From: throopw@sheol.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: talk.origins
Subject: Holden omissions
Summary: consequences of his theories Ted doesn't mention
Date: 28 Sep 92 04:50:41 GMT

Ted has posted his usual scenarios with little or no changes.
He hasn't even bothered to change the mispelling of McGowan's
name in his "predator problems" posting, and has not corrected the
error of calling the Smithsonian elephant "Jumbo" (it is actually
called "the Fenykoevi elephant" in sources I've seen: "Jumbo"
was Barnum's elephant, and was never in the Smithsonian).

But in addition to the abysmally poor attention to detail that
Ted's postings exhibit, he conveniently overlooks many consequences
of his theories which essentially render them impossible.

Hence this posting.  It is itself a repost of three previous posts.

    Subject: Holden Numbering
    Subject: Holden and the teratorn
    Subject: Holden FCE (Frequenly Corrected Errors)

The first segment below covers Ted's mistakes in his calculation
of the "Holden Limit", and explains the Holden Numbering scheme
in detail.  Responses to objections Ted raised the last time it was
posted have been incorporated.

The second goes into the teratorn and pterosaur issue in some detail,
based on Alexander's "The Dynamics of Dinosaurs and Other Extinct Giants". 

The third notes Holden omissions in the areas of plate tectonics, saturn
orbital dynamics, venus thermodynamics, and so on.  This third section is
the most general, so for the quickest and broadest summary, skip ahead
by finding "Holden FCE" below. 

With that, here's what Ted always neglects to tell you:

----
Subject: Holden Numbering
Summary: explanation of the Holden Number, and why Ted gets it wrong

> From: rh@smds.com (Richard Harter)
> Message-ID: <1992Aug16.023113.3121@smds.com>
> As far as "Holden's number" is concerned, it reminds me of the old
> chestnut of the three men, the hotel, and the bellboy.
> [...]
> The trick, of course, is that numbers that don't go together are being
> combined illegitimately.  It's all a bit of flim-flam.  Holden's number
> is much like that missing dollar...

Well...  the metaphor is appealing, but isn't sufficiently exact for my
taste.  The point I'll try to bring out below is that Ted (though he
explains himself very poorly) is not adding apples to oranges as in the
hotel bill, but rather he is keeping a separate basket of apples that he
refuses to add into the total. 

First, just what is the Holden Number?  It is the weight in pounds-force
over the square of the cube root of the mass in pounds-mass mass of
any given creature.  So

                     lbs        HN
                +---------------------
        cat     |     10        2.15
       human    |    200        5.85
      elephant  |  10000       21.5
    brachiosaur | 150000       53.1

What does this calculation mean?  It is a measure of force (the lbs
weight) per available cross section (the lbs mass ^(2/3)).  The
lbs mass cube-rooted and then squared because the mass is a rough
indicator of volume, and hence the ^2/3 power of mass is a rough
indicator of cross section.

Whence then the Holden Limit of 27?  Well, if an animal is lifing
more than its own weight, we can simply add the additional force
to the top of the ratio, yielding a Holden Number which characterizes
that lift.  Holden claims that Kazmaier's 1000 lb squat represents
a limit of performance for animals Kazmaier's size or larger, and that
the squat in general accurately models the act of standing up, and
thus he calculates

         (1000 + 350) / 350^(2/3)  ~=  27

to get a figure for the maximum possible Holden Number of any creature.
Since this is just beyond the actual Holden Number for elephants,
Ted then jumped to the conclusion that elephants are the largest
creatures that can exist.

There are many side issues, such as

     - smaller weightlifters than Kazmaier have higher Holden Numbers
       for their weightlifting acts
     - other primates can sustain weights far larger
     - Guiness (despite some doubt as to the accuracy) lists an
       elephant beyond Ted's limit
     - elephants in circuses have been reported doing acts with
       HN larger than 30

Ted has explanations for all of these points, but showing why he is wrong
on all of them would be prohibitively tedious.  Let's just address Ted's
frequent claim that smaller creatures are at an advantage due to larger
creature's "muscles binding together".  First, let's address Ted's claim 
that "Ants probably derive Holden numbers far above the 27 I mention".

But why bother with "probably"?  Let's take a really large ant, and give
it tremendous strength: 1 gram of ant, lifing 100 times its weight.
This loads the dice in Ted's favor.  Yet the HN of such an ant is less
than 15.  Even such a goliath of an ant would have to lift 200 times
its weight or so before reaching HN 27.  And more reasonably sized
ants would have to lift 500 or 1000 times their weight.  Ted is
definitely mistaken here.

( Note: Guiness mentions some beetles that come close, but you will note 
  that those events don't involve lifting, but simply the point at which
  their exoskeletons crush. )

Ted also frequently claims that "[...]layers of thick muscles will begin
to bind somewhat against each other" as size increases, and points to
the fall-off of square-cube-scaled performance in weightlifting in the
highest weight classes.  Unfortunately, what Ted doesn't tell you is
that his theory of "muscles binding" can't explain the whole story,
because performance also falls off in the *lower* weight classes, and
that can't be due to Ted's "muscle binding" theory.   Again, Ted is
definitely mistaken.

But rather than make a large enough digression to present all the
reasons Ted is mistaken about the above points, I want to pursue what I
consider the three primary reasons that the Holden Limit is incorrect. 
(This is a slightly different list of three than I have pointed out
before: I've slightly rearranged the "tiling" of the three points, but
they still cover much the same area.)

     1)  biped/quadruped differences
     2)  cross section differences due to non-proportional scaling
     3)  leverage differences due to non-proportional scaling

We can correct the Holden Limit to apply to quadrupeds by simply adding
the weight Kazmaier can lift with his arms to that he can lift with his
legs to get a rough idea.  That modifies the formula to

                (1660 + 350) / 350^(2/3)  ~=  40

Still short of the HN for a brachiosaur.  But we can account for
proportional scaling differences between species by dividing by a more
appropriate factor.  We can't really determine what that factor is
easily, but we can get a ballpark idea by using the bone thickness
factor reported by Alexander and others of (1/2.73).  Ted calls this a
"mysterioso, non-real-world" fudge factor.  Actually, it is based
directly on observation, so it is, in fact, a non-mysterioso real-world
factor, despite Ted's claim.  Ted also says "bones don't lift weight,
muscles do".  Quite so, but I'm using Alexander's numbers on bone
thickness to scale the whole limb, muscles and all.  Note that this will
give us a different scale completely, so we have to do the figure for
both Kazmaier and the brachiosaur:

             (1660 + 350)  / 350^(2/2.73)    ~=  27.5
               150000   / 150000^(2/2.73)    ~=  24.2

( By coincidence, the limit number here turns out to be much the
  same as the original Holden Limit. )

So, if we simply take nonproportional scaling into account, as Ted
refuses to do, we can see that at least the brachiosaur is within
the corrected limit.

Finally, we can add a factor correcting for leverage to our formula by
assuming that limb length scales as cube root of mass, while joint
radius scales as 2.73 root of mass.  Working it out, we get this (note
that the limit this time is 22):

       (1660 + 350) / (350^(2/2.73) * (350^(1/2.73)/350^(1/3))) ~= 22.6
    600000 / (600000^(2/2.73) * (600000^(1/2.73)/600000^(1/3))) ~= 22.6

That is, the corrected limiting size of an animal in 1G is about 600000
lbs.  The largest plausible figures for sauropod masses are half that. 
At large sauropod sizes, this means that limbs only about 20 percent
proportionally thicker than Kazmaier's are required.  And such legs
would, indeed fit under a sauropod.  At this point Ted objects that
thicker legs would cause such a creature to become "muscle bound", but
as we've already seen, his theory is at odds with the facts, and even if
it were a factor, it seems very unlikely to be a significant factor for
such a small thickening as 20 percent. 

Now, Ted's resolution of this "problem" is different.  Instead of taking
into consideration a more detailed model, Ted persists with the
oversimplified Holden Number, exploits his confusion between the
slimmest of sauropods (the diplodocids) and the stoutest (the
brachiosaurids), combines this with the mistaken impression that
diplodocid masses are calculated by force estimation and the
brachiosaurid masses by volume estimation, and comes up with the curious
formula (against the original Holden Number scale remember, where the
limit is 27, not 22):

          150000 / 500000^(2/3)   ~= 23.8

Both methods account for sauropods.  Ted does it by assuming
that sauropods were subject to 150000/500000 G effective acceleration,
or about one-third gravity.  Why Ted's attempts to supply a reduced
effective acceleration fail, of course, is material for several
additional posts.

As for me, I can't see that the .3 gravity is required to solve the
"problem", because the assumptions behind the Holden Limit at 10 tons or
so in 1G are simply incorrect. 

Anyway, I think you can now see why I'd say that Ted is adding apples
to apples... his calculations have the correct dimentionality (though
Ted himself calls the Holden Number "dimensionless", which is, of course,
another error on his part).  He just isn't adding up all the apples
he has, choosing to ignore those in his "quadruped", "limb proportions"
and "leverage" baskets.


----
Subject: Holden and the teratorn
Summary: Ted has many facts wrong, and his conclusion is a non-sequitur

> From: news@fedfil.UUCP (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2762@fedfil.UUCP>
> In the antediluvian world, 350 lb flying creatures soared in skys which
> no longer permit flying creatures above 30 lbs or so.  

Wow.  Ted sure packs a lot of misinformation into a single, simple
sentence.  First, the 350 lb estimate is quite high, and represents
a largest possible estimate with wide "error bars".  In fact (near
as I can tell), this is refering to the estimates for Argentavis, the
largest teratorn (though it might also be the upper range of an
estimate for the pteranodon Quetzalcoatlus, with similar error bars).
Here's what Alexander has to say about that weight estimate.

    [...] 80 kilograms is the best estimate that has been made of
    the mass of Argentavis, but there is a lot of uncertainty about
    it.  Birds of equal mass, of different species, may have considerably 
    different bone thicknesses.  Statistical analysis of the data tells
    us that the conclusion should be no more precise than this: there is
    a 95 percent probability (the odds are 19 to 1) that the mass of
    Argentavis lay between 37 and 166 kilograms. [...]

    -- From "Dynamics of Dinosaurs and other Extinct Giants"
          Alexander, 1989.

Now, 37 kilograms is 82 pounds, and 166 kilograms is 365 lbs.  That is,
when Ted quotes "350 pounds", all that the data supports is that it
could just as easily be 90 lbs.  Not that 90 lbs is by any means light
for a flight-capable bird (as we will see), but it is definitely
misleading to give a 350 pound figure in so definite a way.  (And again,
if Ted means a large pteranodon here instead of a teratorn, the
"error bars" are quite similar.)

Second, the skies currently DO in fact "permit flying creatures
above 30 lbs or so".  From the Guiness Book of records, in the "Birds"
section in "The Living World" chapter, we have

    The worlds heaviest flying birds are the Kori Bustard or paauw
    (Ardeotis kori) of northeast and southern Africa, and the great
    bustard (Otis tarda) of Europe and Asia.  [...]  The heaviest
    reliable recorded great bustard weighed 39.7 lbs.

    The mute swan (Cygnus olor), which is resident in Britain,
    can reach 40 lbs on very rare ocassions.  [...]

I'd say that 40 lbs is "above 30 lbs or so".  It is more than 30 percent
"above 30 lbs".  And, of course, the fact that humans can hang-glide in
thermals or slope updrafts for hours clearly indicates that there's no
aerodynamic limit at "30 lbs or so".  Contrary to Ted's claims, a
hang-glider of the required size could be built out of materials with
strength of bone and tendon. 

And third, of course "antediluvean" presupposes that there is
a "diluv" for there to be anything "ante" to.  Physical evidence
is not consistent with a world-wide flood.

> Modern raptors
> (the teratorn) weighing 170 - 200 lbs with wingspans of 30' also flew;
> within recorded history, central asians have been trying to breed hunting
> eagles for size and strength, and have not gotten them beyond 25 lbs or
> thereabouts.  

Teratorns are thought to have been vultures.  Thus, Ted's comparison
to modern eagles is not really on target.

Further, selective breeding reduces the variability of a root stock,
and so the failure for modern eagles to get beyond 25 lbs or so is
an indication that the variability of the breeding stock doesn't
run that far, and of nothing much else.

It was also mentioned to me by email that it is very unlikely that these
eagles were actually bred...  captive breeding of falcons and eagles is
very tricky, and it is much more likely that the central asias Ted
references were "capturing" wild-bred eggs of the largest birds they
could find.  I have been unable to find the book Ted references for this
information, but it does seem at best an exageration. 

> No flying creature has since RE-EVOLVED into anything 
> like former sizes,

Finally, something I can agree with.  However, a local condition of
very stable winds over a long enough time (tens of thousands of years)
could easily cause a bird to evolve to take advantage of this, and
then to become extinct when the climate or geography changed to remove
a constant supply of slope updrafts or thermal updrafts.  

For example, if the trade winds were a bit more steady than they are now
(and there is some evidence that they were), then a seacoastal area
might well have had a practially permanent glider's heaven for a long
enough time.  Or for another example, a long period of Yellowstone-like
thermal activity over a suitable area for long enough could have
likewise created thermals over the period of time required.  A land
bird depending on such a condition would go extinct when the condition
it depends upon fails.

And again, the "why nothing re-evovles" problem is simply explained:
the conditions can't support it.  What's pretty certain is, Ted's
original "350 lbs" can't possibly be explained by a decrease in
effective acceleration at the earth's surface.  It would have required
(according to Ted) something like 1/10th G, or a 90% reduction.  At
that level, Earth's atmosphere would have escaped (as it has on the
moon), and the crust would have been ripped apart.

So, we have simple, reasonable, and adequate explanations, or we have
Ted's scenario which creates more problems that it solves.  Despite the
extreme size and impressiveness of the teratorn, Ted's "solution" is
very, very unlikely to turn out to be the correct one. 

A few left-over errors to correct:

> Living
> totally at the mercy of the winds, a creature might never get back
> home to its nest and children given the first contrary wind.

Nobody said they were at the "mercy" of the winds.  Slope-soaring
sea birds or thermal-soaring land birds can navigate most anywhere
they want to, upwind or not.

> Desmond notes a fairly reasonably
> modus operandi for the pteranodon, i.e. that it had a throat pouch
> like a pelican, has been found with fish fossils indicating a
> pelican-like existence, soaring over the waves and snapping up fish
> without landing.  That should indicate that, peculiarly amongst all
> of the creatures of the earth, the pteranodon should have been
> practically IMMUNE from the great extinctions of past ages. 

Alexander also explores the pteranodon in his book, and comes to similar
conclusions (though he compares to the frigate bird rather than the
pelican, because the frigate bird is a modern slope-soaring bird.  He
also does extensive aerodynamic calculations that show the pternaodon to
have been viable. 

And since the pteranodon (in Alexander's proposal) is dependant on
brisk slope-updrafts due to unusually stable trade winds at the time
of the pteranodon, the failure of these trade winds would spell the
end of the pteranodon.  Far from being "IMMUNE" from extinction, they
would be forced to land in water, and then be unable to avoid
sharks or other predators.  And even if there WERE no predators,
if they were unable to slope-soar, they'd be unable to feed.

( Note that predators aren't a problem for either teratorn or
  the pteranodon under these scenarios, since they could take
  off easily enough *if* given the thermals or slope updrafts
  which they depended upon. )

In summary, Ted has something interesting when he points out that
the pteranodon and teratorn are problematical.  But this certainly
doesn't point towards any necessity for a "lower felt effect of gravity"
(by which presumably Ted means a lower effective acceleration at
the earth's surface).

( I'm sure Ted would call the notion of stable slope updrafts or
  long-term stable thermals "Bullshit", as he does the Guiness record
  for largest elephant.  I'd recommend reading Alexander's book
  for a reasonably simple treatment of the ideas, which should
  convince any reasonable person they aren't so easily dismissable. )

> Notice that the calculations mentioned say about 50 lbs is max for
> either a flier or a glider, and that experience from our present
> world absolutely coincides with this and, in fact, don't go quite
> that high;  the biggest flying creatures which we actually see are
> albatrosses, geese etc. at around 30 - 35 lbs.  

Clearly not so.  Humans glide at weights far beyond that.  Thus, if
the calculations say that gliding can't occur at weights beyond
50 lbs, the calculations are wrong.  (Here is what seems a case
of Ted prefering to fit reality to his theory, rather than the
other way around, as he accuses others of doing.)

> Similarly, my
> calculations say that about 20000 lbs would be the largest
> theoretically possible land animal in our present world, and Jumbo
> the stuffed elephant which I've mentioned, the largest known land
> animal from our present world, was around 16000.

For about the tenth time, that elephant isn't called Jumbo by anybody
but Ted (and maybe the guard he talked to at the Smithsonian).
And protest though Ted might, 16000 lbs is NOT the largest elephant.
If Ted wants to lower the entry in the Guiness Book of Records for
the elephant they have listed (shot in 1974 in Angola at 27000 lbs),
then he should take it up with the Guiness people, not with me.

Even further, the Fenykoevi elephant (the one Ted miscalls Jumbo above)
is listed at 24000 lbs by the book "Animal Feats and Figures" by 
Gerald L. Wood, so the 16000 lbs is not so very certain.

And of course, more reasonable calculations done by people who do it
professionally, show that the limit on land animal size is more like
240000 lbs, and possibly somewhat higher.  And Ted's McGowan figures
notwithstanding, it is entirely plausible that the largest dinosaurs
were well within this limit. 

----
Subject: Holden FCE (Frequenly Corrected Errors)
Summary: Nothing new here... just Holden's usual, repeated errors

This isn't the same Holden physics errors list I have posted in the
past, but is directed towards specific, recently reposted errors of Ted's.

> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2743@fedfil.UUCP>
> The 2/3 power of body weight is a general average of body cross
> section and a natural scaling power for all lifting events.  

As usual, Ted leaves out the crucially important "...  involving
isometrically scaled lifters".  Further, it is at best misleading to
call it a "general average of body cross section", since it is merely an
indicator of the *limiting* cross section of the lifter and event
involved, and (again) only applies to isometrically scaled lifters. 

> That number
> should roughly compensate for any differences  between biped and
> quadruped,

This is incorrect.  Or more specifically, whether it "should" or not, it
manifestly DOES NOT compensate for any such differences.  It does not
even completely compensate for differences between two such closely
related bipeds as humans and chimpanzees.  For example, the human record
for the deadlift at 100 lbs (actually, the 52Kg class, which is 114 lbs
or so) is 237.5Kg, or about 524 lbs.  Yet a 100 lb chimpanzee deadlifted
600 lbs "with ease".  Ref: the 1992 Guiness Book of Records, 
"Strongest Primate".

In other words, the chimp, with no training, and at a 14 lbs of muscle
mass disadvantage, "with ease" outperformed the best human by 12 percent
or so.  And this is not even yet considering the differences between
bipeds and quadrupeds.  Ted's theory just doesn't stand up to
the facts.

( And we can be pretty sure that the "felt effect of gravity" had 
  nothing to do with the chimp's trouncing of the human record. )

> That the biggest elephants get a ratio of around 24 - 25 just standing
> compared to Kaz's 26 for the 1000 lb lifts, i.e. near equality, is not a
> coincidence.  They've reached a point at which just standing up is a
> near capacity act.  Just a tiny bit bigger, and they'd NOT be able to
> stand.

Incorrect again.  Elephants have been reported capable of arising from a
squat on their rear legs, to a "bipedal" standing posture, without using
their forelimbs at all.  Using Ted's own (incorrect, BTW) assumption
that 60 percent of the elephant's weight is normally carried on their
rear legs, and the further (again as per Ted doctrine, and again
incorrect) principle that the elephant using *four* legs is accounted
for the square-cube isometric scaling, that elephant needed a Holden
Number of 36, well beyond the very best Kazmaier ever did.

Again, Ted's theories just don't stand up to the facts.

> The continuing reaction which I get from Wayne Throop and
> one or two others on all of this (i.e. that these huge animals somehow
> had higher power-to-weight ratios than Kaz and that this was somehow
> natural) is also a form of an extreme:  extreme ignorance.

I've quoted my facts and given my sources.  This is hardly a mere
"somehow": I've many times stated *why* animals can have higher Holden
Numbers than Kazmaier, and shown that they in fact do.  The fact that
Ted refuses to acknowledge facts, and resorts to insult, is his problem,
not mine. 

> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2738@fedfil.UUCP>
> One variety of pteratorn, however, judging from pictures which have appeared
> in Science Magazine, was very nearly a scaled-up golden eagle weighing
> 170 lbs or so, with a wingspan of 27' 

Unless Ted has changed his reference since he last posted it,
the "picture" he is refering to here is an artist's conception.
It doesn't surprise me that the artist might be mistaken.

> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2737@fedfil.UUCP>
> Velikovsky PREDICTED the intense heat of Venus in 1950;  

After others had somethow managed to predict anomalously high
heat of Venus some tens of years before him.

> For a 70,000 lb brontosaur, however, you get a ratio around 41, which means
> that a brontosaur simply could not live in our world, since he would be a
> land creature unable to stand. Some major league difference between our world
> as it exists now and as it existed prior to the flood is needed to
> explain the dilemma.

Ted always ignores the simple resolution.  His comparison to 
Kazmaier ignores:

     1) Biped to quadruped differences.  It is simply incorrect to claim,
        as Ted does, that square/cube scaling accounts for this difference.
     2) Limb leverage differences.  Ted claims these differences are
        negligable.  They are not.  They alone can easily account for a
        two-to-one factor of available force from a muscle.
     3) Incorrect model.  Ted claims that the powerlifting "squat" event
        models what sauropods (or any land animal) must accomplish.
        He has neither established that (say) sauropods ever were OFF
        their feet as adults, nor the accuracy of the analogy.

These three fallacies of his argument have been pointed out to Ted for
more than four years.  He has no answer for them, other than to simply
ignore them.  Ignoring fallacies does not make Ted's reasoning correct.
 
> The seismosaur turns out to be a two-for-one, double-sized brontosaur,
> and that says that you multiply the weight figure (35 tons) by eight.

This is incorrect.  Ted has been corrected on this point many times. 
The seismosaur was a diplodicid sauropod.  The brontosaur was a
brachiodaurid sauropod.  Thus, the seismosaur was a 1.6-for-one
diplodocus, NOT a double-sized brontosaur.  The Diplodocus was 87 ft
long, the seisomosaur was 140 ft long.  Weight estimates for Diplodocus
range from 7 to 20 tons, giving estimates for seismosaur of 30 to 84
tons (60,000 to 168,000 lbs), making Ted's "estimate" of 560,000 lbs off
by at least three times. 

Again, Ted has been confusing diplodocid sauropods with brachiosaurid
sauropods for a year or two at least, and has been corrected
continuously throughout that time.  I don't really expect him to face
facts, but perhaps others can be warned to avoid his elementary errors. 

> "If it worked once, why does it no longer
> work?  Why do they not RE-EVOLVE to their former sizes?"
> [...] The only real answer to any of
> these dilemmas is that the felt effect of gravity must have been heavily
> attenuated in the antique world by forces no longer in evidence.  

Ted is leaving out the fact that the dinosaur giants had enhanced
digestive efficientcy due to their ability to more thoroughly grind
their vegitarian diet.  (They had gizzards.) Thus, the hypothesis that
the limiting factor on the size of herbivores nowadays is largely their
diet also explains Ted's "dilemmas", without resorting to unexplained
"forces no longer in evidence".  Herbivores nowdays don't simply evolve
so large because they can't exploit a pre-existing gizzard. 

Ted often uses the ploy of saying that the "only" answer to 
so-and-so is Velikovskyism.  He is usually very inaccurate, 
as he is in this case.

> This, [..a reduced effective gravitational acceleration on the earth..]
> Velikovsky and latter day catastrophists, especially David
> Talbott, can account for.

Ted leaves out that they account for it by introducing far worse
problems, eg: putting earth within the Roche limit of Saturn, ignoring
problems of the source of forces required to stabilize their proposed
orbits, and many others.
 
> [...] the odds of them [..the continents..] 
> all merely drifting together for no
> reason are greater than 64 - 1, which would be the odds against them
> ever merely appearing in the same hemisphere for no real reason.

There are two errors here. First, nobody (besides Ted, or others
who ignore plate tectonic theory) supposes the general trends of
continental drifts are random.  The continents aren't supposed to
have drifted together for "no reason".

Second, the statistical error of supposing that a continent either is or
is not in a given hemisphere, and then throwing the "dice" (or six
coins) a single time to get an estimate of them EVER having been in the
same hemisphere is so blatant an error, it is stunning than anybody
with more than a high-school education would make the error, let alone
cling to it after the fallacy has been pointed out.
 
> Rose's solution to the aforementioned problems:  imagine a half of a
> grapefruit skin sitting atop a basketball (our egg-shaped world), and
> then inagine that a catastrophe occurred during which this felt effect
> of OTHER gravity, from the small-star or large planet(s) was reduced,
> which amounts to imagining that somebody pushed the half grapefruit skin
> down atop the surface of the basketball, thus forcing it to lie atop a
> surface of lesser curvature.  The skin of the grapefruit half would
> split into something very like the Sea of Tethys.
 
What Ted neglects to tell you, is that we can then use Rose's
calculations to estimate what the reduced "effect of gravity" (that is,
effective gravitational acceleration) would have occured with the shape
Rose needs.  It is about .05g, less than a tenth what Ted requires for
his theories.  Therefore, Ted is claiming that Rose's calculations
support his theory, when in fact they contradict them. 

>  news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
> Message-ID: <2740@fedfil.UUCP>
> [...] the easter rabbit doesn't violate the 2'nd law of thermodynamics.

Ted's implication being that the greenhouse theory to account for the
surface temperature of Venus *does* violate this law.

In fact, it does not.

Ted's misconceptions about the energy budget of Venus are many and
great, but briefly, Ted makes his claim that greenhouse effects can't
account for the temperature of the surface of Venus because so little
sunlight *reaches* the surface.  The issue is not how little energy
reaches the surface: even if NO sunlight reached the surface,
radioactive sources of energy exist in the planet, as they do on earth. 
The issue is how fast can energy escape the atmosphere.  If energy
escapes slowly enough, any input of energy on the surface, no matter how
small, would make it hotter than the higher levels. 

Ted's argument that this couldn't be because "heat rises" is missing the
point.  Unless you canlculate exactly *how* *fast* the heat rises by
convection (vs how fast it radiates back down from the middle
atmosphere), you can't know what the ultimate temperature is on the
surface.  Without specific nubmers, Ted's argument can't be correctly
made.  What numbers Ted does give are flawed, as we can see below:

> news@fedfil.UUCP (news) (Ted Holden)
>     Several posters on t.o noted that such large flux
> differentials (as high as 600 w/m**2) would necessarily translate
> into equally large outflows at the top of the atmosphere [...]
> Besides, how would the planet throw off that much heat? [...]
> 
> From a journal article of Charles Ginenthal:
> [...]
>     The super-hot air therefore expands and rises,
>     pushing the layers above it which also expand and rise.  The
>     process goes on until the upper air layers have risen
>     sufficiently high to permit heat to dissipate more rapidly in
>     the freezing altitudes of space, following which the entire
>     atmosphere contracts to repeat the process.   

It has been explained to Ted many times that "dissipation" of heat into
space can only happen by radiation.  Ted claims that 600 Watts/square
meter of energy are "dissipated".  This is simply not possible, no
matter how one juggles albedo or whatnot...  Venus simply doesn't
radiate that much excess heat, not by at least an order of magnitude. 
Ted claims:

>  A thermal outflux of 10 - 15% at the top would be
> ballpark for matching the upward IR flux measured by the 
> [..atmospheric..] probes

This simply isn't so (unless you count "off by more than half an order
of magnitude" as being a "ballpark match").  Further, in reaching this
conclusion, Ted is taking earlier, less accurate measurements in 
preference to later, more accurate ones.  (That is, it isn't quite
the case of anybody "fiddling the numbers" of a single measurement
after the fact as Ted claims.)
--
Wayne Throop  ...!mcnc!dg-rtp!sheol!throopw
From: Ken.Stuckas@f2020.n112.z1.fidonet.org (Ken Stuckas)
Sender: FredGate@iphase.UUCP