🚀 go-pugleaf

dglmal@telis.org wrote:
> 
> Ralph Silverman <z007400b@bcfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us> wrote in article
> <56q4qc$iob@nntp.seflin.lib.fl.us>...
> > Brett Holman (bholman@physics.unimelb.edu.au) wrote:
> > : Ken Wessels wrote:
> >
> > : >     There is no excuse for being on this group and acting like the
> > : > "Asteroid Belt" is a weird notion. It does seem like the remnants of
> > : > another, possibly small, planet.
> >
> > : I posted the combained mass of the asteroid belt two weeks ago;
> > : it is only 0.0004 Earth masses, far smaller than any planet. Also,
> > : meteorites (presumably from the belt) are not sedimentary rocks, which
> > : you might expect if they are remains of planets.
> 
> Sedimentary rocks would probably not stand up to millions of years of
> space.

Why on earth (or in space, more to the point) not? What makes
sedimentary rocks so fragile that they won't survive sitting in
space for 4 billion years like any other rock?

> The theory also stated that the moon was apart of the mass used.
> Maybe not a big planet so it was a small one.

The original theory did, to which I replied in my first post on this
thread. The poster above made no such reference, only to the asteroid
belt being the remains of an exploded planet. Even with the moon
it is a very small planet, much smaller than any terrestrial planet.

> All indications
> > : are that they formed in weightless environments (except for martian and
> > : lunar meteorites of cources).
> 
> How do small rocks form without gravity?  The truth is meteors and
> asteroids were apart of something bigger.

The truth, huh? Based on ... what? Anything at all? Any evidence for
that?

Small rocks form by accretion, that is collisions in the early,
pre-planetary solar nebula. Eventually, some get big, big enough
to sweep in other rocks by gravity. These sweep up most of the
matter in the solar system other than the Sun, and form the planets.
They don't get everything, of course (no process is 100% efficient)
and the bits they don't get are asteroids etc.

How do you think big rocks form, if not via small rocks? Or are
you suggesting that the planets were made on other planets? I don't
know, I don't understand your basis for argument here.

> > : >     It seems when science and speculation merge, science gets
> ridiculed as
> > : > much as the speculation. Another fault appears. Seperating the two is
> the
> > : > next step in analytical thinking. The "real world" is apprehendable.
> 
> You know, all through history science has ridiculed new ways of looking the
> universe. It wasn't until the late seventies that continental drift became
> an excepted theory. 

Early seventies. See the last chapter of I. Bernard Cohen's 
"Revolutions in Science".

> Prior to that the popular "science" community say that
> large land masses just don't drift around the planet.  Further back in time
> popular science thought that the earth was flat only a heretic would think
> other wise.

That's a very popular myth. Very few educated people have thought
this since over 2000 years age. (The Columbus stuff is just made up.)
Nobody's arguing that science doesn't get it wrong. It does. But
the revolution comes from inside. The data need to suggest that there
is a problem, and in this case they don't.

> > : I have no problem with science and speculation. Speculation is a
> > : necessary part of science. It's only when (as was the case with the
> > : original post in this thread) speculation is not based on any
> scientific
> > : facts that have a problem.
> 
> That sounds some what like an arrogant statement.

Oh come on. I'm an astrophysicist. Is it unreasonable that I expect
astrophysical arguments to be based upon astrophysical facts? Or am
I supposed to believe any old guff, simply because you claim it
is arrogant for me to do otherwise? On what am I supposed to base my
belief of a theory? (Here's a hint: I'm a SCIENTIST.)

-- 
______________________________________________________________________
Brett Holman            bholman@physics.unimelb.edu.au
School of Physics	http://astro.ph.unimelb.edu.au/~bholman/
University of Melbourne	* I can't believe that I, let alone the Uni, * 
AUSTRALIA               * would hold the opinions expressed here.    *

Stop quoting the laws to us.  We carry swords. - Pompey the Great