[meteorite-list] Main Piece !

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jan 20 13:37:26 2006
Message-ID: <022201c61df0$212ea760$3d6efea9_at_ns279>

Uff List,

what a discussion,
never expected that to be such an issue, as in most cases with sanity and
reason the obvious becomes evident
and if I understand right, we are argueing about, whether we are allowed to
stick a label onto a stone, where is written the very words "main mass"!

If this is such a drama, invent other more specific expressions for your
labels. "Big chunk" "Largest mass of all" "Main stone of all known pairings"
or write a little sentence for explanation on the back of the label.

Gosh, Demokrit has 30 stones, cuts them down, biggest first, arrives at the
smallest, has then already the 30iest main mass of the fall, before he
starts to cut down the cuts....
any quibbler here to agree, that a meteorite has only one main mass, but
which could be one of an infinite number of different cuts of that stone(s)
(-1 for the relativists) ??

Again Gosh: How many kgs has the largest Pultusk? 9kg? 2 tons felt.
What about the size of the largest Canyon Diablo? 0,5t? Tkw - old
estimations 30tons, collected much more in following decades, railwail cars'
loads fused in.
Largest Allende 100kg and broken in pieces hitting the ground, 2 or 3 tons
came down.
That impresses me not much.

More Gosh: Dealer A,B,C-G buy the very same material from the very same
source - 7-20 numbers (if they buy later more, when the stuff has sold
well).

Horse-sense help!

Main Mass is a function of tkw (quiet, I'm not ready yet) and time.

Proposal:
"Main Mass" should be - to preserve the habitual languague use -
such a big whopper! A main chunk of a fall or a find!
At least 51 percent of the tkw.
Tkw is the sum of the weight of all pieces, which where once known (for the
case larger amounts where lost) and which will be known in future (Arnold
found the main mass of Brenham, the old main mass isn't the main mass
anymore, and if he will find another even larger chunk, that will be the
main mass.)

Main mass can be assigned only to one very stone. If it's brought in the
slaughterhouse, sorry then the main mass was cut and neither the largest
torso, nor the next largest individual deserves the term "main mass".
Pultusk, Allende, Canyon, Sikhote-Alin - sorry they have no "main masses".

What do they have then?
They have, TATAAH, a "Main Piece" !
The largest of the many, many pieces recovered, which is by far smaller than
the tkw.

Now we come to the desert!
Why such a hurry?
Let your NWA-numbers have "Main Pieces" !
We simply don't know yet, whether and which piece can turn later into a
"Main Mass".
Be patient. Wait 3 years more until quite the last stone has left Sahara
and then it's not in your hands, we have to see if the scientists are in a
mood or see any scientifical gain in looking, which stones are paired and
which not. I guess, this could happened at least with the rarest types.
Then after 30 or 70 years, we can make the summary, which numbers belong
together and if in such a group of paired numbers, there is a fat stone,
which weighs more than the rest of the group together,
then we have a "Main Mass".

Seigh, I fear that concept is to simple, to be accepted by a majority....

Buckleboo!
Martin
Received on Fri 20 Jan 2006 01:34:18 PM PST