Re: Is the Hills' flood possible?

 
Hi Glenn,
 
sorry for the delay. I know you were expecting to hear from me and I don't want to disappoint. But I'm in Sudbury at a mining conference this week and don't have a computer here.
 
I know the issue for you is the lack of widespread flood deposits and I don't think anyone can ever change your opinion on a mesopotamian flood unless someone (1) finds them or (2) proves you wrong by quantitatively showing that the deposits are exactly the way we expect them to be. The only way to do (2) satisfactorily is to do a full finite element model of the actual basin topography with sediment transport implemented in the code and see what the result is. I have no time or funding to work on such a massive project, but really somebody ought to do it because this is the critical issue for a mesopotamian flood. I highly recommend that someone (or some group of us) find funding to do this, because it is an important question and there is no sense in arguing over it ad infinitum when we haven't even done the right research to simply settle this issue. Whatever we discover, it will advance the cause of truth.
 
The only minor thing I can point out in your critique is that the ark would have less torque (not more) as it rolled over because the surface area projected normal to the direction of the wind would decrease (not increase) according to the cosine of the roll angle. Therefore, when it rolls it will feel less torque and can return to upright or find an equilibrium angle. Furthermore, wind speed in the boundary layer of our planet increases according to the logarithm of height above the surface, and so higher velocity winds are at higher altitudes and v.v. Thus, as the ark rolls over, its top will no longer be subjected to the highest velocity winds. That, too, causes the torque to be reduced, and quite significantly! Finally, a good boat design will have a restoration torque from the water so that it will naturally rock back. Your critique of the center of mass might be correct, but I don't have the details to look at it here in Canada.
 
Last, I will point out that Alan Hill's model was overly conservative in at least one respect. He did not inlude the effect of wave action. Sustained winds over long reaches of water -- as he (and I) have hypothesized to get the ark back out of the persian gulf -- will necessarily produce HUGE waves in the northward direction. Because the hypothesized flood is relatively shallow in most of the basin, these waves would be asymmetric in their upper and lower branches, and thus they would produce net water transport UPHILL in the surface layer. This can be observed in shallow bays when the wind blows water uphill. Because water is viscous and has a no-slip condition on the bottom (where it meets the sand), this will result in a water profile in which the water flows downhill in the deeper layers but uphill in the shallowest layers where the ark's draft is found. Or, it might just reduce the downhill flow to some degree. In the first case the water itself will push the ark uphill -- not downhill -- and the wind will only help. In the second case there would be less downhill flow for the wind to fight against in pushing the ark uphill. Because Alan used hydrology models that do not include the effects of waves (or strong winds over long open reaches), his models predict a wind that is much stronger than it would really need to be ot push the ark uphill.
 
However, I mention again, none of this will convince a geologist unless the correct flood deposits are discovered and quantitively proven to be correct, so it is not worth arguing over any of these things.
 
Also, as I said before I would be OK even if the flood were much more limited than Alan models.
 
Ooo, I also meant to point out that Alan's model of the ark is irrelevant to the dispute. you also have a model of the ark that you believe is correct -- right number of animals, etc. -- so let's just assume you are right and put your version of the ark into a mesopotamian flood. Most people would be content with that.
 
Anyhow, thanks for doing your best to keep the community honest. Real science won't happen unless scientists do exactly what you are doing in regard to this flood theory, so we should all appreciate it (and I do).
 
God bless,
Phil Metzger
 
 
 
-----Original Message-----
From: glennmorton@entouch.net
To: asa@calvin.edu
Sent: Sun, 4 Jun 2006 09:56:32 -0400
Subject: Is the Hills' flood possible?

My June copy of the ASA came about a week before I left Beijing and I didn't
have
time to read the articles by Carol and Alan Hill. Since the flood is my area of

interest and since I had had a debate here on this list about this upcoming
article, I was eager to see what the solution was.

I won't claim to be as good a physicist as I used to be, but I took a hard look
at
this and have several questions which are left unanswered by the article. Maybe
I
am wrong, but I would like to hear critiques of my critique.

And I know that few listen to me in my campaign to try to tighten up the logic
of
Christian apologetics, but one must never give up, so here goes a critique of
the
most popular flood speculation around, the Mesopotamian flood. I do wish people
would finally realize that they need a new theory rather than the same ol stuff
for
200 years.

Hill calculates that the six side of the ark would require 65,000 cubic feet of
cedar wood which he says would weigh 2 million pounds. This is 6 inch thick
cedar. When I multiply the areas I get 57,375 cubic feet, not the 65,000 cubic
feet he cites. But, that is only for the 6 sides. I can't see where he
calculates
the weight for the 2 floors internal to the ark. Here are my values which are a
bit
different from his.

Super.structure
45……tall
450…..long…..1518750…cubic.feet.in.ark
75……wide

3375…sq.feet.front
3375…sq.feet.back
33750..sq.feet.top
33750..sq.feet.bottom
20250..sq.feet.port.side
20250..sq.feet.starboard.side
33750..floor.1……………..He.didn't.count.the.floors
33750..floor.2
182250……..total.surface.area 57375
91125…..Total.volume.of.wood cf…. .5.ft.thick

31.2135……lb/cf.of.cedar

2,844,330……..lbs.for.floors.and.walls

Now, let's look at the water. Hill's table 1 says that the average animal
weight
is 250 lbs. I looked up how much a pig (similar weight) eats and drinks each
day.
It seems that animals between 100 and 500 lbs eat about 3.5% of their weight
each
day.

0.035……percentage of weight eaten each day.
1250000…..total weight lb of animals
43750……..daily food weight lb
15,968,750...yearly food weight lb

Hill says they only need 2.5 million pounds of food. I think he would starve the

poor critters---call PETA! The reality is that the smaller animals, which are
more
numerous eat a higher percentage of their weight per day. Since numerically they

are more, this would be a somewhat conservative number.

Hill says that the ark took pairs of 2500 species, but I fail to see why that
was
necessary. There are only 4000 species of mammals on earth and why he needs to
hauls such a large number is beyond me if Iraq was the only thing flooded.

For water, I looked at the water intake of pigs--about 2 gallons per day.

Pig water intake http://www.aces.uiuc.edu/archives/experts/swine/0064.html
2...........gallons per day/animal
0.266.......cf/day/animal
16.52392....lbs water per animal per day
21,728,955..total water needed lb

Now, Hill says that the animals need 1 million pounds of water to keep them
going
263 days. That is what I calculated above. Once again, if the same mass of
smaller
animals is there, the daily water use per pound is higher. ONce again, Hill
would
torment the poor animals.

Now, what does this do for the total weight of the ark? Hill claims that the
toal
weight of the ark is 10 million pounds giving it a draught of 5 feet. There are
problems with this, because the way I calculate this (equidistribution of the
load
on 3 floors), the center of gravity of the ark would be something like 10 feet
above the waterline making the ark subject to rolling over and over, especially
if
the ark got broadside to the 80 mph winds Hill wants for so long (another
problem
discussed later).

In the appendix, Hill defines that he is using the front and rear surface area
for
moving the ark. However, this is one of those theoretical ivory tower
assumptions.
It assumes that the ark never gets broadside to the wind direction. This is an
incredibly unlikely scenario. If the ark gets broadside to the wind and water
flow,
it would tilt up because the water would push south and the wind blowing north
would create a torque on the ark making it want to tilt. As it tilts, the food,
water and other loose flotsom inside the ark will re-distribute and accelerate
the
roll. As the ark tilts, the torque of the water and air flow will get stronger
because there is a bigger area across which the force/unit area can work. While
I
haven't calculated the forces, I think this is a real weak point for this
theory.
Noah and company would roll their way to Turkey.

I have taken cruises on ocean ships and they are quite pleasant. But I would
never
want to be on one that had the center of gravity significantly above the
waterline
as this ark would be if it were as Hill describes it. Maybe Allan has more faith

than I in such a situation.

But my weight calculation for the ark shows he needs 45 million pounds of weight
to
avoid mistreating the animals.

2,844,330.......lbs for floors and walls changed from Hill's figure
2,000,000.......braces
1,000,000.......cages
1,250,000.......animals
15,968,750......food changed from Hill's figure
21,728,955......water changed from Hill's figure
...250,000......humans fixin's

45,042,035.......total weight for the ark

If his line called braces, includes the flooring, then remove 800,000 lbs from
the
above figure, but it won't make much difference.

This makes the ark have a 21 ft draught and this then makes the corresponding
windspeed needed to push the ark north even higher than the quite unlikely
values
Hill already uses.

Now lets look at the wind and rain. Apparently the Hills are thinking of
hurricanes, which don't happen in the Persian Gulf (minor problem there). Alan
Hill
says, "Althought more formidable winds are required to move a 20 million-pound
ark
(with a correspondingly smaller draft) upstream, even these winds fall well
within
the range of a great hurricane." Alan E. Hill, Quantitative Hydrology of NOah's

Flood," Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, Vol 58(2006):2, p. 138

But even that weight of an ark would carry insufficient food and water.

All I can say is that these New Mexican residents have never actually seen a
hurricane and are unaware that they require open ocean. Land near the eye
results
in a weakening of the storm system, but never mind this, and never mind that the
in
Quaternary history to our knowledge, there has never been such a storm in the
Persian Gulf which has too little.

Once again, no one in this article (or any other article on the Mesopotamian
flood
tells us where the flood sediments are. Carol Hill argues that YEC is wrong
because there is no evidence for global flood sediment but she herself does not
tell us where the flood sediments are in the upper reaches of the Tigris river
basin. What she does is explain why the sediments AREN'T found, which is an
entirely different game.

"A popular misconception is that a great inundation such as Noah's Flood should
have left a widespread layer of sediment all over Mesopotamia. If flood deposits

occur at Shuruppak (Fara), then why not at nearby Kish? Why have no flood
deposits
been found at Ur that correspond to NOah's Flood, and why in the city-mound of
Ur
do some pits contain thick flood deposits while other pits nearby contain no
flood
deposits?"
     "This presumed problematic situation is completely understandable to
hydrologists--in fact, it is what they expect. Flood erode sediment as well as
deposit sediment." Carol A. HIll, Qualitative Hydrology of NOah's Flood,
Perspectives on Science and Christian Faith, 58(2006):2, ,p. 126

When I get my computer back this week (it is on its way home from Beijing), I
will
post a picture again showing the lack of widespread Quaternary fluvial sediment
in
the northern part of the Tigris basin?

OK, they have lots of rainfall pouring into the basin. It would bring with it
lots
of sediment in suspension. It should, even in Northern Iraq, find backwater
places
where it can settle out, but this sediment isn't there either. On Page 127
Carol
says that one could expect to see 50 feet of sediment from this year long event
in
the backwaters. Well, there would be backwaters in northern Iraq well away from

the river's channel yet the Quaternary riverine sediments are not found much
more
than 10 miles away from the present river channel. This argues persuasively that

there was no widespread water being blown up to the north, nor was that basin
flooded. Carol, where is any evidence of quaternary fluviatile sediments away
from
the actual river channel itself?

It is quite convenient that the flood deposited and then eroded all sedimentary
evidence of itself.

In looking at the equations in the back of the article, on page 141 Alan Hill
has 4
equations Equation 18 is

windwork=viscuswork +liftwork

This means that all these terms must have the same units. Well, Equation 15 has

windwork = .5 x [rho] x f x [wv(t)-Vship]^2 x S1

Where f is defined in equation 19 and is dimensionless, S1 is an area wv(t) is
wind
velocity, Vship is self-explanatory.

But equation 16 has viscuswork having different units if I am reading this
right.

Viscuswork = .5 x c x [rho] x (Vship-(-vel[t])^2 x Vship x S2

C is the coefficient of drag and those often are mass/time but maybe this is a
dimensionless form of the number. I will let that one go. But this equation has

V^3 and the previous equation has V^2. The units are not the same as near as I
can
tell.

Illogic like some of the things I see here is what I would like to see Christian

apologetics move away from. We need to think through all the issues, and I am
not
entirely sure that that happens when apologetical systems are put together.

As far as I can see this is another sunken voyage of the ark, that doesn't
concord
to any reality at all. I suspect I will hear soon from Phil Metzger.

    
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Received on Wed Jun 7 00:08:00 2006