Nye The Science Guy Explained And Dumb Dumb TV Reporter Did Not Get It.

[TheMastersNemesis]

While the reporter kept claiming the asteroid would miss us by 17,000 miles "the science guy" was saying the miss was ONLY 15 minutes. This idiot did not understand that the time was the most important factor.

The earth travels at 36 mps (miles per second). That asteroid travels at 10 mps or more. So 15 minutes is nothing. Even hundredths of a second different in timing would result in a hit.

The asteroid would create a crater the size of the Arizona crater. It would completely destroy a large city.

[longship]

1. The Earth crossed the point in its orbit that 2012DA14 crosses 15 minutes later.

Or, vice-versa. (Not sure which)

R&K

[TheMastersNemesis]

3. Bill Nye Was Trying To Explain That The Pass Was Dangerously Close.

What he was trying to say was that on millionths of MPS would make a difference. Based on the laws of physics we were missed by a whisker. Most people do not understand science of physics.

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. The way they at times get it is...

It's coming closer than the moon and satellites in orbit, and at times not even then.

I know frustrating, but the reporter is the product of the same system that produced his/her readers.

Trust me, even things like the famous cinco de mayo is not Mexican independence year is misreported regularly. For god sakes, this is a date, not complex stellar mechanics. (It's the anniversary of the Battle of Puebla, when the French suffered a great defeat to the Mexican Army in 1860 in the early days of the French intervention)

[longship]

6. Yup, my BS is in physics, so I know.

My older sister is big time into the woo woo. She's always talking about quantum mechanics being the open door to woo woo land. (My words, not hers.)

Once, I responded with, "Well I actually studied quantum mechanics..." It didn't do any good.

Now we just trade pleasantries.

[TheMastersNemesis]

8. Your Sister Sounds Interesting - QM Is Woo Woo Science

The most astonishing thing about quantum mechanics is that I believe it was predated Einstein's Theory Of Relativity. It was one of Max Plank's aides who helped Einstein get his start.

Quantum Mechanics is weird science. There really is no here here based on what we know about the atom. No matter how deeply we split the atom into its parts and how small we break it down there is NO solid matter. It is all smaller parts of energy. Nothing is actually solid even though we experience it that way. As an example trillions of neutrinos pass through everything every second and do not strike the core of an atom.

Everything we experience is mostly empty space based on quantum physics models.

[longship]

10. Yup.

Solid is from the electron shells of matter repelling one another. That's QED, Quantum Electrodynamics. (Although it's easier to calculate without quantum, and it works pretty well. Haven't done it in decades, though.)

[TheMastersNemesis]

12. I Sometimes Will Think About What I Am Doing In A Quantum Way

It is a very different way in looking at experience when you try to imagine what is really happening when you strip away the reality you are seeing and look at it beneath the surface. It brings about a sense of how really complicated existence really is.

[longship]

14. But all the quantum effects average out above the atomic scale.

Everything we experience are emergent properties of a quantum universe. But we see no quantum effects because they all average out. That's why Newton's laws still work fine to land the Curiosity Rover on Mars. (Well, we don't have a quantum theory of gravity yet.) but that's the idea.

The same thing for the other forces. We only need quantum field theory for stuff at or below the atomic scale.

Our world acts classically, not quantumly. (That's not a real word, but you get the idea.)

[ChisolmTrailDem]

2. What channel was that on? You know, some of the stupidest

things I hear said on TV come from "news" anchors attempting to ad-lib while going off-script. Their stupidity can't hold a candle to the sheer idiocy of politicians.

[TheMastersNemesis]

5. I Believe It Was A Lady On CNN. And I Think It Was On Huff Post.

Bill Nye seemed frustrated that this lady did not understand. We was trying to explain how alert we have to be and how we have to prepare. I believe his take on the pass by is that the media grossly underplayed the danger of such an object and how really close it will be.

This object is the same size as the meteor that crated meteor crater. I was there about 20 years ago to see it. An object that size hitting a city like Phoenix would vaporize it. I believe the dead range would be 50 miles around.

The laws of physics are ugly. One example of how cruel it is is a skier weighing 180 lbs hitting a tree at 30MPH generates thousands of foot pounds of kinetic energy. The human body just crumbles under such pressure. So a meteor traveling 25 MPS weighing even 2000 lbs is huge.

[JI7]

13. if it was going to hit, would we be able to know exactly where ?

and prepare for such a thing ?

[burrowowl]

7. Science! Science! What is that?

Math? My goodness is that in the Bible?

Scary!!!!!

[TheMastersNemesis]

9. We Are Living In A Scary Time.

[longship]

11. Scary only because we know shit.

The dinosaurs didn't know shit and look what happened to them.

A big asteroid like that? We have a space program and we could deflect it if we had enough warning.

Here's Phil Plait, the Bad Astronomer to tell you how:

[SidDithers]

16. Phil Plait is awesome...

Thanks for posting that.



Sid

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. How do you go from "miss by 15 minutes" to "hundredths of a second different in timing would result

in a hit"? Those are several orders of magnitude different.

[bemildred]

17. In 15 minutes the rock will move about 9000 miles, a bit more than diameter of the planet.

That's real close.