Russkies find alien spaceship in Tunguska

[denoir 0]

I am not questioning your argument Denoir, but i am interested to know what you think caused this incident in 1908  

I have no idea. Carl Sagan made a good argument for it being a comet (hence the ice core).

I do admit having a bias in believing people from well-respected universities that have good scientific credentials over a guy that publishes something in a Russian tabloid.

[Bernadotte 0]

I'm not missing a key point there, an object being slowed down by the atmosphere, not containing substances which can create an explosion a certain temperatures (mixed iwth our atmosphere) will not airburst in a sudden release of energy.

If you say so.

However, I prefer to trust the findings and opinions of the experts at the U. of Arizona (and elsewhere) about the behaviour of comets/meteors entering the atmosphere.

No you do not (other than the program).

Yeah right.

- Other than the courses I took in geology describing the behaviour of meteorites;

- Other than the opinions and findings of friends who have made such studies their life's work;

- Other than the countless articles I've read over the years on this topic;

You are absolutely correct that, other than all these sources, the U. of A's program is my only source of info on comet/meteor impact behaviour.

Quote[/b] ]The theory actually is 100KT of ice with space dust and gases (and probably a rock core), and it is still contreversial.

Now where are you getting this from?  Our Russian psyentist claimed that the object musta weighed a billion tonnes.  

Quote[/b] ]How they made this program to airpurst pure ice is beyond me.

I agree.

[Pathy 0]

RE: ALiens junk mail....

hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha......

[bn880 5]

Hey I don't disagree with you on that. No its not credible... I want to see proof as with this case. However that article is clearly a farce, while you know these tunguska 'scientists' are _trying_ to prove something, so it would be good to at least consider what they say without twisting it.

[bn880 5]

Okay, as with most debates on this forums, they are best for a good laugh.

[bn880 5]

- Other than the courses I took in geology describing the behaviour of meteorites;

First of all, you are now not credible with your claims, because even if you google Tunguska you will find the contreversy surrounding it.

Second, give me the name/contact of your professor, I want to ask him/her how they believe an ice core heats up to airburst at 15KT, or 300,000 \KT

[denoir 0]

Hey I don't disagree with you on that.  No its not credible...    

Well, what was the problem then? That's what Bernadotte said and that I agreed with, while you started talking about historical cases where new theories were met with scepticism.

And my point was that it wasn't the theory itself (although controversial) that was a problem, but the methods used to the point where he published them. And this is what you said that you disagree with.

[Bernadotte 0]

First of all, you are now not credible with your claims, because even if you google Tunguska you will find the contreversy surrounding it.

Can you be more specific?  What incredible claims are you referring to?

Quote[/b] ]Second, give me the name/contact of your professor, I want to ask him/her how they believe an ice core heats up to airburst at 15KT, or 300,000 \KT

He's around 82 years old now if still alive.

Just call your nearest university's geology department.

They love talking about this stuff.

Besides volcanoes, meteorites pretty much offer the most excitment a geologist ever gets in his career.  

[bn880 5]

Not really, I was saying that credibility is nothing that automatically proves someone wrong, and allows us to twist their publishing. I mean I don't disagree with you for the most part, I think the supernatural idea is very much out there iwtohut direct proof (because other explanations are much easier to prove already).

And as for Bernadotte, he (you) have seemed to miss a link in the contreversy of the event, a 1983 study/report by Zdenek Sekanina of NASA was the next step in the "debate" followed by a counter claim by comet supporters that it had a rock core. We basically stand at a comet with gases, dust, and rock type core at this time, we absolutely got past the idea that it was purely ice.

Edit: Zdenek Sekanina

[bn880 5]

Quote[/b] ]Second, give me the name/contact of your professor, I want to ask him/her how they believe an ice core heats up to airburst at 15KT, or 300,000 \KT

He's around 82 years old now if still alive.

Just call your nearest university's geology department.

They love talking about this stuff.

Besides volcanoes, meteorites pretty much offer the most excitment a geologist ever gets in his career.

Hey look a chimp is talking to you.

the claims in the post you made above are not true, other than maybe you studying geology.

[denoir 0]

Not really, I was saying that credibility is nothing that automatically proves someone wrong, and allows us to twist their publishing.  

Since he hasn't provided any evidence we have no basis of falsifying his theory. The point is however that the method used and the data presented does not in any way support his theory either. So what remains is a probablilistic estimate of if his perceptions or claims can be trusted or not. And the deviation from the standard scientific method, and the factual errors in the deductive part of his reasoning tell us that with a high probability it is a heap of bullshit.

At the end, everything is correct or incorrect with a probability. In absolute terms, anything is possible - simply because our perceptions of the world arn't deterministic. Even if you measure something a billion times, there is an (incredibly small) probablity that the measuring device (or our senses) happened to fail each time. If you want to take it the whole way, you can say that all the information about the world that we have, we get from our senses. There is no way of telling if our senses give a correct representation of the world.

It is not however a practical approach to things. If nothing is correct, then any science is pointless. If we do however make the naive assumption that for the most part our senses are not fooling us and that there is some predictable periodicity in nature, then we can start estimating credibility. And that's what we're doing in this case. So while we can't dismiss the theory on an abstract, absolute theoretical level, we can with good conscience dismiss it on practical grounds and from experiences with similar claims.

Re: Tunguska

Meteorites, Impacts, and Mass Extinction - a more mainstream source.

Quote[/b] ]

A Comet is a body that orbits around the Sun with an eccentric orbit. These orbits are not circular like those of the planets and are not necessarily within the same plane as the planets.  Most comets have elliptical orbits which send them to the far outer reaches of the solar system and back toward a closer approach to the sun. As a comet approaches the sun, solar radiation generates gases from evaporation of the comet's surface. These gases are pushed away from the comet and glow in the sun light, thus giving the comet its tail. While the outer surface of comets appear to composed of icy material like water and carbon dioxide solids, they likely contain a more rocky nucleus.  Because of their eccentric orbits, many comets eventually cross the orbit of the Earth.  Many meteor showers may be caused by the Earth crossing an orbit of a fragmented comet.

 

The collision of a cometary fragment is thought to have occurred in the Tunguska region of Siberia in 1908.  The blast was about the size of a 15 megaton nuclear bomb.  It knocked down trees in an area about 850 square miles, but did not leave a crater.  The consensus among scientists is that a cometary fragment about 20 to 60 meters in diameter exploded in the Earth's atmosphere just above the Earth's surface. Only small amounts of material similar to meteorites were found embedded in trees at the site

[bn880 5]

Well I agree, when you put all that together the probability of it being BS is very high. But we did not come to say this because of a 1billion ton pure ice comet theory, which is not his claim AFAIK.

What do you think of the 4 questions I asked before though, in general?

[denoir 0]

Well I agree, when you put all that together the probability of it being BS is very high.  But we did not come to say this because of a 1billion ton pure ice comet theory, which is not his claim AFAIK.

His claim was that it proved that it was an artificial object which is BS.

Quote[/b] ]What do you think of the 4 questions I asked before though, in general?

Just what I said - that they are pretty pointless on the individual level. It's pretty self evident that we do not store information and interpretation of the world in the form of algebraic equations. The mathematic form is just one of many possible forms of representation.

I don't see the point you're trying to make.

[bn880 5]

It is something general I have thought about, because I am picking up that some people think understanding can only come from equations or proof, while I think understanding comes before the equations/proof. At least for many theories.

While I think the scientific method is sound, it does not exclude the basic concept of a human brain figuring something new out, and having problems providing proof. So you can have a big issue of credibility while the understanding/idea may be sound.

Edit: My point is self evident in almost every Neural Net which you have succesfully trained... it is difficult to generate the according equation (other than massive chain rule math). Moreso when your neurons are as complex as a human's and in a person.

[bonko the sane 2]

BS or not there was a cool BD (bande dessiné\comic book) series back in the 80's about this, all i remember is that the "hero" was called Ian Kaledine.

[Bernadotte 0]

Hey look a chimp is talking to you.  

the claims in the post you made above are not true, other than maybe you studying geology.  

Um... ok... I guess you're pulling my leg or something.

Actually, I studied geological engineering.

Some of the friends I mentioned above studied pure geology.

We shared a lot of undergrad classes.

Large meteorite/asteroid impacts have played a very important role in creating some of the the world's richest ore deposits - Sudbury's nickel for example.

[bn880 5]

Well okay, so I am wondering how pure ice can cause a semi instantaneous airburst of even 1KT. If there is an explanation for this it would be interesting. Anyway, that person did not say it was pure ice, and he probably means a rock type meteor, while you are going on about an ice comet.

edit: I don't know if it's jsut me, but I do not have access to any of this report, I only see a second hand article claiming what was said in or out of context. So, I would like to see an actual document from this, un-changed by media etc.

[Bernadotte 0]

And as for Bernadotte, he (you) have seemed to miss a link in the contreversy of the event, a 1983 study/report by Zdenek Sekanina of NASA was the next step in the "debate" followed by a counter claim by comet supporters that it had a rock core.  We basically stand at a comet with gases, dust, and rock type core at this time, we absolutely got past the idea that it was purely ice.

C'mon man.  I really didn't come here to debate what it was.  I've only tried to show that an artificial object is far from the only explanation for what occurred in Tunguska.

[bn880 5]

Of course, I agree with that... but it grew into this big discussion over details. And Denoir jumped on me because he thought I was arguing about alien butt probes.

[Bernadotte 0]

Well okay, so I am wondering how pure ice can cause a semi instantaneous airburst of even 1KT.  If there is an explanation for this it would be interesting.  Anyway, that person did not say it was pure ice, and he probably means a rock type meteor, while you are going on about an ice comet.  

Pure ice, black ice, whatever...  It's the density and velocity that's important.  Iron and rock meteors are much denser but usually have much slower relative velocities than comets and, pound for pound, they end up forming craters much more often than frozen gas comets.

Please understand that an airburst is not necessarily the same as an explosion.  These objects are not packed full of explosive materials even if they are methane or some other flamable substance.  So let's get away from the hydrogen bomb detonation idea of an airburst.  The only energy source I've brought up so far is simply kinetic - not nuclear, not explosive, not chemical combustion.  And when a large chunk of anything with gazillions of kilojoules of kinetic energy get's slowed to a halt within a few seconds, trust me, you don't want to be standing anywhere nearby.

[sputnik monroe 102]

Doesn't matter, none of it ever happened. For one thing Russia doesn't exist so no object from space (which also doesn't exist) could have ever landed there.

   There  is no such thing as Russians people. Russians are no more real than elves, leprechauns, unicorns, or John Tesh Fans.  Once more their mythical land "Russia" which did exist at one time, has long since sunk beneath the waves of the Indian ocean. (Over  500 years ago to be exact!)

    Also meteors don't exist either so don't get your panties in a bunch over it. Since space is also a work of fiction nothing can come from it. You may ask "well what about all them rocks that fall from da sky" or "how about them there craters". All easily explained scientific phenomenon.

    Craters naturally occur on the planets surface where ever  an albino siamese hippo decides to spontaneously combust. The Hippo explodes and thus send its eggs for miles in all directions, the byproduct of which is a crater.

    As for all the "meteorites" that various Universities, museums, and others possess. Those are actually my magic rocks, they stole them and I want them back. I will not comment any further though for that is a legal matter between me the freemasons and the nefarious Courtney Cox  Arquette.

[bn880 5]

Still Bernadotte, it seems like the theory of this kinetic blast is not really clear. The only way I can see something remotely close to that is an instant disintegration causing more of the surface of the comet material to contact the atmosphere at once, but, I don't know if that is able to generate the air speeds to cause that kind of dammage...

anyway, I'll leave it at that, let us wait and see a proper report on this claim.

[cobra@pulse 0]

I agree with that aswell bn880. Truly mysterious

[scousejedi 0]

Nothing hit the surface at Tunguska - there is a dispersion pattern in the remaining tree stumps that can only be created with an airburst, not something ploughing into the ground.

Is there a model anywhere that can replicate this when ice or a dirty ice ball travelling at speed hits an atmosphere?

EDIT: I believe there is no God other than science so I don't think the little green men were involved - they are much too busy kidnapping drunken trailer trash.

[shinRaiden 0]

Since we're on the subject of epochal chaos theory of 'minor' catastrophes, I'd just like to point out that in the current issue of IEEE Spectrum, that there is an excellent article detailing how the traditional statistical theoretical modeling for predicting the frequency and severity of significant power grid blackouts has been found to be significantly in error, with the probability of the larger end of blackout spectrum size being historically far outside of the traditionally held model.

Given this example, along with the 'art' of predicting the probability of predicting other natural analog events (hello, the local fault lines look like somebody hit the windshield with a baseball bat), does science naively pad their numbers the wrong way, and can we legally hold them retroactively responsible for their whoopsie, since they are 'god' to the Insurance and liability industry?

Since I can't sue God, I should at least be able to sue the scientists for screwing up their model, and causing me emotional distress when there is no actual threat, or liability for physical injury for failing to accurately warn of an actual threat. Now I'll be able to afford VBS1 and a nice sim-room after all.