Here are a few insights into recent news.
SHUTTING OFF NIAGARA FALLS
Recently was the 50th anniversary of the beginning of the construction of the temporary dam at Niagara Falls that would shut off the flow of water to the American Falls. We saw in the compound posting "Investigations", on this blog, in "Niagara Falls And The Moon Landings" that there was an underlying reason for turning the falls off, and that the shutting off coordinated with the first landing of astronauts on the moon, and the turning back on of the falls coordinated with the second landing.
http://www.nflibrary.ca/nfplindex/show.asp?id=98743&b=1
What actually happened is that Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was incessantly critical of the conduct of America's Vietnam War. He even came to Niagara Falls to personally welcome American draft dodgers to refuge in Canada. The new U.S. administration of Richard Nixon didn't appreciate the criticism.
The announced purpose of turning off the falls was for examination of the underlying rock strata. But it had a devastating effect on the Canadian Niagara tourist season. Instead, it brought tourists to the American side to see the dry falls up close.
This was around the same time that the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Sweden over it's criticism of the Vietnam War.
But Nixon and Trudeau soon patched things up. In 1972, Richard Nixon visited Pierre Trudeau in Ottawa and famously predicted that Trudeau's then-infant son would someday be Canadian Prime Minister.
SYMBOLISM AND FLAGS
Never forget how powerful symbolism can be. Considering it's flag, how much of a coincidence is that Canada pioneered the legalization of marijuana? Most of the world calls it cannabis.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_Canada#/media/File:Flag_of_Canada_(Pantone).svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis#/media/File:Cannabis_sativa_leaf_diagnostic_venation_2012_01_23_0829_c.jpg
Have you ever noticed that the nations which are considered as pioneers in space exploration all have prominent stars as part of their flags?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_United_States#/media/File:Flag_of_the_United_States.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union#/media/File:Flag_of_the_Soviet_Union.svg
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flag_of_China#/media/File:Flag_of_the_People's_Republic_of_China.svg
The Soviet Union had the hammer and sickle as it's symbol, representing industry and agriculture, and it lasted for only as long as much of the population was working in either agriculture of heavy industry. What if it had chosen the computer mouse as it's symbol?
THREATENING IRAN
One thing that might provide some insight into Donald Trump's threatening the destruction of Iran, but then changing his mind, is Ronald Reagan's announcement, in 1984, that he had declared the Soviet Union as illegal and "We begin bombing in five minutes". Reagan apparently didn't realize that there was a microphone left on nearby. The Soviets, to put it mildly, didn't appreciate the comment.
I was alarmed at the time but later realized that it was done purposely. Reagan knew that the microphone was on and wanted the Soviets to think that he was a little bit crazy and might really push the nuclear button if he was pressured enough.
THE TONKIN GULF INCIDENT
As for the apparent recent attacks on oil tankers in the Persian Gulf, remember the "Tonkin Gulf Incident" of 1964. We saw in the posting on the World And Economics blog, www.markmeekeconomics.blogspot.com , the posting "America's War Icons" in July 2009. In that posting, it is described how Americans have to have some kind of "icon" in order to get geared up for war.
These war icons have included the sunken warship the Maine, "Remember the Maine". Other icons have been "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Pearl Harbor". The icons of America's Revolutionary War were the shootings at Lexington and Concord. All that needs to be said about the current battle against terrorism is "Remember 9 / 11".
The three wars that have fallen short of victory, The War of 1812, the Korean War and, the Vietnam War all have one thing in common. That is the lack of a significant war icon to rally around.
Many people believe that the alleged attack on the naval destroyer the U.S.S. Maddox, by North Vietnamese patrol boats in 1964, was either fabricated or manufactured in an attempt to provide a war icon for the Vietnam War. It has been theorized that the ship was purposely sent near North Vietnam' major port in order to provoke a defensive attack, in order to rally the American people for the war. A later investigation revealed that the Maddox was struck by a single bullet.
Saturday, June 22, 2019
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Matter Moving At Near The Speed Of Light*
This has been added to the cosmology theory as described in the compound posting on this blog, "The Theory Of Stationary Space". First, here is a brief description of the theory in two paragraphs.
My cosmological theory has the universe as not-quite-parallel strings of matter aligned mostly in one direction in four-dimensional space, although there could be many more than these four dimensions. The direction in which these strings of matter are primarily aligned is the one that we perceive as time, along which our consciousnesses move at what we perceive as the speed of light. We can only see perpendicular to the bundles of strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains. There was an original two-dimensional sheet of space, amidst the multi-dimensional background space, disintegrated in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact. Due to charge migration, to seek a lower energy state, one side was positive in charge and the other was negative. This brought about the matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang. The energy in the disintegrating dimension, from the tension between adjacent opposite electric charges, was released. The remaining dimension then consisted of very long strings of infinitesimal cross-section, that we perceive as the particles of matter today. Some of the energy released by the disintegrating dimension went into "welding" the charges of the remaining dimension together as strings of matter. We perceive these strings as particles because our consciousnesses are moving along the bundles of strings composing our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light, and we can only see at right angles to our strings.
So, the basics of my theory is a two-dimensional sheet of space, which formed amidst the multi-dimensional background space by the same kind of opposite charge induction, disintegrating in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact to create the matter-antimatter explosive mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, which began the universe, and which scattered the remaining one-dimensional strings of matter out across space to form the universe that we see today. The strings of matter from the original two-dimensional sheet were scattered across four dimensions of the background space.
Here is something really interesting that requires some special explanation. We know that the speed of light is, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, the maximum possible velocity. It is extremely difficult to accelerate matter to anywhere near the speed of light because, according to Relativity, it's mass increases with velocity so that the mass would be infinite at the speed of light.
What is so interesting is that there are many particles of matter moving at near the speed of light, but they all have one thing in common. Ordinarily, only particles with an electric charge move anywhere near the speed of light.
It is not an issue of mass. Cosmic rays, which are actually particles and not electromagnetic radiation, contain alpha particles that move near the speed of light. An alpha particle is basically a helium atom nucleus, two protons and two neutrons so that it has a positive electric charge. But an alpha particle has nearly four times the mass of an ordinary hydrogen atom, which has no net electric charge, and we do not usually detect hydrogen atoms moving anywhere near the speed of light.
It does not seem to matter whether the charge of the high-velocity particle is positive or negative. Cosmic rays include alpha particles and protons, which have a positive electric charge, but also electrons with a negative charge. But this only applies to fermions, or the massive particles that make up atoms, and not to virtually mass-less particles like neutrinos.
Cosmic rays are not the only source of charged particles moving at high velocity through space. There is also the "solar wind", the stream of particles from the sun. But, like cosmic rays, the particles in the solar wind inevitable have an electric charge. These particles are deflected by the earth's magnetic field, and collecting in the sky above the magnetic poles. The resulting glow is called an aurora, or the northern or southern lights.
There are particles with mass and a neutral electric charge, the neutron. Neutrons are a vital component of every atom except the light isotope of hydrogen. Neutrons can be made to move at high speed, in fact nuclear fission depends on high-speed neutrons to split atoms in a chain reaction.
But neutrons are actually compound particles, formed by crunching an electron into a proton during the nuclear fusion that takes place in stars. If a neutron is on it's own, outside of a nucleus, it will break down into a proton and an electron, the radioactive process known as beta decay, in an average time of about fifteen minutes.
The acceleration of the neutrons during fission also depends on electric charge, the splitting of an atomic nucleus that is held together by neutrons against the mutual like-charge repulsion of the positively-charged protons in the nucleus. The two new nuclei, after the split, have fewer total neutrons than the one large nucleus before the split, and also less binding energy then the one original nucleus, and the excess neutrons fly off while propelled by this excess energy.
But other than these neutrons during nuclear fission, matter moving at very high velocities invariably consists of particles with an electric charge. It does not matter at all whether the electric charge is positive or negative but whole atoms with a net charge of zero, even the lightest atoms, are virtually never measured at moving anywhere near the speed of light under ordinary circumstances.
The question is: Why? I find that this really requires some special explanation. Particles of matter travel at near the speed of light, but ordinarily only if they have an electric charge. We cannot say that there is "energy" in the electric charge that drives the particle to high speed. There is no energy in electric charge. In my cosmology theory, it takes energy to hold like charges together against their mutual electrical repulsion, and it is this energy that shows up as the mass of the particle in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence, but that energy is not available to accelerate the particle as well as to hold it together.
But remember that matter originated, in my cosmology theory, with a two dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the multi-dimensional background space. Everything in the universe, matter and space, is composed of near-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges. A perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges, in multiple dimensions, is what space is. Like charges usually repel but can be held together by energy and this is what matter is.
The charges which composed the multi-dimensional background space put pressure, by opposite-charge attraction and like charge repulsion, on the two-dimensional sheet and this caused charge migration in the two-dimensional sheet, positive charges migrating to one side of the sheet and negative to the other side, because it brought about a lower-energy state. But this also caused a mutual opposite-charge attraction between the negative and positive sides and when they came into contact, the resulting matter-antimatter mutual annihilation is what we refer to as the Big Bang.
One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet disintegrated in the explosion and the remaining dimension is what we perceive as particles of matter that are actually strings in four dimensional space. We are not able to see the fourth dimension because that is the one in which the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains are primarily aligned, but we perceive it as time.
This means that the dimension of the two-dimensional sheet that disintegrated, in what we perceive as the Big Bang that began the universe, was about electric charges, negative on one side and positive on the other side. The remaining dimension, which is our matter of today, was in the neutral middle. Strings perfectly aligned in this dimension is what we perceive as matter at rest, with no velocity. This is where negatively and positively-charged strings can pair up, by mutual attraction of opposite charges, to form the atoms of ordinary matter which have an overall neutral charge, since the negative and positive charges balance out to zero.
Matter must consists of charged particles or it wouldn't exist. The very definition of matter in my cosmology theory is strings, from the one remaining dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, is like charges that are held together by the energy released from the disintegrating dimension of the sheet, which we perceive as the Big Bang, with this energy showing up as the mass in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence. But atoms formed as the "zero unit" of matter where negatively and positively-charged particles paired up with a resulting net neutral charge.
But since this matter made of atoms is mostly all aligned in the same dimension of what was the original two-dimensional sheet, and since what we perceive as an object in motion is really a bundle of strings that is at an angle other than parallel to that of ours, matter made of atoms inevitably seems to us to be either stationary or moving at relatively low velocities. It is only charged particles that we perceive as moving anywhere near the speed of light.
So in the cosmology theory, what we perceive as velocity is just the angle of alignment of the bundle of strings in four-dimensional space that we perceive as a three-dimensional object. It is really our consciousness that is moving along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light. If a string, or bundle of strings, was aligned at a right angle to our bundle of strings, we would perceive it as moving at the speed of light because our consciousness would flash past it in an instant. It would seem to us to have infinite mass, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, because all of it's mass would appear to us as concentrated at one point as our consciousness flashed past it.
The second dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, the one where the negative and positive charges of the sheet met in the mutual matter-antimatter annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, was at a right angle to the remaining dimension, the one in which the bundles of strings comprising ordinary matter is primarily aligned. When we perceive an object as moving at the speed of light, that really means that it's string or bundle of strings is at a right angle to ours. Since our dimension is the one where negative and positive electric charges paired up to form matter with a net neutral charge, the other dimension of the former two-dimensional sheet from which matter originated, is the one of charged particles.
That is, plainly and simply, why we ordinarily perceive only charged particles as moving at extremely high velocities, and not ordinary matter made of whole atoms. I cannot see this explained any other way.
We can see the close relationship between the speed of light and electric charge in Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared. The formula is about the convertibility of mass and energy and how a small amount of mass contains a vast amount of energy. E means energy, M means mass and C, for constant, means the speed of light. But the speed of light is squared, or multiplied by itself, in the formula.
The way to explain the working of this formula is that a nucleus is a collection of like-charged protons held together against their mutual repulsion by binding energy. When the nucleus is split, by a high-energy neutron, the now-released like charged protons seek to get away from each other by the most direct possible route. We perceive it as moving away from one another at the speed of light, hence the formula.
But why do the now separated like charges move away from one another at the speed of light and why should the speed of light have anything to do with the interchangeability of mass and energy?
The answer is that the speed of light is a right angle, actually representing the second dimension of the original two-dimensional sheet which formed matter. Like charges bound together in a bundle of strings, suddenly released, will bend at a right angle to one another in opposite directions. These right angles are one of the two speeds of light in the formula E = MC squared. The other, and the reason that the speed of light is squared, is that our consciousness is rushing by on the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light, and this is why we perceive strings of matter at a right angle as moving at the speed of light. But this is why it is ordinarily only charged particles that move anywhere near to what we perceive as the speed of light.
My cosmological theory has the universe as not-quite-parallel strings of matter aligned mostly in one direction in four-dimensional space, although there could be many more than these four dimensions. The direction in which these strings of matter are primarily aligned is the one that we perceive as time, along which our consciousnesses move at what we perceive as the speed of light. We can only see perpendicular to the bundles of strings of matter comprising our bodies and brains. There was an original two-dimensional sheet of space, amidst the multi-dimensional background space, disintegrated in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact. Due to charge migration, to seek a lower energy state, one side was positive in charge and the other was negative. This brought about the matter-antimatter mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang. The energy in the disintegrating dimension, from the tension between adjacent opposite electric charges, was released. The remaining dimension then consisted of very long strings of infinitesimal cross-section, that we perceive as the particles of matter today. Some of the energy released by the disintegrating dimension went into "welding" the charges of the remaining dimension together as strings of matter. We perceive these strings as particles because our consciousnesses are moving along the bundles of strings composing our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light, and we can only see at right angles to our strings.
So, the basics of my theory is a two-dimensional sheet of space, which formed amidst the multi-dimensional background space by the same kind of opposite charge induction, disintegrating in one of it's two dimensions as one pair of it's opposite sides came into contact to create the matter-antimatter explosive mutual annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, which began the universe, and which scattered the remaining one-dimensional strings of matter out across space to form the universe that we see today. The strings of matter from the original two-dimensional sheet were scattered across four dimensions of the background space.
Here is something really interesting that requires some special explanation. We know that the speed of light is, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, the maximum possible velocity. It is extremely difficult to accelerate matter to anywhere near the speed of light because, according to Relativity, it's mass increases with velocity so that the mass would be infinite at the speed of light.
What is so interesting is that there are many particles of matter moving at near the speed of light, but they all have one thing in common. Ordinarily, only particles with an electric charge move anywhere near the speed of light.
It is not an issue of mass. Cosmic rays, which are actually particles and not electromagnetic radiation, contain alpha particles that move near the speed of light. An alpha particle is basically a helium atom nucleus, two protons and two neutrons so that it has a positive electric charge. But an alpha particle has nearly four times the mass of an ordinary hydrogen atom, which has no net electric charge, and we do not usually detect hydrogen atoms moving anywhere near the speed of light.
It does not seem to matter whether the charge of the high-velocity particle is positive or negative. Cosmic rays include alpha particles and protons, which have a positive electric charge, but also electrons with a negative charge. But this only applies to fermions, or the massive particles that make up atoms, and not to virtually mass-less particles like neutrinos.
Cosmic rays are not the only source of charged particles moving at high velocity through space. There is also the "solar wind", the stream of particles from the sun. But, like cosmic rays, the particles in the solar wind inevitable have an electric charge. These particles are deflected by the earth's magnetic field, and collecting in the sky above the magnetic poles. The resulting glow is called an aurora, or the northern or southern lights.
There are particles with mass and a neutral electric charge, the neutron. Neutrons are a vital component of every atom except the light isotope of hydrogen. Neutrons can be made to move at high speed, in fact nuclear fission depends on high-speed neutrons to split atoms in a chain reaction.
But neutrons are actually compound particles, formed by crunching an electron into a proton during the nuclear fusion that takes place in stars. If a neutron is on it's own, outside of a nucleus, it will break down into a proton and an electron, the radioactive process known as beta decay, in an average time of about fifteen minutes.
The acceleration of the neutrons during fission also depends on electric charge, the splitting of an atomic nucleus that is held together by neutrons against the mutual like-charge repulsion of the positively-charged protons in the nucleus. The two new nuclei, after the split, have fewer total neutrons than the one large nucleus before the split, and also less binding energy then the one original nucleus, and the excess neutrons fly off while propelled by this excess energy.
But other than these neutrons during nuclear fission, matter moving at very high velocities invariably consists of particles with an electric charge. It does not matter at all whether the electric charge is positive or negative but whole atoms with a net charge of zero, even the lightest atoms, are virtually never measured at moving anywhere near the speed of light under ordinary circumstances.
The question is: Why? I find that this really requires some special explanation. Particles of matter travel at near the speed of light, but ordinarily only if they have an electric charge. We cannot say that there is "energy" in the electric charge that drives the particle to high speed. There is no energy in electric charge. In my cosmology theory, it takes energy to hold like charges together against their mutual electrical repulsion, and it is this energy that shows up as the mass of the particle in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence, but that energy is not available to accelerate the particle as well as to hold it together.
But remember that matter originated, in my cosmology theory, with a two dimensional sheet of space that was within, but not contiguous with, the multi-dimensional background space. Everything in the universe, matter and space, is composed of near-infinitesimal negative and positive electric charges. A perfectly alternating checkerboard pattern of negative and positive charges, in multiple dimensions, is what space is. Like charges usually repel but can be held together by energy and this is what matter is.
The charges which composed the multi-dimensional background space put pressure, by opposite-charge attraction and like charge repulsion, on the two-dimensional sheet and this caused charge migration in the two-dimensional sheet, positive charges migrating to one side of the sheet and negative to the other side, because it brought about a lower-energy state. But this also caused a mutual opposite-charge attraction between the negative and positive sides and when they came into contact, the resulting matter-antimatter mutual annihilation is what we refer to as the Big Bang.
One dimension of the two-dimensional sheet disintegrated in the explosion and the remaining dimension is what we perceive as particles of matter that are actually strings in four dimensional space. We are not able to see the fourth dimension because that is the one in which the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains are primarily aligned, but we perceive it as time.
This means that the dimension of the two-dimensional sheet that disintegrated, in what we perceive as the Big Bang that began the universe, was about electric charges, negative on one side and positive on the other side. The remaining dimension, which is our matter of today, was in the neutral middle. Strings perfectly aligned in this dimension is what we perceive as matter at rest, with no velocity. This is where negatively and positively-charged strings can pair up, by mutual attraction of opposite charges, to form the atoms of ordinary matter which have an overall neutral charge, since the negative and positive charges balance out to zero.
Matter must consists of charged particles or it wouldn't exist. The very definition of matter in my cosmology theory is strings, from the one remaining dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, is like charges that are held together by the energy released from the disintegrating dimension of the sheet, which we perceive as the Big Bang, with this energy showing up as the mass in the well-known Mass-Energy Equivalence. But atoms formed as the "zero unit" of matter where negatively and positively-charged particles paired up with a resulting net neutral charge.
But since this matter made of atoms is mostly all aligned in the same dimension of what was the original two-dimensional sheet, and since what we perceive as an object in motion is really a bundle of strings that is at an angle other than parallel to that of ours, matter made of atoms inevitably seems to us to be either stationary or moving at relatively low velocities. It is only charged particles that we perceive as moving anywhere near the speed of light.
So in the cosmology theory, what we perceive as velocity is just the angle of alignment of the bundle of strings in four-dimensional space that we perceive as a three-dimensional object. It is really our consciousness that is moving along the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains, at what we perceive as the speed of light. If a string, or bundle of strings, was aligned at a right angle to our bundle of strings, we would perceive it as moving at the speed of light because our consciousness would flash past it in an instant. It would seem to us to have infinite mass, according to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, because all of it's mass would appear to us as concentrated at one point as our consciousness flashed past it.
The second dimension of the two-dimensional sheet, the one where the negative and positive charges of the sheet met in the mutual matter-antimatter annihilation that we perceive as the Big Bang, was at a right angle to the remaining dimension, the one in which the bundles of strings comprising ordinary matter is primarily aligned. When we perceive an object as moving at the speed of light, that really means that it's string or bundle of strings is at a right angle to ours. Since our dimension is the one where negative and positive electric charges paired up to form matter with a net neutral charge, the other dimension of the former two-dimensional sheet from which matter originated, is the one of charged particles.
That is, plainly and simply, why we ordinarily perceive only charged particles as moving at extremely high velocities, and not ordinary matter made of whole atoms. I cannot see this explained any other way.
We can see the close relationship between the speed of light and electric charge in Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared. The formula is about the convertibility of mass and energy and how a small amount of mass contains a vast amount of energy. E means energy, M means mass and C, for constant, means the speed of light. But the speed of light is squared, or multiplied by itself, in the formula.
The way to explain the working of this formula is that a nucleus is a collection of like-charged protons held together against their mutual repulsion by binding energy. When the nucleus is split, by a high-energy neutron, the now-released like charged protons seek to get away from each other by the most direct possible route. We perceive it as moving away from one another at the speed of light, hence the formula.
But why do the now separated like charges move away from one another at the speed of light and why should the speed of light have anything to do with the interchangeability of mass and energy?
The answer is that the speed of light is a right angle, actually representing the second dimension of the original two-dimensional sheet which formed matter. Like charges bound together in a bundle of strings, suddenly released, will bend at a right angle to one another in opposite directions. These right angles are one of the two speeds of light in the formula E = MC squared. The other, and the reason that the speed of light is squared, is that our consciousness is rushing by on the bundles of strings comprising our bodies and brains at what we perceive as the speed of light, and this is why we perceive strings of matter at a right angle as moving at the speed of light. But this is why it is ordinarily only charged particles that move anywhere near to what we perceive as the speed of light.
Saturday, June 15, 2019
Polarity
There was high winds this week and I thought of something. There are two basic types of circular weather phenomenon with extremely high winds, a tornado and a hurricane. A hurricane is much larger in scale and longer-lived than a tornado. The reason that there are these two different types of circular high-wind phenomenon involves water. Hurricanes are based on water while tornadoes are not.
A hurricane first requires dust in the air, and over the sea, to act as condensation nuclei for water vapor. The basis of weather is that water is lighter than air by molecule but water molecules are polar so that they join together negative side to positive side, forming liquid water, so that liquid water at sea level is 800 times as heavy as air. Water vapor rising from a warm tropical sea condenses on the dust particles so that there is room in the air for more vapor and it continues to rise.
The entire system reacts to the spin of the earth by spinning in the opposite direction, counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. A hurricane does not actually move but the spin gives it some independence from the earth's gravity so that the earth moves eastward beneath it. This is why hurricanes move westward. The spin of the earth beneath the hurricane is greatest on the side closest to the equator and this causes the system to be pulled toward the slower-spinning side which is why hurricanes also tend to move away from the equator, northward in the northern hemisphere.
A tornado, in contrast, does not depend on water and is simply air developing a spinning motion, again picked up from the rotation of the earth, when air is drawn to a center of low pressure in the atmosphere from all directions.
But why should a system based on water have the possibility of being vast and long-lived when one without water is necessarily narrow in scope and relatively brief? I have not seen it explained but the answer lies in electric charge.
Eddys are the small whirlpools that form when flowing water is in contact with still or slower-moving water. Eddys also occur in the air when the wind encounters some obstacle.
Such eddys only occur when the molecules of the fluid or gas are polar. Atoms are symmetrical all around but most molecules are not. This means that the electric charge one one side of the molecule is more positive and the other side more negative. This polarity causes attraction or repulsion between molecules and when an attraction forms between still and moving molecules, the moving molecule is diverted in it's path and the still molecule is pulled along. The repulsion and attraction to other molecules by the pair creates a circular motion which is the beginning of an eddy.
A fluid, whether liquid or gas, will not form eddys if it consists of atoms alone and not molecules. This is because the atoms are symmetrical and without polarity eddys cannot get started. At the boundary between the moving and still water, millions of small eddys get started until they merge into few larger ones. Such an eddy is a compromise between the moving and still waters or the faster-moving and slower-moving waters.
Air is actually polar but not in the same way as water. Water has polarity because it's molecule consists of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Air is polar and so creates eddys because the oxygen and nitrogen in the air consists of two atoms together instead of one. In other words, these two gases in the air are in a "diatomic" state.
Thus, different parts of the molecule display a different electric charge, Without this assymmetry of the oxygen and nitrogen in the air and thus polarity, tornados or hurricanes could not form, since these are really only large eddys. This could not happen if the oxygen and nitrogen in the air was not diatomic.
I see a direct relationship between the strength of the polarity of molecules of gas and the temperature at which the gas will liquify.
In any diatomic, which means molecules that pair together such as two oxygens or two nitrogens, or any gas that exists in molecular, as opposed to atomic, form, some degree of polarity will be inevitable. Polarity is simply the difference in electric charge from one side of the molecule to the other because it is generally impossible for a molecule to be symmetrical all around in the same way that a single atom is. Polarity in molecules is similar in concept to the ionic bonds between atoms which causes them to form molecules. One atom loses an electron to another, giving the losing one a positive charge and the gaining one a negative charge, which creates an electric bond between them.
As the temperature drops, the absolute temperature at which a gas will liquify is proportional to the difference in electrical charge between one side of the molecule and the other. To liquify at all at normal pressure, a gas must be molecular in structure. One that is composed of atoms instead of molecules will not liquify. A gas with strong polarity, such as water vapor (vapour), will liquify at high temperatures. This is why we can have liquid water at normal temperatures. A gas with weak polarity, such as oxygen, will require very low temperatures to become liquid.
Liquid is basically what a gas does when the temperature is low enough so that the polar attraction between molecules can overcome the motion of the molecules caused by heat energy. Pressure is a factor too, low pressure favors (favours) the molecules remaining as a gas while high pressure favours (favors) the formation of a liquid. Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and, helium can all be liquified with enough cold and pressure. A simple molecule consisting of two like atoms together such as the gases of the atmosphere form (except carbon dioxide) has a different charge at one of the ends of the molecule than it does on a side of the molecule. Thus when the gas condenses into a liquid, the molecules are like capsules fitting together end to side.
But water becomes liquid at a far higher temperature than oxygen or nitrogen. Water is in it's liquid state at any temperature below the boiling point of water, 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Water turns into it's solid state, ice, at zero degrees Celsius. To get oxygen to turn into a liquid- 182.96 Celsius ( - 297.33 Fahrenheit ). Nitrogen requires even lower temperatures to liquify, - 196 Celsius. (source - Wikipedia)
In terms of absolute temperatures, measured in the Kelvin temperature scale from absolute zero, liquid oxygen requires a temperature of about 90 degrees Kelvin, nitrogen of about 77 degrees, and water of about 373 degrees. This is because the polarity of water molecules, the difference in electrical charge between the positive and negative sides, is far greater than that of the diatomic forms of oxygen and nitrogen. Heat energy breaks the liquification bonds apart and the much-higher polarity of water molecules can withstand much higher temperatures.
Seeing that water condenses from a gas, water vapor, to a liquid at far higher temperatures than atmospheric gases like oxygen and nitrogen, this leads us to why a hurricane, based on water, can be so much greater in scope and longer-lived than a tornado, which is not based on water. The information of the difference between the scale and lifespan of the two actually comes from the same source as the difference in temperature required to liquify gases like oxygen and nitrogen in comparison with water. That information is the difference in polarity from one side of the molecule to the other.
A hurricane first requires dust in the air, and over the sea, to act as condensation nuclei for water vapor. The basis of weather is that water is lighter than air by molecule but water molecules are polar so that they join together negative side to positive side, forming liquid water, so that liquid water at sea level is 800 times as heavy as air. Water vapor rising from a warm tropical sea condenses on the dust particles so that there is room in the air for more vapor and it continues to rise.
The entire system reacts to the spin of the earth by spinning in the opposite direction, counter-clockwise in the northern hemisphere. A hurricane does not actually move but the spin gives it some independence from the earth's gravity so that the earth moves eastward beneath it. This is why hurricanes move westward. The spin of the earth beneath the hurricane is greatest on the side closest to the equator and this causes the system to be pulled toward the slower-spinning side which is why hurricanes also tend to move away from the equator, northward in the northern hemisphere.
A tornado, in contrast, does not depend on water and is simply air developing a spinning motion, again picked up from the rotation of the earth, when air is drawn to a center of low pressure in the atmosphere from all directions.
But why should a system based on water have the possibility of being vast and long-lived when one without water is necessarily narrow in scope and relatively brief? I have not seen it explained but the answer lies in electric charge.
Eddys are the small whirlpools that form when flowing water is in contact with still or slower-moving water. Eddys also occur in the air when the wind encounters some obstacle.
Such eddys only occur when the molecules of the fluid or gas are polar. Atoms are symmetrical all around but most molecules are not. This means that the electric charge one one side of the molecule is more positive and the other side more negative. This polarity causes attraction or repulsion between molecules and when an attraction forms between still and moving molecules, the moving molecule is diverted in it's path and the still molecule is pulled along. The repulsion and attraction to other molecules by the pair creates a circular motion which is the beginning of an eddy.
A fluid, whether liquid or gas, will not form eddys if it consists of atoms alone and not molecules. This is because the atoms are symmetrical and without polarity eddys cannot get started. At the boundary between the moving and still water, millions of small eddys get started until they merge into few larger ones. Such an eddy is a compromise between the moving and still waters or the faster-moving and slower-moving waters.
Air is actually polar but not in the same way as water. Water has polarity because it's molecule consists of one atom of oxygen and two of hydrogen. Air is polar and so creates eddys because the oxygen and nitrogen in the air consists of two atoms together instead of one. In other words, these two gases in the air are in a "diatomic" state.
Thus, different parts of the molecule display a different electric charge, Without this assymmetry of the oxygen and nitrogen in the air and thus polarity, tornados or hurricanes could not form, since these are really only large eddys. This could not happen if the oxygen and nitrogen in the air was not diatomic.
I see a direct relationship between the strength of the polarity of molecules of gas and the temperature at which the gas will liquify.
In any diatomic, which means molecules that pair together such as two oxygens or two nitrogens, or any gas that exists in molecular, as opposed to atomic, form, some degree of polarity will be inevitable. Polarity is simply the difference in electric charge from one side of the molecule to the other because it is generally impossible for a molecule to be symmetrical all around in the same way that a single atom is. Polarity in molecules is similar in concept to the ionic bonds between atoms which causes them to form molecules. One atom loses an electron to another, giving the losing one a positive charge and the gaining one a negative charge, which creates an electric bond between them.
As the temperature drops, the absolute temperature at which a gas will liquify is proportional to the difference in electrical charge between one side of the molecule and the other. To liquify at all at normal pressure, a gas must be molecular in structure. One that is composed of atoms instead of molecules will not liquify. A gas with strong polarity, such as water vapor (vapour), will liquify at high temperatures. This is why we can have liquid water at normal temperatures. A gas with weak polarity, such as oxygen, will require very low temperatures to become liquid.
Liquid is basically what a gas does when the temperature is low enough so that the polar attraction between molecules can overcome the motion of the molecules caused by heat energy. Pressure is a factor too, low pressure favors (favours) the molecules remaining as a gas while high pressure favours (favors) the formation of a liquid. Oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen and, helium can all be liquified with enough cold and pressure. A simple molecule consisting of two like atoms together such as the gases of the atmosphere form (except carbon dioxide) has a different charge at one of the ends of the molecule than it does on a side of the molecule. Thus when the gas condenses into a liquid, the molecules are like capsules fitting together end to side.
But water becomes liquid at a far higher temperature than oxygen or nitrogen. Water is in it's liquid state at any temperature below the boiling point of water, 100 degrees Celsius or 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Water turns into it's solid state, ice, at zero degrees Celsius. To get oxygen to turn into a liquid- 182.96 Celsius ( - 297.33 Fahrenheit ). Nitrogen requires even lower temperatures to liquify, - 196 Celsius. (source - Wikipedia)
In terms of absolute temperatures, measured in the Kelvin temperature scale from absolute zero, liquid oxygen requires a temperature of about 90 degrees Kelvin, nitrogen of about 77 degrees, and water of about 373 degrees. This is because the polarity of water molecules, the difference in electrical charge between the positive and negative sides, is far greater than that of the diatomic forms of oxygen and nitrogen. Heat energy breaks the liquification bonds apart and the much-higher polarity of water molecules can withstand much higher temperatures.
Seeing that water condenses from a gas, water vapor, to a liquid at far higher temperatures than atmospheric gases like oxygen and nitrogen, this leads us to why a hurricane, based on water, can be so much greater in scope and longer-lived than a tornado, which is not based on water. The information of the difference between the scale and lifespan of the two actually comes from the same source as the difference in temperature required to liquify gases like oxygen and nitrogen in comparison with water. That information is the difference in polarity from one side of the molecule to the other.
Saturday, June 8, 2019
Niagara Natural History Summary
Many people go on vacation to Niagara Falls during the summer and I would like to make the natural history that I hope to have added there easier to understand. It would be helpful to have some familiarity with the Niagara area to understand this.
There is a blog about insights into the natural history of the Niagara Falls area, on www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com , but I would like to write a single posting encompassing everything in chronological order.
EARLY LIMESTONE FORMATION
Eons ago, in warm shallow seas, microscopic creatures lived and died. Their bodies piled up on the bottom to eventually form layers of limestone (calcium carbonate). These layers can be seen today in the gorge of Niagara Falls. Even before that, waves pulverized rocks into sand which then formed layers on the bottom of the sea. The land was later forced upward by tectonic activity, and this forms the geological foundation of the area.
You can see the layers of limestone rock strata in the walls of the Niagara Gorge at the falls. Touch the image in the upper left to enlarge it.
THE FORMATION OF THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT
Most likely, a meteor composed of magnesium landed in the sea at some point. This led to a layer of limestone composed of magnesium carbonate, instead of the usual calcium carbonate. Ordinary limestone is dissolved by water and erosion over long periods of time. But the layer of magnesium carbonate was much more resistant to erosion.
This top layer of highly resistant limestone resulted in what we see today as the Niagara Escarpment. It may appear to be some type of fault line, but it is actually formed by uneven erosion due to shielding by this erosion-resistant top layer of limestone. The actual name of this type of limestone is Lockport Dolostone, named for the nearby city on the edge of the escarpment. The Niagara Escarpment is believed to be at least two hundred million years old.
The Niagara Escarpment, which appears as a cliff, can be seen across the following satellite image in Niagara County. South is above the escarpment and north is below it. The escarpment shows as the concentration of dark green tree growth on it.
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This hard top layer of rock is actually why the falls at Niagara exist. The falls were originally where Lewiston-Queenston is today. But the falling water dissolves the softer limestone below until the top layer has nothing supporting it from beneath, and pieces of it break off and fall away. This is how the falls have worked their way northward, to where they are now, over the past ten thousand years, or so.
In the center of the following satellite image, notice how narrow the Niagara River is in the bottom half of the image. The narrowing point is the Niagara Escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston. This is where the falls began, at the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. The falls have been steadily cutting their way through the rock strata, and moving backward to where they are now.
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The bulge in the lower Niagara River is the Niagara Glen. It is basically a pile of rock that formed thousands of years ago when the river split in two while eroding it's way through the underlying limestone. This formed an island with high limestone cliffs. But the island collapsed, leaving the pile of rock that we see today.
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THE APPALACHIAN COLLISION
The next major event after the formation of the Niagara Escarpment by gradual uneven erosion is the sliding tectonic collision, between what is now Africa and what is now North America, that formed the ridges and mountains across the eastern United States known as the Appalachians. This exerted extreme northward pressure on the area.
Across Pennsylvania, to the south, the collision front of the Appalachians underwent a major change in direction due to the Canadian Shield to the north, the dense layer of rock underlying the eastern half of Canada. This forms a line, which I named The Humber Line because it passes through Toronto and forms the change in elevation seen in east-west streets west of downtown , that forms the eastern side of the Humber Valley. It also forms Georgian Bay as it goes right along it's main axis.
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The Humber Line also passes directly through the Niagara Area. The pressure against the Niagara Escarpment increased as the point of collision moved eastward, across Pennsylvania, and the direction of tectonic pressure shifted from northwestward to northward.
The Appalachians curve across Pennsylvania. The "focal point" of the curve is around the city of Harrisburg. This change in direction changed the direction of the northward tectonic pressure. Notice how the straight line easternmost shore of Lake Erie south of downtown Buffalo forms a straight line along the Humber Line.
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Following this same line to the northwest, it forms the straight line southwestern shore of Navy Island, in the Niagara River above the falls.
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This line, due to the change in direction of the pressure of the Appalachian collision, continues to the northwest, crosses Lake Ontario, to form Humber Bay and the Humber Valley in Toronto, hence the name of the line as the Humber Line.
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On a large scale, we can see again that the long axis of Georgian Bay, in Ontario, points in a straight line to Harrisburg and the line passes right along the straight line of the easternmost shore of Lake Erie south of downtown Buffalo, as described above. The Bruce Peninsula, which separates Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, as well as Manitoulin Island, is actually formed by the Niagara Escarpment, which also forms Northern Michigan and continues all the way to Wisconsin.
THE "BREAKING POINT" OF THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT
At first, the pressure was not enough to actually move the escarpment but it raised the rocky ridge along Route 65, to the west of the Ontario towns of Fonthill, Ridgeville and, Pelham. As the collision front moved eastward, the pressure reached a point where the entire escarpment broke and shifted. This is at Short Hills Provincial Park, to the southwest of St. Catharines, and is directly opposite the point at which the rocky ridge terminates. This is because, from this point eastward, the tectonic pressure went into moving the escarpment rather than raising the ridge.
The pressure also went into fracturing the limestone layers to the south of the escarpment to form a broad valley in the rock strata. This is what I pointed out, and named "The Niagara Valley". On the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, at least that portion which is not covered by the Niagara Falls Moraine today, the land gets lower as we go eastward. This can be readily seen on Thorold Stone Road. But on the American side, by the falls, the ground generally gets lower as we go westward.
The lower Niagara River, below the falls, as well as the falls themselves, are at the bottom of this valley. The strata on the American side is actually tilted to the southwest because the escarpment is shaped like a saw tooth, rather than a level plateau. On the map, it can be seen that the lower Niagara River, which flows though the nadir of the Niagara Valley, is roughly parallel to the segment of the escarpment just east of the "breaking point" at Short Hills Provincial Park.
Short Hills Provincial Park is where the Niagara Escarpment changes direction. The Park, in the center of the following image, is like the bottom of a "V" with the escarpment in different directions on each side.
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THE END OF THE LAST ICE AGE
This concludes the geological portion of the Niagara story. Far in the distant future, ice ages began. The most recent of these concluded about 12,000 years ago. The rest of the story involves the glaciers that came with these ice ages.
A glacier is a vast sheet of ice, about one or two kilometers in height. Glaciers begin to form when the temperature gets cold enough that the snow from one winter has not melted when the following winter begins. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The weight of the snow above compresses it into ice.
When an object is large enough, such as this vast sheet of ice, it is affected by the rotation of the earth. The glacial ice is thus pulled southward, toward the equator, and somewhat eastward by the earth's eastward rotation. This towering mountain of ice pushes tremendous amounts of dirt and rock in front of it, where it remains when the ice age ends and the glaciers melt.
One such mass, deposited by a glacier in a previous ice age, is the Niagara Falls Moraine. This covers much of the city of Niagara Falls, Canada, and is best seen as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls. The Niagara Valley can be seen on Thorold Stone Road only because that area was not covered by the moraine.
More soil and loose rock was deposited against the Niagara Escarpment by the moving glacial ice. The reason that Ridge Road, around Lewiston, is so-named is that it is built upon a ridge along the bottom of the escarpment that was put there by the glacier.
The glaciers of each ice age obliterates the drainage pattern of the rivers over the land, and at the conclusion of the ice age the pattern forms anew. There was a predecessor of the Niagara River in the warm period before the last ice age. This warm period ended maybe 20,000 years ago.
This predecessor river is known as the St. David's River for the Ontario town where it met the escarpment. The St. David's River was filled in by the soil and loose rock pushed into it by the glacier of the ice age. But when the present Niagara River, working it's way northward, met the looser fill of the former St. David's River in the midst of the solid rock layers, it caused the Niagara River to change direction and for the river to have to form a whirlpool to accommodate the change of direction. This is seen today in the whirlpool of the lower river.
On the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way), west of Stanley Avenue, there is a broad dip in the level of the roadway opposite the village of St. David's. That is the remains of the St. David's River from before the last ice age. This forms a break in the Niagara Escarpment which is visible in the following satellite imagery. In the center of the following image you can see, by the dark green line of the trees, the break in the Niagara Escarpment at the Ontario village of St. David's.
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The remains of this former river can also be seen on Goat Island, on the American side at the falls. There is a low waterfalls that stretches across the upper Niagara River, not far above the main falls, that is known as "The Green Cascade". This was cut by the flowing waters of the St. David's River. On a line with the Green Cascade there is a low area on Goat Island, around where the Three Sisters Islands are, that is also the result of this former river.
This is the beginning of the Green Cascade, a low waterfall stretching above the Niagara River some distance above the main waterfall. This is a remnant of the St. David's River from the warm period before the last ice age. Image from Google Street View.
The line of the Green Cascade, across the upper Niagara River, leads straight to the embayment at Dufferin Islands, on the Canadian side above the falls. This is because this was once a whirlpool. The embayment at Dufferin Islands is almost exactly the same size and shape as the whirlpool in the lower river.
This is the whirlpool in the Niagara River, in the lower river below the falls where the river changes direction.
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Now look at the embayment at Dufferin Islands, right in the center of the image, seen from the same altitude.
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That is because the embayment at Dufferin Islands was a whirlpool in the warm period before the last ice age, where the St. David's River changed direction.
But why did the former St. David's River follow this particular course? The answer appears to be fairly obvious. The Humber Line, described above, passes right through this gap in the Niagara Escarpment which marks the route of the former St. David's River. It was following this Humber Line.
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LAKE TONAWANDA
The drainage flow pattern in the Niagara area was not always as it is now. There was once a lake, named Lake Tonawanda, which existed for most of the time since the end of the last ice age. There is a high point in the rock layers alongside the lower river, known as the Lyell-Johnson Ridge, that can be seen as peaking at Cedar Avenue on the American side and Eastwood Street, on the Canadian side. This point is not far north of the Rainbow Bridge.
When the falls, cutting it's way northward from it's beginning on the Niagara Escarpment, cut through this ridge then Lake Tonawanda drained. All that remains of it today is the broad upper Niagara River above the falls. The former shores of this lake can still be seen in many places on the U.S. side. North of the former K-Mart, on Military Road in the Town of Niagara, if you look southward it seems as if you might be looking out over a lake, and 3500 years ago you would have been.
The slope up to higher ground in the city of Tonawanda used to be the southern shore of the lake, which continues eastward toward Rochester. The deepest part of this lake was where the falls are now located, my guess is that the depth there was about 9 meters.
The so-called Alabama Swamps, east of the Niagara area, are all that remain of the former Lake Tonawanda which existed for about 7,000 years after the end of the last ice age.
OTHER COULD-HAVE-BEEN ROUTES OF THE NIAGARA RIVER
In Lockport NY, we can see traces of the natural history also. The Niagara River was not the only route by which the former lake Tonawanda drained into Lake Ontario. State Street is built upon an old river bed that once was another drainage route, the legacy of this route is Eighteen Mile Creek. If not for the Niagara Valley that I described, the Niagara River might be there today.
Evidence that there was such a drainage route in the warm period prior to the last ice age can also be seen in the gap in the escarpment adjacent to Upper Mountain Road and Sunset Drive. The flow of water through here not only carved this gap but weakened the rock layers, causing part of the escarpment to collapse and form a hill called Gothic Hill.
The V-shaped area of dark green trees in the following image is a gap in the Niagara Escarpment at Lockport, New York. This was formed by the flow of water along another route by which the former Lake Tonawanda drained. This is to the east of the present Niagara River. The Niagara River might have been here except for the Niagara Valley, described above, through which the river like the St. David's River before it, ended up flowing.
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GLACIAL IMPACT CRATERS IN NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA
Around where the falls are now located, massive bergs of ice slid along the slope of the strata to the southwest to compact the edge of the Niagara Falls Moraine to form the higher ground above the falls and Queen Victoria Park. As temperatures gradually warmed, this massive glacier fractured laterally. A vast slab of ice, weighing millions of tons, slid off the top and crashed to the ground below.
The result can be seen today in the sudden rise in elevation on Lundy's Lane/Ferry Street, just east of Portage Road/Main Street. The same rise can be seen on Allendale Avenue and Grey Avenue. This is an impact crater formed by the falling ice. The melting slab produced a rush of water, and the channel that it carved can be seen on McRae Street just east of Stanley Avenue.
A similar impact crater can be seen along Victoria Avenue, and streets to the west, and in the "valley" portion of Valley Way, between Sixth and Fourth Avenues. The slab of ice that formed this crater also came from the mountain of ice pressed against the higher ground at Queen Victoria Park.
Notice how Main Street, at the far left of the map, forms an arc with Valley Way, at the top of the map. That is because Main Street / Portage Road is built along the crest of one glacial impact crater and Valley Way, illustrated by the yellow line, is built along the bottom of another. The Niagara River is the blue color on the map.
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The "valley" in Valley Way must have continued westward, over where the school is now located. But the tremendous amount of water from the melting ice seems to have washed it away. Water would have been raging down the slope around Thorold Stone Road, and it must have appeared as do the upper rapids above the falls today. From Stanley Avenue, there is a drop in elevation looking eastward along streets from Elm to Cedar. Water would have rushed down this, until reaching level ground where it would have flowed southward.
Such was the force of this flowing water that it not only washed away a portion of the valley along Valley Way, but it carved away at the opposite side of the valley. Notice the curved drop in elevation that can be seen in Leslie Park, at Sixth Avenue and Valley Way, and also notice that this curve is located just adjacent to where the "valley" portion ends. I only noticed this because I used to sled down that curved slope as a boy, and go to the school across the street.
Notice the curve in the center of the following image of Leslie Park. This curve, just south of Valley Way, is the crest of a cut that was made in the side of the glacial impact crater by water flowing down the north side of the valley formed by the crater as the glacial ice melted at the end of the last ice age.
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This formed a temporary river, in my writing I though it logical to name it the Valley Way River, draining the water from the melted glaciers. The river flowed along the nadir of the impact crater, but once it got beyond the crater it shifted northward to a more logical place between the southward slope above the escarpment and the northward slope of the impact crater, along Park Street.
Such sliding bergs of ice created many ridges in Niagara County, particularly in the southwestern quadrant of the county because the escarpment gets lower going eastward and this has the effect of sloping the rock strata.
WHY ARE THERE TWO FALLS AT NIAGARA?
Have you ever thought about how illogical it is that there are two falls at Niagara? The American Falls is higher in elevation, and carries less then 10% of the total water flow, so why does it even exist? Why doesn't all of the water just go over the Horseshoe Falls? There is a simple answer.
One berg of ice slid down the southward slope that can be seen along the numbered streets in the 70s, in Niagara Falls, NY. It kept sliding southward until the slope of the rock strata became more westward, so that it changed direction, carving away the ground beneath it all the way. We can see it's trail today as Burnt Ship Creek, across northern Grand Island and than in the gap between Goat Island and the U.S. mainland. This berg is why the American Falls are there.
Has anyone noticed the similarity between the wide marsh area at the northern end of Grand Island, NY, and the branch of the upper Niagara River that flows to the American Falls? The span of both is illustrated by a yellow line.
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The reason is that the two channels were formed by the same sliding berg of ice as the glacial ice melted and broke up at the end of the last ice age. The wide marsh area separates Grand Island from Buckhorn Island. The berg continued sliding downstream and carved the channel leading to the American Falls.
That explains the apparently illogical fact that the American Falls even exists when all of the water could flow over the main falls, which is lower in elevation. Less than 10% of the total water flows over the American Falls.
Again, this is the Humber Line that I discovered.
This is only a brief summary of the natural history of the Niagara area, in chronological order. You can read in detail about this, and much more, on my Niagara natural history blog, www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com .
There is a blog about insights into the natural history of the Niagara Falls area, on www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com , but I would like to write a single posting encompassing everything in chronological order.
EARLY LIMESTONE FORMATION
Eons ago, in warm shallow seas, microscopic creatures lived and died. Their bodies piled up on the bottom to eventually form layers of limestone (calcium carbonate). These layers can be seen today in the gorge of Niagara Falls. Even before that, waves pulverized rocks into sand which then formed layers on the bottom of the sea. The land was later forced upward by tectonic activity, and this forms the geological foundation of the area.
You can see the layers of limestone rock strata in the walls of the Niagara Gorge at the falls. Touch the image in the upper left to enlarge it.
THE FORMATION OF THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT
Most likely, a meteor composed of magnesium landed in the sea at some point. This led to a layer of limestone composed of magnesium carbonate, instead of the usual calcium carbonate. Ordinary limestone is dissolved by water and erosion over long periods of time. But the layer of magnesium carbonate was much more resistant to erosion.
This top layer of highly resistant limestone resulted in what we see today as the Niagara Escarpment. It may appear to be some type of fault line, but it is actually formed by uneven erosion due to shielding by this erosion-resistant top layer of limestone. The actual name of this type of limestone is Lockport Dolostone, named for the nearby city on the edge of the escarpment. The Niagara Escarpment is believed to be at least two hundred million years old.
The Niagara Escarpment, which appears as a cliff, can be seen across the following satellite image in Niagara County. South is above the escarpment and north is below it. The escarpment shows as the concentration of dark green tree growth on it.
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This hard top layer of rock is actually why the falls at Niagara exist. The falls were originally where Lewiston-Queenston is today. But the falling water dissolves the softer limestone below until the top layer has nothing supporting it from beneath, and pieces of it break off and fall away. This is how the falls have worked their way northward, to where they are now, over the past ten thousand years, or so.
In the center of the following satellite image, notice how narrow the Niagara River is in the bottom half of the image. The narrowing point is the Niagara Escarpment at Lewiston-Queenston. This is where the falls began, at the end of the last ice age about 12,000 years ago. The falls have been steadily cutting their way through the rock strata, and moving backward to where they are now.
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The bulge in the lower Niagara River is the Niagara Glen. It is basically a pile of rock that formed thousands of years ago when the river split in two while eroding it's way through the underlying limestone. This formed an island with high limestone cliffs. But the island collapsed, leaving the pile of rock that we see today.
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THE APPALACHIAN COLLISION
The next major event after the formation of the Niagara Escarpment by gradual uneven erosion is the sliding tectonic collision, between what is now Africa and what is now North America, that formed the ridges and mountains across the eastern United States known as the Appalachians. This exerted extreme northward pressure on the area.
Across Pennsylvania, to the south, the collision front of the Appalachians underwent a major change in direction due to the Canadian Shield to the north, the dense layer of rock underlying the eastern half of Canada. This forms a line, which I named The Humber Line because it passes through Toronto and forms the change in elevation seen in east-west streets west of downtown , that forms the eastern side of the Humber Valley. It also forms Georgian Bay as it goes right along it's main axis.
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The Humber Line also passes directly through the Niagara Area. The pressure against the Niagara Escarpment increased as the point of collision moved eastward, across Pennsylvania, and the direction of tectonic pressure shifted from northwestward to northward.
The Appalachians curve across Pennsylvania. The "focal point" of the curve is around the city of Harrisburg. This change in direction changed the direction of the northward tectonic pressure. Notice how the straight line easternmost shore of Lake Erie south of downtown Buffalo forms a straight line along the Humber Line.
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Following this same line to the northwest, it forms the straight line southwestern shore of Navy Island, in the Niagara River above the falls.
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This line, due to the change in direction of the pressure of the Appalachian collision, continues to the northwest, crosses Lake Ontario, to form Humber Bay and the Humber Valley in Toronto, hence the name of the line as the Humber Line.
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On a large scale, we can see again that the long axis of Georgian Bay, in Ontario, points in a straight line to Harrisburg and the line passes right along the straight line of the easternmost shore of Lake Erie south of downtown Buffalo, as described above. The Bruce Peninsula, which separates Georgian Bay from Lake Huron, as well as Manitoulin Island, is actually formed by the Niagara Escarpment, which also forms Northern Michigan and continues all the way to Wisconsin.
THE "BREAKING POINT" OF THE NIAGARA ESCARPMENT
At first, the pressure was not enough to actually move the escarpment but it raised the rocky ridge along Route 65, to the west of the Ontario towns of Fonthill, Ridgeville and, Pelham. As the collision front moved eastward, the pressure reached a point where the entire escarpment broke and shifted. This is at Short Hills Provincial Park, to the southwest of St. Catharines, and is directly opposite the point at which the rocky ridge terminates. This is because, from this point eastward, the tectonic pressure went into moving the escarpment rather than raising the ridge.
The pressure also went into fracturing the limestone layers to the south of the escarpment to form a broad valley in the rock strata. This is what I pointed out, and named "The Niagara Valley". On the Canadian side of Niagara Falls, at least that portion which is not covered by the Niagara Falls Moraine today, the land gets lower as we go eastward. This can be readily seen on Thorold Stone Road. But on the American side, by the falls, the ground generally gets lower as we go westward.
The lower Niagara River, below the falls, as well as the falls themselves, are at the bottom of this valley. The strata on the American side is actually tilted to the southwest because the escarpment is shaped like a saw tooth, rather than a level plateau. On the map, it can be seen that the lower Niagara River, which flows though the nadir of the Niagara Valley, is roughly parallel to the segment of the escarpment just east of the "breaking point" at Short Hills Provincial Park.
Short Hills Provincial Park is where the Niagara Escarpment changes direction. The Park, in the center of the following image, is like the bottom of a "V" with the escarpment in different directions on each side.
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THE END OF THE LAST ICE AGE
This concludes the geological portion of the Niagara story. Far in the distant future, ice ages began. The most recent of these concluded about 12,000 years ago. The rest of the story involves the glaciers that came with these ice ages.
A glacier is a vast sheet of ice, about one or two kilometers in height. Glaciers begin to form when the temperature gets cold enough that the snow from one winter has not melted when the following winter begins. Snow piles up year after year, decade after decade, and century after century. The weight of the snow above compresses it into ice.
When an object is large enough, such as this vast sheet of ice, it is affected by the rotation of the earth. The glacial ice is thus pulled southward, toward the equator, and somewhat eastward by the earth's eastward rotation. This towering mountain of ice pushes tremendous amounts of dirt and rock in front of it, where it remains when the ice age ends and the glaciers melt.
One such mass, deposited by a glacier in a previous ice age, is the Niagara Falls Moraine. This covers much of the city of Niagara Falls, Canada, and is best seen as the high ground on the Canadian side by the falls. The Niagara Valley can be seen on Thorold Stone Road only because that area was not covered by the moraine.
More soil and loose rock was deposited against the Niagara Escarpment by the moving glacial ice. The reason that Ridge Road, around Lewiston, is so-named is that it is built upon a ridge along the bottom of the escarpment that was put there by the glacier.
The glaciers of each ice age obliterates the drainage pattern of the rivers over the land, and at the conclusion of the ice age the pattern forms anew. There was a predecessor of the Niagara River in the warm period before the last ice age. This warm period ended maybe 20,000 years ago.
This predecessor river is known as the St. David's River for the Ontario town where it met the escarpment. The St. David's River was filled in by the soil and loose rock pushed into it by the glacier of the ice age. But when the present Niagara River, working it's way northward, met the looser fill of the former St. David's River in the midst of the solid rock layers, it caused the Niagara River to change direction and for the river to have to form a whirlpool to accommodate the change of direction. This is seen today in the whirlpool of the lower river.
On the QEW (Queen Elizabeth Way), west of Stanley Avenue, there is a broad dip in the level of the roadway opposite the village of St. David's. That is the remains of the St. David's River from before the last ice age. This forms a break in the Niagara Escarpment which is visible in the following satellite imagery. In the center of the following image you can see, by the dark green line of the trees, the break in the Niagara Escarpment at the Ontario village of St. David's.
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The remains of this former river can also be seen on Goat Island, on the American side at the falls. There is a low waterfalls that stretches across the upper Niagara River, not far above the main falls, that is known as "The Green Cascade". This was cut by the flowing waters of the St. David's River. On a line with the Green Cascade there is a low area on Goat Island, around where the Three Sisters Islands are, that is also the result of this former river.
This is the beginning of the Green Cascade, a low waterfall stretching above the Niagara River some distance above the main waterfall. This is a remnant of the St. David's River from the warm period before the last ice age. Image from Google Street View.
The line of the Green Cascade, across the upper Niagara River, leads straight to the embayment at Dufferin Islands, on the Canadian side above the falls. This is because this was once a whirlpool. The embayment at Dufferin Islands is almost exactly the same size and shape as the whirlpool in the lower river.
This is the whirlpool in the Niagara River, in the lower river below the falls where the river changes direction.
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Now look at the embayment at Dufferin Islands, right in the center of the image, seen from the same altitude.
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That is because the embayment at Dufferin Islands was a whirlpool in the warm period before the last ice age, where the St. David's River changed direction.
But why did the former St. David's River follow this particular course? The answer appears to be fairly obvious. The Humber Line, described above, passes right through this gap in the Niagara Escarpment which marks the route of the former St. David's River. It was following this Humber Line.
Look at how a continuation of the line of flow into the Niagara Whirlpool leads directly to the gap in the escarpment at St. Davids. This line is a segment of the Humber Line.
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LAKE TONAWANDA
The drainage flow pattern in the Niagara area was not always as it is now. There was once a lake, named Lake Tonawanda, which existed for most of the time since the end of the last ice age. There is a high point in the rock layers alongside the lower river, known as the Lyell-Johnson Ridge, that can be seen as peaking at Cedar Avenue on the American side and Eastwood Street, on the Canadian side. This point is not far north of the Rainbow Bridge.
When the falls, cutting it's way northward from it's beginning on the Niagara Escarpment, cut through this ridge then Lake Tonawanda drained. All that remains of it today is the broad upper Niagara River above the falls. The former shores of this lake can still be seen in many places on the U.S. side. North of the former K-Mart, on Military Road in the Town of Niagara, if you look southward it seems as if you might be looking out over a lake, and 3500 years ago you would have been.
The slope up to higher ground in the city of Tonawanda used to be the southern shore of the lake, which continues eastward toward Rochester. The deepest part of this lake was where the falls are now located, my guess is that the depth there was about 9 meters.
The so-called Alabama Swamps, east of the Niagara area, are all that remain of the former Lake Tonawanda which existed for about 7,000 years after the end of the last ice age.
OTHER COULD-HAVE-BEEN ROUTES OF THE NIAGARA RIVER
In Lockport NY, we can see traces of the natural history also. The Niagara River was not the only route by which the former lake Tonawanda drained into Lake Ontario. State Street is built upon an old river bed that once was another drainage route, the legacy of this route is Eighteen Mile Creek. If not for the Niagara Valley that I described, the Niagara River might be there today.
Evidence that there was such a drainage route in the warm period prior to the last ice age can also be seen in the gap in the escarpment adjacent to Upper Mountain Road and Sunset Drive. The flow of water through here not only carved this gap but weakened the rock layers, causing part of the escarpment to collapse and form a hill called Gothic Hill.
The V-shaped area of dark green trees in the following image is a gap in the Niagara Escarpment at Lockport, New York. This was formed by the flow of water along another route by which the former Lake Tonawanda drained. This is to the east of the present Niagara River. The Niagara River might have been here except for the Niagara Valley, described above, through which the river like the St. David's River before it, ended up flowing.
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GLACIAL IMPACT CRATERS IN NIAGARA FALLS, CANADA
Around where the falls are now located, massive bergs of ice slid along the slope of the strata to the southwest to compact the edge of the Niagara Falls Moraine to form the higher ground above the falls and Queen Victoria Park. As temperatures gradually warmed, this massive glacier fractured laterally. A vast slab of ice, weighing millions of tons, slid off the top and crashed to the ground below.
The result can be seen today in the sudden rise in elevation on Lundy's Lane/Ferry Street, just east of Portage Road/Main Street. The same rise can be seen on Allendale Avenue and Grey Avenue. This is an impact crater formed by the falling ice. The melting slab produced a rush of water, and the channel that it carved can be seen on McRae Street just east of Stanley Avenue.
A similar impact crater can be seen along Victoria Avenue, and streets to the west, and in the "valley" portion of Valley Way, between Sixth and Fourth Avenues. The slab of ice that formed this crater also came from the mountain of ice pressed against the higher ground at Queen Victoria Park.
Notice how Main Street, at the far left of the map, forms an arc with Valley Way, at the top of the map. That is because Main Street / Portage Road is built along the crest of one glacial impact crater and Valley Way, illustrated by the yellow line, is built along the bottom of another. The Niagara River is the blue color on the map.
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The "valley" in Valley Way must have continued westward, over where the school is now located. But the tremendous amount of water from the melting ice seems to have washed it away. Water would have been raging down the slope around Thorold Stone Road, and it must have appeared as do the upper rapids above the falls today. From Stanley Avenue, there is a drop in elevation looking eastward along streets from Elm to Cedar. Water would have rushed down this, until reaching level ground where it would have flowed southward.
Such was the force of this flowing water that it not only washed away a portion of the valley along Valley Way, but it carved away at the opposite side of the valley. Notice the curved drop in elevation that can be seen in Leslie Park, at Sixth Avenue and Valley Way, and also notice that this curve is located just adjacent to where the "valley" portion ends. I only noticed this because I used to sled down that curved slope as a boy, and go to the school across the street.
Notice the curve in the center of the following image of Leslie Park. This curve, just south of Valley Way, is the crest of a cut that was made in the side of the glacial impact crater by water flowing down the north side of the valley formed by the crater as the glacial ice melted at the end of the last ice age.
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This formed a temporary river, in my writing I though it logical to name it the Valley Way River, draining the water from the melted glaciers. The river flowed along the nadir of the impact crater, but once it got beyond the crater it shifted northward to a more logical place between the southward slope above the escarpment and the northward slope of the impact crater, along Park Street.
Such sliding bergs of ice created many ridges in Niagara County, particularly in the southwestern quadrant of the county because the escarpment gets lower going eastward and this has the effect of sloping the rock strata.
WHY ARE THERE TWO FALLS AT NIAGARA?
Have you ever thought about how illogical it is that there are two falls at Niagara? The American Falls is higher in elevation, and carries less then 10% of the total water flow, so why does it even exist? Why doesn't all of the water just go over the Horseshoe Falls? There is a simple answer.
One berg of ice slid down the southward slope that can be seen along the numbered streets in the 70s, in Niagara Falls, NY. It kept sliding southward until the slope of the rock strata became more westward, so that it changed direction, carving away the ground beneath it all the way. We can see it's trail today as Burnt Ship Creek, across northern Grand Island and than in the gap between Goat Island and the U.S. mainland. This berg is why the American Falls are there.
Has anyone noticed the similarity between the wide marsh area at the northern end of Grand Island, NY, and the branch of the upper Niagara River that flows to the American Falls? The span of both is illustrated by a yellow line.
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The reason is that the two channels were formed by the same sliding berg of ice as the glacial ice melted and broke up at the end of the last ice age. The wide marsh area separates Grand Island from Buckhorn Island. The berg continued sliding downstream and carved the channel leading to the American Falls.
That explains the apparently illogical fact that the American Falls even exists when all of the water could flow over the main falls, which is lower in elevation. Less than 10% of the total water flows over the American Falls.
Again, this is the Humber Line that I discovered.
This is only a brief summary of the natural history of the Niagara area, in chronological order. You can read in detail about this, and much more, on my Niagara natural history blog, www.markmeekniagara.blogspot.com .
The Mystery Of Neutrinos
This has been added to the cosmology theory on this blog, "The Theory Of Stationary Space".
Neutrinos are the particles that are produced in nuclear reactions. Long being a mystery, they were originally thought to be both without mass and without any electric charge, and able to pass through ordinary matter. It is now known that neutrinos actually do have some mass, if they had no mass or charge we likely would not be able to detect them at all.
The existence of neutrinos was originally conceived by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli to explain an unaccounted imbalance in momentum during nuclear reactions. Neutrinos were actually discovered in 1956.
A neutrino is not an "original" particle. It is created only during nuclear reactions. It would not exist on it's own without these nuclear reactions. Neutrinos are produced by stars and by a star exploding in a supernova. They can be generated in particle accelerators. Neutrinos are also released by radioactive processes such as beta decay, which is the breaking down of a neutron into a proton by releasing an electron and a neutrino.
Neutrinos are in the same class of particles as electrons, and are known as leptons. In fact, there are three types of neutrino and each is associated with one of the three types of electron. The three electrons and their associated neutrinos make up the class of particles that are called leptons.
So a neutrino is a particle in the same class as electrons, except that a neutrino has an extremely slight mass and no net electric charge, unlike the electron with it's negative charge. But they are still such a mystery as to why they exist and what they accomplish in the grand scheme of things.
Ordinary matter consists of atoms which have electrons in orbitals around protons and neutrons. These electrons are just ordinary what we could call first generation electrons. But there are two heavier versions of electrons that can exist, but which are both short-lived. Mau electrons, or muons, could be called second-generation electrons. Tau electrons are heavier, but shorter-lived, still and could be called third-generation electrons.
These two heavier versions of the electron, but with the same charge as an ordinary electron, are known to be produced only by cosmic rays or particle accelerators. All three have their corresponding type of neutrino, and the six particles are what makes up the lepton family.
As it turns out, my cosmology theory has a simple explanation for what neutrinos are and how they come to be. Let's use K-capture, the crunching of an electron into a proton to create a neutron, and then a later reversal of the process by beta radioactive decay as an example.
During a supernova, the explosion of a large star, the tremendous energy released creates elements that would not exist otherwise. The sun is a second-generation star that, along with the Solar System, is made of matter that fell back together by gravity after the original stare exploded. The ordinary fusion process in stars only goes as far as iron. That is why iron is so abundant in the inner Solar System and why iron and lighter elements are exponentially more common than elements that are heavier than iron.
Elements that are heavier than iron have proportionally more neutrons relative to protons. This is necessary to hold the nucleus together against the mutual repulsion of the positively-charged protons. Neutrons in these heavier elements are "made" by the energy released by the supernova explosion. Electrons in low orbitals are crunched into protons to create neutrons in the process referred to as K-capture. Since the proton has a positive charge and the electron a negative charge, the two cancel out to the neutral charge of the neutron.
But many of these heavier elements, or certain isotopes of them, are not entirely stable. Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons in the nucleus, which is what defines the element, but differing numbers of neutrons. These unstable atoms gradually break down into more stable configurations in the process known as radioactivity.
There are three types of radioactivity. Alpha is for a large atom to emit an alpha particle in order to gain more stability. An alpha particle is essentially a helium nucleus, two protons with two neutrons. Another type of radioactivity is gamma. This is releasing excess energy in the atom by electromagnetic radiation, known as gamma rays.
The third type of radioactivity is beta. That is the seeking of a more stable configuration by having a neutron emit an electron, that was originally forced into it by the energy of the supernova explosion, in order to change into a proton, which would make the atom the next highest one on the Periodic Table since the element is defined by the number of protons.
But this process of beta decay, which we are using for our example here, releases a neutrino as well as an electron. The mystery is where the neutrino comes from. Here is the explanation that my cosmology theory has to offer.
The electron has orbital energy when it is in it's orbital in the atom, before it is crunched into the proton. When the electron is pushed toward the nucleus, this orbital energy is released as radiation. That is why stars shine, because heavier atoms have many fewer electrons than the smaller atoms that they were crunched together from and, if the electrons are going to be crunched into protons to create the necessary neutrons, their orbital energy has to go somewhere.
From the altitude of it's orbital the nucleus has a positive charge, which is what holds the negatively-charged electron in it's orbital, but the charge of the nucleus is somewhat diffuse because there are many neutrally-charged neutrons among the positively-charged protons. But as the falling electron gets closer to the proton that it is going to be crunched into to form another neutron, the positive charge on it gets stronger because the neutrons of the nucleus are relatively further away, making the attractive positive charge facing the electron less diffuse than it was.
The electron thus accelerates relative to the velocity that it would be moving toward the nucleus if it's apparent diffuse positive charge had remained constant. This acceleration is energy, and energy has to be accounted for.
In my cosmology theory everything, both space and matter, is made of negative and positive electric charges. The basic rules of these charges are that opposite charges attract while like charges repel. Matter is any concentration of like charges, space is a perfect checkerboard of alternating negative and positive charges.
But there is also energy and what energy ultimately does is overcome the repulsive force between like electric charges. Matter is defined as having mass and this mass is actually the energy that is holding the like charges together against their otherwise mutual repulsion. That is where the well-known mass-energy equivalence comes from, a certain amount of mass is equivalent to a certain amount of energy. This is what Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared, is about, the equivalence of mass and energy.
So as the electron impacts the proton that it is joining with, what this extra energy caused by the necessary acceleration does is it goes to rearrange the alternating negative and positive electric charges of space so that it holds some like charges, both negative and positive, together. It actually creates matter from this extra energy.
Since it is created by the acceleration of the electron, before it meets the proton to form a neutron, this new matter takes the form of the electron. It is actually a replica of the electron. But it's mass is not that of the mass-energy equivalence within the electron, but only that of it's impact with the proton. This means that the new mass, although it has the form of the electron, has far less mass than the electron.
Since there is no reason for an electric charge imbalance, the new mass is sandwiched between the positively-charged proton and the negatively-charged electron, the new mass has no net electric charge. It's energy holds like charges together, but there are equal numbers of negative-to-negative and positive-to-positive bonds.
So the added energy caused by the acceleration as it nears the proton, because the positive charge that attracts it is now less diffuse then it was when the neutrons of the nucleus were at the same average distance from the electron as the protons, goes to create a new particle in the form of the electron but with far less mass and no net electric charge.
If the neutron should later break back into an electron and a proton by radioactive beta decay, there will be no reason for it to be incorporated into either the proton or the electron. It will be ejected as a particle on it's own.
If you were walking and left a footprint in the ground, the ground is the proton, your shoe is the electron, and the footprint is the neutrino.
Let's welcome the neutrino.
Neutrinos are the particles that are produced in nuclear reactions. Long being a mystery, they were originally thought to be both without mass and without any electric charge, and able to pass through ordinary matter. It is now known that neutrinos actually do have some mass, if they had no mass or charge we likely would not be able to detect them at all.
The existence of neutrinos was originally conceived by Austrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli to explain an unaccounted imbalance in momentum during nuclear reactions. Neutrinos were actually discovered in 1956.
A neutrino is not an "original" particle. It is created only during nuclear reactions. It would not exist on it's own without these nuclear reactions. Neutrinos are produced by stars and by a star exploding in a supernova. They can be generated in particle accelerators. Neutrinos are also released by radioactive processes such as beta decay, which is the breaking down of a neutron into a proton by releasing an electron and a neutrino.
Neutrinos are in the same class of particles as electrons, and are known as leptons. In fact, there are three types of neutrino and each is associated with one of the three types of electron. The three electrons and their associated neutrinos make up the class of particles that are called leptons.
So a neutrino is a particle in the same class as electrons, except that a neutrino has an extremely slight mass and no net electric charge, unlike the electron with it's negative charge. But they are still such a mystery as to why they exist and what they accomplish in the grand scheme of things.
Ordinary matter consists of atoms which have electrons in orbitals around protons and neutrons. These electrons are just ordinary what we could call first generation electrons. But there are two heavier versions of electrons that can exist, but which are both short-lived. Mau electrons, or muons, could be called second-generation electrons. Tau electrons are heavier, but shorter-lived, still and could be called third-generation electrons.
These two heavier versions of the electron, but with the same charge as an ordinary electron, are known to be produced only by cosmic rays or particle accelerators. All three have their corresponding type of neutrino, and the six particles are what makes up the lepton family.
As it turns out, my cosmology theory has a simple explanation for what neutrinos are and how they come to be. Let's use K-capture, the crunching of an electron into a proton to create a neutron, and then a later reversal of the process by beta radioactive decay as an example.
During a supernova, the explosion of a large star, the tremendous energy released creates elements that would not exist otherwise. The sun is a second-generation star that, along with the Solar System, is made of matter that fell back together by gravity after the original stare exploded. The ordinary fusion process in stars only goes as far as iron. That is why iron is so abundant in the inner Solar System and why iron and lighter elements are exponentially more common than elements that are heavier than iron.
Elements that are heavier than iron have proportionally more neutrons relative to protons. This is necessary to hold the nucleus together against the mutual repulsion of the positively-charged protons. Neutrons in these heavier elements are "made" by the energy released by the supernova explosion. Electrons in low orbitals are crunched into protons to create neutrons in the process referred to as K-capture. Since the proton has a positive charge and the electron a negative charge, the two cancel out to the neutral charge of the neutron.
But many of these heavier elements, or certain isotopes of them, are not entirely stable. Isotopes are atoms with the same number of protons in the nucleus, which is what defines the element, but differing numbers of neutrons. These unstable atoms gradually break down into more stable configurations in the process known as radioactivity.
There are three types of radioactivity. Alpha is for a large atom to emit an alpha particle in order to gain more stability. An alpha particle is essentially a helium nucleus, two protons with two neutrons. Another type of radioactivity is gamma. This is releasing excess energy in the atom by electromagnetic radiation, known as gamma rays.
The third type of radioactivity is beta. That is the seeking of a more stable configuration by having a neutron emit an electron, that was originally forced into it by the energy of the supernova explosion, in order to change into a proton, which would make the atom the next highest one on the Periodic Table since the element is defined by the number of protons.
But this process of beta decay, which we are using for our example here, releases a neutrino as well as an electron. The mystery is where the neutrino comes from. Here is the explanation that my cosmology theory has to offer.
The electron has orbital energy when it is in it's orbital in the atom, before it is crunched into the proton. When the electron is pushed toward the nucleus, this orbital energy is released as radiation. That is why stars shine, because heavier atoms have many fewer electrons than the smaller atoms that they were crunched together from and, if the electrons are going to be crunched into protons to create the necessary neutrons, their orbital energy has to go somewhere.
From the altitude of it's orbital the nucleus has a positive charge, which is what holds the negatively-charged electron in it's orbital, but the charge of the nucleus is somewhat diffuse because there are many neutrally-charged neutrons among the positively-charged protons. But as the falling electron gets closer to the proton that it is going to be crunched into to form another neutron, the positive charge on it gets stronger because the neutrons of the nucleus are relatively further away, making the attractive positive charge facing the electron less diffuse than it was.
The electron thus accelerates relative to the velocity that it would be moving toward the nucleus if it's apparent diffuse positive charge had remained constant. This acceleration is energy, and energy has to be accounted for.
In my cosmology theory everything, both space and matter, is made of negative and positive electric charges. The basic rules of these charges are that opposite charges attract while like charges repel. Matter is any concentration of like charges, space is a perfect checkerboard of alternating negative and positive charges.
But there is also energy and what energy ultimately does is overcome the repulsive force between like electric charges. Matter is defined as having mass and this mass is actually the energy that is holding the like charges together against their otherwise mutual repulsion. That is where the well-known mass-energy equivalence comes from, a certain amount of mass is equivalent to a certain amount of energy. This is what Einstein's famous formula, E = MC squared, is about, the equivalence of mass and energy.
So as the electron impacts the proton that it is joining with, what this extra energy caused by the necessary acceleration does is it goes to rearrange the alternating negative and positive electric charges of space so that it holds some like charges, both negative and positive, together. It actually creates matter from this extra energy.
Since it is created by the acceleration of the electron, before it meets the proton to form a neutron, this new matter takes the form of the electron. It is actually a replica of the electron. But it's mass is not that of the mass-energy equivalence within the electron, but only that of it's impact with the proton. This means that the new mass, although it has the form of the electron, has far less mass than the electron.
Since there is no reason for an electric charge imbalance, the new mass is sandwiched between the positively-charged proton and the negatively-charged electron, the new mass has no net electric charge. It's energy holds like charges together, but there are equal numbers of negative-to-negative and positive-to-positive bonds.
So the added energy caused by the acceleration as it nears the proton, because the positive charge that attracts it is now less diffuse then it was when the neutrons of the nucleus were at the same average distance from the electron as the protons, goes to create a new particle in the form of the electron but with far less mass and no net electric charge.
If the neutron should later break back into an electron and a proton by radioactive beta decay, there will be no reason for it to be incorporated into either the proton or the electron. It will be ejected as a particle on it's own.
If you were walking and left a footprint in the ground, the ground is the proton, your shoe is the electron, and the footprint is the neutrino.
Let's welcome the neutrino.
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