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Powers up the Trademarked Weapon™
Posted By: SiliconDream <querl@uclink4.berkeley.edu>	Date: 11/14/99 3:37 a.m.
In Response To: Re: Yes, Mage, radioactive decay (OT) (Mage) > Radioactive decay doesnt give off heat... it gives off gammas. > While that might generate some heat, its pissant. Energy is energy. You think gamma rays can travel through a thousand miles of iron, nickel and rock without being absorbed? Ask the folks at Chernobyl or Three Mile Island whether radioactive decay produces a significant amount of heat or not. Meltdown ain't just a Final Fantasy spell (I know it's not as snappy as "Denial ain't just a river in Egypt," but work with me here). > The heat is from the earth's pressure compressing it. Hell, I > doubt the meteorites even had much to do with it. Arrggh! Everyone stop talking about pressure! Pressure is the force acting *against* compression. What you mean is that the heat is a) from *gravity* compressing the earth and b) from the heavy elements settling to the earth's center and displacing the lighter ones. Presure has *nothing* to do with it. If pressure does anything, it *prevents* objects from settling and thus *decreases* the amount of heat produced. > When you think about how big the earth is... and the fact that > if you have a hull breach on a sub at test depth you WILL set > the sub on fire... I always think about this, especially late at night...mmmm...oh, sorry. You were saying? > There is some wicked heat down there. But not from radiation. If > it WAS from radiation, why isnt it cooled off yet? It's qute clear why it isn't cooled off yet if it's from radiation. The Earth's store of radioactive material hasn't all decayed. If it had, we wouldn't have any uranium or plutonium to blow ourselves up with. Remember, the amount of such heavy elements available in the crust, where we can mine it, is miniscule compared to the amount in the Earth's core (just like you're arguing, the heavy elements sink.) If there's enough on the surface for us to easily get at and use, there must be huge amounts deeper down. And it's decaying all the time, producing new heat. Your objection is much more relevant when applied to your theory. The Earth has been basically the same in structure and composition for the last 3 billion years--which means there's no more heat from gravitational settling being produced. All the heavy stuff's gone to the center and it's staying there. So if you're right and the heat is from settling, why hasn't it all radiated away by now? Furthermore, why hasn't the temperature become uniform throughout the Earth (heat flows from warmer to cooler regions)? The fact that the surface is always radiating away heat accounts for some of the difference between the surface and the core, but not nearly all of it. There *must* be an active heat source in the core right now--which means radioactive decay. Eat it, vid boi! > Simple. BEcause its all in the pressure. The reason it cooled > from molten rock into what we have now is PROLLY due to the > formation of it's atmosphere. Like it boiled off some weight > (into vaporous atmosphere), and the pressure decreased. Once again: pressure does *not* produce heat. I think what you mean by this is that pressure raises *temperature*, but that's not the same thing and also isn't a universal law. And it's flat-out impossible that enough of the Earth's material could have "boiled away" to substantially affect its internal pressure. Of course, now that I've used the word "impossible," Loren has to come and hold my arms behind my back while Butcher bounces off the ropes and clotheslines me with a choice equation. Ah well, iacta alea est. > If not, eh, who gives a damn. But Ive looked in EVERY > encyclopeadia and textbook I could find. NADA. If you trust a > WEB SITE on this, even if its .edu, your nuts :) May I suggest you look in the World Book? Or the Encyclopedia Britannica? It's in there. And it's not just one Web site, it's a LOT of web sites. I can give you the URLs of a dozen transcripts of geology lectures at reputable universities which say that most of the Earth's current heat comes from radioactive decay. Yes, there may be a global conspiracy to corrupt our knowledge of geology by posting faulty lecture transcripts. But I doubt it. Don't make me go to the Berkeley physics library on this one. And getting back to the molten-layer-of-Halo thing--I did a few Quick N' Sloppy™ (Lord, that sounds disgusting) calculations and found that even if you're right and a planet's heat comes from gravitational settling and compression, the Halo could still have a molten layer. If its thickness from inner surface to outer surface is around 500 km (1/10th of the radius--entirely plausible, from the look of the hologram), and its composition is roughly the same as an earthlike planet, then settling will easily produce enough heat to melt the lowest (outermost) layer, while permitting the surface to be comfortably Earthlike (especially if the sun heats the Halo a little less effectively than ours does the Earth). So whether you're right or I'm right, the chances are better than even that the Halo has a magma layer. I wouldn't venture to say that it'll actually show up the game--the heck with it, I'm on a roll, I *will* venture to say that. In fact I predict that every time a player takes a step, there will be a .02% chance of his footfall cracking the crust and causing a new volcano to erupt beneath him, killing him instantly, showering his teammates with lava and causing Mark to bite off his own nose with frustration over these utterly random acts of God. ;) --SiliconDream

Message Index

Smoke plume and different sky revealed!	Wirehead	11/10/99 4:11 a.m.
Re: Smoke plume and different sky revealed!	MacDrugal	11/10/99 9:41 a.m.
Re: Smoke plume and different sky revealed!	wondercrank	11/10/99 2:22 p.m.
volcano if you ask me...	Ben Schodek	11/10/99 6:23 p.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	Mark Levin	11/10/99 7:07 p.m.
My kingdom for a ship.....:)	Sempiternity	11/11/99 10:13 a.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	SiliconDream	11/10/99 7:42 p.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	Mage	11/10/99 11:10 p.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	SiliconDream	11/11/99 12:10 a.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	Mage	11/11/99 5:49 p.m.
Inner and Outer cores.	Bachus	11/12/99 2:39 p.m.
Re: Inner and Outer cores.	Mage	11/12/99 3:36 p.m.
Re: Inner and Outer cores.	Desio	11/12/99 4:21 p.m.
Re: Inner and Outer cores.	Mage	11/13/99 12:30 p.m.
Yes, Mage, radioactive decay (OT)	SiliconDream	11/13/99 11:10 p.m.
Re: Yes, Mage, radioactive decay (OT)	Mage	11/14/99 1:01 a.m.
Re: Yes, Mage, radioactive decay (OT)	Mark Levin	11/14/99 1:23 a.m.
Switching focus.....	Sempiternity	11/14/99 12:40 p.m.
Powers up the Trademarked Weapon™	SiliconDream	11/14/99 3:37 a.m.
Re: Powers up the Trademarked Weapon™	Mage	11/14/99 10:41 a.m.
Re: Powers up the Trademarked Weapon™	SiliconDream	11/14/99 2:20 p.m.
Re: Powers up the Trademarked Weapon™	Mage	11/14/99 8:15 p.m.
Re: Powers up the Ultimate Weapon™	Mark Levin	11/14/99 9:50 p.m.
Really Boring Post	SiliconDream	11/15/99 1:21 a.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	Mage	11/10/99 11:16 p.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	MacDrugal	11/11/99 2:14 a.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	Louis Wu	11/11/99 9:12 p.m.
Re: volcano if you ask me...	MacDrugal	11/12/99 1:11 a.m.