Gerald E. Marsh

SEAWATER pH AND ANTHROPOGENIC CARBON DIOXIDE

admin — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 15:48:02 +0000

In 2005, the Royal Society published a report titled Ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide. The report’s principal conclusion—that average ocean pH could decrease by 0.5 units by 2100—is demonstrated here to be consistent with a linear extrapolation of very limited data. It is also shown that current understanding of ocean mixing, and of the relationship between pH and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, cannot justify such an extrapolation.

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Charge, geometry, and effective mass in the Kerr-Newman solution to the Einstein field equations

admin — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 22:51:28 +0000

Foundations of Physics Vol. 38, pp. 959-968 (2008)

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10701-008-9245-x

It has been shown that for the Reissner-Nordström solution to the vacuum Einstein field equations charge, like mass, has a unique space-time signature [Found. Phys. 38, 293-300 (2008)]. The presence of charge results in a negative curvature. This work, which includes a discussion of effective mass, is extended here to the Kerr-Newman solution.

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Negative Energies and Field Theory

admin — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 20:51:30 +0000

The assumption that the vacuum is the minimum energy state, invariant under unitary transformations, is fundamental to quantum field theory. However, the assertion that the conservation of charge implies that the equal time commutator of the charge density and its time derivative vanish for two spatially separated points is inconsistent with the requirement that the vacuum be the lowest energy state. Yet, for quantum field theory to be gauge invariant, this commutator must vanish. This essay explores how this conundrum is resolved in quantum electrodynamics.
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Truth, Faith and Reason: Pope Benedict XVI’s Lecture at the University of Regensburg

admin — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 07:00:00 +0000

Essays in the Philosophy of Humanism Volume 16(1) Spring-Summer 2008.

Pope Benedict XVI interleaved two themes in his talk at the University of Regensburg on September 12, 2006. These are discussed here in two separate parts: Truth, Faith, and Reason and The Dialogue of Cultures. The first addresses the Pope’s proposal to expand scientific reasoning to include the “rationality of faith”; and the second with the threat of radical Islam, and whether a “dialogue of cultures” is possible if the West persists in its belief in what the Pope calls a “reason which is deaf to the divine”. Truth, Faith & Reason

The Vacuum and the Cosmological Constant Problem

admin — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:00:59 +0000

It will be argued here that the cosmological constant problem exists because of the way the vacuum is defined in quantum field theory. It has been known for some time that for QFT to be gauge invariant certain terms—such as part of the vacuum polarization tensor—must be eliminated either explicitly or by some form of regularization followed by renormalization. It has recently been shown that lack of gauge invariance is a result of the way the vacuum is defined, and redefining the vacuum so that the theory is gauge invariant may also offer a solution to the cosmological constant problem.

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Climate Stability and Policy: A Synthesis

admin — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 20:15:29 +0000

During most of the Phanerozoic eon, which began about a half-billion years ago, there were few glacial intervals until the late Pliocene 2.75 million years ago. Beginning at that time, the Earth’s climate entered a period of instability with the onset of cyclical ice ages. At first these had a 41,000 year cycle, and about 1 million years ago the period lengthened to 100,000 years, which has continued to the present. Over this period of instability the climate has been extraordinarily sensitive to small forcings, whether due to Milankovitch cycles, solar variations, aerosols, or albedo variations driven by cosmic rays. The current interglacial has lasted for some ten thousand years—about the duration of past interglacials—and serious policy considerations arise as it nears its likely end. It is extremely unlikely that the current rise in carbon dioxide concentration—some 30% since 1750, and projected further increase over the next few decades—will significantly postpone the next glaciation.

Climate Stability and Policy: A Synthesis (PDF)

A related Op-Ed: THE COMING OF A NEW ICE AGE (PDF)

Goracle Gushings on Faith-Based Science

admin — Sat, 12 Jan 2008 20:46:41 +0000

USA Today Magazine (January 2008) Goracle PDF

“We are about to waste an enormous amount of money and effort on carbon mitigation without lowering CO2 emissions one whit. The Goracle and his fellow travelers will carry the day.”

AL GORE won an Academy Award for his skillfully done film, “An Inconvenient Truth.” It was well-deserved. Had he given as good a performance during his campaign for president, he would have won in a landslide. As environmental drama, it only can be compared with Michael Crichton’s novel, State of Fear. Both have elements of scientific and political fact, and both are excellent fiction.

Charge, geometry, and effective mass

admin — Wed, 15 Aug 2007 15:50:43 +0000

Foundations of Physics Vol. 38, pp. 293-300 (2008).

The original publication is available at www.springerlink.com

http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10701-008-9209-1

Charge, like mass in Newtonian mechanics, is an irreducible element of electromagnetic theory that must be introduced ab initio. Its origin is not properly a part of the theory. Fields are then defined in terms of forces on either masses—in the case of Newtonian mechanics, or charges in the case of electromagnetism. General Relativity changed our way of thinking about the gravitational field by replacing the concept of a force field with the curvature of space-time. Mass, however, remained an irreducible element. It is shown here that the Reissner-Nordström solution to the Einstein field equations tells us that charge, like mass, has a unique space-time signature.

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Climate Change: The Sun’s Role

admin — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:40:21 +0000

The sun’s role in the earth’s recent warming remains controversial even though there is a good deal of evidence to support the thesis that solar variations are a very significant factor in driving climate change both currently and in the past. This précis lays out the background and data needed to understand the basic scientific argument behind the contention that variations in solar output have a significant impact on current changes in climate. It also offers a simple, phenomenological approach for estimating the actual—as opposed to model dependent—magnitude of the sun’s influence on climate.

(arXiv: physics.ao-ph 0706.3621)

America’s Left Has Taken a Wrong Turn

admin — Tue, 01 May 2007 07:00:00 +0000

USA Today Magazine (May 2007) (PDF)
Socialism, the Left, and its future in the United States.

The Left in the US is in crisis. It has lost the broad support it once enjoyed in the working class and finds itself captive to the past—or, worse yet, to an impotent radicalism. It no longer offers working people a political outlet for their interests, but only a means of protest about issues that are not central to their lives.