Shaken Baby Syndrome – Preliminaries

You will not find much humour in this series of posts. The original report on which it based was produced while I was in a state of anger, over many months, at the lack of honesty and professionalism by the prosecution.

Syndrome – From Google.

1. A group of symptoms that consistently occur together or a condition characterized by a set of associated symptoms.
2. A characteristic combination of opinions, emotions or behavior.

In the ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome‘ the original symptom responsible for the name was damage done to the upper arms of a  baby or child. This  could be bruising, breakages or shoulder dislocations, or a combination of these. Later, in some cases, damage was discovered to the child’s neck. These symptoms should normally lead to the suspicion of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

This type of injury is not, in itself, proof of the baby being shaken. Some-one catching a falling child could accidentally inflict the same injuries. Bruising on one side of one arm alone would indicate the possibilty of a falling injury.

A falling child could suffer a single arm bruising, neck injury and broken arm. A child falling downstairs could have all of the above injuries.

Neck injuries without damage to the upper arms should indicate that  ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’ does not apply.

‘None shaking’ neck injuries would show bruising or cuts to the head or neck.

Now consider the following extract from Google

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is a triad of medical symptoms: subdural haematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and brain swelling from which doctors, consistent with current medical understanding, infer child abuse caused by intentional shaking. In a majority of cases there is no visible sign of external trauma.

SBS is often fatal and can cause severe brain damage, resulting in lifelong disability. Estimated death rates (mortality) among infants with SBS range from 15% to 38%; the median is 20%–25%. Up to half of deaths related to child abuse are reportedly due to shaken baby syndrome. Nonfatal consequences of SBS include varying degrees of visual impairment (including blindness), motor impairment (e.g. cerebral palsy) and cognitive impairments.

Notice the complete lack of any mention of arm injuries or neck injuries.

A few years ago I was requested to carry out an investigation into the medical evidence presented by the prosecution in a case claiming that the parents had caused life threatening injuries to their infant son by seriously shaking him and throwing onto the  floor or onto a hard object.

The prosecution team (against the parents) included 12 consultants and 6 Social Services personnel. The defense team proposed by the Social Services, comprised the parents, an inexperienced solicitor and a medical consultant who was later revealed as a professional prosecution witness in this type of case. (The social Services admitted that they had to work in accordance the charges, and spent most of their time attempting to get the parents to admit their guilt.) The parents had been told by the Social Services that they must not tell any-one about what was happening, but the parents had more sense and told their parents.

The family then decided that  they would have to handle the defense themselves, and began collecting published medical information. I became involved when I was asked to draft a letter for them repudiating some legal point.

After many months I did manage to prove that the parents were not guilty, and that the damage occurred at the hospital.

What was the damage?

Subdural haematomas.

Retinal Haemorrhages.

Brain Swelling.

So we had the situation that the child had all the symptoms claimed by the prosecution to prove ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome, but I could prove that the damage actually occurred at the hospital. This throws the validity of all the evidence required for justification of ‘shaken baby’ trials into serious doubt.

The interesting point about all this is that the prosecution was instigated and controlled by the people responsible for the injuries

The medical use of the Shaken Baby Syndrome has become a ( as stated under Syndrome –  category 2),

“A characteristic combination of opinions, emotions or behavior.”

Unfortunately this relates to medical professionals, not patients.

If you or anyone known to you is accused of ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome’, get a solicitor or lawyer to insist on the immediate release of copies of all medical records relating to the child.

In this particular case the first item of the medical records was accidentally received by the defense 5.5 months after the charges were made, despite repeated request for full records. Some items presented to the court by the prosecution were forgeries.

Author – Brian Williams – Contact e-mail —nets@talktalk.net

Additional Reading.
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Evidence from the Moon’s Craters

The visual evidence for the argument that the Moon was not formed at the same time as Earth but was captured by the Earth at some later date.

NOTE: The above underlined text is  simply a hypothesis (like most physics). Anyone can produce a hypothesis, it  need not be logical or realistic.

However, the argument that the moon was formed at the same time as the Earth is also a hypothesis.

There is no evidence of how the solar system was formed. There are only hypotheses.  The claimed ‘Big Bang Theory’ is not a theory, it is a hypothesis.

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Possible visual evidence for ‘Moon Capture’  hypothesis.

The libration (swinging like a pendulum/oscillating) of the Moon indicates that the Moon is heavier on the side facing the Earth. (The heavy side acting like a pendulum weight)

Moon

In the above photographs the Left hand photo is the Earth facing side and the right hand side is the far-side of the Moon.

The largest craters on the Moon are on the side facing the earth. It is unlikely that the Earth has been firing huge masses at the Moon during the last 300 million years to cause these craters, so there must be some other reason.  Obviously the Earth would not totally protect the Earth facing side of the moon from objects from outside of the earth/moon orbit, but the Earth’s gravity would tend to affect the trajectory of such objects.

Let us consider  that the Moon is a lost satellite from one of the planets within the solar system, or even a minor planet from some faraway sun.

The  moons orbit relative to the Sun is within 5 degrees of the ecliptic, the asteroids are within 10 degrees, this would indicate the path of the Moon could have passed through the asteroid belt before being captured by the Earth.

Multiple impacts during its passage through the asteroid belt could cause deviation of its trajectory.

Also, these impacts would embed heavy metals from the asteroids into the leading surface of the moon. This would explain the imbalance of the moon. Impacts of lighter materials (the asteroids are not all heavy metals) would scatter debris and dust across the Earth-side face. Note; The current argument from the physicists for the moon,s imbalance is that its core is offset!! Would they please explain how that could happen.

It is estimated that there are 750,000 asteroids of about 1 kilometer diameter or above, the largest being Ceres at about 975 kilometres diameter, (there may have larger ones before the moon passed through them.} There are approximately 10,000 at approximately 10 kilometers diameter. A single pass through the asteroid belt could have caused most of the large craters on the  Earth side of the moon. Its passage through the  asteroid belt would amount to (very) approximately 180 million kilometers.

Although the asteroids are actually very widely spaced,  sweeping a path through them with an object the size of the moon would likely create many impacts over a distance of 180 million kilometers.

Author;- Brian Williams

Physics in the News – Higgs Boson

Note;  A Hypothesis can be any idea that someone dreams up. It does not require any proof or logical basis.

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See also “How Physicists “find” their Particles”, which gives my prediction on 25th June 2011 and why. If you really want to understand about the problem with the Higgs Boson you need to understand how physicists ‘find’ them and all their other ‘particles’.

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Extract from above post. Posted on 25th June 2011

“Tevatron teams clash over new physics.”

All the above comments also apply to the Tevatron accelerator in the USA, currently in the news. I suspect that they are struggling to find a magic particle to enable them to keep the unit open. (It is due to close shortly.)

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“The rare beauty of modern physics is that it is completely untainted by reality.” Brian Williams

From http://ww.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-16116236

Q&A: The Higgs boson

Changes in Red are by Brian

The Higgs is a theorised [Hypothesized] sub-atomic particle – one of the “fundamental” ones that are the most basic building blocks of the Universe. Unlike atoms, these fundamental particles are not thought to be made up of anything else. The Higgs is so important because it helps the current best-guess theory [Hypothesis]of the Universe – the Standard Model – explain how other particles obtain mass. The theory[Hypothesis] has it that as the Universe cooled after the Big Bang, [another hypothesis]an invisible force known as the Higgs field formed together with its associated boson particle. This field imparts mass to the other fundamental particles.

What’s so important about mass?

Mass [Inertia] is the resistance of an object to changes in its velocity. Without this Higgs field, the Universe would be a very different place – particles would zip through the cosmos at the speed of light. The way this field confers mass on other particles has previously been likened to the way water in a swimming pool makes it harder for you to move when you try to wade through it. The Higgs field permeates the Universe the way water fills a pool. [Mass has nothing to do with ‘fields’, ‘charges’ or swimming pools.] This paragraph is complete waffle. A magnetic field could reduce the speed of an object, but it would not affect its inertia or its mass.

How do we know the Higgs exists?

Strictly speaking, we do not, and that is what is so exciting about the announcements to be made at the Large Hadron Collider – the giant experiment that was built in part to hunt for the Higgs. The particle was first proposed in 1964 by six physicists, including the Edinburgh-based theoretician Peter Higgs, as an explanation for the property of mass.

The Standard Model is an instruction booklet for how the cosmos works – a framework that explains how the different particles and forces interact. But one chapter of the booklet remains unfinished – unlike the other fundamental particles, the Higgs has never been observed by experiments. [ What they are saying is that if they cannot find the mythical Higgs Boson, they can spend billions of £s attempting to find some other mythical particle.]

How do scientists search for the Higgs boson?

Ironically, the Standard Model does not predict an exact mass for the Higgs itself. Particle accelerators like the LHC are used to systematically search for the particle over a range of masses where it could plausibly be. The LHC works by smashing two beams of protons [Protons are another type of mythical particle.]together at close to light speed, generating other particles. It is not the first machine to hunt for the boson. The LEP machine, which ran at Cern from 1989-2000, ruled out the Higgs up to a mass of 114 gigaelectronvolts (GeV; thanks to the equivalence of mass and energy laid out in the equation E=mc2, [The seriously incompetent formulae from Einstein.] particle physicists talk about the energy in accelerators’ beams and the masses of the particles they look for in the same terms). The US Tevatron accelerator searched for the particle above this mass range before it was switched off this year. These data are still being analysed, and could yet be important in helping confirm or rule out the boson, say physicists. The LHC, as the most powerful particle accelerator ever built, is just the most high-profile of the experiments that could shed light on the Higgs hunt. [Note: The constant search for mythical particles is mainly due to Einstein’s faulty mathematics]

When will we know if we have found it?

The Higgs boson is unstable; if produced among the billions of collisions at the LHC, it will quickly decay into more stable, lower-mass particles. Physicists have to infer the production of a Higgs using these decay products. Hints of the Higgs would look like a little spike or “bump” in physicists’ graphs. Results at the LHC and elsewhere carry a mark of approval in the form of statistical certainty – the degree to which observations are likely to be due to real effects, rather than statistical flukes that crop up in billions of collisions. A standard of “five sigma” is required to turn such hints into a discovery. This means there is less than a one in a million chance that the bump is a statistical fluke. It is almost certain that scientists at the LHC will be able to announce results at this level.

What if we don’t find it?

Most professional physicists would say that finding the Higgs in precisely the form that [the] theory [Hypothesis] predicts would actually be a disappointment. Large-scale projects such as the LHC are built with the aim of expanding knowledge, and confirming the existence of the Higgs right where we expect it – while it would be a triumph for our understanding of physics – would be far less exciting than not finding it. If future studies definitively confirm that the Higgs does not exist, much if not all of the Standard Model would have to be rewritten. That in turn would launch new lines of enquiry that would almost certainly revolutionise our understanding of the Universe, in much the same way as something missing in physics a century ago led to the development of the revolutionary ideas of quantum mechanics.

Brian

Laughter for the Ladies – (and other Females)

For years we have been getting e-mails from two female friends covering all types of comedy.

Here are the first of a selection for the ladies.

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Just be careful lads.

The first man married a girl from Essex.

He told her that she was to do the dishes and house cleaning.

It took a couple of days, but on the third day, he came home to see a clean house and dishes washed and put away.

The second man married a girl from Sussex.

He gave his wife orders that she was to do all the cleaning, dishes and the cooking.

The first day he didn’t see any results, but the next day he saw it was better. By the third day, he saw his house was clean, the dishes were done and there was a huge dinner on the table.

The third man married a girl from the North of England.

He ordered her to keep the house cleaned, dishes washed, lawn mowed, laundry washed, and hot meals on the table for every meal.

He said the first day he didn’t see anything, the second day he didn’t see anything but by the third day, some of the swelling had gone down and he could see a little out of his left eye, and his arm was healed enough that he could fix himself a sandwich and load the dishwasher.

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A Womans Poem.

He didn’t like my casserole,

He didn’t like my cake,

He said my biscuits were too hard,

Not like his mother used to bake.

I didn’t make his coffee right,

He didn’t like my stew,

I didn’t mend his socks for him

The way his mother used to do.

I pondered for an answer,

I was looking for a clue,

Then I turned around and  smacked him one,

Like his mother used to do.

________________

Life in the Australian Army.

Text of a letter from a kid from Romagna to Mum and Dad. (For Those  of you not in the know, Romagna is a  small  town, west of Quilpie in the far south west of Queensland, Australia )

Dear Mum & Dad,

I am well. Hope you are too. Tell me big brothers Doug and Phil that the Army is better than working on the ranch – tell them to get in bloody quick smart before the jobs are all gone! I was a bit slow in settling down at first, because you don’t have to get out of bed until 6am. But I like sleeping in now, because all you’ve got to do before breakfast is make your bed and shine your boots and clean your uniform.

No bloody horses to get in, no calves to feed, no troughs to clean – nothing!!  You have to shower though, but its not so bad, because there’s lots of hot water and even a light to see what your doing!

At breakfast you get cereal, fruit and eggs but there’s no kangaroo steaks or goanna stew like Mum makes. You don’t get fed again until noon and by that time all the city boys are knackered because we’ve been on a ‘route- march’ – gee, its only just like walking to the windmill in the bullock paddock!!

This one will kill my brothers Doug and Phil with laughter. I keep getting medals for shooting – don’t know why. The bulls-eye is as big as an apple and it don’t move and it’s not firing back at you like the Johnsons did when our big scrubber bull got into their prize cows last year! All you’ve got to do is make yourself comfortable and hit the target – it’s easy!

You don’t even load your own cartridges, they come in little boxes, and you don’t have to steady yourself against the roll-bar of the truck when you reload!

Sometimes you’ve got to wrestle with the city boys and I’ve got to be real careful because they break easy – it’s not like fighting with Doug and Phil and Jack and Boori and Steve and Muzza all at once like we do at home after the muster.

Turns out I’m not a bad boxer either and it looks like I’m the best the platoon’s got, and I’ve only been beaten by this one bloke from the Engineers – he’s 6 foot 5 and 15 stone and three pick handles across the shoulders and as you know I’m only 5 foot 7 and eight stone wringing wet, but I fought him until the other blokes carried me off to the boozer.

I can’t complain about the Army – tell the boys to get in quick before word gets around how good it is.

Your loving daughter,

Susan

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Black & White TV

After being married for 50 years, I took a careful look at my wife one
day and said “Fifty years ago we had a cheap house, a junk car, slept
on a sofa bed and watched a 10-inch black and white TV, but I got to
sleep every night with a hot 18-year-old girl.

Now … I have a $500,000.00 home, a $35,000.00 car, a nice big bed and
a large screen TV, but I’m sleeping with a 68-year-old woman. It seems
to me that you’re not holding up your side of things.”

My wife is a very reasonable woman. She told me to go out and find a hot
18-year-old girl and she would make sure that I would once again be
living in a cheap house, driving a junk car, sleeping on a sofa bed and
watching a 10-inch black and white TV.

Aren’t older women great? They really know how to solve an old guy’s
problems.

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Curtain Rods

On the first day, she sadly packed her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases.  On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things.

On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining-room table, by candlelight; she put on some soft background music, and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar, and a bottle of spring-water.

When she’d finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimps dipped in caviar into the hollow center of the curtain rods.  She then cleaned up the kitchen and left.

On the fourth day, the husband came back with his new girlfriend, and at first all was bliss. Then, slowly, the house began to smell.  They tried everything; cleaning, mopping, and airing-out the place.

Vents were checked for dead rodents, and carpets were steam cleaned.  Air fresheners were hung everywhere.  Exterminators were brought in to set off gas canisters, during which time the two had to move out for a few days, and in the end they even paid to replace the expensive wool carpeting. Nothing worked!

People stopped coming over to visit. Repairmen refused to work in the house. The maid quit.

Finally, they couldn’t take the stench any longer, and decided they had to move, but a month later – even though they’d cut their price in half – they couldn’t find a buyer for such a stinky house.

Word got out, and eventually even the local Realtors refused to return their calls.

Finally, unable to wait any longer for a purchaser, they had to borrow a huge sum of money from the bank to purchase a new place.

Then the ex-wife called the man and asked how things were going. He told her the saga of the rotting house. She listened politely and said that she missed her old home terribly and would be willing to reduce her divorce settlement in exchange for having the house.

Knowing she could have no idea how bad the smell really was, he agreed on a price that was only 1/10th of what the house had been worth … but only if she would sign the papers that very day.

She agreed, and within two hours his lawyers delivered the completed paperwork.

A week later the man and his girlfriend stood smiling as they watched the moving company pack everything to take to their new home, and to spite the ex-wife, they even took the curtain rods!

Nice to have a happy ending.

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EVE.

After three weeks in the Garden of Eden, God came to visit Eve. “So, how is everything going?” inquired God.

“It is all so beautiful, God,’ she replied. ‘The sunrises and sunsets are breathtaking, the smells, the sights, everything is wonderful, but I have just one problem.

”It’s these breasts you have given me. The middle one pushes the other two out and I am constantly knocking them with my arms, catching them on branches and snagging them on bushes. They’re a real pain.”

And Eve went on to tell God that since many other parts of her body came in pairs, such as her limbs, eyes, ears, etc. She felt that having only two breasts might leave her body more ‘symmetrically balanced’.

“That’s a fair point,” replied God, “But it was my first shot at this, you know. I gave the animals six breasts, so I figured that you needed only half of those, but I see that you are right. I will fix it up right away.”
And God reached down, removed the middle breast and tossed it into the bushes.

Three weeks passed and God once again visited Eve in the Garden of Eden.

” Well, Eve, how is my favourite creation?’

“Just fantastic,” she replied, “But for one oversight. You see, all the animals are paired off. The ewe has a ram and the cow has her bull. All the animals have a mate except me. I feel so alone.”

God thought for a moment and said, “You know, Eve, you are right. How could I have overlooked this? You do need a mate and I will immediately create a man from a part of you. Let’s see….where did I put that useless T**?”

Now doesn’t THAT make more sense than all that rubbish about the rib?

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Typical macho man married typical good-looking lady, and after the wedding, he laid down the following rules:

“I’ll be home when I want, if I want and at what time I want — and I don’t expect any hassle from you.  I expect a great dinner to be on the table unless I tell you that I won’t be home for dinner. I’ll go hunting, fishing, boozing, and card-playing when I want with my old buddies, and don’t you give me a hard time about it. Those are my rules.  Any comments?”
His new bride said: “No, that’s fine with me.  Just understand that there will be sex here at seven o’clock every night, whether you’re here or not.”

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Husband (a doctor) and his wife are having a fight at the breakfast table. Husband gets up in a rage and says, “And you are no good in bed either,” and storms out of the house.

After some time he realizes he was nasty and decides to make amends and rings her up.   She comes to the phone after many rings, and the irritated husband says, “What took you so long to answer to the phone?”

She says, “I was in bed.” .   Husband, “In bed this early, doing what?”

“Getting a second opinion!”

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THE SILENT TREATMENT

A man and his wife were having some problems at home and were giving each
other the silent treatment.. Suddenly the man realized that the next day he would need his wife to wake him at 5:00 AM for an early morning business flight.

Not wanting to be the first to break the silence (and LOSE), he wrote on a piece of paper, “Please wake me at 5:00 AM .”  He left it where he knew she would find it. The next morning the man woke up, only to discover it was 9:00 AM and he had missed his flight..

Furious, he was about to go to see why his wife hadn’t wakened him when he noticed a piece of paper by the bed.   The paper said, “It is 5:00 AM. Wake up.”

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A woman was sitting at a bar enjoying an after work cocktail with her

girlfriends when Steven, a tall, exceptionally handsome, extremely sexy,

middle-aged man entered. He was so striking that the woman could not

take her eyes off him.

This seasoned yet playful heartthrob noticed her overly attentive stare

and walked directly toward her. (As any man would.) Before she could offer

her apologies for staring so rudely, he leaned over and whispered to her,

“I’ll do anything, absolutely anything, that you want me to do, no matter

how kinky, for $20.00…

on one condition…” Flabbergasted but intrigued, the woman asked what the condition was.

The man replied, “You have to tell me what you want me to do in just three

words.”

The woman considered his proposition for a moment, and then slowly removed

A $20 bill from her purse, which she pressed into the man’s hand along with

her address. She looked deeply and passionately into his eyes, barely

concealing her anticipation and excitement, and slowly and meaningfully

said….

.

.

.

.

“Clean my house.”

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Understanding Heating and Ventilation – Rev 1

Originally posted on October 3rd, 2010. (In the last few weeks it disappeared for some unknown reason)

Understanding mechanics is nothing to do with mathematics, it is the reality of what is actually happening and why it is happening.  Note:- I have been asked “what has heating and ventilating got to do with mechanics?”

Mechanics is about moving things, and relates to anything that moves, whether levers, steam engines, ships, aircraft, spacecraft, arms and legs, water, sewage, blood, air, heat, light, magnetic radiation, radio waves, electricity etcetera.

Heating and ventilating is primarily about moving air, water and heat.

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As one of the jobs that my wife has added to my very long list of things more important that physics, I am now in the process of redoing my loft insulation, a most uncomfortable job.

This has brought to mind an occasion many years ago when one of my duties was to arrange for ‘Air Curtains’ (An industrial version of the air curtains found in many shopping centres and stores.) to be fitted to the industrial doors in a large production area.

I arranged for quotations from 6 manufacturers.  Over the next few days I took manufacturers engineers around the production area to enable them to produce their quotations.  These visits normally took about 2 hours.  However, one manufacturers engineer was there for two days.

The following week  I received the quotations and arranged separate interviews with the manufacturers to discuss their quotations.

The company whose engineer had taken two days I left till last, because their quotation had been the lowest and I was curious.

When I finally asked them how they had arrived at their price, I was given a technical file of about 30 pages.  That included the details of every single source of heat production within the manufacturing area.  This included machinery, pipe-work, workers and normal heating devices.  It even included variations allowing for summer/winter and night/day.  They got the job, but I had difficulty with our directors, who had a practice of throwing the highest and lowest quotes out, and then choosing between the remainder.  They did not understand that being a real expert allowed you to bring your prices down.

What finally convinced them were the running costs and guarantees.

The same problems arise with home heating and ventilation.  Every item in your house affects the temperature and ventilation requirements.  Heating costs are higher in a ‘minimalist’ environment,  (all goods and furniture are like storage heaters.) An empty room can lose all its heat in a few minutes, but an over furnished house will take hours to drop to the same temperature.  I have been looking after an old terraced cottage for a lady in hospital for 12 months.  The cottage is stuffed with furniture and other goods, but over the severe winter in which outside temperatures hardly ever got above zero, the temperature inside the cottage never felt uncomfortably cold.  There is no central heating in the cottage and the only form of heating was a gas fire, and the gas was turned off.

Like our manufacturing area, every item in a house either stores heat or produces heat.  The heat storage includes walls, furniture, goods and even items down to cutlery and children’s toys.  The heat producers include lighting, electrical equipment, bodies (including animals) sunlight and finally your main heating source whether a central-heating system or electric fires, gas fires or solid fuel burning.

Basically your central heating system compensates for reductions in the overall heat input into your house.

If you decide to switch off all your lights, the central heating system will compensate for the heat loss.  (The energy dissipated by lighting is nearly all heat, only a  small amount is radiated as light, and most of this is converted to heat when striking some object.  In the olden days when I was a lad, it was not uncommon for people to put an electric light bulb in a biscuit tin or similar metal container to use as a heater)

If everyone leaves the house, the central heating system will make up for the heat loss.  If you let the cat or dog out, the central heating will make up the heat loss.  If you switch off all your electrical equipment that is in standby mode, the central heating system will make up for the heat loss. However, if the outside temperature is high, switching off ‘heat producing items’ will save you from discomfort and save you money.  During the summer we had about 8 days in which the central heating was off, but the radiators were still very warm due to the heat accumulated in the roof-space, and we had ‘free’ hot water for a week.

Normally, in Britain, you will only save energy by ‘energy saving light bulbs’ or switching off electrical goods that are normally on standby mode’ when the outside temperature is higher than the set temperature of your central heating system, and that doesn’t happen very often.

I have saved a little bit of energy by adding external insulation to our freezer, (its under the stairs in my computer room so it doesn’t worry about looking pretty).  I used under-floor insulation which is only about 2.5mm thick but is a good insulator.  If you put your hand on anything and feel the cold immediately, then it is a serious source of heat loss.  The only problem is that fridges and freezers circulate heat.  Any heat removed from inside the fridge is returned through the radiator at the back.  Obviously, if your fridge or freezer is outside in a garage or shed you should save energy and money.  However, if it is inside the house you will not save much money however ‘energy efficient’ it is.  My computer room is about 5 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than the rest of the house therefore I save some heat.

Generally, it is better to look at more obscure methods of saving heat.  Many people will quite happily insulate the hot water pipes in a house, but ignore the cold water ones.  However, the cold water pipes in your house absorb heat from the general house temperature.  In winter, flushing your toilet loses more heat than boiling a pint of water.  (I will be carrying out some experiments to verify the actual amount lost, and trying a method of insulating the cistern on the inside to reduce heat loss into it, and also reducing the condensation on the outside which can be a problem sometimes)

When you run your cold water tap, the water in the pipe-work has been absorbing heat from your house, which is then generally flushed down the drain.  (This depends on how close to the main water inlet  to your house is to the particular tap you are running, complicated isn’t it?)  Water can absorb a lot of heat, which is why it is used in central heating systems.  The ideal solution for showers is a heat exchanger in which the draining water heats the incoming water feeding the shower.  This can save approximately 40% of the cost of running the shower, but can be difficult to construct in many houses.

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How HOT Is It?

Many people get confused when attempting to estimate whether something is hot or cold.  This, in many cases, is because of the ‘rate of heat flow’ between different materials.  In between the two extremes of freezing and boiling (or burning) there is a ‘comfort zone’ in which no damage is caused to the human body.  At freezing point damage can be caused due to the high water content of the human body.  At boiling point the water in the human body starts to boil.  Both are obviously dangerous situations.

However, if you have both a cushion and a piece of steel at freezing point it will be fairly obvious, if you touch it, that the steel is at freezing point.  You would probably argue, on touching the cushion, that it was a lot warmer than the steel.  This is because the rate of heat transfer (RHT) between you and the cushion is a lot less that that between you and the piece of steel.  There is energy passing from your hand to the cushion or the piece of steel.  The human ‘machine’s’ heat detection system uses this ‘rate of heat transfer’ to assess danger levels.

When the RHT is too high, damage is done to the body.  This applies whether the heat is travelling out of the body or into the body.

There is a similarity between the action of low temperatures and the action of low pressures.

See Understanding Pressure and Vacuum.

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Ventilation

Ventilation is a major source of heat loss, whether by open windows, open doors or just draughts.  Unfortunately we cannot manage without ventilation.

All ventilation is a source of heat loss.  With doors the airlock principle works quite well, but is subject to the fact that the door is open for particular reason, and generally the reason takes your mind off saving heat, and the door is left open longer than necessary.  There is not a lot you can do about human nature.

Windows have a tendency to be opened when a room becomes stuffy.  Unfortunately, it gets left open until someone claims that it is too cold!  Your central heating then has to make up for the lost heat.

Most houses have a heat store that is ignored, and that is the roof space.  This heat can be re-used both for heating, and reducing the heat loss due to ventilation.  Its use for heating is used in quite a few industrial buildings, where the warm air at high levels is ducted down to lower levels with the aid of small fan units.  Note:-  It is advisable to thoroughly clean the attic with a vacuum cleaner before using it as a source of warm air, alternatively bring fresh air into the attic via a galvanised duct (preferably rectangular, it gives a better heat transfer) to isolate the air in the attic from incoming air.

It can also be used to warm-up ventilation air by running a separate duct at high level in the roof space (the fan unit should be at the ‘fresh air’ end of the ducting so that the duct is at positive pressure).  Note that a fine mesh filter should be fitted to the air intake to keep out wasps and other undesirables.  You would not be pleased if a swarm of bees arrived in your living room by way of your heating duct.

All ducting should be of galvanised steel, not stainless steel or plastic.  The zinc on galvanised steel is fatal to many bugs and viruses.  I have a feeling that many of the cases of ‘Legionnaire’s Disease’ may be caused by the use of plastics or stainless steel for the ducting.  These materials are relatively inert, so a warm ducting is an ideal environment for many ‘nasties’.  This problem may also occur in water systems where storage is by plastic or stainless steel tanks.

SEE ALSO “Boil or Carbuncle?”

Tip from my recent attic insulation antics. I had to carry out some extra electrical work and therefore needed to clear some of the insulation. I decided to cover the area of insulation I had to remove, with a thin plastic dust-sheet. Folding the insulation back using two pieces of wood, after doing  the electrical work the insulation folded neatly back without sticking to the rest of the insulation. I followed this by doing the rest of the attic in the same way. It keeps the dust off the insulation and in the case of any small water leaks will help to isolate the damage. Note: do not try to cover the entire attic with one sheet, multiple sheets help to retain some necessary air flow.

More to come on this.

Physics in the News – Single Molecule Car

From BBC http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-15637867

This picture published on the BBC website is supposed to show a single molecule ‘car’ travelling across a sheet of copper.

This type of thing really annoys me. For a start the picture is obviously a computer graphics interpretation of the event. (The ‘light’ shining on the copper atoms is casting incorrect shadows.)

Why can’t the physicists show exactly what they saw? Have they actually seen this claimed molecule? A computer generated graphic does not qualify as any form of evidence.

If the human eye (with with the aid of a scanning microscope) can see the claimed event why can’t a camera?

This type of graphic is as scientifically valid as claiming that the drawings in ‘Peter Pan’ proves the existence of fairies.

Brian Williams – Author

Points to Ponder.

Division of Labour!

This morning I had to delete 14 fake comments for a particular brand of running shoes.

Checking on the web showed that apparently over 62,000,000 people were selling these.

I wonder how many people were actually making them?

Brian

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Cross Legs

For over 30 years I’ve wondered why people crossed their legs. Yesterday I checked on Google to see if it had bothered other people. I was amazed to find over 330,000,000 entries. There was no point in checking all these but I checked the first 5 pages and then a random page sample. What surprised me was the number of arguments  (about 50%) relating to modesty.

The point about leg crossing is that most mammals do this, from cats, dogs, lions tigers etcetera, and I doubt if any of these are particularly  interested in modesty. A woman may deliberately cross her legs for this reason, but unconscious leg crossing cannot be caused by this. The second most popular reason given is comfort,  but again I am unhappy about this, because it is not particularly comfortable. So, anybody got a better idea?

Anyone like to add their own Points to Ponder?

Understanding Mechanics – Waves.

A major subject brought up in physics discussions is wave mechanics. Unfortunately, physicists know very little about waves and almost nothing about mechanics therefore you cannot really expect anything sensible from their discussions.

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Waves are mainly divided into two groups.

Group A  is the transmission of energy. Normally travelling waves

Group B  Is the transmission of mass. Normally standing waves

Both groups are further divided into Generated waves and Created waves.

If you drop a pebble into a pond waves are created that transmit energy. They are created because the pebble does not have any ‘wavelike’ properties and the ‘falling’ motion does not have any ‘wavelike’ properties.

Generated Waves

Electrical/radio waves are generated. The waves in a ripple tank are generated. The large waves sometimes found in holiday swimming pools are generated.

Generated waves follow a ‘pattern’, like the electrical generator that may rotate at 50 revolutions per second will generate electrical waves at a frequency of 50 cycles per second. The pulse mechanism on the ripple tank will generate waves at the same frequency as the mechanism itself.

Created Waves.

Normal waves in the sea are created, and are caused by two different mechanisms.

A. Being caused by the winds operating over the oceans.

B. The tidal flow across the Earth.  (Note; the tidal bulge itself is  a generated wave, it follows the ‘pattern’ of the moon’s movement around the Earth.)

If there was no land-masses the tidal bulge would flow smoothly across the globe. However, due to the land masses. parts of the tidal bulge ( really a single wave travelling around the Earth) are reflected from the land creating waves which are transmitted back into the seas. (This wave creation normally requires a vertical face to reflect from to create serious waves.)

Tsunamis are created, and may be considered in the same way as dropping a pebble in a pond, in that  they may be caused by a landslip (massive pebble). Tsunamis may be caused by a sub-sea  earth-quake or volcano, but the mechanics involved is the same as dropping a pebble in a pond.

However, when a tsunami hits the shoreline the transmission of energy changes to a transmission of mass. All the energy stored in the tsunami is transferred into moving the mass of water onto the land. If the tsunami hits a vertical rock face then a wave is created that is reflected back across the ocean

Ripples on the Beach.

These should be considered as created waves. They are formed due to the water rushing up the beach picking up sand particles. As the amount of sand in the water increases, the extra weight slows the speed of the water and the sand begins to fall out again. This pick up and drop out creates the ripples. The same thing happens as the water retreats down the beach and the ripples are changed again.

Neither the sand nor the water surge up the beach have any wave-like properties

Waves and Ripples in the Desert.

Caused in the same way as ripples on the beach, but by the wind instead of water. The huge dunes seen in deserts are the ‘sand breakers’, the equivalent to the sea breakers beloved by surfers. The wind speeds in the deserts are higher than the water speeds in the sea.

Neither the sand nor the wind has any wave-like properties.

Neither of the above two are really waves, but ‘wave-forms’. True waves must transmit mass or energy.

Obstruction in Smooth Flow.

If you have a smooth flow of water and you poke a stick into the water, then waves/ripples are created in the water just in front of the stick and pass each side of the stick.

It is clear that neither the water nor the stick have any wave-like properties.

In this situation there are three distinct actions occurring.

A. Below the surface of the waveform itself  there is an increased flow of water (mass) along the waveform.

B. The surface water flow passes over this flow. (If you drop a light object such as a petal onto the water surface upstream of the stick, the petal will cross over the waveform without deviating.)

C. As the waveform travels downstream it also moves sideways, (as a boats wake does). This indicates that there is also a transfer of energy sideways. (This is caused by slumping of the waveforms)

(In water waves you also have to allow for differences in speed between the surface water and the various sub-surface levels.)

Sorry about this , but fluid mechanics are extremely complicated, and light follows the laws of fluid mechanics.

Accelerating Waves.

See also ‘Introduction to Physics’. Click on tab at top of page.

Brian Williams – Author

My Fight with a Prehistoric Monster.

When I was about 7 or 8 years old I had an experience that I have never forgotten. This was about 65 years ago.

My mother had given me half-a-crown ( 30 old pence, about 12.5 new pence in current money), packed two shirts, two pairs of socks, underpants, a spare pair of shorts, a pair of sandals and some sandwiches into a knapsack and sent me on my way.

No, she had not banished me, it was the high spot of the year. I was going to my aunt in Lancaster for as long as she would put up with me. I have three sisters, my aunt had four sons, what a wonderful relief to get away from my sisters for a few weeks.

Halfpence bus fare to Bolton, eleven pence return ticket to Lancaster and 2 mile walk to my aunt’s house and my holiday had started. No problem, I had done this the previous year. Not even a problem due to the fact that my aunt did not even know I was arriving.

We did all the usual things, walking to Morecambe to go on the beach (about 6 miles), traveling up along the Lune river to watch the conger eels, watching the divers diving for salmon (probably illegal).

Two of my cousins, Tommy(10) and Eric(12) used to go across the weir on the river. This was about 500 yards upstream from Skerton Bridge and was about 300 feet long.  They would slide down the grassy bank onto the weir, sit with their legs across it and then inch their way across. They had shoulder bags with them and would catch eels travelling over the weir, and the best place was in the centre of the river. They wouldn’t let me go with them because I was only a kid, (cheek, I was nearly 8 years old).

Later in the holiday I decided that I would try this myself. Following them down to the river I waited until they were almost in the middle, and then I slid down the bank onto the weir. I then inched my way out into the river. The water flow around me was just about waist height and was much stronger than I expected. It was fascinating to see the fish and eels coming up over the weir and occasionally brushing against me. By the time I had gone about 70 feet I was quite comfortable and happy with my adventure.

I then decided that I would try and catch a fish or eel. This was not as easy as I had expected because they were slippery and certainly did not want to be caught. Eventually I spotted a small eel about 12 inches long and grabbed it.

Things then began to go seriously wrong. Having caught it I decided to let it go because I couldn’t move along the weir and carry an eel.

Unfortunately I was unable to let it go because it was stuck to the back of my hand. I shook my hand about vigorously but without dislodging the eel. Then panic set in and I shouted for my cousins to help me. As they had been facing the same way as me they hadn’t realized that I was out in the river. They shouted to me to go back. This wasn’t easy to do with one hand whilst waving an eel about with the other, especially when in a panic and crying.

I eventually made it back to land and climbed up the banking. I tried to pull it off with my other hand but it without success. I then ran up to the stone wall  and started banging the back of my hand against it to try and kill the eel, but again without success. Then my cousins arrived and finally manage to kill it.

By this time I had a huge mark on the back of my hand plus numerous self inflicted injuries caused by the wall.

We also had the problem of how to handle the problem with my aunt. We decided we would wait until we’d dried off and I would have to keep my hand in my pocket until the circular mark had faded. The other injuries could be passed off as normal messing about/falling  injuries. (Even at this age we had learned to understand how adults thought.)

WHAT ABOUT THE PREHISTORIC MONSTER??????

Well, the eel wasn’t an eel, it was a Lamprey and they are creatures of nightmares and make The Alien seem like a teddy bear.

Prehistoric? They were swimming around in Earth’s waters long before the dinosaurs arrived on the scene, and don’t seem to have evolved much in this time period, indicating a very high survival capability. (Also, most readers of this post would claim that 65 years ago would classify as being prehistoric.)

Note: I do not know if the Lamprey pictured is identical to the one attached to my hand, but at the time biological research was the last thing on my mind.

Photograph from Google.

Brian Williams

Author

Physics in the News – Speed of Light.

You are on a train travelling Eastwards at the equator at 100 miles per hour relative to the Earth’s surface. The Earth’s surface is also travelling Eastwards at approximately 1000 miles per hour. If you walk from the rear of the train towards the front of the train at a speed of 5 miles per hour, your combined speed would be 1,105 miles per hour. This is not your actual true speed because we still have to add in the speed of the Earth around the Sun. We would also have to add in the speed of the solar system within the galaxy. We would also need to add in the speed of galaxy relative to the known universe. We would also need to add in the speed of the known universe, relative to a fixed point in space. We can never know the location of a fixed point in space.

It is clear that it is impossible (even for an engineer) to work out what your actual true speed is.

This same problem applies to the speed of light.  However , physicists still argue that the actual true speed is  constant at approximately 300,000 kilometres per second. This is based on Einstein’s ludicrous interpretation of the Michelson -Morley experiment.

This was a simple mechanical assembly fitted with lights and mirrors. Unfortunately, Michelson, Morley and Einstein could not understand the mechanics of this apparatus. Not understanding the mechanics they were confused when they did not get the results that they expected.  The actual results obtained were exactly those expected (by engineers) from the mechanics of the apparatus.

This confusion is still with us today, and virtually all of modern physics is affected by Einstein’s interpretation of this experiment. It also explains why none of the hypotheses of the physics establishment have ever managed to cross the boundary between hypothesis and theory. {A Hypothesis can be any silly idea, to become a Theory it must be demonstrated to satisfy all known facts relating to the subject.]

Brian Williams

Author

For more details see http://www.physicsorfantasy.co.uk/?page_id=6