The Cosmic Game ( PDFDrive.com )

More documents

Recommendations

Info

Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2012 v151207 217 The Strange Atmosphere of the Moon "Light from the sun hitting lunar dust causes it to become charged through the photoelectric effect. The charged dust then repels itself and lifts off the surface of the Moon by electrostatic levitation. This manifests itself almost like an 'atmosphere of dust', visible as a thin haze and blurring of distant features, and visible as a dim glow after the sun has set. This was first photographed by the Surveyor program probes in the 1960s. It is thought that the smallest particles are repelled up to kilometers high, and that the particles move in 'fountains' as they charge and discharge." When I first saw the note, my thought was, "That is pretty bizarre!" Later, I suddenly realized the significance. Richard Hoagland in his book Dark Mission develops an elaborate theory of the political behavior of NASA, claiming massive coverups of discoveries made on the Moon and Mars. As part of his evidence he reproduces several NASA photos that reveal an apparent atmosphere on the Moon (e.g., AS17-137-20990 & AS17-134-20442 from Apollo 17). Hoagland claims the backscattering of sunlight above the lunar surface is due to massive structures made of glass rather than a gaseous atmosphere. This bothered me, because glass structures would produce an irregular pattern, whereas the atmospheric glow in the photos showed an even distribution. (Other photos do suggest some anomalous structures, but that is another issue.) The lunar atmosphere, I now realized, is composed of electrostatically levitated lunar dust, replete with convection currents that produce subtle weather patterns. It turns out that the lunar dust atmosphere is the result of the two Millikan experiments combined! Sunlight initiates the photoelectric effect as it strikes lunar dust, and the repulsive charges on the particles make the dust rise up against the downward pull of lunar gravity and form a temporary atmosphere that then falls back down after sunset ends the photoelectric effect. Could this be one of the secrets of building megalithic pyramids efficiently, and perhaps also the "flying saucer" formula for space travel? I wrote down the two equations and spliced them together. The levitation formula used in Millikan's oil-drop experiment is qE = mg, where q is charge, E is the electrostatic field, m is mass, and g is the local gravitational acceleration constant (on earth g is 9.8 m / s²). The photoelectric formula is V / f = h / e, where V is volts, f is frequency above the cutoff limit, h is Planck's constant, and e is the elementary quantum of electric charge. We solve the photoelectric formula for e, and find that e = h f / V, and then let q = e and substitute the photoelectric result for e into the levitation formula: h f E / V = mg. This tells us how light can make stuff levitate. On a clear earth day an electric field of about 100 N / C is directed downward at earth's surface. Here is an example from Harris
Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2012 v151207 218 Benson, University Physics, p. 456, to show the electrical force on a single electron under these conditions: FE = eE = (1.6e-19 C) (100 N / C) = 1.6e-17 N. (directed upward) On the other hand, the gravitational force on the electron is: Fg = mg = (9.1e-31 kg) (9.8 N / kg) = 8.9e-30 N. (directed downward) In this example eE is the same as h f E / V in the combination equation that we made above, but here we are just using the charge of a single electron for h f / V. Benson's example is to show how the electric force is much stronger than the gravitational force, so an electron can zip about in the sky and is significantly influenced only by electromagnetic forces in the environment. Thus we find that the effect of sunlight on the earth more than counteracts the effect of gravity in the case of subatomic particles. The textbook uses an example that leads the student away from noticing the possibilities of macroscopic photoelectric effects. Just before this example (on p. 450) Benson computes the ratio of the gravitational force (Fg) to the electrostatic force (Fe) in terms of the interaction of two charged particles (an electron and a proton) to show how the two forces are separated by nearly 40 degrees of magnitude. Looked at one way, the two forces seem unrelated. Looked at another way, it should be a snap on our scale to use the electrical force to lift things beyond the influence of gravity. So why don't we do it? Our photoelectric formula contains E = h f as the energy of the light. For sunlight let's say the average frequency is about 1 PHz (10 15 Hz), going up to 30 PHz if we include ultraviolet frequencies. The energy is thus about in the range of 10 -17 J or 10 -18 J for a single photon to whack a single electron loose. We do not want to just move electrons, we want to lift payload. However, suppose we have a craft that has an effective photoelectric area of 9 square meters and the average insolation (solar power) per square meter is 250 W. The watt is a joule per second (W = J / s). That gives us about 2250 joules per second on the 9 m² surface. Let's calculate for a payload of 10 3 kg. The formula is h f E / V = m g. The fair weather field is about E = 10 2 N / C. We will solve for V. (2250 J / s) (10 2 N / C) / (10 3 kg) (9.8 m / s 2 ) = (23 J / C s) = 23 V / s. Then we rearrange to solve for the payload. (10 3 kg) = (2250 J) (10 2 N / C) / (23 V) (9.8 m / s 2 ).
Page 1 and 2:
Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 3 and 4:
Page 5 and 6:
¯¯ Cosmic Game © Douglass A. Whi
Page 7 and 8:
Page 9 and 10:
Page 11 and 12:
Page 13 and 14:
Page 15 and 16:
Page 17 and 18:
Page 19 and 20:
Page 21 and 22:
Page 23 and 24:
Page 25 and 26:
Page 27 and 28:
Page 29 and 30:
Page 31 and 32:
Page 33 and 34:
Page 35 and 36:
Page 37 and 38:
Page 39 and 40:
Page 41 and 42:
Page 43 and 44:
Page 45 and 46:
Page 47 and 48:
Page 49 and 50:
Page 51 and 52:
Page 53 and 54:
Page 55 and 56:
Page 57 and 58:
Page 59 and 60:
Page 61 and 62:
Page 63 and 64:
Page 65 and 66:
Page 67 and 68:
Page 69 and 70:
Page 71 and 72:
Page 73 and 74:
Page 75 and 76:
Page 77 and 78:
Page 79 and 80:
Page 81 and 82:
Page 83 and 84:
Page 85 and 86:
Page 87 and 88:
Page 89 and 90:
Page 91 and 92:
Page 93 and 94:
Page 95 and 96:
Page 97 and 98:
Page 99 and 100:
Page 101 and 102:
Page 103 and 104:
Page 105 and 106:
Page 107 and 108:
Page 109 and 110:
Page 111 and 112:
Page 113 and 114:
Page 115 and 116:
Page 117 and 118:
Page 119 and 120:
Page 121 and 122:
Page 123 and 124:
Page 125 and 126:
Page 127 and 128:
Page 129 and 130:
Page 131 and 132:
Page 133 and 134:
Page 135 and 136:
Page 137 and 138:
Page 139 and 140:
Page 141 and 142:
Page 143 and 144:
Page 145 and 146:
Page 147 and 148:
Page 149 and 150:
Page 151 and 152:
Page 153 and 154:
Page 155 and 156:
Page 157 and 158:
Page 159 and 160:
Page 161 and 162:
Page 163 and 164:
Page 165 and 166:
Page 167 and 168: Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 217: Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
Page 243: Cosmic Game © Douglass A. White, 2
show all

The Cosmic Game ( PDFDrive.com )

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?