Geoengineering

Apparently the four largest nuclear reactor accidents (as measured by publicly known radioactivity release and excluding nuclear submarines) have been Sellafield, UK (Oct. 8, 1957), Idaho Falls, USA (Jan. 3, 1961), Three Mile Island, USA (March 28, 1979) and Chernobyl, USSR (April 26, 1986). Only Idaho Falls and Chernobyl caused acute deaths. The smelter splash accident at the St. Petersburg reactor complex (Dec. 15, 2005) will be included as a fifth event because it caused at least one acute death.

Two of these five events occurred within hours of a full moon. One event occurred within hours of a new moon. One event occurred 1 1/2 days from a full moon. The only event claimed to be due to acute human insanity (the Idaho Falls military reactor) occurred 2 days from a full moon. So, the correlation with syzygy is extremely significant statistically.

Three of the events occurred within days of Earth's reaching a major or minor axis of its orbit about the sun. The other two events occurred about 3 weeks away from such an axis.

Three events occurred within hours of, respectively, lunar apogee, perigee, and the moon's crossing its minor orbital axis. Two events occurred near a node of the lunar orbit; one event occurred at maximum declination near lunar standstill.

It seems that at such times of symmetry (geometric degeneracy), nuclear reactors become more hazardous. This is evidence for an "ether drift" affecting nuclear processes.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Joe Keller</i>
<br />in a uniform ether drift, the first-order effect is usually inaccessible, because clock synchronization is difficult.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Clock synchronization is trivial because there are no relativistic effects to consider. The first-order effect is readily accessible. I again encourage you to learn GPS before making claims you will have to retract later.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">In the presence of an ether drift, the clocks still don't remain synchronized.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Indeed, they would not remain synchronized if there were an aether wind. But the fact that the clocks do remain synchronized is part of the proof that there is no local aether wind.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">This discrepancy is periodic, just like the ether drift discrepancy. Its correction cancels the ether drift correction, to first order. What you're doing is omitting both corrections. Since they cancel, you still get the right distances.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">You still have not assimilated the fact that GPS measures the one-way speed of the signal between satellite and ground in less than 0.1 seconds to a precision of a few meters per second. If there were some effect, such as the one you describe, and it was periodic and averaged to zero, GPS would see the periodic signal, not just the null value when averaged over a revolution. No such periodic signal exists. Therefore, there cannot be an aether wind that affects the speed of light in near-Earth space.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The math is correct.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">The units weren't even consistent. You had a distance multiplied by a velocity to measure a wavecrest count.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">It's not a Doppler effect. It's a clock speed effect. When the satellite moves upstream, its clock is slower (by the unaccounted-for v*w), and radio signals emitted by it have lower frequency, i.e., fewer wavecrests per unit time.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">GPS data rules out such an effect. The amount of effect on the satellite clock is independent of the distance to the ground receiver, but the change in arrival time of the light signal does depend on that distance, so the two cannot in general cancel. Moreover, the signal from satellite to receiver is nearly perpendicular to the direction of the satellite velocity vector for a receiver getting signals from a satellite near the horizon. So the cancellation you hoped for could not occur.

Your heroic efforts to keep the local aether wind hypothesis alive are unsuccessful. The hypothesis was long ago slain by the GPS dragon. [xx(] -|Tom|-

I don't think I can explain it much more clearly than I already have. Let's take a poll! We could take two polls. One poll would be of all your readers. The other poll would be only for readers who have at least a bachelor's degree in a quantitative science such as chemistry or engineering. The question could be: "Does Keller's Jan. 12 post make sense?"

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The current Wikipedia article gives dates for 15 MORE, less serious, civilian nuclear reactor accidents worldwide (excluding one that was really a rocket crash). Also, a 1996 Bellona Foundation article gives dates for 10 USSR nuclear submarine accidents that were primarily nuclear rather than primarily sinkings or fires.

None of the correlations above look significant for either of these groups of smaller accidents, nor for both together. One exception might be, the moon lying on its minor axis; I'll have to look at an astronomical ephemeris to evaluate that.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by Joe Keller</i>
<br />Let's take a poll!<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Science is never done by polls. But as a referendum on the clarity of expression of the arguments, the results might be of some interest. However, the number of people still following this thread is probably minimal.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">We could take two polls. One poll would be of all your readers. The other poll would be only for readers who have at least a bachelor's degree in a quantitative science such as chemistry or engineering.<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">People in the former group would probably not want to admit that, and would instead refrain from voting. I therefore suggest that we specify that poll results are not to be a popularity contest or influenced by the credentials of either of us, nor should they be an opinion poll about the existence of a local aether wind (although that might make an interesting second poll). The vote should be just an opinion about the clarity and persuasiveness of the arguments about what GPS says about the existence or non-existence of a near-Earth aether wind.

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote">The question could be: "Does Keller's Jan. 12 post make sense?"<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">Some people might agree that your post "makes sense" even though they think it is entirely wrong. Wouldn't it be more to the point to ask something like "Is Keller's Jan. 12 post persuasive that GPS results do not eliminate the existence of a local aether wind?"

But you are the one who seems to need the feedback. So you should formulate the question to your satisfaction. I was merely making suggestions so that the poll would be less ambiguous. State your final wording. Then the willing voters can vote and/or comment. -|Tom|-

Your wording of the poll question is alright.

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Three of the 15, less serious civilian reactor accidents mentioned in my previous post, occurred on the date of a full or new moon; by the binomial theorem the significance of this is p=0.08. Three of my original five, more serious accidents (of these five, one was a land-based reactor operated by the military, and one was a smelter splash) occurred on the date of a full or new moon; for this p=0.003. However, the other two of my original five accidents, occurred no more than two days away from a full moon; credit for that, gives p=0.0003.

For these 20 reactor or reactor-related nuclear accidents not on submarines, six were on dates of syzygy; p=0.0017. Allen Lutins gives five more US accident dates, mainly accidental criticalities during fabrication; one of these was on a full moon. None of the 10 nuclear accidents on USSR submarines were on dates of syzygy. Altogether, for seven out of 35 occurring on a date of syzygy, p=0.008. If submarines are excluded, p=0.001.

A reactor near the bottom of a submarine would be below the waterline even when the sub was surfaced. Land-based reactor cores or fabrication plants might usually be above ground level. A metal submarine hull might provide more protection than a concrete containment. Security needs might have compelled the USSR to lie about the dates of its submarine accidents.

Anyone reading this thread is asked to comment on the following question:

Is Keller's Jan. 12 post persuasive that GPS results do not eliminate the existence of a local aether wind?

Thank you. -|Tom|-