Author Topic: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece  (Read 68181 times)

Offline mako88sb

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A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« on: August 02, 2014, 08:03:09 AM »
Not sure if anybody is aware of the latest nonsense uploaded by the blunder from down-under about how lethal the VAB's are but here's a response that handles it quite thoroughly. Colophon has a note at about 3:40 to be careful when converting to Grays. In the original video, Jarrah multiplied instead of divided to get his result

« Last Edit: August 02, 2014, 08:05:18 AM by mako88sb »

Offline raven

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #1 on: August 02, 2014, 05:17:29 PM »
Nicely done. It will be interesting to see how he responds, if at all.

Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #2 on: August 04, 2014, 06:05:31 AM »
In the original video, Jarrah multiplied instead of divided to get his result

Which was his professor's fault, not Jarrah's. I spotted the Gray problem immediately. The bigger problem is the use of the data, and is nicely highlighted in this video. The chart Jarrah uses shows fluxes for electron energy with E > 0.5 MeV. Jarrah assumes energies of 10 MeV in his calculations, rather than a distribution of energies from 0.5 MeV. He has shown again that he cannot handle the data, nor does he have an idea of the real world and integrated doses. The concept that VAB electrons have a distribution of energies was raised at the IMDb and I have raised it with him several times, yet he still will not embrace this fact.

His bremsstrahlung assumptions are shocking and he lacks a complete understanding of the bremsstrahlung concept. He uses an equation to calculate the fraction of energy lost by bremsstrahlung when electrons are stopped (his source's terms, not mine) by the CM hull. He does not understand that this equation applies to an electron that has been completely stopped. This does not prevent him double counting the energy received from bremsstrahlung radiation and the kinetic energy of the electron.  ???  Even worse, he assumes that the bremsstrahlung energy he calculated is attributed to a single photon, i.e. a single bremsstrahlung interaction.  :o Finally he makes an enormous leap, the bremsstrahlung produced by VAB electrons falls into the hard x-ray region. One only has to examine bremsstrahlung and characteristic x-ray data for the common elements to realise that this assumption is incorrect. Furthermore, he takes no account of the CM being constructed of composite of materials, most of which are low Z.  ::)

I feel sorry for the boy, I really do. I doubt he'll back down and listen, he never does. It would appear in his mind at least that he has validated his theories through credible study, and now he has numbers for his smoking gun. I really do think the BSc is a response to the criticism of Ralph, Bill et al, and how they lacked proper credentials.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #3 on: August 04, 2014, 11:01:07 AM »
Which was his professor's fault, not Jarrah's.

I'm still not buying that explanation.  Given his myriad conceptual errors, I still think it's a "dog ate my homework" excuse.

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He has shown again that he cannot handle the data, nor does he have an idea of the real world and integrated doses.

That's probably the kindest, most succinct way to put it.  "Dumb as a post" comes to my mind.  But to be specific, he simply lacks the understanding of how the physics concepts are embodied in various formulations.  Hence he doesn't know how to adjust the formulas to meet the problem.

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The concept that VAB electrons have a distribution of energies was raised at the IMDb and I have raised it with him several times, yet he still will not embrace this fact.

I remember trying to lead him to that socratically at IMDb without success.  After a week or so of practically wiping his nose with it, it occurred to me that Jarrah simply doesn't know calculus.  And by that I don't mean that he doesn't know how to do calculus; I mean that he has no concept of what calculus is and what it accomplishes in science.  To claim any sort of astrophysics expertise without a working understanding of calculus is like trying to call yourself a baker and not being able to tell flour from painter's plaster.

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His bremsstrahlung assumptions are shocking...

As I said, dumb as a post.  And undoubtedly the real reason he doesn't want to present these findings to actual qualified scientists we arranged for him in his hometown.

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I feel sorry for the boy, I really do.

I don't.  Not one single bit.  He volunteers to do this, and he does it in order to keep a name for himself.  He can stop at any time and pursue a legitimate career.  But he continues fooling himself into thinking he's a brilliant scientist, and thus currying a following at his chosen venue.  And he does this at the expense of the reputations of real, hard-working scientists and engineers whose accomplishments he denigrates in order to reinforce his own ego.  Every bit of mockery he receives for his blatant incompetence is well earned.

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...and now he has numbers for his smoking gun.

Except that Van Allen himself, personally, took the gun away.  Referring specifically to this and similar pseudo-formulations, he looked right at them and called them nonsense.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline gillianren

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #4 on: August 04, 2014, 11:16:22 AM »
I remember trying to lead him to that socratically at IMDb without success.  After a week or so of practically wiping his nose with it, it occurred to me that Jarrah simply doesn't know calculus.  And by that I don't mean that he doesn't know how to do calculus; I mean that he has no concept of what calculus is and what it accomplishes in science.  To claim any sort of astrophysics expertise without a working understanding of calculus is like trying to call yourself a baker and not being able to tell flour from painter's plaster.

That may officially make him worse at it than I am.  I don't know calculus.  I've never taken calculus.  I would have failed if I had.  But I do know that you can't do physics without it, not properly.  (I took physics, in fact, but I would not really say I learned much in the class.  Our teacher had a heart attack in November, and our substitute for the next few months had a doctorate--in theatre.)  If you don't know the math, you don't speak the right language.
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Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #5 on: August 04, 2014, 12:31:18 PM »
I'm still not buying that explanation.

Neither do I.

Hence he doesn't know how to adjust the formulas to meet the problem.

He certainly does not. He produced some rubbish about moon rocks being scattered with 216 times more force than Earth rocks. What he failed to understand was how he introduced two degrees of freedom into his work, and hence he compared unlike rocks. I tried to explain this to him, and to this day he thinks that I claimed one can change the density of rocks arbitrarily. He cannot handle equations, and when one points out his errors by changing the mathematical equations he still fails to grasp his errors.

After a week or so of practically wiping his nose with it, it occurred to me that Jarrah simply doesn't know calculus.  And by that I don't mean that he doesn't know how to do calculus; I mean that he has no concept of what calculus is and what it accomplishes in science.

I don't believe he does, and for this reason I would be curious to speak to his professor to understand the assignment objectives and marking criteria. I am sure his professor does know calculus, and I expect his assignment was a foundation exercise that explored some basic principles which did not require calculus. I've taught physics to 1st and 2nd year undergraduates, and at that stage they are developing models and concepts, not analysing real world problems. The latter happens much later, and cannot happen until they achieved the former.

Jarrah has shown (again) what happens when one has a little knowledge but no real practical understanding. I don't wish to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet, but as a physicist with 25 years experience I have a deep understanding of solar physics, space radiation and particle interactions with matter, and can hold my own in this particular debate. I leave the design of space vehicles to engineers as that is their expertise.

As I said, dumb as a post.  And undoubtedly the real reason he doesn't want to present these findings to actual qualified scientists we arranged for him in his hometown.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again. He's been banging his drum long enough. It is time for him to defend his work. There must come a point where he puts up or shuts up. Over to you Jarrah, write up your work and have a set of experts review your thesis.

And he does this at the expense of the reputations of real, hard-working scientists and engineers whose accomplishments he denigrates in order to reinforce his own ego.

Fair point and one I agree with. To clarify, I feel sorry for him as I think something has clearly gone wrong in his life given the emotional investment he has with two relative strangers such as Ralph Rene and Bill Kaysing. If he were a relative of mine, this alone would give me cause for concern.

Except that Van Allen himself, personally, took the gun away.  Referring specifically to this and similar pseudo-formulations, he looked right at them and called them nonsense.

Dismissed out of hand by Jarrah at the beginning of his video by 'if we are to believe this letter is true', as he shows the correspondence between yourself and James van Allen. He poured arsenic down that particular water supply before presenting his calculations.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2014, 12:35:37 PM by Luke Pemberton »
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former - Albert Einstein.

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Offline JayUtah

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #6 on: August 04, 2014, 03:12:24 PM »
He cannot handle equations, and when one points out his errors by changing the mathematical equations he still fails to grasp his errors.

The difference between the practitioner and the beginning student is that the former seamlessly shifts between a conceptual knowledge of the problem and the formulation of the problem quantitatively.

For example, the computation of energy lost to braking and the kinetic energy of a particle have quantitative formulations that describe the relationships among all the quantities.  But the conceptual understanding is the knowledge that braking subtracts from kinetic energy because that's what it means in the natural world for something to have -- and lose -- kinetic energy.  A knowledgeable practitioner understands why you divide in a particular case, or subtract, or do whatever algebra is required to embody, represent, and comprehend the actual behavior.  Students who never develop that third-eye clarity of why the formulas work to describe the actual observable behavior never become competent practitioners.

In layman's terms, this is what we mean when we say something has "clicked."  The comprehensive gestalt understanding of any body of knowledge and its various representations simultaneously seems to occur most often as an epiphany.  Off topic, but I think one of the best examples is that moment when you finally realize how the eccentric works in a Wankel rotary engine.

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I've taught physics to 1st and 2nd year undergraduates, and at that stage they are developing models and concepts, not analysing real world problems. The latter happens much later, and cannot happen until they achieved the former.

I too have taught physics without calculus and it's much harder to convey appropriate concepts.  Still, you want to start people as early as possible in their intellectual development with, as you say, the models and concepts.  But the notion of integrating flux over time or integrating energy over a distribution of wavelengths is an important basic concept.  Seeing those patterns in the formulations and realizing that it corresponds to a somewhat abstract concept in the underlying behavior:  It has to happen at some time before the student graduates to practice.

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Jarrah has shown (again) what happens when one has a little knowledge but no real practical understanding.

I.e., when one just Googles but never actually does.  That's why, when I ask for a person's background as it becomes relevant, I ask for "adjudicated" training or education in a field.  The adjudication is what helps determine whether the person has mastered the topic.  Adjudication can be real-world experience if, for example, one's successful mastery of a skill or concept correlates to something important -- say, one's livelihood.  As I said, some of the best engineers I've worked with don't have engineering degrees.  The one I'm thinking of, however, builds racing engines and competes with them.  For the purposes of his (related) employment, that was sufficient to adjudicate his knowledge of mechanics, chemistry, thermodynamics, and all the relevant things you learn in your first few years of engineering school.  Trophies and ribbons suggest he really does know how to build high-performance engines basically from scratch.

Academic credentials are also important.  They certify a suitable survey of the breadth of the field.  And the credential implies the adjudication of knowledge, if only at the propositional level.  At least in engineering, a degree exemplifies a fair amount of lab and shop work that should suffice.  But obviously the best knowledge comes from suitable rigor in both the propositional understanding and the practical execution.

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I don't wish to sound like I am blowing my own trumpet, but as a physicist with 25 years experience I have a deep understanding...

That's a tune worth tooting.  What Jarrah and other conspiracy theorists fail to understand is how easy, comfortable, and downright familiar these concepts can be to the people who use them daily and must succeed at them by mastery.  I gather the typical conspiracist, fumbling his way through the problems as Jarrah does, genuinely believes what he's attempting is as hard for everyone else as it is for him, and that the uncertainties he encounters and the simplifications he applies are status quo for the field.  The conspiracist never grasps how intuitive the accurate and true behavior of the universe appears to those with appropriate practical understanding, and thus how abysmally naive and wrong their efforts actually appear to the trained practitioner.  In the worst case he may actually believe that his bumbling foray is no worse for wear than any other treatise in the field -- i.e., that he can simply throw a lot of mud and handwaving against the wall and that "somehow" it will still amount to a serviceable conclusion.

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He's been banging his drum long enough. It is time for him to defend his work.

I agree, but for obvious reasons he won't.  He has set himself up in strong opposition to the mainstream.  So his rhetoric is and must be that the mainstream will do whatever it takes to unseat him.  He doesn't need to face the mainstream in order to keep his fans, so he has no incentive.  In other words, he treads a path calculated to achieve the benefit of the doubt among his fans that he is some sort of Wunderkind, whereas an actual adjudication would obviously resolve the doubt rather forcefully.

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Fair point and one I agree with.

To be sure, he has called out me, Phil Plait, and others by name.  For now his antics simply amuse my clients.  But at a certain point, whether abstractly or concretely considered, his actions impugning another's reputation must be shown to have a factual  basis.  He is not entitled to build his reputation dishonestly forever at the expense of others, but there is a threshold below which any formal censure is impractical.  I suspect he intends to fly just under the radar indefinitely.

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To clarify, I feel sorry for him as I think something has clearly gone wrong in his life given the emotional investment he has with two relative strangers such as Ralph Rene and Bill Kaysing. If he were a relative of mine, this alone would give me cause for concern.

Yes, there's that.  All his rhetoric aside, there is enough visible in his life to argue that his choo-choo jumped the track in a pitiable way.  His fanatical fixation on Rene and Kaysing as mentors, and his equally fanatical fixation on me and others as enemies, his foul mouth and uncontrolled temper.  I would retreat a bit and agree these are likely signs of something possibly beyond his immediate control.

However it is difficult at times to separate what may be an unfortunate condition in his life from aspects that are clearly contrived and deliberate, such as his constant misrepresentation of factually discernible things.  It is one thing to act out for some reason that makes sense to him.  It is quite another thing to look directly into the face of a fact and deny it, or to take other actions more likely explicable as deliberate attempts to gain or save face.

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[Van Allen's opinion] [d]ismissed out of hand by Jarrah at the beginning of his video...

Case in point.  Jarrah knew of and had ample opportunity to verify the quote himself with Dr. Van Allen.  However, attempts to suggest the quote was fabricated didn't arise until after Van Allen died.  I view that as specifically and deliberately disingenuous.  It's not the action of a troubled mind, but rather than of a deviously misdirected mind.  Ditto Wade Frazier and Brian O'Leary -- Jarrah was directly challenged to confirm with Frazier the nature of our group correspondence over which he quibbled, but he expressly refused to do it.  He had to have suspected the strong likelihood that Frazier would confirm my evaluation, and thus Jarrah devolved into the sort of ham-fisted tap-dancing that characterizes his unwillingness to face facts.

There is, in my experience, a vast difference between the obfuscatory rhetoric of someone laboring under a valid delusion, and that of someone simply looking to deceive.  The former prevarications are well-honed and considerably airtight, while the latter are especially ham-fisted and clumsy.  I believe most of Jarrah's awkward evasions of verifiable fact are explained by deliberation, not by delusion.
"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams

Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #7 on: August 04, 2014, 03:39:35 PM »
But I do know that you can't do physics without it, not properly.

Absolutely. When I began my 16-18 education (A-levels in the UK), I had to study A-level physics and A-level maths because I needed the language of maths to study physics properly. By the time I was studying for my degree I was taking courses in mathematics run by the physics and mathematics departments alongside those studying maths degrees. This was to support 2nd and 3rd year study in physics. I carried on studying applied math deep into my third year because my physics options were in theoretical areas. This applies equally to engineering. You can't really study and 'do' engineering without having a deep understanding of applied maths.

It is not just a simple case of plugging numbers into equations either. As Jay so aptly describes, adapting and applying the equations to a situation shows a real understanding of the underlying concepts. There comes a point where knowing an equation is not good enough. A good example is Newtonian mechanics. Newtonian mechanics can be understood to a point without calculus, but after that point the richness of Newton's world requires a deeper understanding of calculus. For instance, in the UK, force = mass x acceleration is taught to school students as this enables them to tackle the concepts. Very soon F= m dv/dt is required, along with all the other differential forms that Newton developed. Without this framework physics becomes very limited and access to other sub-fields is soon closed.
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Offline JayUtah

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #8 on: August 04, 2014, 05:01:35 PM »
Very soon F= m dv/dt is required, along with all the other differential forms that Newton developed.

...especially in rocketry, where mass also varies over time.  ;D
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Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #9 on: August 04, 2014, 06:08:30 PM »
Very soon F= m dv/dt is required, along with all the other differential forms that Newton developed.

...especially in rocketry, where mass also varies over time.  ;D

Exactly, and in Special Relativity where mass varies with velocity ;D. In which case the integral of F dx leads us to E = mc2.

Digressing: Just as you explored Jarrah's understanding of the calculus at the IMDb, I once explored his opinions of Ralph Rene's non-Apollo science, specifically that Ralph had undone Einstein's relativity. I was particularly interested with how he could reconcile two statements from Ralph, namely that Ralph has 'reduced relativity to an absurdity' and 'stars  cannot collapse as astronomers say because they would violate Einstein's relativity by travelling faster than light .'

At this conjecture Jarrah explained that Ralph did not agree with the time dilation aspects of relativity.  Work that one out if you can?  ???

I then realised Jarrah had no understanding of physics at the level he was portraying in his MoonFaker videos, and he would blindly hold on to Ralph's words no matter what. Pretty much how you felt about his understanding of calculus.

I wonder how he will deal with the relativistic aspects of astrophysics and cosmology, such as say... evidence for the big bang.  ;D
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former - Albert Einstein.

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Offline Luke Pemberton

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #10 on: August 04, 2014, 06:29:51 PM »
I too have taught physics without calculus and it's much harder to convey appropriate concepts.  Still, you want to start people as early as possible in their intellectual development with, as you say, the models and concepts.  But the notion of integrating flux over time or integrating energy over a distribution of wavelengths is an important basic concept.  Seeing those patterns in the formulations and realizing that it corresponds to a somewhat abstract concept in the underlying behavior:  It has to happen at some time before the student graduates to practice.

A perfect example of this is black body radiation. This forms part of the staple diet for 1st year undergraduate physics, where the ideas and concepts are taught. It is usually accompanied by a discussion of the ultra violet catastrophe. Planck's quantum leap (excuse the deliberate pun) is not really solidified in the students' minds until their third year as there are other areas of physics that need to be brought together before a full discussion of why the ultraviolet catastrophe was indeed a catastrophe for classical physics. For instance, one needs an understanding of quantum statistical mechanics, but there are other bridges to cross before this can be developed. Once the pieces are all brought together, then the student can truly understand the shape of the curve, why the energy of the photons is described in differential form, how that differential form is used, and physically interpret the outcome of changing variables. The deeper understanding requires a blending of Planck's concepts and the physics that followed during the quantum revolution, with a heavy dose of the mathematical tools. This takes time to develop, but once in place the student can begin to say they are a true practitioner of this sub-field in quantum physics.
« Last Edit: August 04, 2014, 06:32:39 PM by Luke Pemberton »
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former - Albert Einstein.

I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people – Sir Isaac Newton.

A polar orbit would also bypass the SAA - Tim Finch

Offline ka9q

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #11 on: August 04, 2014, 09:46:15 PM »
I remember trying to lead him to that socratically at IMDb without success.  After a week or so of practically wiping his nose with it, it occurred to me that Jarrah simply doesn't know calculus.  And by that I don't mean that he doesn't know how to do calculus; I mean that he has no concept of what calculus is and what it accomplishes in science.  To claim any sort of astrophysics expertise without a working understanding of calculus is like trying to call yourself a baker and not being able to tell flour from painter's plaster.

Agreed. I know this is a little off topic, but this raises an interesting question about educational methods. Just how much calculus do you really need to understand the first few years of physics, and how should it be taught?

I took my first calculus course in high school in the early 1970s. Calculators had just appeared, but they weren't programmable so they weren't particularly useful in numerical integrations. We also had occasional access to a minicomputer at a different location so it also wasn't particularly useful for anything but introductory programming. So we were taught calculus the traditional, analytic way. I remember integrating and differentiating pages of complex contrived formulas that I knew I would never see in the real world. I already knew you could get remarkably far in physics with just a few integrals, but our calculus teacher thought them too trivial...

But times have changed. Numerical integration is a backbone of science and engineering because it's useful in the great majority of real-world situations that cannot be solved analytically, at least without too many simplifications.  I sometimes find myself writing a quick-and-dirty program even when I suspect I could solve my problem analytically. It's expedient, and I often need only an approximate answer anyway.

So I think there may be merit to using a rudimentary form of numerical integration (vs the classical analytic approach) as you teach, e.g., Newtonian mechanics. If I wanted to explain Tsiolkovsky's rocket equation to someone without an understanding of calculus, I would probably talk about summing up a whole bunch of little periods during which I assume the rocket's thrust and mass remain constant. I would probably avoid the word "integral" even though that's exactly what it is because it has a tendency to shut students off as "too hard". And if you let the computer do the dirty work, you can concentrate on understanding what's "really happening" instead of getting mired in abstract formulas.

Obviously at some point in physics classical calculus is simply unavoidable; I'm just not sure you have to do it right at the start. But I'm an engineer, not a scientist, and I'm sure reasonable people can differ. Comments?

Offline Tedward

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #12 on: August 05, 2014, 02:24:29 AM »
Which one was Calculus? He the one that that was a boat that turned into a robot or was it the dish washer that turned into a robot? I know all about Calculus, seen the films.

Offline Al Johnston

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #13 on: August 05, 2014, 06:01:13 AM »
I think you have him confused with the acting unit on Futurama...
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Offline ka9q

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Re: A rebuttal to Jarrah's latest masterpiece
« Reply #14 on: August 05, 2014, 12:00:12 PM »
That would be Calculon...