Ask a physicist anything. (3)

[AV1611VET]

Aside from the claimed miracles, are there any statements made by the Bible that contradict physics?

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

 

[BrianOnEarth]

For the same reason a fan cools you down, even though it's not actually doing any cooling.

When you sit still, your skin warms the air around it to its own temperature. When a fan blows air at you, this warm air gets replaced with the cooler room air, and for as long as the fan blows on you, you won't be able to warm up the immediate air.

Similarly, sitting in a room about 20°C (sorry, I can't do Fahrenheit ), you're actually sitting in a cloud of warm air several degrees hotter - or, more importantly, closer to your skin's temperature. When you jump into a bath, the water won't be at the cloud's temperature. Hence, you experience a temperature drop.

That said, I like my baths to be a toasty 30-35°C (about 95F)

Another way of saying the same thing is that air is a much better insulator than water. When in water, the rate of loss of heat is greater for the same temperature difference than in air. You feel the loss of heat energy.

 

[BrianOnEarth]

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Does this mean Jesus was an atheist?

 

[AV1611VET]

Aside from the claimed miracles, are there any statements made by the Bible that contradict physics?

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

Does this mean Jesus was an atheist?

Why? do atheists make statements that contradict physics?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Aside from the claimed miracles, are there any statements made by the Bible that contradict physics?

Well, any alleged contradiction can, by the caveat of your question, be disregarded as a miracle. That said:

• The Earth was neither formed out of, nor by, water (2 Peter 3:5).
• The sky is not the vault of heaven - a solid dome, aka the 'firmament' (Genesis 1:6-9, 14-17, 20, 7:11, 8:2, 11:4, Job 37:18, 38:22, Ezekiel 1:22, etc).
• The Earth is not immovable (Psalms 93:1, Psalms 104:5, 1 Chronicles 16:30, Joshua 10:12).
• The Earth is not flat (Isaiah 11:12, Jeremiah 16:19, Daniel 4:10-11, Revelations 7:1).
• Rainbows appeared long before Noah and his Flood (c. 2000BCE) (Genesis 9:3).
• The Earth predates 4004BCE (cv. Usher's chronology).

Though not strictly physics, there are some other, harder to explain discrepancies in the Bible:

• Camels do indeed have cloven hoofs (Leviticus 11:4, Deuteronomy 14:7).
• Modern languages did not spontaneously appear in one moment (Genesis 11:6-9).
• Prayer does not heal the sick (James 5:14-15).

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Another way of saying the same thing is that air is a much better insulator than water. When in water, the rate of loss of heat is greater for the same temperature difference than in air. You feel the loss of heat energy.

You don't feel cold because of that, though, you feel cold because it is cold. How long it takes you to warm up would be secondary, at best, I'd have thought.

 

[AV1611VET]

You don't feel cold because of that, though, you feel cold because it is cold. How long it takes you to warm up would be secondary, at best, I'd have thought.

If you have a bathroom consisting of a swatch of carpet on a linoleum floor, and it is 4[sup]0[/sup] C, both objects will be at thermal equilibrium -- that is, both will be the same temperature.

BUT, if you step into the bathroom in your bare feet, the linoleum will seem much colder than the carpet, because the linoleum is a much better conductor of heat than the carpet is.

Since heat flows from a hot point to a colder point, the linoleum will conduct the heat from your skin much faster than the carpet will.

Thus what you are experiencing is a faster cool-down as you walk across the linoleum, and you interpret it as the floor being colder than the carpet when, if fact, they are actually the same temperature.

WC: How did I do? am I a physicist now?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

If you have a bathroom consisting of a swatch of carpet on a linoleum floor, and it is 4[sup]0[/sup] C, both objects will be at thermal equilibrium -- that is, both will be the same temperature.

BUT, if you step into the bathroom in your bare feet, the linoleum will seem much colder than the carpet, because the linoleum is a much better conductor of heat than the carpet is.

Since heat flows from a hot point to a colder point, the linoleum will conduct the heat from your skin much faster than the carpet will.

Thus what you are experiencing is a faster cool-down as you walk across the linoleum, and you interpret it as the floor being colder than the carpet when, if fact, they are actually the same temperature.

Like I said, it's secondary. Things like lino and marble feel cooler because, like you said, heat takes longer to transfer from your body than it does in things like carpet - though, with carpet, there's the added effect that you're standing on something which will take your warm air jacket since it's rather porous.

The air jacket phenomenon is, I think, more important; standing on a flat surface removes that, so the only difference is in how fast your feet warm it up. If there is a big fan next to a room-temperature bath, you won't feel as cold getting into the bath than if you kept your jacket on. So to speak.

WC: How did I do? am I a physicist now?

Very good, have a gold star

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Streetlights made of trees and gold nanoparticles!

We used to make gold nanoparticles at my old University. I feel I've helped

 

[Upisoft]

John 10:30 I and my Father are one.

That's something a traveler in time can say.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

That's something a traveler in time can say.

That would certainly explain Jesus' futuristic statements about how to improve agriculture, medicine, and science - ah, wait, nevermind .

 

[Steffenfield]

About how much water would it take to hose down the Sun to actually stop it from burning?

Would spraying the water even make it to the Sun's surface?

I must know this!

 

[Upisoft]

That would certainly explain Jesus' futuristic statements about how to improve agriculture, medicine, and science - ah, wait, nevermind .

It will also explain His appearance after His death.

 

[Upisoft]

About how much water would it take to hose down the Sun to actually stop it from burning?

Would spraying the water even make it to the Sun's surface?

I must know this!

Adding more matter will make the Sun burn it faster.

 

[Naraoia]

Adding more matter will make the Sun burn it faster.

It will go out sooner as a consequence

 

[Upisoft]

It will go out sooner as a consequence

Agreed.

 

[Exial]

Can I kill a bee by headbutting it?

 

[Chesterton]

Can I kill a bee by headbutting it?

If the bee's head is on a solid surface, yes.

 

[Upisoft]

What if quantum entanglement is not observed for massive particles?

 

[Delphiki]

It will go out sooner as a consequence

Well, you might want to stand really really far back. Further back than that.