What struck me as strange and disappointing (although since I'm really not able to read the scientific details I may have missed it) was the lack of any discussion of the presumed underlying model. As I understand it the experiment showed that heat is transported between the hot and cold gases at rates that were different from what was expected. But why was there any expectation at all? What was the original model of how heat is supposed to be transported? And which parts of the model did the experiment though into doubt? All we now know (and I guess that knowing something is better than not knowing it) is that the results that were predicted by the existing equations were not matched by the experimental data.
-- Russ A On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 1:58 PM, Roger Critchlow <[email protected]> wrote: > Okay, this one is for Nick, too, in his guise as a weather geek. > > NASA Earth Observatory picked up the press release for this: > > > http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/view.php?id=41646&src=eorss-manews > > But it turns out that the New Journal of Physics is open sourced, so you > can go read the original paper: > > http://www.iop.org/EJ/abstract/1367-2630/11/12/123001 > > The gist is that they built an apparatus for observing heat flow in fluids > at realistic Rayleigh numbers and discovered that the turbulent regime > doesn't develop according to theory, it goes through at least two unexpected > phase transitions both of which take the net heat transfer in the opposite > direction from that expected. > > -- rec -- > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org >
============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
