Destroying Tornadoes
- Thread starter noknowes
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I would not want you ,alrik and chadman to come to my forum and spread your dispargement and general air of defeatism due to your entrenched negative views.You would suck the life out of a party.
I am here to encourage other more open minded progressive individuals which clearly you are not and you merely have ganged up on me to show off to each other.
In any case I can report progress to these others.
We have had success in blowing out a candle at about 50 foot distance away by using sound horns which were used in a semi phased array way.
to simplify it they were arranged such that they created an interference pattern in a similar way to the interference pattern in the double slit experiment in light experiments.
the sound transducers were arranged such that by controlling the frequency to each a interference pattern was created with nodes of low and high pressure.troughs and peaks.
by using stacked concert speakers or sound horns the narrow focused sonic beams interfere and create a 3 dimensional interference pattern.
any process at the intersection of these nodes would be effected such as the candle which was snuffed out after only 2 seconds of application.
now imagine a tornado which is very delicate and needs certain conditions for it to exist.
by creating this 3 dimensional interference pattern we can disrupt delicate flow conditions within the tornado and cause it to collapse.
imagine a 3 dimensional grid with the intersecting grid points being the high/low nodes created by the sound wave interference and engulfing the tornado.As a result the delicate flow conditions within the tornado are disrupted by imposing this 3 dimensional interference grid using sound waves.
any town which suffer tornado invasions could be protected easily now with this method.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interference
http://www.glenbrook.k12.il.us/gbssci/phys/Class/sound/u11l3a.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonic_weaponry
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Yeah. Knocking out a candle and knocking out a fucking tornado are pretty much the same thing. 
Wow. You guys came up with this idea on your own?
Curious, as we did basically the same thing in a junior high science class back in the 1970s. Also, I've seen it done on Mr Wizard and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Heck, I'm pretty sure the guys on Mythbusters did a variant of this just a year or two ago.
Nothing you've suggested thus far is remotely new, and all of it has been applied, at one time or another, to the task of destabilizing tornadoes and other weather patterns. And all have failed to make any measurable impact on the weather. They've tried to use these techniques to alter weather, because the ideas, at least on the surface, appear to have merit. In practice, however, they always fall far short of expectation.
I sincerely doubt that someone with your track record of scientific errors and ineptitude, has actually managed to come up with a variant of this oft tried experiment that will succeed where very similar experiments, by competent scientists, have repeatedly failed.
BTW, esecallum, the folks responding to your thread at abovetopsecret.com don't appear to be taking your idea too seriously either. My favorite response thus far is:
Curious, as we did basically the same thing in a junior high science class back in the 1970s. Also, I've seen it done on Mr Wizard and Bill Nye the Science Guy. Heck, I'm pretty sure the guys on Mythbusters did a variant of this just a year or two ago.
Nothing you've suggested thus far is remotely new, and all of it has been applied, at one time or another, to the task of destabilizing tornadoes and other weather patterns. And all have failed to make any measurable impact on the weather. They've tried to use these techniques to alter weather, because the ideas, at least on the surface, appear to have merit. In practice, however, they always fall far short of expectation.
I sincerely doubt that someone with your track record of scientific errors and ineptitude, has actually managed to come up with a variant of this oft tried experiment that will succeed where very similar experiments, by competent scientists, have repeatedly failed.
BTW, esecallum, the folks responding to your thread at abovetopsecret.com don't appear to be taking your idea too seriously either. My favorite response thus far is:
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We need a nuke, not a big one but just a nuke. If moveis have taught us anything dropping a nuke into an oncoming natural disaster solves everything.
Blackhole? nuke
Blackhole? nuke
Yeah. Knocking out a candle and knocking out a fucking tornado are pretty much the same thing.
It is called scale.Boeing don't make a jumbo jet fully grown.They test smaller models then upscale them.
noknowes clearly doesn't understand scale. Every time you double the target size, the area/mass increases by a factor of 8 (is cubed). Even a small tornado has several million times the area of a candle flame. To have any impact on a tornado, noKnowes will have to do more than just scale up his output by a factor of several million times, but will also have to cube that figure.
Again, using the most efficient speakers known to man, an array large enough to compensate for the increased scale (of a tornado versus a candle flame), would require a speaker array covering several square miles.
Again, using the most efficient speakers known to man, an array large enough to compensate for the increased scale (of a tornado versus a candle flame), would require a speaker array covering several square miles.
I like the guy who reported on the results of playing Black Sabbath at the tornado... turned up to 11.
Then it's not just a clever name.
Can you tone down some of your criticisms a bit chardman.
And noknowes, if you try to provide more justification for your statements, you'll be less likely to get negative feedback. Throwing out unfounded statements is provocative of the kind of responses you're getting.
And this goes for other threads in Sci-Tech.
And noknowes, if you try to provide more justification for your statements, you'll be less likely to get negative feedback. Throwing out unfounded statements is provocative of the kind of responses you're getting.
And this goes for other threads in Sci-Tech.
Sometimes they work, sometimes not. They used a nuke to try and stop a crack in the world in a movie of the same name back in 1965:
"If we can start Tucamoa erupting before the crack gets there, we stand a chance of stopping it."
"Yeah, but how do you start up a volcano?"
"With a nuclear bomb."
"He never learns!"
He never learns is right ! All it did was cause the crack to split into 2 cracks before they eventually converged and the crust was blown into space to form a new moon. Oddly enough no one was seriously hurt.
I will most certainly make the effort, but when someone states that Woolly Mammoths could be cloned from Dinosaur DNA, because they walked the Earth at the same time... Let's just say that it's difficult to not ridicule the content of such posts. And when the same poster consistently, and without fail, contributes such nonsense to each and every thread they post in, it is often difficult to not ridicule the poster as well.
I will however endeavor to do so.
I will defend to the death Chardman's right to free speech and his right to criticize me.
There was an article in an IEEE journal (Aerospace and Electronic Systems Magazine, Volume 22, Issue 6, June 2007) about taming tornadoes with microwave beams directed at narrow volumes of air to heat up the cold downdraft regions in proximity to the warm updraft regions. There is a feedback system that adjusts the intensity and direction of the beam accordingly with the changing system. The paper doesn't address much details since it's very much an open problem with multiple hurdles to overcome. YOu'll need to have an accurate model of tornado formation and also a rapid method of obtaining and analyzing atmospheric data. All in all this sounds like a lot of PhDs.
Yeah, wouldn't trying to get the temperatures equal disipate the tornado?!?
The big question would be, of course, how to do that...
^ I think I watched that movie when I was, like, 6 maybe, and thought it was a cool way to have a new moon. 
On, ah, topic, such as it is. I just wanted to add tornadoes are not delicate. Anything that can tear up houses and large buildings is not delicate.
The conditions that form tornadoes might have to be fairly precise... yet they happen fairly frequently. And it would be incredibly hard to affect the flow of air or the temperature of that air, hot or cold, over what would be an enormous area. And until we understand how tornadoes are formed, we'll never be able to pinpoint the exact area where they're forming with high intensity microwave beams to 'burn' the air and change that balance so they don't form. Or lasers. Or Pete Townshend's flailing arm. Or gold plated armadillos.
At some point my grasp of the exact math and energy requirements breaks down, and I feel I'm crossing over into SFLand.
On, ah, topic, such as it is. I just wanted to add tornadoes are not delicate. Anything that can tear up houses and large buildings is not delicate.
The conditions that form tornadoes might have to be fairly precise... yet they happen fairly frequently. And it would be incredibly hard to affect the flow of air or the temperature of that air, hot or cold, over what would be an enormous area. And until we understand how tornadoes are formed, we'll never be able to pinpoint the exact area where they're forming with high intensity microwave beams to 'burn' the air and change that balance so they don't form. Or lasers. Or Pete Townshend's flailing arm. Or gold plated armadillos.
At some point my grasp of the exact math and energy requirements breaks down, and I feel I'm crossing over into SFLand.
That pretty much nails it. If you have ever felt a warm breeze coming from one direction, suddenly change to a cold wind coming from the other, or if you have ever seen a Super Cell with a Wall Cloud with rotation in it. Or better yet, if you have seen the cloud's rotation begin to drop with, what can only be described as, pieces of cloud doing a circular dance below below the main rotation, you can truly get a feel for the randomness, but also the power involved.
Hoping to deploy a land based defense would be futile. We simply don't have anything at this point that could be effective or could be positioned in a timely manner. Ironically, about the best idea that I have ever seen put forward was hinted at in TNG's own True Q when they wondered how a tornado could form within the weather net. I could see that, perhaps some day in the distant future, a vast network of sattellites could be in orbit with the ability to change wind temperatures and thus nagate the ability for a tornado to form. But that leads to the follow up question. Is it really that good of an idea to go messing around with nature? Do we truly believe that we are knowledgable and wise enough to understand any and all possible consequences? I'm not saying we shouldn't try, I'm just saying the question needs to be asked.
^Hurricanes are a part of nature's balance and a way the earth scrubs it's atmosphere and oceans and land. The ecosystem takes advantage of many destructive natural phenomena to ultimately perpetuate life. Volcanoes are another example.
I could see many benefits to limiting the strength of hurricanes but not eliminating them. Likewise with tornadoes, perhaps limiting their intensity is a wiser goal, though I'm not as aware of any benefits tornadoes have to the environment as I am of a hurricane's. F1s and 2s don't tend to kill dozens of people or flatten towns and houses. People can deal with getting their roofs and property damaged, it's the bigger ones that tend to be town and people killers. Then again, tornadoes are so localized I have a hard time believing their action is somehow beneficial to anything or any creature in particular. They can help make way for smaller plants in the areas they destroy but, again, very localized.
I could see many benefits to limiting the strength of hurricanes but not eliminating them. Likewise with tornadoes, perhaps limiting their intensity is a wiser goal, though I'm not as aware of any benefits tornadoes have to the environment as I am of a hurricane's. F1s and 2s don't tend to kill dozens of people or flatten towns and houses. People can deal with getting their roofs and property damaged, it's the bigger ones that tend to be town and people killers. Then again, tornadoes are so localized I have a hard time believing their action is somehow beneficial to anything or any creature in particular. They can help make way for smaller plants in the areas they destroy but, again, very localized.
^
You make some great points. I don't have an answer for what benefit (if any) tornados may have for nature, but it is something that had better be addressed before man kind goes messing with them.
Expanding your examples, another would be wild fires. They are nature's way of clearing an area for new growth. It is also one of the reasons that I put forward the question. In many of the National Parks in the US, the Park Rangers used to try to keep fires (even naturally occuring one) contained as quickly as possible. Then after a couple of natural wildfires got way out of control and did considerably more damage than normal because the under growth was so thick, they finally got the hint and returned to more of a management mindset instead of a prevention one.
You make some great points. I don't have an answer for what benefit (if any) tornados may have for nature, but it is something that had better be addressed before man kind goes messing with them.
Expanding your examples, another would be wild fires. They are nature's way of clearing an area for new growth. It is also one of the reasons that I put forward the question. In many of the National Parks in the US, the Park Rangers used to try to keep fires (even naturally occuring one) contained as quickly as possible. Then after a couple of natural wildfires got way out of control and did considerably more damage than normal because the under growth was so thick, they finally got the hint and returned to more of a management mindset instead of a prevention one.
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