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Science Deniers in the Post-Truth World



 
 
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  #1  
Old September 15th 17, 08:21 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Science Deniers in the Post-Truth World

"All materials react to heat in some way. But this new shape-changing polymer reacts to temperatures as small as the touch of human skin to contract - in the process lifting as much as 1,000 times its own weight." http://gizmodo.com/this-new-shape-ch...-it-1759165438

Then, perhaps, this heat engine is more efficient that the Carnot engine and the second law of thermodynamics is false?

Questions of the sort "Is this true?" or "Is this false?" have no place in the post-truth world. If asked, the unanimous answer coming from all over the world is "Who cares". Scientists define the questioner as "science denier".

Pentcho Valev
  #2  
Old September 15th 17, 12:17 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Science Deniers in the Post-Truth World

Here is vigorous motion of water in an electric field, obviously able to produce work - e.g. by rotating a waterwheel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17UD1goTFhQ
"The Formation of the Floating Water Bridge including electric breakdowns"

The work will be done at the expense of what energy? The first hypothesis that comes to mind is:

At the expense of electric energy. The system is, essentially, an electric motor.

However, close inspection would suggest that the hypothesis is untenable. Scientists use triply distilled water to reduce the conductivity and the electric current passing through the system to minimum. If, for some reason, the current is increased, the motion stops - such system cannot be an electric motor.

Still the hypothesis should not be rejected - it is untenable, but the alternative is paralyzing. If the system is not an electric motor, then it is .... a perpetual-motion machine of the second kind! Here arguments describing perpetual-motion machines as impossible, idiotic, etc. are irrelevant - the conditional is valid:

IF THE SYSTEM IS NOT AN ELECTRIC MOTOR, then it is a perpetual-motion machine of the second kind.

In other words, if the work is not done at the expense of electric energy, then it is done at the expense of ambient heat, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics. No third source of energy is conceivable.

Is it true that water in an electric field can violate the second law of thermodynamics? In this case the traditional answer "Who cares" is not enough - it should be reinforced by crimestop:

"Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity." https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/o/orw...hapter2.9.html

Pentcho Valev
  #3  
Old September 15th 17, 05:59 PM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Science Deniers in the Post-Truth World

Again water in an electric field - the system can do work by lifting floating weights:

"Liquid Dielectric Capacitor" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6KAH1JpdPg

The work (lifting floating weights) will be done at the expense of what energy? Here the hypothesis

"At the expense of electric energy. The system is an electric motor."

is obviously wrong - capacitors don't act as electric motors. But then the system is a perpetual-motion machine of the second kind. In other words, since the work is not done at the expense of electric energy, it is done at the expense of ambient heat, in violation of the second law of thermodynamics (no third source of energy is conceivable). Is that true?

In the post-truth world the scientific community formally replies "No" but the actual answer is "Who cares".

Pentcho Valev
  #4  
Old September 16th 17, 08:58 AM posted to sci.astro
Pentcho Valev
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Default Science Deniers in the Post-Truth World

The following picture was published in Nature in 2013 - if correct, it is a straightforward refutation of the second law of thermodynamics:

http://images.nature.com/m685/nature...mms3500-f1.jpg

Here is the publication:

https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms3500
Yu Hang Li et al. Unidirectional suppression of hydrogen oxidation on oxidized platinum clusters

A catalyst accelerates the forward and suppresses the reverse reaction! In such cases the authors should not mention the second law of thermodynamics at all - otherwise their paper would not be published. On the other hand, the scientific community (in the post-truth world) couldn't care less about the truth or falsehood of the second law of thermodynamics or any other tenet in science.

Pentcho Valev
 




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