What a load of garbage to say it is not !!!!!!!!!!!
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Ross Handsaker
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This comment is for Dave Burton.
Consider a fully insulated empty room which is 20C and energy is being radiated from the ceiling, walls and floor. Place a very large object which is 10C in the room.
This object will also radiate energy, relative to its temperature, in all directions. While the total energy in the room has increased, will the equilibirium temperature of the room be less or more than 20C?
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James McGinn
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It will be less than 20C. Nobody disputes this. But it won’t resolve the disagreement.
Dave is a dimwit meteorologists. So he does not assume the same definition of warming that you assume. You assume that warming involves increase in temperature. Dave assumes warming involves exchange and absorption of photons. According to Dave’s dimwitted assumptions, all objects are warming each other constantly. And so, within the context of his dimwitted assumptions, Dave is right.
Meteorologists are the dumbest of the dumb. This kind of wholescale dimwittedness underlies simple models that appeal to the lowest common denominator of a public that doesn’t want to be bothered with factual details.
There is layer upon layer of dimwittedness in the atmospheric sciences. Starting with a dimwitted misunderstanding of H2O, going all the way back to an error that Linus Pauling made some 70 years ago, we have a dimwitted, oversimplified understanding of role of H2O in the atmosphere: the dimwitted convection model of storm theory and atmospheric flow. And this set the stage for the continuing dimwittedness of the climate clowns and equally dimwitted slayers as they continually talk past each other achieving absolutely nothing.
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jerry krause
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Hi Debaters,
Am I to believe you can debate about what happens to an absorbed photon without reading the name of Einstein. Was Feynman wrong when he taught (The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 42-9): “Thus Einstein assumed that there are three kinds of processes: an absorption proportional to the intensity of light, an emission proportional to the intensity of light, called induced emission or sometimes stimulated emission, and a spontaneous emission independent of light.”?
Maybe I’m wrong, but I assume that the spontaneous emission is that defined by the S-B Law which requires a grand canonical ensemble of absorbers and emitters.
Have a good day, Jerry
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geran
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Jerry, it’s hard to know, with all the assumptions and quotes out of context, but “spontaneous emission” may be referring to the quantum level, which is more associated with “E = hf” than the S/B equation.
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jerry krause
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Hi Geran,
I referenced the source of my assumptions and quotes. So you, if you are really interested, could read the text that provides the context of Einstein’s assumption. I admit that I do not pretend to follow the theoretical reasoning that Feynman is calling to the attention of his students. The Feynman Lectures are available online so you have not excuse for not providing the context. To me it is enough the Feynman taught that it was found that Einstein’s assumptions were valid. My point was that until you consider what Einstein assumed about absorption and emission you maybe are not playing with a full deck. Just as until I read some reference to what Feynman taught his students about colloidal scattering (the Tyndall Effect) (Feynman Lectures, 32-8,9) I do not considered an author is playing with a full deck. Yes, I ponder, but don’t claim to know, if the long observed Tyndall Effect is related to Einstein’s assumptions or if the two phenomena are independent of each other.
But I know it is wrong to ignore (not consider) the existence of either phenomenon.
Have a good day, Jerry
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geran
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“Spontaneous emission” is about photon creation. The Tyndall Effect is about how photons are NOT absorbed. The two phenomena are different.
Think of it as two different cards in the full deck you are trying to assemble.
Does that help?
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James McGinn
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Geran:
The Tyndall Effect
:
JMcG:
I bet this “Tyndal Effect” is fiction. Prove me wrong. Go ahead.
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geran
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The “Tyndall effect” is something that is easily observed.
That doesn’t mean that everyone can “see”.
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James McGinn
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Its meaningless rhetoric.
Like many notions in meteorology and climatology, its purpose is to distract inquisitors from realizing that you model is worthless.
geran
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4MVEpS0tvk
jerry krause
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Hi Geran,
“Spontaneous emission” is about photon creation.” Isn’t the Stefan-Boltzmann Law about the rate of conversion of matter’s kinetic energy into photons?
“The Tyndall Effect is about how photons are NOT absorbed.” No, the Tyndall Effect is an observation that photons are NOT absorbed but are instead scattered (a completely different phenomenon than the absorption of photons). Feynman explained his understanding how it was that we see clouds and do not see the water vapor in a given volume of atmosphere until a portion of this water vapor (water molecules) condense to form cloud droplets (which individually still are too small to see with our naked eyes) but which become plainly visible as the vapor begins to condense into many, many, water droplets throughout the given atmospheric volume. I have yet to read another author who explains what Feynman taught his students (Feynman Lectures, 32-8,9).
Now, relative the importance of Feynman’s explanation is he summarized the result beyond the observed fact that we can see white clouds. “So as the water agglomerates the scattering increases. Does it increase ad infinitum? No! When does this analysis begin to fail? How many atoms can we put together before we cannot drive this argument any further? Answer: If the water drop gets so big that from one end to the other is a wavelength or so, then the atoms are no longer all in phase because they are too far apart. So as we keep increasing the size of the droplets we get more and more scattering, until such a time that a drop gets about the size of a wavelength, and then the scattering does not increase anywhere nearly as rapidly as the drop gets bigger. Furthermore, the blue disappears, because for long wavelengths the drops can be bigger, before this limit is reached, than they can be for short wavelengths. Although the short waves scatter more per atom than the long waves, there is a bigger enhancement for the red end of the spectrum than for the blue end when all the drops are bigger than the wavelength, so the color is shifted from the blue toward the red.”
What Feynman did not review is what would seem to have to happen as the radiation becomes the invisible near IR and the invisible far IR. For those who study cloud droplets generally conclude that the diameter of a common cloud droplet is about 20 microns. Hence, I conclude these common cloud droplets must scatter the invisible far IR, being emitted by the earth’s surface, much, much, more strongly than they scatter red visible light.
So this is the full deck I use to understand the earth-atmosphere’s radiation balance system.
Have a good day, Jerry
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geran
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Jerry, it would appear the more you struggle to disagree, the more you agree.
Personally, I’m kind of a “brevity is the soul of wit” guy, but your directionless rambling doesn’t bother me at all.
Knock yourself out.
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Philip
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Good stuff! Which is the one true science? I guess it depends on whichever science is most useful to believe. Entropy remains a real bitch!
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tom
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In basically every single issue, conservatives are about a hundred years behind everyone else. Y’all don’t even accept evolution as scientifically valid, and with just a high school physics education and a few classes in geology and astronomy in college, I can point out numerous completely farcical statements in this article. It’s cool though, when you guys can’t find evidence for conservativer beliefs you just make crap up, over and over again.
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geran
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Well done, Tom. And, as you doubtless know from all your college astronomy, your timing coincides almost exactly with the full moon.
Would you like to point out where the article violates any established science from either astronomy or geology?
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Robert
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Typical liberal jerk throwing out baseless accusations.
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Gymbo
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“Would you like to point out where the article violates any established science from either astronomy or geology?”
There are so many violations but here are a few with reputable rebuttals !
“The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy.”
Seriously – this is one of the most absurd assertions ever made.
Your claim is explicitly stating that the experiment conducted by the University of Ireland and published here is wrong –
http://www.physics.ucc.ie/staff/Didfyz%20paper.pdf
“Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy.”
Every real science definition of thermodynamics properties says you are the one who is completely wrong – for example:-
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/heat.html
“Heat may be defined as energy in transit from a high temperature object to a lower temperature object. An object does not possess “heat”; the appropriate term for the microscopic energy in an object is internal energy. The internal energy may be increased by transferring energy to the object from a higher temperature (hotter) object – this is properly called heating.”
Note – “An object does not possess “heat””.
Note – “the appropriate term for the microscopic energy in an object is internal energy.”
Who- besides the author – says “Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy.” ?
No-one – kinetic energy as temperature is really only relevant to gases as hundreds of years of experiment indicate. Liquids display other characteristic physical property changes with increases in internal energy that are not necessarily manifest as an increase in temperature or kinetic energy. the most obvious property in this definition is changes in viscosity without increasing in temperature – note gases can be considered a special type of “liquid” and hence change in viscosity.
If the author had studied any real science one can only imagine he slept through much of the course preferring his own version.
“If the surface of the Earth is surrounded by a hotter atmosphere then it is a thermodynamically impossibility for the Earth to be losing heat into space.”
So gases do not radiate to space despite your statement “Every object with a temperature above absolute zero radiates energy ….” ?
“Every object with a temperature above absolute zero …. and every object absorbs radiated energy.”
Surely the spectra of gases show that statements like this are just meaningless ?
Gases exhibit line spectra meaning that only certain wavelengths of radiation actually are absorbed whilst the vast majority are not ! This fact alone discredites the “radiative equilibrium” hypothesis.
We could go on all day about why the statements in this article are wrong but why bother when even the simplest definitions are ignored by the author ?
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geran
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Yeah, the author got some of the definitions messed up, but not the major points. These have already been discussed. That’s why I specifically asked “Tom” about “astronomy or geology”. Those areas appeared to be his areas of interest and “expertise”.
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Gymbo
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“Yeah, the author got some of the definitions messed up, but not the major points.”
I completely disagree.
The author made a statement of (his opinion) fact that is absurd by any measure – “Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy.”
Kinetic energy makes no sense in relation to solids and almost no sense in liquids – and he is claiming “Heat” is contained within any object. In solids the concepts of stress and strain relate to temperature changes or other changes in internal energy.
But his statement – “The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy.” – is simply nonsense.
With the Universal gas laws calculating a near surface temperature of an ideal gas at Earth’s surface as ~294 K and real evidence that daily the sun’s radiation heats ground surfaces to a maximum recorded temperature of ~70.7°C IF “Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy” then surely he is advocating a runaway heating of Earth up to the maximum the Sun’s radiation is capable of inducing ?
Clearly this is not true.
As clearly proven in the experiment at http://www.physics.ucc.ie/staff/Didfyz%20paper.pdf objects CAN radiate energy in a vacuum and “lose heat” or “kinetic energy” or whatever.
The resistor declines in temperature in the vacuum jar by radiation alone and this loss of temperature is the very definition of heat transfer.
My car has a mass of 1500 kg and when traveling at 60 km per hour has kinetic energy of 416,667 J – what is its temperature ?
The gas laws applied to pumping my car tyre up do not reflect reality – the tyre does not remain at the calculated temperature.
The article is based on a total misunderstanding of fundamental concepts and some of the assertions are obviously ludicrous !
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geran
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Gymbo, I’m surprised you missed this one: “If the surface of the Earth is surrounded by a hotter atmosphere then it is a thermodynamically impossibility for the Earth to be losing heat into space.”
You could pick that apart also, because he didn’t specify that the atmosphere would be radiating to space.
That’s what “peer review” is all about.
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James McGinn
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I think this paper was mostly accurate. But it completely breaks down when the author addresses H2O.
Herb Rose:
The state of water, whether it is solid, liquid, or gas, depends of the balance between the attractive force between the gas molecules and the kinetic energy of the molecules.
JMcG:
I think what you are trying to say here is that the phase of H2O is greatly effected by differences in pressure.
Herb Rose:
The attractive force is determined by the shape of the water molecules and is constant,
JMcG:
Actually, the attractive force of H2O is highly variable and H bonds themselves are the mechanism of this variability. This fact underlies that incredibly complex behavior that is associated with H2O’s numerous anomalies:
Pauling’s Ommission:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iIQSubWJeNg&t=1740s
Herb Rose:
. . . so the state of water is an indicator of the kinetic energy of the molecules. If the attractive force is greater than the kinetic energy the water is a solid, if the two forces are approximately equal the water is liquid, and if the kinetic energy is greater the water is a gas. When flying at thirty thousand feet you often encounter rain storms where liquid water is hitting the plane. The pilot has told you that the temperature outside the plane is minus thirty degrees but the water tells you the kinetic energy of the molecules at thirty thousand feet is far greater than what the temperature indicates.
JMcG:
I think you are one of the many victims of the popularistic delusion that H2O is simple and well understood. Actually, H2O is the most complex and confoundingly mysterious chemical known to science.
There are two reasons for the high altitude wetness of H2O that you indicate here: 1) It’s freezing temperature is lower at lower pressure. 2) Smaller droplets are more easily supercooled liquid. Also, due to the high heat capacity of H2O, a cloud can be much warmer than the surrounding drier air. So, I guess that makes 3 reasons.
Herb Rose:
What the water droplets do is increase the number of molecules and their efficiency in transferring heat. Cloudy nights are warmer because the water in the clouds is more effectively transferring heat from the hotter molecules in the upper atmosphere to the surface of the Earth.
JMcG:
Sorry to say, but, this is completely wrong. (Be aware that H2O in the atmosphere is never gaseous [vapor is not gaseous, it is liquid]. And liquid H2O has a high heat capacity. So, as it rises it brings a lot of heat with it from the ground. (Also, pooled liquid H2O has the ability to conducts heat rapidly. But not as a liquid vapor.)
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
The ‘Missing Link’ of Meteorology’s Theory of Storms
http://
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16329
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
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Gymbo
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“Yeah, the author got some of the definitions messed up, but not the major points.”
I completely disagree.
The author made a statement of (his opinion) fact that is absurd by any measure – “Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy.”
Kinetic energy makes no sense in relation to solids and almost no sense in liquids – and he is claiming “Heat” is contained within any object. In solids the concepts of stress and strain relate to temperature changes or other changes in internal energy.
But his statement – “The mere fact that the Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy.” – is simply nonsense.
With the Universal gas laws calculating a near surface temperature of an ideal gas at Earth’s surface as ~294 K and real evidence that daily the sun’s radiation heats ground surfaces to a maximum recorded temperature of ~70.7°C IF “Earth is radiating energy into space does not mean that is losing heat or kinetic energy” then surely he is advocating a runaway heating of Earth up to the maximum the Sun’s radiation is capable of inducing ?
Clearly this is not true.
As clearly proven in the experiment at http://www.physics.ucc.ie/staff/Didfyz%20paper.pdf objects CAN radiate energy in a vacuum and “lose heat” or “kinetic energy” or whatever.
The resistor declines in temperature in the vacuum jar by radiation alone and this loss of temperature is the very definition of heat transfer.
My car has a mass of 1500 kg and when traveling at 60 km per hour has kinetic energy of 416,667 J – what is its temperature ?
The gas laws applied to pumping my car tyre up do not reflect reality – the tyre does not remain at the calculated temperature.
The article is based on a total misunderstanding of fundamental concepts and some of the assertions are obviously ludicrous.
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Physics teacher
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Every comment above implying that radiation to Earth’s surface determines its temperature is wrong. So too is the first paper (by J.Postma) published on this PSI site years ago and never retracted, despite their “Peer Review in Open Media” policy, because Postma also gets his calculations wrong and makes hand-waving assertions that, because the Sun’s radiation can warm some areas to high temperatures then, he thinks, it can explain the mean surface temperature. But it comes nowhere near doing do. Even climatologists know that the Solar radiation can only maintain a sub-zero temperature at the so-called radiating altitude. So how could it maintain a higher temperature at the surface when Stefan Boltzmann calculations imply a maximum of 233K for the mean of 168W/m^2 of solar radiation? What really happens was in the paper PSI rejected in 2013 because Postma said that paper was wrong. Well he would, wouldn’t he, seeing that it proved his paper wrong.
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lifeisthermal
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This statement is wrong:
“Heat is the kinetic energy of an object and temperature is how we measure that energy”
Temperature is a measure of the average kinetic energy of the molecules in a body, so far it’s correct. But heat is defined as the energy in transfer between bodies/objects/areas of different temperature.
“heat is a type of energy transfer in which energy flows from a warmer substance or object to a colder one”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat
Any transfer from cold to hot, must be in the form “work”.
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Robert Kernodle
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Really?
“… the silly notion that moist air contains gaseous H2O despite being now where near hot enough to be gaseous”
So, this person, in all his seeming wisdom, seems to think that water cannot become a gas unless it is at the boiling point. This blows my mind. How does one explain EVAPORATION ? Water does NOT have to boil to become gaseous — it can evaporate at any temperature above freezing.
Just WOW !
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James McGinn
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LOL. All you got is name calling, you fucking moron.
Explain why you think evaporation proves that the evaporate is gaseous H2O, you silly twit.
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Robert Kernodle
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Quote exactly where I called anyone a name.
You, on the other hand, called ME “a fucking moron” and a “silly twit”.
The only name I WILL call you here, then, is a mistaken soul. Maybe you heard names in your mind — I’d be interested in what those inner voices told you that those names were.
Now to attempt an answer to your question, “Explain why you think evaporation proves that the evaporate is gaseous H2O, you silly twit”, … without taking your name calling too seriously, of course:
The reason I think evaporation proves that evaporated water is gaseous stems from observations like those discussed here:
https://physics.stackexchange.com/questions/10470/how-does-water-evaporate-if-it-doesnt-boil
and here:
https://www.difference.wiki/evaporation-vs-vaporization/
Basically, as I am understanding it, what happens to water at boiling point and what happens to water below boiling point are basically the same things, BUT a different speeds.
If you sit out a glass of water, then you will notice, in a few days, that a fair amount of the water seemingly disappears. Where did it go? What happened to it? It did not just disappear from existence – it vaporized and became part of the air. How did it go into the air in a way that it could not be seen? ANSWER: It changed phases into a gas.
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James McGinn
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Just like AGW advocates with CO2 forcing, meteorologists have a vested interest in you believing that H2O turns to steam in the atmosphere because this notion is essential to the perceived validity of their stock explanation of storms. In other words, without this notion their model of storms completely falls apart. So, there is a tacit agreement amongst meteorologists about discussing storm theory–they won’t even discuss it with each other. It’s literally a taboo subject.
Your links are worthless and don’t support your argument. I didn’t even look at them because the fact that you didn’t quote them directly tells me all I need to know.
There is no fucking steam in earth’s atmosphere.
Disputing The Existence of ‘Cold Steam’ in the Atmosphere
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16851
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Robert Kernodle
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Well, James M.,
If you don’t look at my links, then I certainly will NOT look at yours.
Let me encourage you to reconsider looking at them, because I’d like to know how you think the information presented there is wrong, from your point of view.
I did give what I thought was a brief summary in one sentence about what those links stated — namely, that water vapor can enter the air either by evaporation of by boiling.
I do not believe that meteorologists believe that steam is in the atmosphere. I believe that meteorologists believe that water VAPOR is in the air. Steam is water vapor near the boiling point. Water vapor, however, can exist BELOW the boiling point.
James McGinn
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Anything that can be imagined can be believed. But the things that are believed most deeply and by the most people are the things that require no imagination.
Nano-droplets of H2O that contain fewer than 500 molecules are invisible.
James McGinn
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R.K.
I did give what I thought was a brief summary in one sentence about what those links stated — namely, that water vapor can enter the air either by evaporation of by boiling.
JMcG:
I don’t give a flying fuck about your opinion, moron. If you have a link to REPRODUCIBLE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE that H2O magically defies its known boiling temperature/pressure then present it. If not then admit that you don’t and kindly go away.
James McGinn
Are you confused about Hydrogen Bonding in water? (Video)
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17078
Robert Kernodle
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James, you wrote:
“I don’t give a flying fuck about your opinion, moron. If you have a link to REPRODUCIBLE EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE that H2O magically defies its known boiling temperature/pressure then present it. If not then admit that you don’t and kindly go away.”
James, what you mistakenly call an “opinion” is, in truth, a brief, informal sentence-or-so summary of ideas BASED on the most broadly accepted atomic and molecular theory.
Water CAN become vapor WITHOUT “defying its known boiling temperature/pressure”. It does NOT have to boil to be a gas. Again, it’s called “evaporation”.
How is evaporation NOT a phase-change process of water moving from liquid-or-solid to gas? Quoting a link to your own OPINIONS somewhere else does NOT suffice as a sufficient reference to support your own wild claims.
Also, what you do or do not “give a flying fuck about” is really of no concern to me. I do NOT feel any more of a moron for pointing all this out, and so I WILL kindly stay, thank you.
Robert Kernodle
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This is pretty much how I think of it:
“Water doesn’t become steam before 100°C. It turns into water vapours.
There is a difference between steam and vapours. Though both are gaseous forms of water but steam is when water reaches its boiling point and water vapours are formed during evaporation.
Boiling point is when the pressure of a particle (or water in this case) in liquid state exerted to its condensed form (liquid water) equals the atmospheric pressure. Or in easy words, the point at which water molecules have enough energy that they break the cohesive force between them (formed by the vapor pressure) and get loose to wander freely is boiling point.
Evaporation is a surface phenomenon, unlike boiling. If you mark a water molecule X when water is at room temperature (and sea level atmospheric pressure), it wont be converted into gaseous state unless it reaches surface. Whereas in boiling this water molecule X reaching its boiling point can be converted into gaseous state even if its not at the surface. Thats why you see bubbles popping up during boiling and not during evaporation (ever wondered what those bubbles are-those are bubbles of steam).
Now you might ask why evaporation takes place….to answer this you must understand energy. A glass full of water at room temperature has some energy. Because of this energy, water molecules are randomly hitting each other in proper chaos (called brownian motion). As they hit each other, their energies are transferred from one to another.
Now this transfer of energy is very normal until the energy reaches the surface. At the surface, the topmost molecule doesn’t have any neighbouring particle to transfer its energy. If this energy is sufficient to overcome surface tension of the liquid, it bails out.
Think of this as a game of snooker. As the Cue ball hits the triangular formation at the starting of the game, the energy is transferred to the ball it hits, this energy is transferred until it reaches the boundary of the triangle and the balls at the boundary leaves the triangle and move away from it.”
FROM: https://www.quora.com/How-does-water-evaporate-below-its-boiling-point-1
James McGinn
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My opinion is based on hard evidence: H2O phase diagram. Your opinion is based on anecdote, speculation, consensus, and deliberate ignorance of the empirical evidence (the H2O phase diagram) that contradicts your opinion.
Your opinion is the epistemological equivalent to that of AGW advocates in regard to CO2 Forcing.
Robert Kernodle
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James M.,
I’m trying to be clear on what it is that you believe. You say that you base what you believe on the phase diagram. I don’t believe that what I am saying conflicts with the phase diagram.
I do believe that what you claim is a shallow view of how vaporization of water happens. You seem to be confusing boiling with evaporation. BOTH boiling and evaporation result in water’s going into its gaseous phase. The difference is that evaporation is a slow SURFACE process, while boiling is a faster through-and-through process.
In evaporation, ONLY molecules near the surface move off into a gaseous phase. In boiling, on the other hand, molecules all through the volume of the water move off into a gaseous phase.
I would say that your view is similar to recognizing and amplifying the importance of only the radiative characteristics of a very small percentage of the atmosphere, while ignoring and underplaying the fluid dynamic energy of the other 99% of atmospheric mass — except yours is sort of the reverse, in that you recognize vaporization only when it occurs through the entire mass of water at the boiling point, while ignoring that it can ALSO occur AT THE SURFACE at any temperature BELOW boiling as well.
Robert Kernodle
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https://www.dropbox.com/s/4cbj8j4icxd1gzu/WaterPhaseDiagram.jpg
James McGinn
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RK:
. . . you recognize vaporization only when it occurs through the entire mass of water at the boiling point, while ignoring that it can ALSO occur AT THE SURFACE at any temperature BELOW boiling as well.
JMcG:
No. My thinking is very different from what you describe.
You have a very simplistic understanding of H2O intermolecular bonding that brings you to envision it as comparable to billiard balls, which is ridiculous (but common). In other words, your model of H2O intermolecular bonding is deeply flawed. You don’t understand that there is an inverse relationship between comprehensiveness of hydrogen bonds and strength of hydrogen bonds. And, therefore, you don’t understand that one of the implications of this inverse relationship results in extremely small nanodroplets of in water vapor in the atmosphere.
But your purported (by me) conceptual shortcomings are irrelevant to the issue at hand.
Even before I developed the sophisticated understanding of hydrogen bonding in water that allows me to realize the reason H2O forms such small (invisibly small) nanodroplets of liquid H2O in the atmosphere I did not conclude that moist air contained gaseous H2O. I know how to read a phase diagram.
Your argument is based on two things: 1) what you can imagine and 2) deliberate ignorance of phase diagrams.
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Are you confused about Hydrogen Bonding in water? (Video)
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=17078#p124791
Robert Kernodle
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Okay, James M., let me take things, as you said them in your last comment, a sentence or two at a time:
[“You have a very simplistic understanding of H2O intermolecular bonding that brings you to envision it as comparable to billiard balls, which is ridiculous (but common).”]
I don’t think so, James. Rather, it is you who have a solidified view that cannot separate forces and energy transfers that happen at the surface of water from forces and energy transfers that happen within the depths of a water mass, whether that mass is an ocean or a nanodroplet. Oceans and nanodroplets are formed from a more basic precursor arrangement, and that arrangement is VAPOR.
[“In other words, your model of H2O intermolecular bonding is deeply flawed. You don’t understand that there is an inverse relationship between comprehensiveness of hydrogen bonds and strength of hydrogen bonds.”]
Again, I don’t think so, James. Rather, it is you who do not understand that there is less of an intermolecular bonding force between water SURFACE molecules than between water molecuels below a surface “touching” one another all around. Hydrogen bonds in molecules at the SURFACE do NOT have other hydrogen bonds holding them intermolecularly on all the sides that deeper molecules do, and so less force is required to break away those surface molecules into the air.
[“And, therefore, you don’t understand that one of the implications of this inverse relationship results in extremely small nanodroplets of in water vapor in the atmosphere.”]
Nanodroplets are first vapor. It is vapor that coalesces into nanodroplets. You put the cart before the horse, OR you are trying to MAKE the cart the horse. Or are you suggesting that nanodroplets somehow magically levitate into the atmosphere BEFORE the vapor that coalesces to form them?
[“But your purported (by me) conceptual shortcomings are irrelevant to the issue at hand.”]
Those words are just filler to provide you with a transition into what you will say next. If irrelevant, then why even mention anything about what you think is irrelevant. Your comment about irrelevant, thus, is irrelevant.
[“Even before I developed the sophisticated understanding of hydrogen bonding in water that allows me to realize the reason H2O forms such small (invisibly small) nanodroplets of liquid H2O in the atmosphere I did not conclude that moist air contained gaseous H2O. I know how to read a phase diagram.”]
How do nonodroplets form, if there is not vapor FIRST from which they coalesce? How do nanodroplets magically levitate into the air? Where did they come from first? How does that work that they appear at the surface AS nanodroplets, and then levitate into the air AS nanodroplets? What you seem to suggest does not fly with good reasoning and with what I understand are basic principles (as basic as, say, gravity).
I think I know how to read a phase diagram too. And what I see is a range of temperatures BETWEEN freezing and boiling where water can become gas. What I see also is a range of temperatures BELOW freezing where water can go directly from solid to gas, “sublimation” I believe it is called. Bottom line: Water does NOT have to boil to become a gas.
[“Your argument is based on two things: 1) what you can imagine and 2) deliberate ignorance of phase diagrams.”]
Nope. You’ve got it wrong, James. (1) My imagination goes beyond the fantasy of magically levitating water nanodroplets. and (2) any ignorance that I might have, I assure you, is NOT “deliberate”. That video you provided, by the way, seems NOT to support your position.
James McGinn
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RK: Okay, James M., let me take things, as you said them in your last comment, a sentence or two at a time: [“You have a very simplistic understanding of H2O intermolecular bonding that brings you to envision it as comparable to billiard balls, which is ridiculous (but common).”]
I don’t think so,
JMcG: You stated as much upthread. So, it’s not like I’m making this up.
RK: James. Rather, it is you who have a solidified view . . .
JMcG: Surreal. I have a very sophisticated understanding of H2O molecular bonding, as I’ve described in my youtube videos. Go to YouTube and search James McGinn Pauling’s Omission Incidental Symmetry.
RK: . . . that cannot separate forces and energy transfers that happen at the surface of water from forces and energy transfers that happen within the depths of a water mass, whether that mass is an ocean or a nanodroplet. Oceans and nanodroplets are formed from a more basic precursor arrangement, and that arrangement is VAPOR.
JMcG: This is meaningless assertion. Moreover you are using the word vapor in an ambiguous manner. That is confusiing. In common usage vapor is ambiguous. So your semantic sloppiness makes you sound stupid. So, which of the three connotations of the word vapor do you intend?
It’s not my job to help you learn to express yourself clearly.
RK: [“In other words, your model of H2O intermolecular bonding is deeply flawed. You don’t understand that there is an inverse relationship between comprehensiveness of hydrogen bonds and strength of hydrogen bonds.”]
Again, I don’t think so, James. Rather, it is you who do not understand that there is less of an intermolecular bonding force between water SURFACE molecules than between water molecuels below a surface “touching” one another all around.
JMcG: Now you just sound like an ignoramous. Think about what you are saying. You may not realize it but you are saying that the observed high surface tension of H2O is not observed!!!!! Is this what you intended to say? If not, how in the world did you fuck this up? Seriously. How? On the otherhand, if that is what you intended to say then you are an polyanna imbecile and, therefore, not worth my time. So, which is it?
RK: Hydrogen bonds in molecules at the SURFACE do NOT have other hydrogen bonds holding them intermolecularly on all the sides . . .
JMcG: Right. There are less H bonds along the surface of H2O but these bonds are stronger (than those below the surface). There are more H bonds below the surface but they are weaker (thus liquid H2O has low viscosity). This is the dilemma. This is the contradiction. This is what the conventional “experts” have failed to explain, bringing them to dismiss it as an anomaly. This is one of the anomalies that my model does explain. (How was any of this not perfectly obvious? Why do I have to even explain this? Don’t you idiots know how to read?)
RK: . . . that deeper molecules do, and so less force is required to break away those surface molecules into the air.
Pay attention. Surface tension is the bonds along the surface being stronger. That’s literally what surface tension is. (How the fuck is this not obvious?)
RK: [“And, therefore, you don’t understand that one of the implications of this inverse relationship results in extremely small nanodroplets of in water vapor in the atmosphere.”]
Nanodroplets are first vapor.
JMcG: This is a retarded assertion.
RK: How do nanodroplets magically levitate into the air?
JMcG: LOL. You tell me. According to the brain-dead meteorological model, clouds (which are indisputably heavier than the surrounding clear air) should drop out of the air due to convection. You never noticed this, you imbecile. Why not? Why not go ask a meteorologist to explain this discrepancy? Why did you not even notice this? Obviously it is because you are a simpleton that never really understood the convection model of storm theory. You just accepted it–the same way most of the public just accepts CO2 forcing. You accepted it because you are a brain-dead science believer like most of the PSI adherents. You never thought about any of this stuff. You just accepted it blindly–no thought. No consideration.
I can explain it:
https://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=16597
You don’t understand any of this stuff. Meteorology’s models harbor blatant contradictions and like the rest of the brain dead science believers on this planet you never noticed.
Cloud don’t drop out of the sky like the convection model predicts and you never noticed!!!!
RK: How does that work that they appear at the surface AS nanodroplets, and then levitate into the air AS nanodroplets? What you seem to suggest does not fly with good reasoning and with what I understand are basic principles (as basic as, say, gravity).
JMcG: LOL. Evidence that contradicts your dumbass model has never been anything but obvious. Go ahead, dumbass, explain how heavier than air clouds manage to float. Go ahead. Make my day, retard. Explain these basic principles.
RK: I think I know how to read a phase diagram too. And what I see is a range of temperatures BETWEEN freezing and boiling where water can become gas.
JMcG: The diagram to which you linked conflated gas and vapor, you idiot. How did you not notice that?
RK: What I see also is a range of temperatures BELOW freezing where water can go directly from solid to gas, “sublimation”
JMcG: Sublimation produces vapor (liquid nanodroplets) not steam (gaseous H2O). You are so fucking retarded you still can’t distinguish between invisible vapor and equally invisible genuine gaseous H2O. Fucking pay attention. (invisibility is not an indicatro of gas. It’s an indicator of smallness.[I’ve already explained this to you three times, retard. fucking pay attention!)
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes
Doug Cotton
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LifeisThermal: You wrote: “Any transfer from cold to hot, must be in the form “work.”
This misconception lies at the root of misunderstanding of heat transfer in planetary tropospheres under the force of gravity. If you think heat is always from hot to cold, firstly, what law in physics says that? Secondly, how do explain the surface temperature of Earth, let alone that of Venus? Where does the new energy come from that raises the temperature at a location on the equator of Venus by about five degrees over the course of four months on the sunlit side? You call yourself “Life is Thermal” but entropy is not only affected by thermal energy. The Second Law is about entropy tending towards a maximum. Entropy is affected by changes in molecular gravitational potential energy, not just kinetic energy. For more on this read about “heat creep” in my 2013 paper linked from the Home page of my climate websites that have been visited by about 100,000 others and catch up on the discovery of this process, because it’s what keeps you alive. Just click my name above.
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Herb Rose
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The surface of an orbiting satellite exposed to the sun will have a temperature of 250 degrees. That same surface when in the Earth’s shadow, basking in the heat radiating from the Earth, will have a temperature of minus 250 degrees. If the satellite was resting on the surface of the Earth it’s temperature would be fifty degrees.
If you look at the moon, which receives the same solar energy as the Earth, The temperature during the day is over 25o degrees while at night the temperature is less than minus 250 degrees.
The difference between the moon and the Earth is that the Earth has an atmosphere while the moon dies not. The missing two hundred degrees from the Earths’s day represents heat absorbed by the atmosphere which is transferred to the Earth at night.
You claim the Earth is losing heat to space through the atmosphere. Where is your evidence? All the evidence I see is that the atmosphere is heating the surface of the Earth.
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geran
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The Sun warms Earth’s surface. The surface warms the atmosphere. The heat energy in the atmosphere is radiated to space.
Radiation is the only way Earth can cool, since space is nearly a vacuum, and convection and conduction don’t work too well.
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Herb Rose
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Radiation is not the only way the Earth cools. Endothermic chemical reactions also cool the Earth. The most important one is photosynthesis where plants use energy from the sun to split CO2 and H2O molecules to produce hydrocarbon molecules and oxygen. This energy or heat is stored in the hydrocarbon which is released when the reaction is reversed and hydrocarbons and oxygen combine to form water and CO2. The heat released when you burn a fossil fuel is the same as the solar energy used to form the fossil fuel.
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geran
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To count photosynthesis as a net “cooling”, the biomass could NEVER be burned. Say goodbye to ethanol additives in gasoline, food, and wine.
Don’t we just love thermodynamics?
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Herb Rose
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I do not know at what temperature the Earth will reach equilibrium where it loses as much energy as it is absorbing from the sun. Since the Earth is a greater distance from the sun than Venus it should be a temperature lower than that found on Venus.
Plants continuously absorb energy from the sun and storing it in fossil fuels and the bio mass preventing the Earth from radiating that heat and reaching that temperature.
The Earth is receiving energy from the sun which it then radiates trying to transfer that energy to other objects and reach equilibrium. The Earth is also radiating the energy it contains. Since the Earth was formed billions of years ago it has only loss enough to cool a very thin layer on its surface. This is because the sun has heated other objects in the solar system so that the Earth cannot transfer energy to them and cool.
Perhaps you love thermodynamics because it is so mysterious to you.
geran
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I appreciate thermodynamics. But what I really love are the hilarious perversions, like this one you provided:
“This is because the sun has heated other objects in the solar system so that the Earth cannot transfer energy to them and cool.”
More, please.
Doug Cotton
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Until you UNDERSTAND maximum entropy production you will never understand what is happening in regard to the relevant non-radiative heat transfers in planetary tropospheres and beneath any solid surfaces. Just click my name and, after reading the “PSI Slayer Errors” page, go to the Home page and read my three papers (the first of which was peer-reviewed by Hans Schreuder) especially the 2013 one about “Planetary Core and Surface Temperatures.” My climate websites have been visited by about 100,000 and these papers have each been downloaded free by hundreds of others because word is getting around that they contain the correct physics. Nobody has ever proved me wrong about the “heat creep” process which does (and indeed has to) occur in all planetary systems right down to their cores.
jerry krause
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Hi Herb,
“The difference between the moon and the Earth is that the Earth has an atmosphere while the moon dies not.” Another important difference is the length of the diurnal period. About 28 earth days versus 1 earth day. Between 5am and 1pm, at Desert Rock NV, the surface temperature increased from 61F to 132F. And from 11am to 1pm the surface temperature increased 9F. I cannot say what would happen if the same intensity of solar radiation was incident upon the earth’s surface for another 24 hours. So I cannot claim that after another 24 hours the temperature could be 240F. Herb, which factor, atmosphere or period, do you judge to have the greatest influence?
Have a good day, Jerry
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Herb Rose
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I believe it to be atmosphere. Remember the temperatures are average over the whole planet. Consider Venus and mercury. On Venus the day is obeyer long and one surface faces the sun all the time. The thick atmosphere distributes the heat over the whole planet so the temperature everywhere is over 400 degrees.
Mercury which receives more intense light has the temperature vary from minus 250 to plus 300.
I believe this indicates the importance of atmosphere in the distribution of heat.
Take care, Herb
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Doug Cotton
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Yes Herb, you got that right. But you don’t know the real reason and I also hope you’ve now learned from Wikipedia “Kinetic Theory of Gases” that temperature is proportional to the mean kinetic energy of the particles and density plays no part whatsoever in determining temperature. Hence you should withdraw this paper (which is a disgrace to PSI) or I shall forever remind people of your lack of knowledge of this simple physics. The correct physics is in my 2013 paper which you may find linked on the Home page of my website that you can access by clicking my name above.
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Herb Rose
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If density plays no role in determining temperature as you maintain then if I have a gas where all the molecules have the same kinetic energy it doesn’t mater if one of these molecules strikes the probe, transferring kinetic energy to it or, a thousand molecules strike the probe transferring a thousand times the kinetic energy to the probe. The probe will register the same temperature regardless of how much kinetic energy is transferred to it. Excuse me if I don’t accept your definition.
Doug Cotton
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More molecules each with the same KE cannot make the molecules in the probe go faster than the speed of those incident molecules. But if you are the narcissistic type, then edit Wikipedia “Kinetic Theory of Gases” (Assumptions) and see if your edit sticks after a few days. There’s nothing like turning upsidedown the Kinetic Theory of Gases that Einstein and many others used successfully. Maybe it is you who should have got the Nobel Prize for physics. I detect, however, that you have not spent a few years studying in the Physics Department of a recognised university (as I have) now have you? Why do amateurs dabble in fields in which they are not trained? You are wrong, wrong, wrong as several above have told you and I hope John O’Sullivan has the good sense to remove this article because it is a disgrace to PSI. If you want to read the results of many thousands of hours of research that I have put into my websites, videos, book and three papers on all this just click my name above and go to the Home page where you will see links to such. My climate websites have had over 100,000 visitors because word is getting around that they contain the correct science.
Herb Rose
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I have a thought experiment for you Doug. II have a closed box with a temperature probe in it. I introduce one molecule with a velocity of X. The frequency that that one molecule will strike the probe is determined be its velocity X. Its kinetic energy, that will transfer to the probe, is a factor of X squared. I increase the velocity by a factor of two. The frequency with which it strikes the probe will double while the kinetic energy it transfers to the probe will increase by a factor of four. At the new velocity the probe will receive eight times the kinetic energy that it received at the old velocity.In an identical container I introduce eight identical molecule with the original velocity. Because there are eight of them they will strike the probe eight times more frequently than a single molecule probe transferring eight times the kinetic energy to the probe. You say that density does not mater and the temperature recorded in the second box will be the same as the first box when the molecule had a velocity of X. I believe the temperature recorded in the second box will be the same as the first box after the velocity was doubled.
You are correct when you say I am not a member of the Einstein cult. I believe in reason which they have abandoned.
tom0mason
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Warmer, Resonance, energy, IR, heat, cooler, molecular vibration, temperature, flux, °C, electromagnetic waves, causes or correlates, Kelvin….etc., etc., etc.
Much of what has been written here looks like an overheated Brownian motion of words in an imagined empty room, all because no one has defined terms and people are not staying with defined terms.
Long ago when I first did science, define your terms was drilled into us, so that misunderstandings would not happen.
IMO try saying what you wish but NEVER use these words —
---------------- warm, warmer, cool, cooler, heat, hotter. -----------------Start by defining your terms and stick to it. If you can not define your terms you CAN NOT explain the process. PERIOD!
IMO preferably stay within one reference frame, e.g. explain it all using only using energy levels and their rates of change, or only as levels and changes in temperature BUT NOT BOTH!
Good luck, hopefully the fog will lift.
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Herb Roe
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I will try to explain how I believe thermodynamics works with a thought experiment.
I have a closed system where a source of energy at the center radiates energy. At the edge of the system this energy is collect and returned to the central source. (don’t ask me how).
I introduce to identical containers of liquid with less energy into the system on opposite sides of the central source. The two containers are at different distances from the central source. Both containers will absorb energy from the source but because the energy from the source decreases with distance the container farther from the source will have less energy than the container closer to the source when 4equilibrium is achieved. The total energy of the system will decrease by the amount of energy needed to raise the two container to equilibrium.
After the two containers have reached equilibrium I switch their positions moving the one that was closer to the central source further away and the one further away closer to the source. The containers energy are no longer in equilibrium with the central source and the one with less energy that was further from the source will gain energy while the container that has been moved away from the source will lose energy.
The system as whole will not lose any energy since after the two containers reach equilibrium the system s a whole will be identical to system before the containers were switched.
The container that is losing energy is not transferring that energy directly to the container gaining energy because the energy it radiates decreases with distance and that energy would decrease to less than the energy being radiated by the second container. What is happening is the container which is losing energy is radiating more energy to the central source than it is receiving from the central source while the container gaining energy is receiving more energy from the central source than it is transferring to the central source.
That is how I believe thermodynamics works with everything above zero degrees Kelvin radiating energy and every object also absorbing radiated energy trying to reach equilibrium.
Is my concept of thermodynamics wrong?
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geran
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Herb, here’s your major misunderstanding:
“What is happening is the container which is losing energy is radiating more energy to the central source than it is receiving from the central source…”
The container would NOT be radiating more energy than the source.
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Herb Rose
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Hi Geran
I did not mean to say that the container is radiating more energy than the source. Energy is emitted from a source in a constant fashion.( Unlike gravity where the sun exerts a different force on every satellite.) This energy decrease with distance so the energy being emitted from the central source at the distance where the container is, is less than the energy being emitted by the container.
I did make a mistake when I said the higher energy container was not transmitting energy directly to the second container because of distance and lower energy level at that distance. This is what I believe is people’s misconception about thermodynamics. Energy is radiated and absorbed by every object despite their energy levels. The Earth is receiving energy from stars thousands of light years away but this energy does not add to the Earth’s energy because we are in equilibrium with the energy from the sun and any additional energy coming to the Earth or from the interior of the Earth will be radiated by the Earth to maintain that equilibrium.
The reason the second container is not receiving any energy directly from the first one is because the central energy source is between the two and it absorbs the energy emitted by both containers in that direction. With gravity the force is specific and different between the sun and every satellite and if some other object comes between the sun and that object it will not affect the force gravity between them or affect the object that intervenes. Energy can be eclipsed, gravity cannot.
I hope this clarifies my concept of thermodynamic.
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