Steven Mosher, “You lawyers don’t even understand that science isn’t about proof. You don’t prove anything in science.”
That is so true. I think Joe though was commenting more on how Fan presents his science than how science is supposed to be.
Fan is assuming that the maximum entropy principle as it applies to ideal monoatomic gases accurately demonstrates that an isolated atmosphere under the influence of gravity will be “perfectly” isothermal. The way Fan presents his “demonstration” has more of a “proof” feel to it than a more scientific “feeling” argument that includes limits of his model and potential sources of uncertainty etc. etc.. Sackur-Tetrode entropy is generally recognized a being less than ideal at lower temperatures, ie lower molecular velocities, where real gases tend to behave less like ideal monoatomic gases, though it is close enough in the majority of cases.
For Fans case though, covering the Earth with his Mylar MLI could produce an equilibrium temperature in the low thousands of degrees which would pretty much ensure an isothermal equilibrium. Unfortunately, that might inspire some of the Sky Dragon types to believe Fans Demonstration of *no* gravito-thermal effect is actually a demonstration “of” the gravito-thermal effect. I think it has something to do with the assumption that there is Zero potential energy at the lowest level of the atmosphere due to gravity when the mass of the entire volume actually creates the gravitational potential. Kind of a chicken or egg thing as I understand it.
Joan Baez, the physicist not the singer, believes he has a solution but I don’t think he has published it.
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