Nexus - 0602 - New Times Magazine-pages

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Ontong Java Plateau, lies on the ocean floor near the Solomon Islands,’ and similar fields are found in Siberia and elsewhere. Across it all, lies the undisguised evidence of glacial scouring. Ontong Java Plateau, lies on the ocean floor near the Solomon The evidence favouring catastrophe is just too powerful, too Islands,* and similar fields are found in Siberia and elsewhere. ervasive, and it demands that we abandon the 18th century para- Across it all, lies the undisguised evidence of glacial scouring. digm and consider an alternative that fits the observable facts. We are not left without choices in this matter, because there recently found an article, "The History of Physics",* which is ave been some wonderfully intuitively correct theories advanced [= the commonest of reading subjects, but on this occasion I y some of these new authors. immersed myself in its detail. It must be known that the sub- There is one theory in particular that should be mentioned here, ject bears far more than I could ever hope to remember, but one cause not only does it address the causal forces involved in the detail did stand out above everything else, and that was how few catastrophic processes, but the same theory, unmodified, is scientists, actually how few people, were responsible for what we applied in answer to the common questions about the origin of know in the field of physics today. earthquakes, volcanoes and the Earth's own magnetic field. The There were names like Newton, Kepler, Euler, Faraday, theory is based on a process that the author, James Bowles, in his Maxwell, Fermi and Einstein, but, strangely, there were not many ook, The Gods, Gemini, and the Great Pyramid, calls the others. For me, the names James Clerk Maxwell and Michael Rotational-Bending Effect or, simply, the RB-Effect. Faraday stood out like neon lights for two powerful reasons that The principles that the RB-Effect advances are new to science are appropriate to mention here. and will require some detailed discussion which I will develop In the preface to his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism,’ ater, but the concept lends itself well to illustration and casual Maxwell (1831-1879) attacked the scientific narration. So, in Bowles' words: community on two fronts. First, he was furi- The discovery of the RB-Effect started ous over the abuse afforded Faraday and his out as a simple pig roast. We chose to work because the attacks were based solely roast the pig on a spit over a bed of on the establishment's disdain for Faraday's coals, but the mechanism is not easily research methods. Do you believe it? His . described, so rather than trying I'll just research methods! They didn't suit the scien- The evidence illustrate it, except to say that the spit is tists. It's a wonder, because Faraday's discov - A better portrayed as a one-and-a-half- ery that electricity flowed from the forces of favouring catastrophe inch-diameter galvanized water pipe magnetism is the solitary principle governing ied rather than a proper spit. This is the operation of every single electric motor, Is just too powerful, important to the story, because halfway generator, solenoid or transformer ever built! too pervasive through the night, the pipe broke and Maxwell, for those not familiar with his J the pig fell in the fire. Actually, it was work, was a mathematical genius who, at the and it demands that pretty funny. end of the last century, virtually defined the It was, however, on the second morn - we abandon the field of electricity and magnetism. But ing anniversary of this event that I what were the names of those scientists 18th century paradigm was suddenly struck with the real - and consider an who were so distraught over Faraday's ization that the pig had solved one alternative that fits methods? of the most enigmatic problems the observable facts. The other point of Maxwell's attack facing science today. When the can only be appreciated from his own pig fell into the fire, it wasn't just words. Here he is utterly frustrated over because the spit broke; rather, it the fact that good works are mixed with fell into the fire because the spit bad, both are written in unintelligible broke from fatigue. What I'd real - language and then put together in a ized was that my hapless spit, drawer, never to be seen again! which was bending under the According to Maxwell: weight of the pig, had been con - There is a considerable mass of stantly rotating, and the combina - mathematical memoirs which are of tion—the bending and the contin - great importance...but they lie can - ual rotation—was doing a fatigue celled in the bulky transactions of learned societies. They do number on the pipe. It was creating internal tension and not form a connected system, they are of very unequal merit, compression stresses, and the rotation was continually walk - and they are, for the most part, beyond the comprehension of ing these stresses around and around inside the pipe, and any but professed mathematicians. heating it and wearing it out in the process. Maxwell's statements are clearly rather contemptuous of the The same thing can be shown to happen to the crust of the orthodox system, but the points that he makes are well taken. Earth. In a simplified fashion, and liken it to the adventure How can we progress, he asks, if we can cast aside genius because with the pig, this is what takes place. we object to, or perhaps don't understand, its methods, and how First! Think of the crust, because of the subsurface plastic can we progress if what others have accomplished lies cancelled layer, as having some independent freedom to move. It from the public eye? would be a little like loose cargo moving about on the deck of We must face these facts and events square-on if the evolution- a ship. And think of the crust being caused to bend along the ist and creationist camps are to form a new paradigm of agree- plane of the ecliptic by the gravitational pull of the Sun and ment. It is time that we do this, for it is no longer satisfactory to the Moon while it is in a state of simultaneous rotation. It deny the evidence of 40 million animals that lie buried from a sin- rotates under this loading condition at a thousand miles an gle event that occurred less than 10,000 years ago that anyone hour at the equator, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, on and with a shovel can unearth. on for all eternity. 46 - NEXUS The evidence we abandon the alternative that fits the observable facts. FEBRUARY — MARCH 1999