Happy Easter. Christ is risen, etc. (Dunno if you believe in that stuff, but if you believe there's a one mile square ziggurat on the far side of the Moon, you're definitely the gullible type)
re: Your client Mike Bara, author and so-called aeronautical engineer
Now look, Adrienne dear, this has gone a bit too far. Your client is seriously misinforming his audience. On Dark Matters internet radio, in early March, he reiterated his contention that spinning masses draw in energy from an invisible dimension. As an example, he cited the return trip of Apollo 13 from the Moon. Maintaining trajectory, he explained, required several mid-course corrections, and that was because the CM was powered down and the gyros were not spinning as they normally would be. Hence, you see, an important element of the spacecraft's propulsion was absent. He added:
"I think this was something that Von Braun snuck into the rocket equation back in the 1950s without anyone knowing."
Dr.Derek Eunson, a working design engineer, has written that this statement is "one of the most ludicrous things I have ever heard." He added some very uncomplimentary epithets about your client the author and ersatz engineer—there's no need to repeat them here.
Your client's proposition is wrong in the following five ways:
1] Drawing in energy from "other dimensions" violates the law of conservation of energy. If that law is wrong, it's extremely hard to understand why the physical world has appeared to obey it ever since it was formulated in the 19th century.
2] It is not true that an unusual number of mid-course corrections were needed to bring Apollo 13 home. There was one at MET 105:18:28, about one third of the way home, and another small one at 137:01:48, just prior to CM/SM separation. That is one fewer than the contingency plan stated in the Press Kit, issued prior to launch (see p.42, Transearth coast)
3] Your client the playboy-engineer is evidently under the mistaken impression that energy needs to be applied continuously to a spacecraft during the transit between Earth and Moon (or vice versa). Perhaps he is thinking—erroneously—that the situation is equivalent to that of a car, a train or an aircraft (the latter of which your client claims to have designed, so he's familiar with the idea even though he has written, mistakenly, that the lift generated by an airfoil is not mathematically understood). It is not the case. A spacecraft is set on its journey by a very precisely timed and aimed impulse from its engines, lasting at most a few minutes, and from then on (with the small exception of the mid-course correction) it is under the influence of gravity only. It's perhaps not surprising that your client the error-prone author should get this wrong. His writings over the years have demonstrated his utter ignorance of the nature of both gravitation and orbital mechanics.
4] The equation normally referred to as "the rocket equation" is not the work of Wernher Von Braun, but that of the Russian scientist Konstantin Eduardovich Tsiolkovsky. Here it is, and isn't it a sweetie?
My plea to you, Adrienne, is that you tell your client to stop this nonsense.
One more thing, Adrienne...
If your client the joke-engineer ever finishes his book Ancient Aliens on Mars, I wish you would persuade him that recruiting his cronies to write meaningless five-star Amazon reviews is unprofessional. I realize that something similar is a fairly normal feature of book promotion these days, but the way it is done is to persuade people to a) actually read the book, and b) write something coherent and persuasive. A little prevarication has come to be accepted, I guess.
There is no better example of your client's extravagant abuse of this tactic than a "review" of The Choice posted on 3rd December last year by one "B. Hopper asdf1239". This person wrote as follows:
great value. i like it a lot.
Amazon did not accept this as a review, since it fell short of the minimum required length. B. Hopper, a loyal buddy of your client the unintentionally comic author, revised it to say:
great value. i like it a lot. adding more words yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes
That's his "review." Adrienne, I put it to you that this takes unprofessionalism to new heights.
Regards, expat
63 comments:
P.S. Ms. Loska, there are several professional scientists and engineers who would be happy to debate your client on matters such as these. However, when he brazenly states on public radio in front of 5-15 million listeners (his Coast to Coast AM appearance late last summer) that he refuses to look at any evidence contrary to his ideas or listen to people willing to educate him on such subjects, this tends to speak volumes about his credibility - and dare I say honesty.
Sincerely,
Stuart Robbins
Can you post a link to that Amazon review, Expat? There's no review (that I can see) from December 3rd.
Expat.Forget the Tsiolkovsky rocket equation,I bet Mike Bara is incapable of doing a simple mathematical equation like: 6-1x0+2 divided by 2=?
I have to wonder what goes through Mike Bara's mind when he reads something like this blog post.
Does he actually believe that Expat is mistaken about any of the science and engineering facts he has stated?
If he believed that, you'd think he'd be willing to engage in a public dialogue with Expat and show him, specifically, why he is wrong.
No, we all know what goes through Bara's brain when he reads a blog post like this.
He gnashes his teeth and thinks, "Douchebaggggggg!!!!!!"
Trekker: There isn't a way to link to an individual review. If the list is sorted Newest First, it's #3. If sorted Most Helpful First, it's in last place (surprised??). #17 of 17.
While in a way it's a true moment of Zen to contemplate: "something that Von Braun snuck into the rocket equation back in the 1950s" and marvel at this possibility alone, one has to admit it's child's play compared to the master who Bara attempted to quote.
Richard Hoagland in his Von Braun article:
"Yet, neither of these key physicists (nor, any other physicists, astronomers, rocket engineers, members of the scientific press, etc., etc.) -- over these last fifty years -- has apparently EVER done this simple calculation..."
So Hoagland has seen something fifty years of engineers, testers, scientists had overlooked. Perhaps Bara in his mind could not even phantom that and had to change this is into a modified equation?
Hard to say which one is harder to believe. But Hoagland has more details though, he writes about the interest of Von Brain in Professor Maurice Allais, sponsoring his articles "Should the Laws of Gravitation be Reconsidered?" in AeroSpace Engineering, 1959.
But then the only further hint at applied "corrections" from Hoagland lies in the "appropriate mid-course corrections" at least in the Soviet program. How Von Braun applied this "fix" and stuffed it into the system is probably in the still missing part III of the article?
There are other voices though like Miles Mathis "If they were off by 1/3, the engineers changed them by 1/3, that is all". Miles is doing on his site mostly some "mathematical" critique of things like Special Relativity, all the while "stripping physics of its mystifying math" and among other things prove that π can actually is 4.
D.
Astroguy, Any news yet of an impending C2C appearance for you. Also, I listened to the show where Noory said he would get you on, and Mike replied, "I won't listen."
DJE
Flight: More to the point, what does Ms Loska herself think? It probably hasn't escaped her attention that one of these open letters is currently at #1 in her google search hits. Of course, I think that's good -- she probably doesn't.
Anon: That quote from Hoagland's "Von Braun's Secret" page is totally hilarious, considering that he totally failed to evaluate that natural logarithm (among other mathematical crimes).
Expat,
It's a mistake Hoagland himself admitted to, but never felt the need to correct. It was so wrong that the extra chapter on it that was promised in the 2nd edition of DM never materialized. Hoagland (if not Bara) understood how badly he would be leaving himself open if he put it in the book.
Ah, thanks, Expat! I was looking at the review for Ancient Aliens, instead of the Choice. Apologies.
Re: Me on C2C. No word, despite a follow-up e-mail around 3 weeks ago. I did have a dream on Saturday, though, that I was interviewed for about an hour on C2C but it was very last-minute and I hadn't had time to notify people to listen. That was the crux of the dream -- no actual substance of the interview made it into my memory.
If you simply introduce yourself as your State issued personae, with a genuine background of which you claim, your appearance on Coast would be a slam dunk. Noory would even plug your book. You don't even need to mention a word about this blog or it's ghost.
Jiminy Oddbird, I don't know about that. Noory has, on rare occasions, hosted skeptics on his show, but having a skeptic come on and talk about he paranormal in general is one thing.
Having somebody come on who has thoroughly debunked and discredited the show's "science adviser" is another thing altogether.
Jiminy, I'm pretty sure that Dr. Robbins has introduced himself to Noory and company using his real name and title. I doubt that verifying his credentials is an issue for them. All it would take is a Google search and a couple of phone calls.
As Flight suit suggests, it's more an issue of what he has to say and how that would make Hoagie look to the C2C audience. They have to be careful, as there is a measurable audience for the old fraud's BS. It's not like Noory can keep an audience tuned in on his own.
Although I share everyones enthusiasm and support for Dr Stuart Robbins' tooo appear as a guest on any radio show that would debunk Hoaxland and 'turish' Bara, I agree, it would be commercial suicide if it happened on C2C. It has revenue to collect, and dismissing RCH as the charalaton that he is (backed up with facts and credentials) simply won't happen. It does make the show intellectually destitute of course, but they don't care about balance and truth.
SB
Mikey boys manager Adrienne Loska at Norwescon. Given the nature of this event, perhaps Adrienne actually thinks Mike is a science fiction author. Maybe we've been a little hard on her.
I don't think either Bara's work or Hoagland's could be properly characterized as "Science-Fiction." The "Fantasy" label fits better and provides room for magical secret components in widely used and understood equations and NASA as a nefarious organization bent on performing occult rituals in space. The newest mystery seems to be why an old poster to this blog has taken on a new persona.
Not only that, seems to be intent on self-debunking.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/James-Tiberius-Orbsberg/511992848853296
The culprit is "Misti".
Note: I'm no longer allowing posts from the Oberg impostor.
Misti, I'd like to take a moment to personally thank you for forcing Expat to moderate the comments on his blog.
The cause of truth is so much better served now that Expat has this extra pain in the ass to deal with, and there is now a delay time before attacks on my character posted by gay douchebags become publicly viewable.
Many Thanks,
Mike Bara
VIP Room
Rouge Gentlemen's Club
14626 Raymer St., Van Nuys, CA
http://www.space.com/20528-jupiter-moon-io-volcanoes-location.html
"Just as my hyperdimensional model predicts, Io's volcanoes are located at longitudes that correspond with the points of a circumscribed tetrahedron within a rotating sphere, George. This hit piece by NASA shills is intended to discredit me."
He's utterly mad. There are some 400 volcanoes on Io and there is ABSOLUTELY ZERO evidence that they cluster at 19.5°.
Those darned NASA shills, constantly devising press releases that have no other purpose than to make Hoagland and Bara look bad!
I was hoping to be able to review Hoagland's presentation at the Glendale Awake & Aware pseudo-conference last night. However, I discovered that I'd need to pay $25 for streaming rights, so no deal. If it turns up on Youtube, I'll cover it.
Since Hoagie did nothing to promote the thing, I'm guessing even he doesn't think it's worth a listen.
"Awake and Aware" has to be one of the most unintentionally sardonic titles for such a "conference" that anyone has ever come up with. The list of speakers included Sean David Morton and time traveling Mars jumping Henry Deacon a.k.a. Arthur Neuman.
He trotted out his boilerplate text on C2C Friday night: "....stunning confirmation...bla bla.... unmistakable ruins.... bla bla"
How many times can you have a confirmation before it ceases to be stunning?
Either you believe your dribble or you don't.
Also, this is neither here nor there, but I read through the page on enterprising mission about Von Braun, and I was struck by Hoagland's idiosyncratic use of quotation marks. He appears to use them to add emphasis (the way a normal person would use bold or italicized type face, for example.
Quoting:
===================
...the "back-engineering," scientific and political analysis of this "world-changing, pre-NASA discovery"
...To simply ... "bury it."
... we will detail and document "who" exactly made this amazing breakthrough, precisely "how" it was achieved, and "what" the stunning, world-wide implications could have been.
===================
Any thoughts? Is he merely confused as to the purpose of a quotation mark, or is there some deep hoaglandish meaning, like must there be 33 unnecessary quotation sets per page?
-jim
You aren't the first to notice his highly eccentric use of quotation and emphasis. An Amazon reviewer of Dark Mission had a lot of fun with this.
He was even worse when he was posting to the Book of Farces. I think he just wants to make the written words sound like his spoken delivery (i.e. condescending and pseudo-didactic) and doesn't realize that it can't possibly work.
Indeed. Hoagie is also fond of using all CAPITALS for every OTHER word for EMPHASIS. Not sure why he thinks that's an effective style choice, but he does seem to love it.
Just for entertainment, here's that Amazon reader's review -- from Mark Prindle "or his wife" June 14, 2012:
===========
I will never "understand" why so many "amateur" authors write "books" in which every tenth word is in "quotation marks." Do they not "realize" how often they're using them? Does it not "annoy" them when re-reading what they've "written"? It is "impossible" to take this book "seriously," because the "author" comes across like a "high school sophomore" with no "awareness" of the fact that one should have a "valid" reason for putting a "word" in quotation "marks," lest one end up "writing" a book that is excruciatingly "annoying" to read.
I find it interesting that despite your oft-communicated message that debate should be fact-based and exclusive of belittlement to other's beliefs that you began your 'open letter' with a laconic insult about 'gullible' Christians. I am a clinical research statistician yet believe entirely in Jesus' resurrection and still somehow manage to discount Mike Bara and RCH as hucksters and snake oil salesmen. Of what variety gullible am I?
Jerry
Thanks for the comment, Jerry. I would say you're semi-gullible. The resurrection of Christ does not have the attributes of historical fact. Not like, say, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 or the election victory of François Mitterrand in 1981.
To an extent, that's not it's fault. Obviously everything that happened before there were professional reporters is less certain than facts in the public record. It may seem harsh of me to demand objective proof of the resurrection -- I don't even know what that proof would look like -- but I do.
Expat,
I understand and share your empirical nature. I consider my my Faith, however, to be an unquantifiable blessing. Do you only believe that which has been documented and reported upon? If so, I wish better for you. I believe in both the Resurrection and the Big Bang creation event of our Universe. While I acknowledge this is not a perfect equation, it carries some merit. General Relativity implies an expanding or contracting Universe and this (expansion) is supported by Doppler shifts. So by virtue of evidence of cosmic expansion, the well established theory of relativity supports the more hypothetical Big Bang theory. Supports, not proves. I suspect that you believe in the Big Bang theory of creation. Perhaps the Turin Shroud or Biblical writings or verbal 'reporting' throughout the millennia supports the Resurrection. Perhaps not. My point though is that even the most empirical mind must have belief in something, no matter how small, that is unproven or unrecorded. Ultimately, and perhaps ironically, the very notion of the exquisite and awesome concept of the Big Bang (all from nothing) is overwhelming proof, for me, of God. In any event, I am not trying to change your mind, only to clarify my own. As always, I appreciate your time and consideration. Respectfully, Jerry.
Something cannot come from nothing. Matter can neither be created or destroyed. Therefore creator gods and theories that employ "something from nothing" cannot be discussed rationally and an irrational interpretation of the universe serves no one's best interests when its all said and done. The Big Bang is as much a religious/superstitious notion dependant on faith based mysticism as any other creation myth you'd care to name and couldn't be considered as "overwhelming proof" of anything. That is if we're going to be honest here about what constitutes proof and whether any proof will ever be offered to overthrow the law of conservation of matter.
Christians and skeptics agree:
Hoagland and Bara are full of it!
Jerry.I am only 24 but I belong to the old school of atheism, the one that doesn't proselytize or disrespect individual beliefs. As far as I read ,you seem like the open minded type and you are not passing moral judgement on individuals who do not hold particular faith or spirituality, & that`s good enough for me.
I am a grizzly 54 and I have to ask the question: Does "belief" have any place in science other than as an expression of confidence in a past observation? Beliefs (as the word is commonly used) and opinions are solely in the domain of philosophy and religion. For example: the success of the Apollo Moon program did not hinge on anyone's beliefs or opinions that were not based on hard science, physics to be specific. Physics and mystical belief systems do not mix well, unless you are talking Hoagy pseudo-physics of course.
I agree with that, yes. Jerry suspects that I believe in the Big Bang theory of creation -- well, not really, Jerry. I take note of it, as the best cosmologists can do for the nonce. But really the best answer to the question "How did the universe begin?" is "We don't know".
I've come to the personal conclusion that the question, "How did the universe begin?" is a trick question. It cannot be answered in any rational manner and is a large waste of time. The law of the conservation of mass precludes it and renders such a question moot. The universe is here, appears to have always been here, and as far as we can tell will always be here in one form or another even if the of the second law of thermodynamics renders the end product cold, dark, and inert.
Don't be to hard on Jerry, he seems like a pretty decent fellow to me.I have issues with so called "Christians" like Mike Bara who pretend to walk on the right side of Jesus Christ, but behave like racist & homophobic troglodytes
Yeah, the problem with Jerry's statement, "My point though is that even the most empirical mind must have belief in something, no matter how small, that is unproven or unrecorded." is that it juxtaposes one type of belief with another.
I believe I am partly descended from Russian Jews, for example, even though I have no genealogy paperwork to document it. It's just what my mother has always told me. If it was really important, I suppose I could research my genealogy and perhaps prove or falsify this assertion.
So yes, I believe in things which have not been proved, but these are beliefs which at least have the potential to be disproved.
That is a very different thing from believing in extraordinary religious claims which do not have the potential to be disproved.
My genealogy requires a much lower standard of proof than the resurrection of Jesus, because it is not uncommon or extraordinary to have Russian Jews in your family tree.
God inhabiting human flesh and then resurrecting that flesh after it's been brutally executed, on the other hand, is a considerably less common occurrence. Nobody that I know of who's currently living has witnessed such an event, so if you claim it's happened, you'll have to forgive those of us who hold that claim to a higher standard of proof.
I hope no one interprets my comments as an attack on Jerry. Far from it. I am attempting to discuss his comments rationally and civilly in some amount of depth. Can the laws of thermodynamics be violated? (answer: no) Can something appear from nothing?(answer: no) What does "belief" have to do with physics? (answer: nothing) Physics deals with objects. Objects have a shape and a location. Religion and philosophy deal with concepts which have neither shape or location. The mixing of science and religious belief is ill-advised and produces what can only be referred to as monstrosities of confusion. Questions such as "How did the universe begin?" and "Does God exist?" are not questions that can rationally discussed in any sort of scientific manner. To ponder these questions may be entertaining to some degree, but we have to place them in the proper bucket.
I also have no intent to be rebarbative with Jerry. I appreciate his comment. Who knew this blog would suddenly go all philosophical?
I think the nature of belief is a very appropriate subject for this blog. It gets to the reason why such people like Bara and Hoagland can make a living selling bullshit, instead of working at Wallmart where they belong. They prey on the very human need to believe.
My final thoughts on this posting if I may...
I am not being argumentative, and, I take no offense to what anyone has written. I genuinely appreciate the thoughtfulness of the responses as the participants of this blog are clearly far more knowledgeable re: physics than myself.
As a person with a deep faith in God's existence, I do understand that my beliefs are fundamentally not provable. Physics aside, I struggle with the notion that evolution alone somehow produced the music of John Coltrane, da Vinci's 'Virgin of the Rocks' and Michelangelo's 'The Pieta'. Not to mention the reigning Miss Brazil!
Still, I have an appetite for things physics so here goes...
My understanding, such as it is, of the theory of virtual particles is that these particles ('something') can materialize instantaneously from empty, zero-energy space ('nothing') before vaporizing back to the same. So in this remarkably limited sense, can something (virtual particles) possibly come from nothing (empty space)?
I believe one theory of the creation event suggests that the Big Bang was a quantum fluctuation, effectively creating our universe 'from nothing'.
As I write this, I gather a sense of the flaws inherent in this particular argument, for example, the fraction-of-a-second lifetimes of these positive and negative charged virtual particles are so brief as to exclude evidence of a zero energy, 'nothing' environment from which they spring.
That is all. Peace everyone. Jerry.
Back to Richard Hoagland. This is from Awake and Aware 2013. Richard fields a question about one of his fans. Take a quick look before it gets taken down. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPfDoPcR5YQ
Thanks for posting that, TO. Gary Leggiere and Andrew Basiago are two more topics that I'm not very keen to explore.
I can't believe he's still saying that Neil Armstrong likened himself to a parrot. He even added "that doesn't fly very well" -- from the lips of one of the greatest pilots in history. Doesn't he think at all?
Back to the indefinitely more pressing matter of the quotation marks:
Jim asked: "Any thoughts? Is he merely confused as to the purpose of a quotation mark, or is there some deep hoaglandish meaning".
The way I was always reading them were as qualifiers, so that you should not whack him over the head with the wording when it all would turn out to be a bit differently. Preemptive quoting!
For example:
"back-engineering" -- or perhaps just guessing what some geometry might mean for the ritual dating
"world-changing, pre-NASA discovery" -- well, not really world-changing and don't ask me where pre-NASA ends and begins.
"bury it." -- don't dreg me to court for slander please. Just an "opinion".
"who", "how" and "what" -- but that doesn't mean I'm going to give exact details on who, how or what. Just very approximate "pointers".
I know the word now : weasel marks!
Richard Hoagland: "Listening to total wackos on the possibility they may have a germ of data...". From the horse's mouth, one of the most amazing Freudian psychological projections ever.
Trained Observer, thanks for the YouTube link.
To everybody else:
I've downloaded the video to my hard drive. If it does get deleted from YouTube, and any of you need or want it, I can definitely find a way of getting the file to you.
I have a feeling it will be up for a while. Since Hoagland himself doesn't seem to have a financial interest in protecting this particular IP, I doubt he'll say anything. Hell, I wouldn't be surprised to see him link to it on TEM.
On C2C last night he said he'd be putting the video of his whole A&A powerpointathon up on TEM. However, he also said he wanted to do a little editing first, so don't hold your breath.
"A little editing" is what the 2006 Joshua Tree video needed before it could be released. We're still waiting.
Perhaps the material is so bad, even Hoagland doesn't think it is salvageable. That happened with a conference in England, where he said one of Saturn's rings was an artificial structure and that the dinosaurs were so big because gravity was so low back then. While there is a poor copy of that one on Youtube somewhere, Hoagie won't go near it. Then again, maybe he's just having a "disagreement" with his hosting service.
If you can tolerate it, the whole panel discussion is up. http://www.youtube.com/user/jagbodhi?feature=watch
Thank you TO. What a pathetic display of snake oil peddlers,loonies, charlatans & aged hippies
I love two bit crook - con artist Sean David Morton momentarily outburst of lucidity," there are more people on the panel than in the audience..".It was actually hilarious to see Richard Hoagland sitting his peers,among a panel of terminal basket cases.
Yes, it looked like there wasn't much of a turnout. Hoagland also made a comment about how small the conference was. Given the participants, who would pay to see it? I also noticed, to his credit, that Richard Dolan was absent. This is supposed to be a conference for the Awake and Aware where presumably the truth is being dispensed by "scientists", "whistle-blowers", and "researchers" yet they tell a conflicting set of stories and don't agree about much in general. Like sci-fi B-movies from the 50s and 60s, its so bad its good. Unintentional comedy for sure.
Is it possible the market for this crap is drying up? Or are there bigger stars in the pseudo community who get more attention?
Hoagland`s frustration & irritation was palpable. Obviously he was not very happy about the conference. The old coot who considers himself a "scientist" probably felt he was too good to sit among a bunch of first class lunatic nobodies & semi senile sexagenarians. The post menopausal fruitcake (Kerry Lynn Cassidy) responsible for this event, went as far as to take Preston Nichols out of his geriatric mental institution for a couple of days.Epic...
The Russian probe recently found (thought lost) on Mars is quite something-isn't it?
What am I bid for Hoaxland a)mentioning it b) attributing the find to torsion physics c) NASA gradually revealing things because of pressure from him?
SB
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