7th July 2005, 7:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 7th July 2005, 7:51 PM by Dark Jaguar.)
Please note I did my best to represent her in the most accurate light possible, without attempting to portray her in a bad light. Being fair doesn't really mean representing all ideas with equal validity. It only means representing them all accuratly and using all available data to analyze which is most likely. In this case, the data basically states that this is a frivilous lawsuit brought on by someone who doesn't have proper training in skeptical analysis of various beliefs.
I think I'll quote the bottom of the article regarding another claim the lawyers involved in the lawsuit are making.
Basically the argument is the magnetic properties have been changed in the comet and that this may have a strong effect on Earth's telecommunications. Well, since that's pretty much exactly what they said, me paraphrasing it wasn't really needed, but if I got it wrong my interpretation is right there for criticism.
I'll start with what I see as a logical problem in how they are gathering claimants.
Namely, they are saying if you had problems with your cell phone when the impact occured, ask yourself why, and get ahold of them. What they are suggesting, rather strongly, without just plain saying it, is simply that cell phone problems are such a rarity that only this could have accounted for it. The only reason to gather that number is to simply impress the courts with the large number of cell phone issues that occured that day. The obvious question from any skeptic is simple. How does this compare with the number of cell phone problems on any previous day, on average? If it's a significant number, and it would need to be very large to not be accounted for by a mere fluctuation, then it's worth looking into. Otherwise, from what we know about magnetism, it's not even worth looking into the possibility that, while other days they occur aat the same rate, this day they were all caused by this specifically.
Now here's the thing. That thing they slammed into the comet was mainly copper. Magnetism affects are definitily possible. The question is could it affect Earth?
From what I've seen of magnetism and how it can affect us, no. The sun is the strongest magnetic source we have. On occasion, a massive burst of energy can be launched at Earth which can and has had a strong enough effect that it has shorted out large areas of our electrical networks (actually, Quebec's). This is caused by the sun's magnetism, but is not the magnetism itself. It's actually a huge burst of solar "wind", normally carried safely in large bands of magnetism, but sometimes is launched en masse in some random direction when one of those magnetic lines is stressed to the point of snapping apart. The actual magnetism itself doesn't affect us.
The earth is a large object with a magnetic field weaker than a refrigerator magnet. The evidence for this can be found by just holding a fridge magnet up to a compass. Repeat as many times as needed to confirm it wasn't just a random anomaly.
This comet has a much much weaker magnetic field, and this copper thing slammed into it would likely have such a small effect that it couldn't even be noticed by strong magnetic detectors. I doubt that the field can even be detected at all. If the field has any effect, then by definition, it can be detected, if at least by the effect itself. With what we have learned about magnetism, strong magnetic fields that do have effects on electronic equipment can easily be detected by instruments designed to do so.
What I'm saying is, from what I've gathered, this specific claim as well as the rest seems unfounded.
I think I'll quote the bottom of the article regarding another claim the lawyers involved in the lawsuit are making.
Quote:"The impact changed the magnetic properties of the comet, and this could have affected mobile telephony here on Earth. If your phone went down this morning, ask yourself Why? and then get in touch with us," says Mr Molokhov.
Basically the argument is the magnetic properties have been changed in the comet and that this may have a strong effect on Earth's telecommunications. Well, since that's pretty much exactly what they said, me paraphrasing it wasn't really needed, but if I got it wrong my interpretation is right there for criticism.
I'll start with what I see as a logical problem in how they are gathering claimants.
Namely, they are saying if you had problems with your cell phone when the impact occured, ask yourself why, and get ahold of them. What they are suggesting, rather strongly, without just plain saying it, is simply that cell phone problems are such a rarity that only this could have accounted for it. The only reason to gather that number is to simply impress the courts with the large number of cell phone issues that occured that day. The obvious question from any skeptic is simple. How does this compare with the number of cell phone problems on any previous day, on average? If it's a significant number, and it would need to be very large to not be accounted for by a mere fluctuation, then it's worth looking into. Otherwise, from what we know about magnetism, it's not even worth looking into the possibility that, while other days they occur aat the same rate, this day they were all caused by this specifically.
Now here's the thing. That thing they slammed into the comet was mainly copper. Magnetism affects are definitily possible. The question is could it affect Earth?
From what I've seen of magnetism and how it can affect us, no. The sun is the strongest magnetic source we have. On occasion, a massive burst of energy can be launched at Earth which can and has had a strong enough effect that it has shorted out large areas of our electrical networks (actually, Quebec's). This is caused by the sun's magnetism, but is not the magnetism itself. It's actually a huge burst of solar "wind", normally carried safely in large bands of magnetism, but sometimes is launched en masse in some random direction when one of those magnetic lines is stressed to the point of snapping apart. The actual magnetism itself doesn't affect us.
The earth is a large object with a magnetic field weaker than a refrigerator magnet. The evidence for this can be found by just holding a fridge magnet up to a compass. Repeat as many times as needed to confirm it wasn't just a random anomaly.
This comet has a much much weaker magnetic field, and this copper thing slammed into it would likely have such a small effect that it couldn't even be noticed by strong magnetic detectors. I doubt that the field can even be detected at all. If the field has any effect, then by definition, it can be detected, if at least by the effect itself. With what we have learned about magnetism, strong magnetic fields that do have effects on electronic equipment can easily be detected by instruments designed to do so.
What I'm saying is, from what I've gathered, this specific claim as well as the rest seems unfounded.
"On two occasions, I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able to rightly apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question." ~ Charles Babbage (1791-1871)