[meteorite-list] Re: New Concord Meteorite, Hot and Cold Again

From: Sterling K. Webb <kelly_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun Jul 24 02:54:24 2005
Message-ID: <42E33AFE.19103DF5_at_bhil.com>

Hi, Michael,

    I didn't mean to be PRO or CON on the hot or cold question. I offered no
judgement. I am inclined to the SOMETIMES HOT school myself.
    I only meant to demostrate a pecularity of the way in which human perception
and conception interact so strongly and the difficulty it poses for evaluating
witness reports from the past..

Sterling K. Webb
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Michael L Blood wrote:

> Regardless of endless research on the color of lightning, there
> are many credible DOCUMENTED cases of hot meteorites - including
> documented incidences by Nininger.
> One recent event demonstrating such a phenomenon was one of
> the Portalas Valley stones that melted a plastic bag it landed on.
> Best wishes, Michael
>
> on 7/23/05 11:53 AM, Sterling K. Webb at kelly_at_bhil.com wrote:
>
> > Hi, Everybody!
> >
> > Ah, the old meteorite hot or cold debate, again.
> >
> > How good are human witnesses? Not very. We know that.
> >
> > Specifically, how good are they at making specific qualitative
> > observations? Are their perceptions unbiased by their notions about the
> > object observed?
> >
> > The answer to that is no.
> >
> > My example is lightning. If I ask you "What color is lightning?" I will
> > get a variety of answers based on your perceptions of lightning AND your
> > knowledge of it. Most will say "white." Many will add to it, "blue-white."
> > There will be few others, about 5%, the most naive and uneducated observers,
> > who will add a tinge of red, orange, yellow, usually with an "-ish" tacked
> > on the end.
> >
> > The actual color of lightning is white, of course, since the central
> > core plasma of a bolt is at a temperature between a minimum of 20,000 and
> > usually closer to 30,000 degrees Kelvin.
> >
> > Many years ago (long before Google), I did an exhaustive search (months)
> > of all the historic literature of the world, every language, every culture
> > (available in translation) for descriptions of the color of lightning.
> > English, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Russian, etc., medieval and
> > modern up to 1800 AD. The Greeks and Romans, Egyptians, Mesopotamian, Hindu,
> > Chinese, everybody! (I just want to impress you with the thoroughness of the
> > search.)
> >
> > I was able to find 974 descriptions of lightning color, some from every
> > time period and literature searched. I probably could have found thousands,
> > but since the results were conclusive, I quit the increasingly difficult
> > task. Absolutely, without any doubt, before the year 1800 AD, all lightning
> > on the planet Earth was RED in color, or red-orange, or "bloody" or other
> > descriptive terms clearly derived from the color red.
> >
> > Obviously, some major change in the physical character of electricity or
> > the nature of the planet's atmosphere had occurred, hadn't it? Between 1790
> > and 1900, lightning changed color from RED to WHITE or blue-white. There's
> > no doubt about it.
> >
> > What happened? Well, before 1800 AD, everybody "knew" that lightning was
> > "fire." By 1900 AD, everybody "knew" that lightning was "electricity."
> > That's all. Before 1800 AD, there was no electricity, so how could we know
> > waht color lightning was? Fire is red; electricity is white or blue-white in
> > discharge. Ah, now we know!
> >
> > Human perception is not "influenced" by human conception or
> > pre-convictions, it is totally OVERWHELMED by it. Human beings only see what
> > they BELIEVE they are seeing. They pay no attention at all to what is
> > actually there or to the data presented to their senses, correcting
> > "obvious" errors on the fly before the perception even reaches
> > consciousness.
> >
> > Meteorites? Flamin' Fireballs, Batman! Burning, blinding, fiery bolides!
> > Yada yada. Of course, meteorites are hot! It's surprising they're not
> > molten, like the standard Hollywood B-movie of the 1950's, with its glowing
> > craters. John Carradine as The Professor says gravely and deep-voiced,
> > "We'll have to wait until the meteorite cools." It's OBVIOUS that meteorites
> > are hot, so they are...
> >
> > Sarcasm aside, it's to be expected that there would be many reports of
> > hot or at least warm meteorites. Warm is probably a compromise made between
> > the "knowledge" that they are hot and the strange fact that you can't feel
> > any heat!
> >
> > UFO's?
> >
> >
> > Sterling K. Webb
> > --------------------------------------------
> > PS: Out of 974 references to lightning color, the was ONE reference to
> > "blue lightnings," in the eighth century early Slavic epic poem, The Song Of
> > Igor's Campaign, the oldest known piece of literature in anything resembling
> > the Russian language, at the furthest Eastern reach of European peoples at
> > the time. One good observer in millennia.
> > --------------------------------------------
> >
> >
> > AL Mitterling wrote:
> >
> >> Hi Mark and list,
> >>
> >> I find the statement below hard to believe, because of the time to reach
> >> the specimen and it being in moist soil. Perhaps the sun was shinning
> >> (according to Mark's other posts it was partly cloudy) and it had a chance
> >> to heat the black crust before the men reached it. Best!
> >>
> >> --AL
> >>
> >
> >
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>
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Received on Sun 24 Jul 2005 02:53:51 AM PDT