Laughing at ignorance

I found myself revisiting this picture the other day. I took this when I was thirteen, in a British Airways 747 high over the Arctic on the way from London to Los Angeles on my first overseas trip in January 1990. I was fascinated to notice the contrails from the engines were forming so close to the aircraft that they could be seen from inside, rather than trailing behind a little. Besides being a cool process to watch, it was also a great indicator of just how fast we were travelling, something you don't often get in an airliner. So I took a photo.

At top left is the port horizontal stabiliser of the 747. The contrail from the port inboard engine is in the bottom third of the frame, with a gap between it and the outboard trail above. It's indistinct and imperfect, but it's one of my favourite old photos. That was a cool experience.

Many years later, a particular conspiracy theory involving contrails would arise and catch my attention, as it confluences a few interests of mine. Basically the "Chemtrail" theory as it's known asserts that the trails you can see in the sky aren't the normal by-product of humidity and engine exhaust or aerodynamic processes, but some kind of secret evil plot to spray chemicals from altitude and affect the masses below, via depopulation, weather control, or whatever particular flavour of un-sense is being propagated that day.

Beyond the fact that on the scale alleged it's logistically impossible, technically implausible, and scientifically idiotic (among a host of reasons for it's utter improbability), the people that promote it are usually utterly uninformed about the finer details of aviation, meteorology and chemistry. If they were informed they probably wouldn't fall for this crap, but there you go. While the unfounded nonsense being promoted and sold as fact and 'truth' (and if you question the 'truth', you're either asleep, a sheeple, or a shill) is annoying to someone who actually knows what they are looking at, and the threats made by some of them against contrailing aircraft and pilots are actually unnerving, occasionally (well more than occasionally), there is some amusement to be had. Usually because the chemtrailers are so unaware, and aren't actually knowledgeable in the subjects they lecture on, not only are some of their "revelations" and speculations hilariously inaccurate (I've seen them ponder for days over the role of a "mysterious" aircraft seen on google earth that was visibly unflyable to name but one example. It was a grounded airframe used as a training aid), they are also easily pranked.

This video frequently does the rounds as 'evidence'. It's a USAF KC-10 aerial refuelling tanker, being videoed from another KC-10, allegedly "spraying" evil chemtrails while the pilots openly discuss it. Note the manipulation when the "stills" are taken and elsewhere.


Unfortunately for the chemtrail argument the original video was shot and posted specifically to satirise chemtrailers. And they fell for it, and continue to do so en masse. See if you can spot the differences:

The trail is an aerodynamic contrail, formed by an interaction of pressure, temperature and humidity as the aircraft passes through the air. The trail varies as the immediate local conditions do. It's a well known and understood phenomenon obvious to anyone who knows about it. Chemtrailers don't. There are no "nozzles" on the wings. What was identified as such are housings for mechanisms that raise and lower the flaps (and anyone can look up a diagram of a DC or KC-10 and verify this for themselves). There is a theory that because the maker of the conspiracy version isn't a native english speaker, the sarcastic tone of the commentary may not have been noticed. You can make your own mind up on that one.

If those promoting the chemtrail theory were actually expert in aircraft anatomy, aerodynamics, weather and science like they think they are, and presented it with properly derived evidence, verifiable and obtained through validated methods they might have more credibility. But they aren't, and they don't have any. As well as the wrongness of what they promote, I'm also fascinated by the disconnect that means all of the rational evidence that they are wrong is not only uninvestigated and ignored, but routinely dismissed as "disinfo". Like followers of many scientifically illiterate conspiracy theories, it's adherents are choosing to be ignorant. In a world where basic scientific literacy and critical thinking skills are getting more and more important to have (in my view at least), that's just depressing.

Jetblack

Just a little something some people at my workplace* are involved in. Not the part I work in unfortunately. My involvement was limited to helping load the full-size mockup into its shipping container when it was on-site a couple of months ago:

I wonder how many people will notice the error in the animation of the supersonic run (it's supersonic-by definition you won't hear the car until it has passed you)

Fun with Science

Fun science 1:

After centuries of knowing, or thinking we knew exactly how many planets there were, we are now discovering new ones by the hundreds.

This was covered hither, tither and yon by various sources last week, but Phil Plait's Bad Astronomy blog sums it up pretty well here.

Fun science 2:

Also neatly summarised at Bad Astronomy, we can now look at the whole sun at once via the STEREO mission (link).

Fun science 3:
Invisibility cloak. 'Nuff said.

Fun anti science:
Fox's Bill O'Reilly displays a level of scientific reasoning my two year old could better.

Just for fun, here is O'Reilly encountering the impenetrable wall of logic that is Richard Dawkins, who barely gets out of first gear in owning his host.

Bad Science ownage

Vaccine denier gets owned on Sydney radio by host in possession of actual facts (link).

Okay so it is a bit of an ambush, and the host doesn't even pretend to be unbiased, but it makes me smile to hear bad science taken apart like this.

Amusing and Reassuring

I have enjoyed following this for the last few days:

Stuff technology blogger lists 7 videos supporting the Moon landing hoax conspiracy and rightly gets flamed for it in the comments section (linky).

It's amusing for its own sake (most epicly when the author of the first video debunks his own work as an intentional hoax of a hoax), but also reassuring to see so many commenters go into bat against the insult to learning and reason that the hoax theory is.

Puny Humans!

Embarrassed and frustrated to note that apparently a lot of New Zealanders still just don't get tsunami's or tsunami warnings, as evidenced here (from the NZ Herald), and here (from Stuff, also using any excuse to publish pictures of naked people). It's not the height of the surge, its the force behind it (there is footage of a 30cm ish surge happily relocating a 4x4 from last year's Samoan tsunami). Tsunami's on shore are less waves than they are instant and recurring turbulent rivers or floods, with a habit of dragging things out to sea when they recede. We got off very lucky yesterday in only being mildly inconvenienced, with some dramatic looking surges around the place to lead the news. Regardless of actual event / non-event status, the potential danger is quite real, and the warnings were justified. Previous tsunami related facepalming/headdesking here.

I noticed a figure in the paper concerning the amount of energy released in Saturday's 8.8 Richter Scale Chilean earthquake that got me thinking about comparisons.

Mostly off the top of my head, with some looking up here and there to clarify numbers.

Hiroshima Atomic Bomb : Energy release is estimated, but generally agreed to be arond 10-15 kilotons (kiloton = 1000 tons of TNT).

Largest nuclear weapon deployed during the cold war : 25 megatons (megaton 1,000,000 tons of TNT). The sort of thing you would use to lay waste to a city the size of say, New York, Tokyo or Los Angeles and the surrounding districts, or turn small mountains into lakes should the need arise.

Largest nuclear device ever tested (and largest man-made explosion in history) : 50 Megatons and generally considered to be too powerful to be a practical weapon. It was designed to be 100 megatons, but there was no way to safely test it so it was scaled down.

Thats where the human numbers run out. Get nature involved and the numbers go crazy.

1883 Krakatoa volcanic eruption : The cataclysmic explosion event that destroyed the volcano itself is estimated at 200 megatons. Made half an island disappear, and being heard 5,000 km away, one of the loudest sounds in recorded history. Generated tsunamis 30m or more high locally.

2008 Sichuan earthquake : 8.0 on the richter scale, and equivalent to 1 gigaton (1000 megatons, or 1,000,000,000 tons of TNT)

75,000 years BP (Before Present) Toba eruption : 8.5 on the richter scale, equivalent to 5.6 gigatons, and the largest known volcanic eruption. The eruption that created Lake Taupo 26,000 years ago is on a similar scale. This sort of power easily exceeds that of every nuclear weapon ever built combined.

2010 Chilean earthquake : 8.8 on the richter scale, equivalent to nearly 16 gigatons.

2004 Indian ocean earthquake : 9.1, 67 gigatons, and responsible for the Boxing Day Tsunami.

1960 Chilean earthquake : 9.5, 178 gigatons, and the most powerful earthquake ever recorded.

65,000,000 years BP Yucatan asteroid impact : Estimated at 13 on the richter scale (which is logarithmic remember), and an apocalyptic in every sense 100 teratons (1,000,000,000 megatons). Generally held to be the event that caused the final extinction of dinosaurs, allowing the rise of mammals and eventually, us.

Headlines you really don't expect to see in New Scientist

Including lab studies with willing volunteer erm, demonstrators. Thats one way to get more people into science.

*For anyone wishing to investigate further, the article is in the May 30 2009 edition of 'New Scientist' magazine issue no. 2710. I like New Scientist, it makes science accesible without dumbing anything down. I find something interesting on every issue, and thanks to work get to read it at my leisure for free.

Music of the night #2 and Loose Change

Listening to: no music, just my house and TV noise.
Seem to be in a sequels thing here.
I think late at night, you're a little bit tired, your mind wanders a little, and maybe that song you're hearing opens your imagination a little more easily.
Lack of distraction definitely helps. Hence driving, lying awake in bed, being alone are all conducive to this.

Finally saw Da Vinci code the other day. Rated it about as highly as I did the book, which wasn't high....interesting ideas though.

Speaking of interesting ideas, the Hutt crew gathered at Stretch's place on Sunday night for our ritual spa/DVD evening. Fare for the night courtesy of D3vo was "Loose Change", an independently produced and internet distributed doco about 9/11 (google 'loose change' for more info). Specifically, that 9/11 was a government conspiracy, and that for example the Pentagon was not hit by an airliner, but by a missile, and that the twin towers were demolished by explosives rather than impact and fire damage. The doco appears to be well known in the right circles, semi infamous in the wrong ones, and appears to have something of a following
The idea that it is all some kind of terrible hoax is intriguing to me, and I was interested to see if I could be compelled by some sort of incontrevertible smoking gun irregularity into thinking it had some substance. Wasn't to be.
The allegations were at times bizarre, evidence irrelevant (and at times contradicting the point the filmmakers were trying to put across), and some 'facts' quoted that I know, well, for a fact are incorrect (like saying the A-3 Skywarrior is in service in the US Air Force. Umm, the A-3 was never in service in the USAF, being that it was a US Navy aircraft. The plane in the clip even had 'navy' written on it. The USAF did use a version of the A-3 known as the B-66, but they were retired long before 2001, and were different to the navy version referred to. This may not sound like much, but it is a very very basic error which munches the filmmakers credibility for an aviation interested person like me. If they haven't checked a fact as easy to check as that, what else have they assumed to be correct that is in fact not?) . Images, quotes and information were taken out of context, huge leaps of logic made. Their investigative methodology as presented, frankly, sucked. Overall I found it a bit amateurish, and immature.
I was disappointed. I was ready to believe, but was only convinced that the version of events we all know is what actually happened. Just about every point made had (for me anyway) plausible explanations that don't require coincidence or conspiracy....I'm inclined to believe in conspiracies in that I think they are possible, but have a high standard of evidence, so approach them with an open mind.
Still it did provoke some debate in the lounge, which is probably a good thing, and probably the film's ultimate intention. Definitely not a waste of time and I'm glad I saw it, so thanks D!
PS I think the coffin nail in the 'missile hit the Pentagon' theory for me is that while dozens if not hundreds of witnesses have said they saw a 757, business jet, or some kind of aircraft hit the Pentagon, not one has said they saw a missile.....that and no-one has yet provided a good explanation of where the missing aircraft, passengers and crew are. There are ways to explain the seemingly unusual damage to the building that I can handle.
Thats my opinion anyway. Yours may differ, and thats alright. The saddest thing personally for me (apart from the ongoing worldwide consequences) about 9/11 is that I can never look at a Boeing 767 again without seeing one hitting a building. This matters if like me, you always turn to look at a plane you hear flying by......