Re: Is the Hills' flood possible?

glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
The issue is more than just the lack of widespread deposits. There is no
rational
way to move the boat north. They have an idealized straight wind. Are they
not
aware of the coriollis force? The wind will curve and it will not be in a
straight
direction for 500 miles? So one needs this storm to move along with the
boat--
miracle? could be but the Hills don't claim one. Claiming miracles makes for
very
short articles. "And God performed a miracle" just about says it all.
PTM:

I totally agree with you that we should not appeal to ad hoc miracles to make
our Bible interpretations work. I think we should limit the miracles to the
ones the Bible itself mentions. But here the Bible does mention the
wind-miracle:

Gen 8:1
But God remembered Noah ... and God caused a wind to pass over the earth, and
the water subsided.
(NASB)

This wasn't just the typical, balmy Mesopotamian breeze, otherwise it would
have been unremarkable. It was remarkable enough to attribute it to God's
**special** concern for Noah.

As soon as we start to prove whether the flood would "work" or not (i.e.,
would leave the correct deposits, tip the ark,...) then we are filling in details
to the bare text of the Bible and building a model around what the text says.
 I don't see anything wrong with Alan putting extraordinary winds into his
model. It is supported by the text. He has no need to prove that these winds
are typical for the region or that they don't violate the coriolos force. God
could simply move the center of the storm so that the curving winds always
move the ark in the correct direction. This sort of model is not ad hoc in any
way, since the text says that God sent the wind FOR NOAH.

Of course I'm not saying Alan's model is correct or that I personally like it
the best, but I am saying that critiquing the wind details in his model is
not valid, IMO.

glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
And the force is proportional to the exposed cross section, As the ark
rotates, the
diagonal is more and more perpendicular to the wind and water current
direction,
making a larger cross section for the wind and current to impart their force.
Thus,
the way I see it as the ark rotates, the torque increases. What do you
think I am
missing here?
PTM:

I stand corrected. You are right. I did the calcs and, although the cosine
term does decrease the area, the bouyancy term increases it at a greater rate
so the net area goes up as you stated. I was wrong about that.

Nevertheless the ark does not tip over, because the same bouyancy term also
puts a countertorque on the ark. You know that if you push one end of a canoe
down into the water and then let go, it pops back up. That is the torque from
the water. Imagine rolling an ark that has a 75 foot width, not the mere 10
feet of a canoe. The torque (per length of boat) is outrageous when the width
is 75 feet, and vastly more than a 100 mph wind can supply. I did the
calculations, and an ark like Alan describes will tip only 2.4 degrees in the kind
of wind he assumes. It will NOT roll over. We should stop discussing this
unless someone can produce calculations that show I made a mistake.

glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
I am not convinced by the physics of this. What about the unit issues in the
back
of the book. He adds a V^2 with a V^3 and acts as if they are all forces.
PTM:

I don't have the paper. I saw an early version that Carol had sent me when I
e-mailed her with questions about her view on the flood. I can't find any
V^2 and V^3 in my copy so I don't know if it is correct or not.

However, V^2 does typically show up in forces because this the dynamic
pressure of the gas (when multiplied by rho, the gas density) and V^3 also does
typically show up in forces because it is the drag force (when multiplied by a
shape-dependent parameter with the appropriate units).

The next step in a scientific process would be for someone to replicate
Alan's work and either confirm it or dispute it. Or we could ask Alan for the
mathematical details and try to analyze it in better detail. Speculations about
his work aren't that useful at this point. Personally, I don't think it's the
most important thing to worry about. Whether the ark went to Ararat or the
southern Zagros isn't as important as the question of the extent of the flood:
regional or merely a river flood. That latter question is far more important.

glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
Well, since you haven't read my model, you will have a hard time critiquing
it. I
don't take 5000 animals. That is the death of any ark story.
PTM: I have no problem with fewer animals.

I can't remember how much of your model I read, but I have read parts of it.
I studied your web pages some number of years ago.

glennmorton@entouch.net writes:
But I do know that other flood theories all violate physics (as does the
Hill's
theory) and I know that it too doesn't have evidence for it in the form of
widespresd flood sediment up river where the current river can't cut them
out.

PTM:

I think this is your strongest argument against a regional mesopotamian flood
and hasn't been addressed quantitatively by your opponents. I think that is
where the most work needs to be done to either quantitatively confirm what you
are saying or else confirm what Carol Hill has said, or possibly somewhere in
between

Phil Metzger
Received on Fri Jun 9 01:36:30 2006