Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?



--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

That is what the Martians did, and look what happened to their planet?
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we would
be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?



--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the rare
story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. ?" Erwin Knoll

Indeed, but its fun to imagine innit?
Brian

--
From the Sofa of Brian Gaff Reply address is active
"Chris Hogg" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:04:26 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?

Obviously drivel and bollix, written by people with ****-fer-brains
and believed by the brain dead.

--

Chris

The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.
Are the constituents of the earth very different from other planets?
Neptune has a surface temperature less than -200 degrees celsius,
which suggests to me that the energy from the sun is much greater
than that from nuclear fission.

Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


--
Timothy Murphy
gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin

On 12/04/2015 10:15, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:04:26 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?

Obviously drivel and bollix, written by people with ****-fer-brains
and believed by the brain dead.


It must be drivel because we all know the universe is only just over
five thousand years old anyway, just ask harry.

On 12/04/2015 10:04, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/



I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?



Quite an old article.

I remember when you could usually expect reasonably accurate science in
magazines such as New Scientist and Scientific American. I imagine that
the numbers are probably correct, but every physicist I know would make
a very clear distinction between fission, the splitting of a nucleus
into two portions, and the various forms of radioactive decay which are
the source of the energy which maintains the temperature of the earth's
core. I think it was Lord Kelvin, before the discovery of radioactivity,
who estimated from the measured heat flux that the earth was molten
about five million years ago. And was very worried about it because that
seemed too short a time to explain evolution.

And what the hell is "the flow of the antithesis of these neutral
particles".

On 12/04/15 11:03, Timothy Murphy wrote:
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.

I think it means 'half the GEOTHERMAL heat.

"The flow of heat from Earth's interior to the surface is estimated at
47 terawatts[1] and comes from two main sources in roughly equal
amounts: the radiogenic heat produced by the radioactive decay of
isotopes in the mantle and crust, and the primordial heat left over from
the formation of the Earth.

"Earth's internal heat powers most geological processes and drives plate
tectonics. Despite its geological significance, this heat energy coming
from Earth's interior is actually only 0.03% of Earth's total energy
budget at the surface, which is dominated by 173,000 TW of incoming
solar radiation."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earth%2...al_heat_budget



Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


Yes, IIRC its about 100 times - at least for the land masses with the
people.



--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll

Harry? Harry who?

Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Dennis@home" wrote in message
web.com...
On 12/04/2015 10:15, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:04:26 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?

Obviously drivel and bollix, written by people with ****-fer-brains
and believed by the brain dead.


It must be drivel because we all know the universe is only just over five
thousand years old anyway, just ask harry.

Yes and over what time exactly?
Its another one of those we are not sure what it means but its interesting
type of stories.
Brian

--
Brian Gaff....Note, this account does not accept Bcc: email.
graphics are great, but the blind can't hear them
Email:
__________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________


"Timothy Murphy" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.
Are the constituents of the earth very different from other planets?
Neptune has a surface temperature less than -200 degrees celsius,
which suggests to me that the energy from the sun is much greater
than that from nuclear fission.

Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


--
Timothy Murphy
gayleard /at/ eircom.net
School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin

On Sun, 12 Apr 2015 10:04:26 +0100, The Natural Philosopher
wrote:
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

Whoever wrote and edited that article should be shot. They managed to
totally misunderstand and/or misrepresent an easily understood and
interesting paper.

The orginal paper is he
http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/v.../ngeo1205.html

The abstract, which does a much better job of explaining things that
the scientific american article, is:

The Earth has cooled since its formation, yet the decay of radiogenic
isotopes, and in particular uranium, thorium and potassium, in the
planet’s interior provides a continuing heat source. The current total
heat flux from the Earth to space is 44.2 +/- 1.0 TW, but the relative
contributions from residual primordial heat and radiogenic decay
remain uncertain. However, radiogenic decay can be estimated from the
flux of geoneutrinos, electrically neutral particles that are emitted
during radioactive decay and can pass through the Earth virtually
unaffected. Here we combine precise measurements of the geoneutrino
flux from the Kamioka Liquid-Scintillator Antineutrino Detector,
Japan, with existing measurements from the Borexino detector, Italy.
We find that decay of uranium-238 and thorium-232 together contribute
20.0 +8.8/-8.6 TW to Earth’s heat flux. The neutrinos emitted from the
decay of potassium-40 are below the limits of detection in our
experiments, but are known to contribute 4 TW. Taken together, our
observations indicate that heat from radioactive decay contributes
about half of Earth’s total heat flux. We therefore conclude that
Earth’s primordial heat supply has not yet been exhausted.

"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we would
be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?

ISTR you were in denial that nuclear fission at the earth's core existed a
while back.

"Timothy Murphy" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.
Are the constituents of the earth very different from other planets?
Neptune has a surface temperature less than -200 degrees celsius,
which suggests to me that the energy from the sun is much greater
than that from nuclear fission.

Neptune is a "gas giant " not at all like the earth.

"newshound" wrote in message
o.uk...
On 12/04/2015 10:04, The Natural Philosopher wrote:
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/



I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?



Quite an old article.

I remember when you could usually expect reasonably accurate science in
magazines such as New Scientist and Scientific American.

Just as well you included the word usually.

I can still remember the utter fiasco New Scientist managed on
spontaneous human combustion and that must have been in the 80s.

I imagine that the numbers are probably correct, but every physicist I
know would make a very clear distinction between fission, the splitting of
a nucleus into two portions, and the various forms of radioactive decay
which are the source of the energy which maintains the temperature of the
earth's core. I think it was Lord Kelvin, before the discovery of
radioactivity, who estimated from the measured heat flux that the earth
was molten about five million years ago. And was very worried about it
because that seemed too short a time to explain evolution.

And what the hell is "the flow of the antithesis of these neutral
particles".

On 12/04/2015 17:28, Caecilius wrote:
The neutrinos emitted from the
decay of potassium-40 are below the limits of detection in our
experiments,
Are you sure ?.

The Japanese are trying to capture neutrinos with an experiment deep
under the ice at one of the poles and the French have an experiment 2 km
under water and pointing DOWN, trying to collect neutrinos that have hit
earth near Australia and travelled right through the core and out the
other side. Also, nothing detected so far.

On 12/04/2015 17:42, harryagain wrote:
"The Natural Philosopher" wrote in message
...
Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we would
be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/


I wonder if we should try and stop it - after all we have no idea what
god's plans are to decomission it?

ISTR you were in denial that nuclear fission at the earth's core existed a
while back.


Not so sure about fission at the earth's core, but natural fission
reactors were operating 2 billion years ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural...ission_reactor

In article , Timothy Murphy
writes
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age


http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...18/nuclear-fis
sion-confirmed-as-source-of-more-than-half-of-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.
Are the constituents of the earth very different from other planets?
Neptune has a surface temperature less than -200 degrees celsius,
which suggests to me that the energy from the sun is much greater
than that from nuclear fission.

Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


You're not suggesting that the sun is responsible for global warming are
you? In that case cover the earth with cloud to keep out the heat.
--
hugh

On Tue, 14 Apr 2015 20:45:09 +0100, hugh wrote:

In article , Timothy Murphy

Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


You're not suggesting that the sun is responsible for global warming are
you? In that case cover the earth with cloud to keep out the heat.

The more cloud the better, that's what all the contrails from planes are really
for, to keep the daily temperature range under control

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/...T%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/sci...ate/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/contrail-effect.html
--

In message , The Other Mike
writes
On Tue, 14 Apr 2015 20:45:09 +0100, hugh wrote:

In article , Timothy Murphy

Also the article says that the nuclear energy inside the earth
amounts to 4 times the total energy usage by people on the earth.
Surely the energy from the sun amounts to far more than 8 times
human usage?


You're not suggesting that the sun is responsible for global warming are
you? In that case cover the earth with cloud to keep out the heat.

The more cloud the better, that's what all the contrails from planes are really
for, to keep the daily temperature range under control

http://journals.ametsoc.org/doi/pdf/...04%29017%3C112
3%3ARVIUDT%3E2.0.CO%3B2

http://edition.cnn.com/2002/TECH/sci...ate/index.html

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/space/contrail-effect.html

Watching a couple of 4 engined heavies heading West yesterday
afternoon.... They appeared to be at the same height, travelling at the
same speed and separated by about 15 wingspan lengths.

One was producing a con trail stretching back to the horizon and the
other much shorter!

--
Tim Lamb

On Sunday, 12 April 2015 17:52:40 UTC+1, harry wrote:
"Timothy Murphy" wrote in message
...
The Natural Philosopher wrote:

Jolly good thing some of those isotopes last millions of years or we
would be in a permanent ice age

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/...f-earths-heat/

It's not clear to me what "half the earth's heat" means.
Are the constituents of the earth very different from other planets?
Neptune has a surface temperature less than -200 degrees celsius,
which suggests to me that the energy from the sun is much greater
than that from nuclear fission.

Neptune is a "gas giant " not at all like the earth.

They also have a rather strange way of describing the surface in that the surface is where the clouds touch space.

On 15/04/15 18:27, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Wed, 15 Apr 2015 18:08:55 +0100, Tim Streater
wrote:

In article , Chris Hogg
wrote:

On Wed, 15 Apr 2015 05:54:18 -0700 (PDT), whisky-dave
wrote:

On Sunday, 12 April 2015 17:52:40 UTC+1, harry wrote:

Neptune is a "gas giant " not at all like the earth.

They also have a rather strange way of describing the surface in that the
surface is where the clouds touch space.

There is no "surface" as such. IIRC it's defined to be where the atmos
pressure has some specific value, have to look up what value.

On some web-sites they talk about how much more or less a person would
weigh if standing on the surface of these gas giants, which seems to
me a rather meaningless notion.

What is meaningless about that, other than that they'd immediately sink?

Meaningless in that there isn't a well defined surface that you could
stand on, until of course you'd sunk to the solid core.

you might sorta float tho


--
Everything you read in newspapers is absolutely true, except for the
rare story of which you happen to have first-hand knowledge. €“ Erwin Knoll