Not Alone

[SnowballSolarSystem]

Greetings hominid earthlings,

First I'd like to express my gratitude to the founders who made this forum available for alternative ideas. Thank you very kindly.

Next, I suppose I should apologize in advance for this rather lengthy introduction, but my thoughts are sincere whatever my shortcomings in articulation. Thanks for taking a look!

Dave
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(Abstract)

Snowball Solar System, An Alternative Solar System Model:

The majority of people living today will survive to experience the coming singularity when mankind will make the leap to 'quantumspace'. Here we will shed the limiting confines of our physical anatomy and mortality. Here teleportation of information will enable instantaneous communication and exploration within our light cone and here we will ultimately join the continuum of civilizations that have proceeded us.

Human centrism is still endemic in the scientific community. The probability of intelligent life arising spontaneously on earth in isolation is statistically prohibitive in light of our continual exchange of interstellar and intergalactic dust with trillions of other solar systems. The oddity in this stacked probability is the universality of DNA-RNA at the heart of terrestrial life. In short, DNA-RNA must be the form life has taken within our sheltered corner of the universe which is able to exchange information in the form of dust motes capable of sheltering microbes.

Within our own solar system, trillions of Oort cloud comets harbored aqueous oceans in their cores several-hundred million years before earth had cooled sufficiently to support life on its surface. The volume of this Oort cloud reservoir may have been many millions or even billions of times that of our present-day terrestrial oceans, and with hundreds of millions of year's head start, statistically, multicellular life formed in comet cores first and arrived on earth fully formed. The Cambrian Explosion of life on earth in the form of trilobites and brachiopods etc., may have been instigated by the close encounter with a passing star or molecular cloud which disrupted the comet clusters of the inner Oort cloud, sending entire gravitationally-bound comet clusters falling toward the sun through the inner solar system.

The comets that formed in cometary accretion disks of the Oort cloud melted water ice from the heat released by the decay of short-lived radionuclides (SRs), but the short half lives caused these SRs to become extinct after only a few million years, after which when most of the comet oceans froze over. But during their active phase, microbes oxidized the nebular dust in the comet oceans causing minerals to precipitate to form sedimentary comet cores. Diagenesis expelled the water from the sedimentary core and lithification hardened the sediments into granite and gneiss. In the case of massive granite cores, the rock melted to form plutonic granite domes.

Another mechanism came into play which enabled some comet oceans to survive even to the present day. The gravitationally-bound comet cluster underwent collapse collapse like the core collapse observed in the globular clusters that spherically surround the core of our galaxy. Core collapse is a dynamic process similar to evaporation in a water droplet where kinetic energy and angular momentum are carried away from the cluster by evaporation of the smallest comets, causing the largest comets to sink to the center where they collide to form far larger compound comets with sufficient mass to maintain comet oceans on the radioactive decay of long-lived radioactive isotopes like uranium-235.

The Appalachian Basin Province may be a compound comet core that plunged into the Tethys Ocean at 542 Mya, and where it penetrated into the molten liquid mantle of earth it melted, dripping sinking mantle plumes that subducted the ocean plates and drew in the continental plates to form the supercontinent Pangea. The numerous gneiss domes of the Appalachians are some of the primary comet cores that merged to form the monster compound comet.

[Chris]

Welcome, Dave!

That is quite the introduction to your thoughts and theories. I would suggest starting a thread in the Science board to discuss your ideas.

[Kezufru]

yeah welcome Dave :

Indeed quite a introduction, would like to know why you're so sure that we will get in a quantumspace and get abilities like information teleportation, imortality and probably more.
Also believe there is a change comming, only don't know if its for the better or worse so to say.

But this is probably not the best place to discuss you're work, looking forward to see you post ^^.

[Doc]

Welcome, Dave. The Abstract is very interesting and shows a lot of thought. I hope you get a great discussion going. We have a number of members with similar interests.

[SnowballSolarSystem]

Hi Chris, by the way, where's the science board, I take it that it's not in the Outpost Forum? I'm sorry to say, however, that sometimes 'science' belongs in quotes.

I fully acknowledge theoretical physicists as the philosophical torch bearers of the scientific method, but in more prosaic disciplines with historical in addition to scientific underpinnings (such as geology), the pursuit of truth often takes a backseat to one's all-important reputation. Here 'discipline' is the operative word. Grad-school supplicants check their intellectual curiosity and don blinders to follow along one of the well worn ruts of their tenured professors, that is if they mean to have a career. Their discipline extends to filtering out emails that don't end in '.gov' or '.edu' and the infrequent responses that they do condescend to offer up bear an uncanny resemblance to the 'talking points' of politicians.

So forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic to scatter pearls where they won't be received for their merit.

[SnowballSolarSystem]

Hi Kezufru, I took the singularity stuff from Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever by Ray Kurzweil, and then I ran with it. Kurzweil points out that we greatly underestimate the accelerating rate knowledge and its affects on our future. According to him, we'll double the knowledge gained in the 20th century in first 25 years of the 21st century and so on such that by the close of the 21st century the knowledge of the 20th century will be increased 20,000 fold.

Newt Gingrich is the only politician to 'get it'. In a 2008 speech he predicts that looking back at today from 25 years in the future will be like looking back at the 1880's today.

But I feel that even Kurtzweil fails to grasp the magnitude of the numbers. This rate of progress can only be sustained in the quantum realm where entanglement may not even be limited by the speed of light. This necessitates our leap to cyberspace some time in this century (which in the case of quantum computing I call 'quantumspace').

Watch for quantum computing to be the 'next big thing' to pull the economy out of its doldrums and think about buying shares in IBM before they go ballistic.

The solar system stuff is solely my contribution, but I'm looking for collaborators, hint, hint.

[SnowballSolarSystem]

Doc, if indeed there are others with similar interests, by all means, point the way.

[Garuda]

Hi Dave,

You make some very interesting points!

- You're right! We don't seem to have a science board yet. I suggest we continue here, and then move and optionally rename the thread later on.

- 'Science'. Ah... that in itself is already an interesting discussion. Science as defined by geologists says that the Sphinx must be at least 8000 years old, where science as defined by historians says it's impossible. Different methodologies can lead to different results...
So rather than refer to 'science' it may be more useful to refer to the sources of your information, etc.
I'll also add that sometimes it's necessary to rely on qualified speculation and assumptions, given the limits of the available data set. I've done research, e.g., that led me to some conclusions that stand within the available data set. But I am fully aware that the data set is too limited to make any definite claims. Any theory starts off as an assumption.

- May I ask: where did you get that information on oceans in the Oort cloud. I hadn't heard that before.

[Chris]

Hi Chris, by the way, where's the science board, I take it that it's not in the Outpost Forum? I'm sorry to say, however, that sometimes 'science' belongs in quotes.

I fully acknowledge theoretical physicists as the philosophical torch bearers of the scientific method, but in more prosaic disciplines with historical in addition to scientific underpinnings (such as geology), the pursuit of truth often takes a backseat to one's all-important reputation. Here 'discipline' is the operative word. Grad-school supplicants check their intellectual curiosity and don blinders to follow along one of the well worn ruts of their tenured professors, that is if they mean to have a career. Their discipline extends to filtering out emails that don't end in '.gov' or '.edu' and the infrequent responses that they do condescend to offer up bear an uncanny resemblance to the 'talking points' of politicians.

So forgive me if I'm less than enthusiastic to scatter pearls where they won't be received for their merit.

Dave,

I was referencing the Frontier Science board in the Area 51 section.

[SnowballSolarSystem]

Hi Garuda,

I'm not the sharpest tool in the box and I only just figured out how to "Reply to Thread" rather than replying in general. I also just noticed "Administrator" below your name and that of Doc's and Chris'. Is that right? Are the administrators synonymous with the founders and are you one of the founders?

Touché on the question Oort cloud oceans. Its necessity is derived from working backwards and forwards to explain both terrestrial and solar system phenomenon in a single comprehensive model rather than the ad hoc (patchwork quilt) of conventional wisdom. The model evolved over 4 years from its beginnings with 2 meteorite-like rocks discovered in Harrisburg, PA. So to answer your question, my evidence derives from inductive and deductive reasoning, not from the scientific canon. But collapse caused by internal melting in comet cores 4.5 billion years ago could neatly explain the high aspect-ratio (dumbbell shape) of some of the long-period (Oort cloud) comets like Halley's.

Most comprehensive theories fail from the hubris of attempting to force reality into a 'big idea' rather than allowing the evidence define the theory, such as the 'electric comet' and 'electrical universe' theories.

If a theory becomes so convoluted that various factions or schools of thought arise within the community which can not be resolved, the theory falls under a cloud known as a 'problem', such as the 'granite problem' and the 'gneiss-dome problem'.

Thus, failed theories become increasingly convoluted and ad hoc as they encounter new evidence and new phenomena until they splinter into factions. Successful theories, on the other hand, become more comprehensive as they grow to explain formerly ad hoc phenomena.

Relativity is perhaps the most successful theory ever, but it too was forced to grow. Special Relativity united Keplerian mechanics and Maxwellian electromagnetism in terms of a more comprehensive Lorenz invariant model, and while it perfectly explained these phenomena in a static empty universe, it failed to account for the acceleration and gravity of the real world. But it grew by extension into the more comprehensive theory of covariant General Relativity in which Lorentz-invariant Special Relativity was merely a special case.

So successful models must grow to encompass not only the original phenomena in but also explain new phenomena in a more comprehensive model with lower overall complexity. (That is the theory will become more complex as it grows just as General Relativity is more complex than Special Relativity, but the complexity grows at a slower rate than the increase in phenomena it explains.)

By rights, a successful theory of the solar system should explain the three, discrete observed reservoirs of comets in our solar system in a single comprehensive model. Snowball Solar System attempts to do so in the context of a triple-star origin of our sun. But since the sun is solitary today, two stellar mergers are required, and each of the two mergers form an Oort cloud reservoir in addition to the original, presolar Kuiper-belt reservoir. By definition, a stellar merger is a known as luminous red nova (LRN).

Here's the 50 cent tour:

1) The binary stellar pair merges in a 'primary LRN' that blasts the presolar, planetary accretion disk to the Inner Oort Cloud (IOC) which forms into comet clusters which differentiate into gneiss cores with hydrothermal schist mantles.
2) The newly formed sun briefly swells into a red giant star to engulf the inner terrestrial planets, and this solar plasma exposure turns them into the terrestrial planets into the 'volatile-depleted' rocky cinders with iron cores they are today. (Originally, Venus and Earth had the size and composition of the ice giants Uranus and Neptune before briefly becoming becoming engulfed by the sun.)
3) The tertiary stellar component (remember triple star) forms a contact binary with the sun and spirals in and merges with the sun in a 'secondary LRN' which blasts the radioactively hot short-lived radionuclides (SRs) created in the primary LRN and the planetary volatiles to the Outer Oort Cloud (OOC). The solar envelope became 'volatile enriched' (from the terrestrial planetary volatiles burned off in the red giant phase) and radioactively hot from SRs, and so the OOC comets differentiated volatile-enriched (felsic) granite cores that melted to form plutonic granite surrounded with hydrothermal greenstone (hence 'granite greenstone terrain').

And finally in fuller answer your initial question about Oort cloud comet oceans, Garuda, the heat produced by the rapid decay of the short-lived radionuclides created in the primary LRN melted the comet oceans in the cores of the Oort cloud comets.

[Kezufru]

SnowballSolarSystem,

I certainly do think we're on te edge of discovering something big, dunno why I think it really. Think it has to do with everything really, qauntumphysics, recent events around the world, people wakening up to the illusion of the world and even the mayan calander might be a indicator. Always believed that we will keep evolving faster and faster, my high school in computer science (can't find a better term :P) always said we would reach to cap the soon. But never really believed him. Hope we just don't go too fast.

But just read you're first few responses since I posted so I will postphone my questions untill tomorow when I got some sleep. My response is probably full of errors, since it's 5 AM here (shouldn't be up gaming so late lol :D)

[SnowballSolarSystem]

"Calling all cars, calling all cars, come in please!" I need help from the diaspora to locate the smoking guns of local comet-fragment impacts from the Younger Dryas extinction event.

Here's the scoop.

Small comet-fragment impact sites from the Younger Dryas (12,900 years ago) may fracture bedrock to form boulder fields of various sizes. Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, we have a number of small to intermediate-sized boulder fields, but larger boulder fields may exist grading gradually into shallow impact craters covering several or more square kilometers. That's where others can assist in expanding the range of observations.

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The Younger Dryas extinction event killed off some 33 megafauna genera across the North American continent (and elsewhere worldwide) including mastodon, woolly mammoth, saber tooth tigers, horses, camels, giant bison, giant short-faced bear, giant sloths, etc., but a single large comet impact would not produce this result due to the immense size and shadowing due to the spherical shape of the planet. This is known as the 'horizon problem' faced by proponents of comet-impact extinction events. In other words, the backside of the planet would be entirely shielded from a single meteorite impact, and some megafaunal individuals would be expected to survive any secondary affects to carry on the species, unless of coarse, the species were already on the verge of extinction for other reasons.

The solution to the 'horizon problem' may take the form of gravitationally-bound comet clusters from the Oort Cloud comprised of 10's or 100's of thousands of comets along with orbiting debris between the comets. As our sun passes through the plane of the galaxy on its inclined orbit, galactic tidal disturbances can dislodge entire comet clusters, causing them to lose their angular momentum and fall toward the sun through the inner solar system on highly eccentric orbits. Woe be to earth if it passes through such a comet cluster.

When comet clusters undergo 'core collapse' in the Oort Cloud, the smallest comets evaporate out of the clusters while the largest comets sink to the center where they are more likely to merge with one another to form monster 'compound comets', and the comet debris splashed around during comet mergers make comet clusters very dirty places indeed, perhaps not unlike the rings of Saturn. So the greatest hazard to earth in passing through a comet cluster may take the form of orbiting debris. Even if the planet could miraculously escape a collision with every full-size comet in the cluster, the comet debris would still blanket every land mass, raining down death and destruction. What's worse, the gas giants Jupiter or Saturn would be likely to disrupt the gravitationally-bound comet cluster, greatly enlarging the footprint of the already immense size of the original comet cluster such that few planets and moons inside the orbit of Jupiter may entirely escape unscathed.

At present, scientists are merely concerned with space defense against individual comets or asteroids, but since extinction events may arrive in the form of gravitationally-bound comet clusters with 100's of thousands of comets in volumes of many millions of cubic kilometers with trillions of hazardous-sized comet-debris objects, and that's before Jupiter, Saturn or one of the ice giants scatter the objects over billions of cubic kilometers, so establishing a connection between boulder fields and comet-debris impacts could help to establish and quantify the greatest solar-system hazard to human civilization. This is not a mere academic exercise.

Impact Boulder Field Characteristics:

One conspicuous characteristic of Impact boulder fields is their discrete nature. All the boulders formed simultaneously in a single catastrophic impact event rather than continuously as in scree or talus slopes due to weathering. Small, discrete, impact boulder fields stand out prominently against the background with no apparent source of the boulder field. By contrast, scree or talus slopes (also containing boulders) lean up against the cliff face from which they weathered, telegraphing their origin. Larger impact boulder fields, however, may be more difficult to identify by sight since they may span the horizon with no high-contrast boarder line separating the boulder field from the surrounding terrain.

But impact boulder fields can be identified by their 'simultaneity', that is weathering patterns will exhibit similar degrees of surface weathering (even if the boulder edges exhibit a considerable variation of rounding over from edge to edge and from boulder to boulder). Surface weathering is a measure of number and depth of surface fissures and exfoliation (rot) that gradually erodes rock into gravel, sand, silt and clay. The determination of the degree of surface weathering is best made by comparison, that is by comparing rocks within the boulder field to similar rocks from well outside the boulder field, but within the same terrain.

Here in Southeastern Pennsylvania, two Ringing Rock (diabase) boulder fields separated by 50 kilometers exhibit several distinct properties in common that they don't share with diabase boulders between the boulder fields.

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(The two boulder fields are:Ringing Rocks Park in Lower Black Eddy, PA and Ringing Rocks Park in Lower Pottsgrove Township, PA). These common properties include: 1) the tight discrete grouping of boulders within the boulder field which is many boulders deep, 2) the similar low-degrees of surface weathering, 3) the propensity of the rocks to ring like bells when sharply struck, 4) the similarity of inscribed surface features, described as pock marks, striations and pot holes.

Impact Slag 'Meteorwrongs':

We've seen how comet-fragment impacts on bedrock fracture the bedrock into boulder fields, but comet impacts on low ground may fuse the thick soil into comet impact slag with very different characteristics.

Carbon-bearing comet ices (CO, CO2 and methane ices etc.) are highly compressible compared to rock forming minerals, so they absorb more work energy in comet impacts than the target rock. This PdV heating may raise the temperature of carbon-bearing, supercritical comet fluids to thousands of Kelvins while the target rock never exceeds hundreds of Kelvins.

The high temperatures of supercritical carbon-bearing fluids may reach the melting point of sediments into which they become infused, creating molten comet slag. Additionally, the combination of ultra-high pressures at thousands of Kelvins cause the fluids to undergo endothermic chemical reactions that can reduce iron oxides to metallic iron if the impact occurs within carbonate rock (limestone) terrain. The presence of high-density metallic iron blebs within impact slag bears a distinct resemblance to some types of meteorites. Outside limestone terrain, impact slag tends to form silicides rather than metallic iron. And these silicides can also resemble meteorites.

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Both impact boulder fields and impact slag are signs of comet-debris impacts, and I'll have more to say about impact slag in future postings.