The Glade 4.0

No, it's you that needs to check your logic. They don't "almost always" scale, and even if they did, you would need to show that they do scale in this case.

In fact, with physical systems, effects rarely scale over large changes in size (i.e. more than an order of magnitude) and often do not scale over far smaller increases.

For example, a proposed set of capabilities for a replacement strategic bomber would have it capable of mach 2, weighing 250,000 to 300,000 pounds, with a 15-20,000 pound payload and a 3,250 mile range, and requiring support from 37-40% of the current tanker fleet.

To compare, a B-52 has a range of about 8,800 miles unrefuelled, with comparable loaded weight, with a maximum of 70,000 pounds of bombs. It's maximum speed is 650 miles per hour; about half the proposed bomber's speed depending on what altitude we mean mach 2 at.

Despite comparable weight, doubling the speed means a requirement to reduce the payload by a factor of about 3.5 to 4 and the range by a factor of just under 2.5. In order to get the same range as a B-52 you would actually need more tankers because the weight of the extra fuel needed to haul the fuel itself around would mean a major increase in the amount of fuel needed to be carried; to increase range by 2.5 would require considerably more than 2.5 times the amount of fuel.

If you wanted the aircraft to have the B-52s payload and range at mach 2, you would need an aircraft in excess of 95,000 tons, or the size of an aircraft carrier. Think of the runway such a beast would need, the maintenance, the crew, the cost, etc in order to get a bomber that carries what a B-52 does just as far but twice as fast. That's assuming this leviathan could be made to fly and land safely at all.

Designing even a large aircraft like a strategic bomber is far less complex than analyzing the how the earth retains heat and how its climate works, but more to the point, things do not scale well in large, complex systems of any kind. Making a fairly small change in the above-mentioned criteria would mean a huge change in weight and cost and a cascading change in requirements outside the aircraft to support it. It's the same way with climate only far more so because we aren't controlling the variables and there are a hell of a lot more of them.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Diamondeye:

I think you can find a more suitable and easily understandable example.

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Probably, but not very quickly and not one I'm as familiar with the numbers on.

Come on, I know you understood it perfectly well. Would it be better if I just made it an airliner?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

No, I completely understand your example. I even understand most of the physics behind your example. I just posit that you have better examples that you're overlooking: like the physics of firing a .223 with a certain amount of accuracy over 1000 meters v. a .308 over 1000 meters.

That said, I'd personally have gone with your standard Science Olympiad balsa wood bridge when compared to real life construction and structural engineering. Such bridges are 30 cm long, span a gap of 25 cm, have a maximum height of 3 cm from the surface place, can extend no more than 1 cm below the surface plane, and are no more than 5 cm wide. They can also weigh no more than 30 grams.

You're familiar with that experiment right?

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Somewhat. Having recently completed the Hasty Bridge Assessment module for my ongoing education (in reality it's anything but hasty and a major pain in the ***; doubly so when you're listening to the voice in the online learning program drone at you about it) you certainly cannot scale a small wooden bridge up and expect it to support much of anything.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Wait.. are you trying to tell me that even though we can build a canoe out of concrete, we can't build an aircraft carrier out of the same material?

Inconceivable!

Diamondeye:

Ok. So, I can easily build a bridge (or three) that will sustain 130 lbs of load using those parameters. Assuming the bridge weighs 30g, that's a 2000:1 load/mass ratio which is unrealistic for real life engineering purposes.

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Precisely. As you scale it up, the weight of the bridge material itself and the proportion of its strength used to support its own weight goes up. This is because (to oversimplify it greatly) the weight/mass of a member is determined by volume of material, but strength by cross-sectional area.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Astounding, but true!

I didn't know you could make a canoe out of concrete though. Wher'd you see that?

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Of course, the flip side to that example is that Danish engineer who built load bearing bridges capable of sustaining a fully loaded tractor and trailer out of duct tape and corrugated paper (which is also obviously not practical for real use). And, quite honestly, balsa wood at the scale is roughly comparable to steel for practical use at practical sizes. Nevertheless, 2000:1 load/mass ratios aren't, even for extremely long bridges such as used in the Florida Keys (hence, segmented design wherein we actually buttress multiple bridge spans together). And, relatively speaking, bridges under the circumstance of my balsa wood example, or even one spanning two islands in the Florida keys, are simple systems. Sure we have hurricanes and water currents and other factors in real life, but they aren't irrationally complex systems like the climate.

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Hmm... I thought VT participated in this event every year.

ASCE National Concrete Canoe Competition

Double checked, VT does have a team. I thought I remember seeing their team compete.

Cool. VT has so many things going on though I'm not surprised I never heard of this. The solar-powered car got all the on-campus attention when I was there.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

Honestly? I'm not particularly proud of this, but my opinion is that there is too much bullshit by non-experts on both sides of the debate, it's become too politicized, and it's too discussed by morons. There's bias and bandwagon-like acceptance of both sides. So **** it. If and when it becomes a big enough issue in my mind to warrant wading through the cesspool that is the debate, then I'll dig and find the evidence on both sides and come to a conclusion. I figure that's at least 8-12 hours of misery. So for now, to hell with it.

If we can wait 'till a new solution becomes viable, there's really not the problem folks say there is.

Nuclear is the only available solution, today, and that solution can cut US emissions by 33% or so in 10 years by replacing the smokestacks of those 600 odd coal fired power plants. If that's not good enough for folks, if they want a "better" solution, I'm thinking they're not as serious about this as they would want folks to believe.

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In time, this too shall pass.

Nuclear would be fine in the short term, especially since they have found ways to recycle most of the fuel consumed, thus dealing with the very serious problem of nuclear waste.

However, we can continue to use wind and solar energy, and fund the development of better wind and solar, not merely as a means to become more compatible with our environment, but more competitive economically. We could, if we had the political will, create an apollo-style public project that could launch us into the next era of energy production.

Sadly, people still think folks like John Stossle know more about the damage we are doing to the environment than every major scientific organization on the planet.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Did You Know?
This statement contains a "Bare Assertion" fallacy, an "Appeal to Popularity" fallacy, an "Appeal to Authority" fallacy, and based upon the history of the topic and the thread an "Argumentum ad Nauseum" fallacy. It's a failure of logic quadrifecta!

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

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Holy shitsnacks!

You forgot "red herring."

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

The count on what I forgot is now up to like 4... That makes 8 total in one sentence.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Saddly it may not even be a personal best. Also, atleast he didn't preface it by placing it in "his gut".

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Ezekiel 23:19-20 

Mus - using overwhelming scientific evidence to back up an argument is not an appeal to popularity.

The statement "smoking causes lung cancer", when backed up with the overwhelming amount of scientific date backing that statement up, is not false because it appeals to popularity. It doesn't appeal to popularity. It is an argument backed up with evidence.

Appealing to popularity would be "lots of folks think global warming is a Hoax, therefore, it must be true".

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Fun Fact:
When your absolute failure to use logic has been pointed out by others, it is not an effective tactic to try to pretend that you really knew what you were talking about, and everyone who pointed out your failure is stupid.

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“The duty of a patriot is to protect his country from its government.” - Thomas Paine

Fun Fact: When you have spent the last several years in complete denial, regardless of the overwhelming body of evidence that contradicts your position, a body of evidence that continues to grow and mount, you're letting your ideology get in the way of your ability to be rational.

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It feels like all the people who want limited government really just want government limited to Republicans.
---The Daily Show

Fun Fact:
Claims that something is accepted by a field in its entirety not possible if the original data that should be peer reviewed is missing.

Due to this fact; HIGCC could be real and it very well could be a big **** problem. But without the original data following standards of scientific analysis (like being present at all) renders the entire point moot.

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Darksiege
Traveller, Calé, Whisperer
Lead me not into temptation; for I know a shortcut

As an expert on fun, I can say that the facts in this post are, categorically, not fun.

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The Dude abides.