MosaicDave wrote:
jimmcginn--
I've shown you a simple experiment which demonstrates that humid air contains water in the form of a monomolecular gas, and falsifies the existence of droplets containing anything more than one water molecule.
Wow. I wasn’t expecting that. It's good that you said something because up until now I had assumed that you had no dispute with my dispute of your claims in that thread. To me your experiment was interesting because it showed that evaporation involves forces that are (strictly) vertical. That surprised me. But the limitations of your experiment were never anything but obvious to me. As you know, it didn’t directly detect/measure the molecular composition of the evaporate. Also, it didn't show that this vertical force involves buoyancy/convection and/or that moist air is lighter than drier air and/or that evaporate is gaseous H2O. It’s perplexing why you think it did demonstrate such. I think you need to be more cognizant of the limitations of your experiment.
Additionally, even if it could be proven that this upward force is not caused by static electricity I would want to consider all other options before I would resign myself to the conclusion that H2O can become gaseous at temperatures/pressures below/above its boiling temperature/pressure (especially in the light of the fact that such has never been detected under laboratory conditions). The fact that the answer is not immediately forthcoming is no reason to jump to the conclusion that something we know to be impossible is suddenly possible.
(For anyone else coming upon this thread, that was here:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum/phpB ... 10&t=16647)
You assert that "electrostatic forces, that are largely unknown", account for the buoyancy of your droplets. Electrostatic forces aren't "largely unknown", they're well understood.
In my experience when people describe something as 'well understood' the one thing that I know it is not is well understood by them. If it was well understood by you then you would be able to demonstrate your depth of understanding and, thereby, you would have no reason to describe it as ‘well understood.’
But besides that, in the environment of the experiment, as I've explained to you, there's negligible DC electric field.
Obviously I'm not going to just take your word on it, right? You may believe that you described it but people believe all kinds of things that aren’t true. Keep in mind, as Feynman said, the person that is easiest to fool is oneself. (If you don't verify you don't know. You are just guessing.)
Yes, outdoors there can be a significant vertically-oriented electric field, especially under a thunderstorm. In clear weather outdoors, the ambient electric field is usually around 100-200 V/m. But indoors, no - it's next to none.
Again, obviously I'm not going to take your word on it. Right? Maybe you should put some thought into how your belief can be verified. Remember, an experiment has to be replicable by people that don’t possess your self assurance on this subject.
Many people have measured these fields; actually I myself have measured them, indoors and out. But even still, I will tell you, that the building where the "green bottles" experiment took place, is a typical steel-framed office building, moreover with the interior walls and ceilings framed with steel studs. So it's basically a Faraday cage. Also, the carpeting in this room is special static-dissipative carpeting; I myself had this specially installed, because we deal with sensitive electronics here. Anyway, there is no DC electric field; none; zero.
Again. obviously I'm not going to take your word on it. Right? (I would think by now you would at least know me well enough to realize that.) And that is not to say that I think you might be lying. I don't doubt that you are being honest. Let’s just say that I just suspect that you may not understand it as well as you think you do. (If you don't verify you don't know. You are just guessing.)
Furthermore, I've also explained to you, that if you really think the humid air is levitating out of the green bottle by electrostatic forces, you could just repeat the experiment yourself, but surrounding it in an enclosure of wire screen, thereby excluding all DC electric fields.
I am extremely skeptical that it is a simple as you are suggesting.
But no, you don't want to do your own science; you only want to expound on your thought experiments. You really should, though: You are so heroically attached to and convinced of your microdroplets, that you should take your own theory more seriously, and just demonstrate it. Just for yourself, first of all. And then finally everyone on any forum would respect you and listen to you; you might even win a Nobel prize.
Sorry, but I don't think the experiment is as simple as you seem to think it is.
But the microdroplets don't appear to exist.
Using that logic I can just as well say that your gaseous H2O doesn’t appear to exist either.
Dave, the more you express absolute confidence in things that are known to be unknown the more skeptical I become about your ability to maintain a dispassionate and objective perspective.
Besides all that, there are so many things wrong with your Theory of Storms, that it's hard to know even where to begin pointing first.
Well, the cognitive dissonance you are experiencing may be a result of the fact that my thinking is wrong or it may be a result of the fact that my thinking is right and everything you've taken for granted up to this point is wrong.
Nobody can tell you what you should or should not believe. But my advice is that you should ignore the consensus of dunces who would have you believe what they can't explain and are sure is, 'well understood.'
For example, your notion that somehow an aerosol of droplets will as a whole have a surface with surface tension. Which it wouldn't; each individual drop will have surface tension, tending to keep it spherical, but the bulk aerosol won't; that's not how surface tension even works. Just because there might be "a lot of surface tension around", doesn't mean that an aerosol would itself have a surface with surface tension.
Well, if the bulk aerosol can be described as a slight plasma then it does have a surface (all plasmas have a surface). Or, at least, we could say that it has a slight surface. But, actually, whether or not moist air does or does not have a surface is academic. I suggest that you avoid becoming ensconced in the rhetoric. It isn’t worth arguing about. Instead do you best to conceptualize the processes that I describe.
Nevertheless, in comparison to dry air, moist air does possess a greater balance of negative and positive charges giving it greater internal coherence than dry air. This explains how clouds tend to remain clouds. Additionally, and in conjuction with the fact that moist air is ALWAYS (no exceptions) heavier than any drier air in its vicinity, this also explains how moist air will tend to lay out in extensive, flat layers in atmosphere under calm weather conditions..
Also, the aerosol nanodroplets that are suspended in moist air, being liquid, do themselves have a surface and surface tension. I suspect you are already aware of this. However, it is very unlikely that you are aware that the surface tension of H2O is categorically distinct from that of any other liquid. Specifically, it involve the fact that there are electromagnetic forces in H2O of which most people are only remotely cognizant. (I will be discussing the how and why of all of this in a subsequent post on this thread.)
But anyway, none of that matters. Because there are no microdroplets to begin with. No matter how desperately you want them to exist, to buttress the whole fantastical complex construction you've built, they don't.
The belief that the atmosphere contains gaseous H2O is just a group delusion. It’s one of those notions that everybody believes for no other reason but that everybody believes it.
Don’t fall for it!
James McGinn / Solving Tornadoes