Svar från FakultetsNämnden om KTH-gate

Folke Snickars Fakultetsnämndens Ordförande svarar 28 Febr 2011 på mitt brev av den 9 december 2010:

Inledningsvis vill jag börja med att beklaga att det tagit tid för fakultetsnämnden att besvara ditt brev. Dina skrivelser har inte avfärdats, men ärendet har tagit viss tid att bereda. Med anledning av de frågor som du ställt till fakultetsnämnden vill jag anföra följande.

Fakultetsnämnden har det övergripande kvalitetsansvaret för utbildningen vid KTH. Detta innebär att fakultetsnämnden bland annat yttrar sig inför universitetsstyrelsens beslut om inrättande av nya utbildningsprogram på grund- och avancerad nivå samt ansvarar för granskningen av kandidater till läraranställningar vid KTH.

Kurslitteraturen som används i KTH:s kurser är en viktig faktor vid kvalitetsgranskningen av utbildningsprogram vid KTH, men fakultetsnämnden gör normalt ingen prövning av valet av kurslitteratur i enskilda kurser i pågående program. Inte heller rektor fattar sådana beslut. Ansvaret för kurs, och i kursen använd kurslitteratur, ligger på kursansvarig lärare. För det fall diskussion skulle uppstå om använd kurslitteratur och det skulle bli fråga om en överprövning av kurslitteraturen i en specifik kurs kan fakultetsnämnden i egenskap av kvalitetsansvarigt organ vid KTH välja att avge sitt yttrande.

I detta fall har dock varken fakultetsnämnden eller rektor gjort en sådan bedömning. Det har heller inte varit fråga om att dra in någon kurslitteratur eftersom det i kursen ”Numerical Methods II” har använts samma litteratur under hela kursen, nämligen boken ”Body and Soul: Mathematical Simulation Technology”, skriven av dig och Johan Jansson. Beslutet att använda boken har tagits av kursansvarig lärare. Vad gäller länkningen till boken anknyter den frågan till överenskommelsen som funnits mellan dig och KTH angående rätten att använda boken i kursen och i den delen hänvisar jag till svar från Ingrid Melinder och Jan Gulliksen.

Vänligen

Folke Snickars

Dekanus

Jag skickar följande svar 28 Febr:

Tack för svar, som dock inte visar att FN har läst mitt brev eller de dokument som utgör bakgrund till mitt ärende, allt väl redovisat under KTH-gate på min blogg.

Det handlar inte om att FN skall bedöma kurslitteratur, utan om vad som kanske kan beskrivas som förtal i media av mitt arbete och min person av Rektor KTH och Leif Kari, UA Teknisk Fysik.

Jag ber FN att noga läsa följande uttalande i media:

Rektor i Metro -Teknik:

• Efter att studenter protesterat hos ansvariga på KTH har den omtalade boken ersatts. Det säger Peter Gudmundson, rektor på KTH.

Leif Kari i Ny Tekniki:

• Vi vill inte ha något med boken att göra. Helst vill vi se en helt annan bok. Det ska mycket till för att jag som programansvarig ska stoppa en bok.
• Det är mycket allvarligt, säger Leif Kari. Den innehåller fullständigt oacceptabelt material, säger Leif Kari, programansvarig för teknisk fysik på KTH.

Ytterligare material finns i DN. Sammantaget handlar det om att KTH med Rektor i spetsen media har svärtat ner mitt arbete och min person. Som jag ser det.

Min fråga till FN är nu hur FN ser på det inträffade:

• Är uppgifterna från KTH till media korrekta?
• Har min bok "plockats bort" och "ersatts"?
• Är det sant att "Efter att studenterna klagat tog skolan bort sidor i boken"? (DN).
• Är det sant att "En kursbok har censurerats på KTH mitt under pågående kurs"? (Ny Teknik)
• Om så är fallet, av vilket skäl?
• Om så inte är fallet, varför säger Rektor detta till media?
• Finns det skäl att tro att förtal har bedrivits av KTH mot min person?

Jag vill ha tydliga svar på dessa mina frågor.

Vänliga hälsningar, Claes

Svar från Folke Snickars:

• Tack för Dina nya frågor.

Kommentar av CJ:

Det är samma frågor som jag ställde i mitt första brev den 9 dec 2010. Folkes svar stärker mitt intryck att FN inte läst mitt brev ej heller bakgrundsinformationen med tidningsartiklar

osv. Vi får se om detta nu kommer att ske och vad FN då kommer att säga.

Om censur av mitt arbete har utförts, så är det anmärkningsvärt, kanske unikt i modern tid i den demokratiska världen.

Om censur inte förekommit, men KTH till media meddelat att censur utövats, är det anmärkningsvärt, kanske unikt i KTHs historia.

Vågar FN ta upp denna fråga till granskning? Vågar någon KTH professor säga någonting?

Den ende av KTHs alla professorer som visat något intresse, annat än att få stopp på min verksamhet, säger att det vågar han inte pga befarade repressalier.

Svar från Folke Snickars 1 mars:

Claes! Följande svar lämnas på dina specifika frågor.

• Är uppgifterna från KTH till media korrekta? Fakultetsnämnden kan inte bedöma detta då personer i nämnden inte varit närvarande vid sådana intervjutillfällen.
• Har min bok "plockats bort" och "ersatts"? Har "sidor ur boken tagits bort"? Ansvaret för kurs, och i kursen använd kurslitteratur, ligger på kursansvarig lärare. Denna fråga behandlades i mitt förra svar.
• Om så är fallet, av vilket skäl? Svaret är igen att ansvaret för kurs, och i kursen använd kurslitteratur, ligger på kursansvarig lärare.
• Om så inte är fallet, varför säger Rektor detta till media? Det är en fråga som inte fakultetsnämnden kan besvara då personer i nämnden inte varit närvarande vid sådana intervjutillfällen.
• Finns det skäl att tro att förtal har bedrivits av KTH mot min person? Nej något sådant skäl finns inte.
• Kan jag räkna med att FN tar upp mitt ärende till granskning? Fakultetsnämnden kommer att informeras om ärendet vid sitt sammanträde 22 mars 2011.

Som avslutning vill jag göra följande kommentarer. Svar som jag lämnar gäller alltid sakfrågor. I fakultetsnämndens kvalitetsansvar ligger inte att behandla personangrepp.

Jag har under mina år som fakultetens dekanus tagit alla frågor på största allvar och i kollegial anda. Det gäller även dina. Mitt svar är således seriöst menat.

Till slut. Det kommer en tid när vi alla måste lämna över ansvar till yngre personer för vårt livsverk. På det sättet skapar vi förutsättningar för att de ska växa. Det innebär ingen nedvärdering av den tidigare generationens insatser. Detta faktum gäller även oss.

Folke

Kommentar av CJ:

Uppenbarligen vågar inte heller FN ta upp frågan om censur utövats på KTH, vilket KTH via Rektor meddelat media. Vi får väl se om det finns någon annan än undertecknad som tycker det är konstigt att censur bedrivs vid Sveriges förnämsta tekniska högskola, idag. Kanske KVA skulle kunna betrakta ärendet när nu FN inte vågar?

Photoelectric Effect, Einstein, Arrhenius, Nobel Prizes and Global Warming

The idea of Newton that light is a stream of light particles was thoroughly refuted by Young and Fresnel followed by Maxwell in the 19th century, but then surprisingly reappeared in the beginning of the 20th century in the work by Planck on blackbody radiation followed by Einstein's formula for the photoelectric effect presented in his 1905 article On a Heuristic Viewpoint Concerning the Production and Transformation of Light:

• P + W = E with E = h f ,

where P is the kinetic energy of an electron ejected from a surface by incident light of frequency f, W the energy required to release the electron from the surface, and E = h f is the incident energy with h Planck's constant. The essence of the formula is that the kinetic energy P of an ejected electron scales with the frequency f of the incoming light, but is independent of the intensity of the incoming light. Increasing the intensity at a given frequency will cause more electrons of the same kinetic energy to be ejected.

Einstein's formula helped the Nobel Prize Committee out of a seemingly unsolvable dilemma, namely to come up with a motivation to award Einstein the Nobel Prize: In the aftermath of the 1st World War Einstein had rocketed to fame through his New Theory of Relativity for a New World, and the Nobel Committee felt a strong pressure to show its own good intentions for the New World.

However, to award Einstein the Prize for his theory of relativity was impossible because virtually nobody understood it and those few who did, understood that it was not a really a physical theory but rather some form of epistemology.

Finally the Committee, chaired by S. Arrhenius, came up with the following motivation for the 1921 Nobel Prize to Einstein (so cleverly invented by C W Oseen):

• For his services to theoretical physics, in particular for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect P + W = h f .

The Committee further stated explicitely that Einstein did not get the prize for his relativity theory. By "his discovery of the law" the Committee also expressed that Einstein did not get the prize for his derivation of the law of the photoelectric effect based on light particles, or light quanta later called photons. The Committee did not believe in light quanta and neither did Einstein, as he made clear shortly before his death in 1954:

• All these fifty years of conscious brooding have brought me no nearer to the answer to the question, “What are light quanta?”. Nowadays every Tom, Dick and Harry thinks he knows it, but he is mistaken.

Einstein thus got the Prize not for something he had done, but rather despite everything he had done, except his "discovery" of the law P + W = h f.

But a law of physics without some form of derivation, is not a law of physics, just some magics,

and so what survived was Einstein's heuristic derivation based on light quanta, which he did not believe seriously in, neither the Nobel Committee, but which the rest of the physics world decided to embrace and worship as the sign of the New World of quantum mechanics based on light quanta.

In this New World light can be both particle and wave depending on the mood of the physicist.

But particle and wave characteristics are contradictory and contradictory physics is confusing physics termed "wave-particle duality", and confusing physics is potentially dangerous physics, in our time appearing as global warming resulting from "backradiation of photons" from

atmospheric "greenhouse gases", endorsed by physics academies around the New World.

Physicists of the New World argue that the law of photoelectricity P + W = h f can only be derived assuming that light is "quantized" into light particles, and since the law is valid, there must be particles of light. QED.

But the logic is weak: How difficult is it to derive a simple linear law of the form P + W = E

expressing an energy balance of energy in = energy out? Is it impossible to derive the law using a wave model of light?

Not at all! There are many possibilities, some of which I explore in the draft of the upcoming book Computational Blackbody Radiation based on my article with the same title in Slaying the Sky Dragon, where I start out deriving Planck's law from a wave model, in contradiction to the accepted "truth" that this is impossible. The basic idea is to model both radiation, high-frequency damping and photoelectricity as different dissipative effects where the precise form of the dissipation does not have to be specified. This conforms with the experience of computational turbulence presented in Computational Turbulent Incompressible Flow where the precise form of the turbulent dissipation have little influence on mean-value outputs.

The argument that you have to believe in a certain (unbelievable) theory, because without that

(unbelievable) theory, some observation appears to be difficult to explain theoretically, is very popular in physics. In climate science the argument is used to "prove that AGW is real", by claiming that without AGW it is impossible to theoretically explain all observed variations in climate, while with AGW everything becomes so evident and undisputable.

(Compare with Clarke's 1st Rule: When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.)

Here the circle closes: AGW is based on a CO2 "greenhouse effect" attributed to S. Arrhenius, who in his presentation speech for the 1921 Nobel Prize gave the Awardee the death-kiss:

• There is probably no physicist living today whose name has become so widely known as that of Albert Einstein. Most discussion centres on his theory of relativity. This pertains essentially to epistemology and has therefore been the subject of lively debate in philosophical circles.

AGW represented by Al Gore and IPCC was blessed by the Nobel (Peace) Prize in 2007, while

the science of Al Gore and IPCC evaporated with Climategate in 2009. Einstein never recovered

from the Alfred Nobel kiss, neither will Al Gore and IPCC.

Arrhenius was one of several leading Swedish scientists actively engaged in the process leading to the creation in 1922 of The State Institute for Racial Biology in Uppsala, originally proposed as a Nobel Institute.

The logic of physics and the politics of physics are strange.

Near Resonance with Small Damping

In my article Computational Blackbody Radiation in the Sky Dragon book I derived the Rayleigh-Jeans and Planck Laws of Radiation from a wave equation model with small damping, as a consequence of a phenomenon of near-resonance in a resonator with small damping.

This phenomenon appears to also be fundamental in the acoustics of string instruments with strings representing the damping and the body or soundboard of the instrument the resonator.

The phenomenon can be studied in the most basic of all models of physics, the harmonic oscillator, subject to small damping, as I do in the new article Near-Resonance with Small Damping. The article is a good complement to the Sky Dragon article.

The key point is that in near-resonance the forcing is balanced only to a small part by the damping force, the main part being balanced by the resonator, which reflects that forcing and velocity are out-of-phase. In this case the resonator acts as an amplifier of the damping (the soundboard amplifies the sound of a string).

Near-resonace is fundamentally different from perfect resonance with forcing and velocity in-phase and the damping force balancing the forcing without amplification from the resonator.

(Near-resonance is of course also different from the case of no resonance).

The importance of near-reonance is well-known to a piano tuners who tunes the two or three strings of a tone (except the single deep bass string) at slightly different pitches to create a longer sustain and singing quality of the piano.

The analysis in the article exhibits the interaction of the vibrating string and the vibrating resonating body, with the string pumping energy into the body during a start-up phase and

then changing role to sustain output from the body, all the time with the string vibrating in-phase with the body with out-of-phase output from the body in equilibrium.

The model suggests that there is a principal similarity between the radiation spectrum of a radiating body and the acoustic spectrum of a multi-string instrument from repeated arpeggios over the strings (with a capo d'astro in high position so that fundamental low frequencies are not involved).

For radiation the spectrum scales with the frequency squared as the result of a damping related to accelleration, while the corresponding spectrum in acoustics is flat in frequency because the damping in this case relates to velocity.

Near-resonane amplification conforms with the experience that the resonating body of a string instrument functions over a wide spectrum of string frequencies.

Near-resonance connects to broad resonance with a frequency band of larger width than that of sharp resonance scaling with the damping.

The Mystery of the 2nd Law Eliminated

One of the many common mysterious explanations of the concept of entropy as "measure of disorder". Very mysterious indeed, or do claim that you understand and can explain?

The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics has remained a mystery ever since it was formulated in the mid 19th century by Carnot, Clausius and Lord Kelvin.

The 2nd Law in its conventional formulation involves the concept of entropy S and the 2nd Law states that the entropy of a closed system can only increase in time, never decrease, that is

• dS/dt > 0 (or dS/dt = 0)

where dS/dt is the time derivative of S.

The trouble with this formulation is that quantity denoted by S and named entropy, does not seem to have a well defined physical meaning as expressed by von Neumann to Shannon:

• No one knows what entropy is, so if you in a debate use this concept, you will always have an advantage.

So the 2nd Law says that the entropy cannot decrease, but since "no one knows what entropy is", the statement of the 2nd Law is mysterious. Now, science based on mystery is not science, but all efforts to give entropy a clear physical meaning have failed.

The question then comes up if there is a formulation of the 2nd Law without the mysterious concept of entropy, a formulation involving only understood concepts?

Yes, there is an alternative formulation presented in the new book Computational Thermodynamics in terms of kinetic energy K, heat energy E, work W and turbulent dissipation D, which takes the following principal form without exterior forcing:

• dK/dt = W − D,
• dE/dt = − W + D,
• D > 0,

where the condition D > 0 replaces the condition dS/dt > 0. The advantage of this formulation is that turbulent dissipation D with its sign D > 0 (or D = 0) is a physical concept which can be

understood.

We see that the 2nd Law expresses an irreversible transfer of kinetic energy into heat energy, while the total energy

• TE = E + K

remains constant, as is seen by summing the two equations to get:

• dTE/dt= dE/dt + dK/dt = 0.

We see that the work W transforms heat energy into kinetic energy or kinetic energy into heat energy depending on the sign of W:

• In expansion with W positive, heat energy transforms into kinetic energy,
• In compression with W negative, kinetic energy transforms into heat energy.

On the other hand, since D > 0 (or D = 0), turbulent dissipation can only transform kinetic energy into heat energy, and not heat energy into kinetic energy.

When you rub your hands they get warm, but you cannot get your hands rubbing by only heating them. Motion can generate heat by friction, but heat cannot generate motion by an inverse process of friction.

In the book you will discover a mathematical explanation of this familiar experience based on a concept of finite precision computation, which represents a new way of viewing physics as a form of analog computation of finite precision which can be simulated by digital computation.

So if you don't like to live with mysteries, take a look in the book see if you get the message.

If you want to get the message expressed in less technical form, you are invited to browse the

dialog between Mat and Phil in the likewise new book The Clock and the Arrow: A Brief Theory of Time exhibiting the connection between the 2nd Law and the Arrow of Time, that is why we get older and never younger.

Read the Sky Dragon Says Alan Caruba

Alan Caruba writes on Warning Signs:

• ...this brings me to a new book, “Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory”, by eight co-authors, contributors whose expertise ranges across climatology, meteorology, physics, and mathematics, along with an expert in the legal aspects of the hoax. All have been derided as “deniers” and “skeptics.”
• This book is not light reading. Indeed, if you don’t come equipped with an understanding of physics, for example, some chapters will remain beyond your grasp. And mine! Happily, most is easily comprehended. In sum, it is a damning condemnation of the great hoax of the modern era, perhaps the greatest hoax since the bogus economic theory of communism.
• I recommend you read “Slaying the Sky Dragon” as the definitive answer to more than twenty years of global warming lies.

The book contains a mathematical analysis which has been censored and "removed" by the Royal Institute of Technology KTH as "unacceptable", as described in KTH-gate. Despite this unprecedented action since the heydays of "entartete kunst", the book is still available for reading outside KTH.

"Skeptics" like Spencer and Monckton have dismissed the book, seemingly without following the suggestion of Caruba of actually reading the book, only deliberately misunderstanding some of its formulas, just like the censors at KTH. Or maybe they understood the book is scientifically basically correct, and then decided to burn the book because its message was not politically correct. Explanations are needed and will come, eventually.

Interview with Claes Johnson by Ken Coffman

Ken Coffman, Stairways Press, publisher of the controversial book Slaying the Sky Dragon, has made an interview with me, as a follow-up on the 2k comments in a discussion of my two articles in the book on Judy Curry's Climate Etc. The interview is published by John O'Sullivan and on the book home page.

The inteview summarizes some of my experiences with climate science and academia. The censorship of my scientific mathematics work by KTH is particularly remarkable and is bound to have some aftermath. The Faculty of KTH is not even considering this case, despite my repeated requests to do so, and thus treats me as non-existing, although I am a professor at KTH and one of the few Swedes on ICIHighlyCited. This is Sweden in 2011, not 1984.

Report from Meeting with Dean of CSC at KTH on BodyandSoul

Here is a report from a meeting I had with the Dean of the School of Computer Science and Communication (CSC) at KTH, Jan Gulliksen (Gulan) concerning my educational program BodyandSoul supposed to serve as a basis for a new Bachelors program in Simulation Technology (ST) planned to start in the Fall 2011 under CSC:

CJ: I heard that CSC has stopped ST. Isn't that strange since ST was proposed by CSC? Why did CSC stop something put forward by itself? Isn't it very unfortunate that CSC missed a great opportunity to serve KTH and society, while advancing its own position in the fight for students?

Gulan: Maybe, but actually ST was not stopped by CSC but by the Department of Numerical Analysis NADA within CSC, which proposed the program and carried it through all the levels at KTH to acceptance by the Board of KTH, and which then decided to stop it. As the Dean of CSC I didn't do it. NADA did it.

CJ: Why did then NADA stop ST?

Gulan: Because there were no teachers to run the program.

CJ: So NADA proposed a program and then it showed that there were no teachers to run the program?

Gulan: Yes, the NADA group of teachers had a meeting led by the Prefect of NADA Björn Engquist, and it was decided that there were too few teachers to run the program.

CJ: Strange, because I know at least two teachers ready to give the four courses, the teachers who developed the program and carried it to acceptance by the Board of KTH. And what are the other 10 teachers at NADA supposed to do? Why can't they participate?

Gulan: I was told that there were no teachers.

CJ: But as a Dean don't you have a responsibility to check if the information you get is correct?

Gulan: No, I can't do that. If the Prefect of NADA says something, I have to consider it to be true. As a Dean I have to rely on my Prefects. That is the way it works at KTH and CSC.

CJ: Is there a report from the NADA teachers group meeting, where it was decided to not run ST, because there were no teachers?

Gulan: I guess not, to put to the records everything which is not being done would be overwhelming.

CJ: What is your responsibility for the missed opportunity?

Gulan: None really: The reason ST was stopped was that it was not sufficiently "anchored" in the organization. I can only decide what is "well anchored" and apparently ST was not.

CJ: But isn't what everyone can agree on, what is "well anchored", usually the zero-solution, to do nothing? Like in the present case, to not run ST rather than running it?

Gulan: Well actually, ST has not been stopped, only BodyandSoul as the basis of ST has been stopped. ST on a new basis is planned to start in 2012.

CJ: Oh, so BodyandSoul which took me 20 years to develop, will be replaced by new material?

Who will develop this new material?

Gulan: The NADA teachers, I guess.

CJ: But if there were no teachers at NADA to even run the ST program, with a basis already in place, how can there be teachers available to both develop a new basis of ST and then run the program?

Gulan: I am told by NADA that this is the plan, to start ST in 2012 with BodyandSoul replaced by a new basis developed by the teachers at NADA.

CJ: Is it realistic?

Gulan: It is not up to me to have an opinion. Maybe, or rather maybe not. This is a question for NADA and Björn Engquist. If he does not like BodyandSoul, there is nothing I can do about it. If he rather has no ST program than a program based on BodyandSoul, there is nothing I can do about it.

In any case, it was really an accomplishment by CSC to bring ST based on BodyandSoul to acceptance by the Board of KTH into a planned start in the Fall. In this perspective, the fact that the program will not actually be run, is just a minor set-back. And of course, not running

the program saves a lot of resources.

CJ: I understand. Thank you for the meeting.

KTH Dumps Simulation Technology vs Ipad Apps

The new Bachelor program in Simulation Technology (ST) at KTH planned to start in the Fall this year, has been stopped by the Department of Numerical Analysis (NADA) within the School of Computer Science and Communication, the same department which proposed and dragged the program through all the levels of KTH to applause and acceptance at the top level.

In the fight for students, which is getting increasingly tough, this is like winning the first prize

in an architecture competition of a new opera, but then simply throwing the winning drawings into the waste basket and walking away without making the dream of the beautiful building come true, leaving this to others, in this case to Malmö College.

At the same time SVT reports about the booming market of Ipad Apps as another name of Simulation Technology, and the alarming lack of education and competence in Sweden in this

area. Ipad Apps are to be created at Malmö College but not at KTH. Of course a university like KTH does not play in the same league as a little college. After all Apps are something made by the people for the people, nothing for royalties.

Why NADA decided to throw its baby ST into the waste basket? See previous posts on NADA

and KTH-gate.

The students of Numerical Methods II, where the e-version of BodyandSoul (eBS) has been tested as a basis of ST, have been helpful in stopping ST by throwing eBS into the waste basket. Why? Because Ipad Apps/ST/eBS is incompatible with the conservative royal education at KTH

and its conservative royal students, where ST students evidently have no place.

But even in the Royal Kingdom of Sweden the support of royals is fading.

Black Magic of Stefan-Boltzmann's Law for Two BlackBodies

Planck's Law

gives the spectral radiance (flux of radiant energy) from an ideal blackbody as function of temperature T and frequency nu. Integrating over frequency gives the total radiance R as Stefan-Boltzmann's Law

(1) R = sigma T^4

with sigma a certain constant referred to as Stefan-Boltzmann's constant.

In the engineering literature the following Stefan-Boltzmann law is presented for the radiant energy exchanged between two blackbodies 1 and 2 of temperature T1 and T2:

(2) R1 = sigma T2^4 - sigma T1^4, R2= - R1 = sigma T1^4 - sigma T2^4,

where R1 is the net radiance received by body 1 and R2 that received by R2.

How is the formula (2) derived? From a Planck Law for two interacting blackbodies? No, it appears to be an ad hoc law derived by the following simple ad hoc argument:

• Stefan-Boltzmann's Law (1) for one blackbody gives the radiant energy from a blackbody at a certain temperature T into a receiving background at 0 K.
• Now, if we have two blackbodies, both will radiate into the same background at 0 K as if the other body was not present.
• To get the effect of the two bodies, just sum the contributions and you get (2).
• Voila!

But this is an ad hoc argument without specified physical realization of the summation, thus a black magic argument. This is the argument behind the "backradiation" from a cold atmosphere to a warm Earth surface underlying CO2 climate alarmism. Black magic.

In my new derivation of Planck's Law in Slaying the Sky Dragon, the temperature of the background enters and the radiant energy exchanged between two blackbodies is derived from basic physical principles and not from ad hoc summation without physics.

PS I don't say that (2), as a formula for the net radiative heat exchange, is wrong. What I seek is a derivation of the formula which can help understanding of the physics involved, without resorting to statistics which at least to me is not understandable.

Nothing Instead of Something 2

The School of Computer Science and Communication (CSC) at KTH has now decided to stop the new Bachelors program in Simulation Technology (ST) based on BodyandSoul (BS) geared to start in the Fall 2011 with everything in place. Instead a new ST program without a trace of BS is announced to start in the Fall 2012.

The decision to stop ST/BS was taken by a forceful intervention by my collegue Björn Engquist, U of Texas, who does not like BS. The result is that the new ST program will have to be developed from scratch and the substantial investment in ST/BS at CSC will be dumped. Of course this does not matter since the inflow of tax money is stable and tax payers have no insight.

Oh, how it can be that a prof at U of Texas can stop a program which KTH has decided to start?

Why not ask Björn himself or the Dean of CSC Jan Gulliksen.

Oh, why Björn does not like BS? Again ask him.

BS offers a reformed mathematics education for the IT-age: IT-mathematics. BS is thus basically synonymous with ST = IT-mathematics. ST based on standard pre-IT-age mathematics, would not make sense. ST based on IT-mathematics without BS, would require reinvention of BS, which does not make sense either.

But there is a lot in academics which does not make sense.

Planck's Trick vs Mann's Trick

Central to climate science is Planck's radiation law which Planck after much agony and struggle managed to derive theoretically in 1900 resorting to a "trick" described by Planck as follows:

• ...the whole procedure was an act of despair because a theoretical interpretation had to be found at any price, no matter how high that might be...Either the quantum of action was a fictional quantity, then the whole deduction of the radiation law was essentially an illusion representing only an empty play on formulas of no significance, or the derivation of the radiation law was based on sound physical conception ... (1906) Mechanically, the task seems impossible, and we will just have to get used to it (quanta).

Planck's "trick" became immensely popular by the success of the quantum mechanics viewed to be born from Planck's quanta, although Planck himself never could fathom what he had instilled.

The basic postulate of CO2 climate alarmism of "backradiation" emanates from Planck's "trick"

suggesting that heat energy is transferred as quanta of energy carried by photon particles.

There is another "trick" underlying CO2 climate alarmism, Mike Mann's "trick" described by Phil Jones as follows:

• I have just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years to hide the decline.

The question if climate science is based on "tricks" presents itself. Any anwers? Compare with the previous post.

"Backradiation" Confusion from Light as Particles

In the article Computational Blackbody Radiation in Slaying the Sky Dragon I analyze radiative transfer by electromagnetic waves. I find that it is important to make a distinction between

• two-way propagation of electromagnetic waves
• one-way heat transfer by electromagnetic waves.

I consider a forced wave equation with radiation combined with a dissipative effect from finite precision computation. I find one-way heat transfer from warm to cold as a result of the dissipative finite precision effect with high-frequency cut-off.

I am thus led to a resolution of the main mystery of classical wave mechanics of the ultra-violet catastrophy based on deterministic finite precision computation, to be compared with Planck's resolution by statistics of energy quanta. I thus use deterministic finite precision wave mechanics along the lines of Planck's first attempts to solve the mystery, which Planck in a "moment of despair" had to give up and replace by particle statistics.

In particular I show that the wave model does not allow any "backradiation" as heat transfer from cold to warm, since that would correspond to an unstable negative dissipative effect. The wave model thus contradicts the basic postulate of climate alarmism of "backradiation" or "downwelling flux of heat energy" from the atmosphere to the Earth surface.

The idea of "backradiation" comes from not making the distinction between (i) propagation of electromagnetic waves and (ii) heat transfer by electromagnetic waves, which is contained in the wave model.

This confusion comes from viewing radiation as streams of photon particles (wave propagation) carrying heat energy (heat transfer), which does not allow making a distinction between two-way wave propagation and one-way heat transfer. With such a particle model one is forced into the two-way transfer of energy because energy is tied to particles and particles must be allowed to propagate two-way.

Thus the idea of "backradiation" and "downwelling flux of heat energy" is born from a primitive particle model of radiative heat transfer, which in the light of a less primitive wave mechanical is shown to be a fictitious non-physical phenomenon.

CO2 climate alarmism is thus based on a fictitious non-physical phenomenon, and thus is entirely "man-made".

Judy Curry and "BackRadiation"

In the comment Febr 1 12:28 to the thread on Slaying the Sky Dragon on Judy Curry's blog, Judy asks me:

• Do you dispute that if you put an infrared radiometer on the surface of the earth and point it upwards, that it will measure an IR radiance or irradiance (depending on how the instrument is configured)? Go to http://www.arm.gov for decades worth of such measurements. And that this infrared radiation comes from IR emission by gases such as CO2 and H2O and also clouds? If you say yes, well this is what people are calling back radiation (a term that I don’t use myself). If you say no, then I will call you a crank – all your manipulations of Maxwell’s equation will not make this downwelling IR flux from the atmosphere go away.

I address this question in Section 7.4 of my Sky Dragon article Computational Blackbody Radiation, and Judy's question indicates that she has not read my article. I explain there that an IR camera (infrared radiometer) directed to the sky measures the frequency of incoming light and computes by Wien's displacement law the temperature T of the emitter, and then by Stefan-Boltzmann's law Q = sigma T^4 associates a "downwelling IR-flux from the atmosphere" of size Q.

The IR camera thus measures frequency/temperature which by SB is translated to "downwelling IR-flux" or "backradiation". So everything hinges on this translation. Is it

correct?

Is it correct to use SB in the form Q = sigma T^4? No, because this law gives the radiated

energy from a blackbody into an environment of 0 K. But the Earth surface is not at 0 K,

but even warmer than the atmospheric emitter. The translation Q = sigma T^4 is thus incorrect in the sense that it indicates a fictitious "downwelling IR flux from the atmosphere" obtained by an erronous translation.

Judy calls me a "crank" because I say "no to downwelling IR flux from the atmosphere".

Let me then remind Judy that just saying "crank" does not mean that I am a crank in reality, and just saying "downwelling IR flux from the atmosphere" does not mean that in reality there is anything like that. Right Judy?

Analysis of Greenhouse Effect Debate

The comments to the thread on Judy Curry's blog on my two articles in Slaying the Sky Dragon: Death of the Greenhouse Gas Theory show the following features:

• Climate alarmism is based on "backradiation", but physicists do not want to tell if "backradiation" is real or not, although it must be their job.
• Accordingly, skeptics like Spencer and Monckton have nothing to say, because they have to rely on what physicists say, and physicists say nothing. Climate alarmists use this vacuum to say anything that suits some preconceived agenda.
• There are some people with open minds who get some of my message.
• Many show little readiness to absorb anything and just repeat various mantras floating around in the lacuna of absent physicists.
• Nobody claims that my mathematics is wrong.

The essence of my message is as follows

• In radiative heat transfer, heat is transferred between bodies by electromagnetic waves and electromagnetic waves are described by Maxwell's wave equations. I derive Planck's radiation law from a version of Maxwell's equations subject to a dissipative effect from finite precision analog computation.
• I show that "backradiation" would correspond to a negative dissipative effect, which is unstable and thus unphysical. Thus Maxwell's wave equations do not allow "backradiation". To me this is evidence that Nature neither does.
• To describe atmospheric radiation by quantum mechanics is as meaningless as describing climate thermodynamics by quantum mechanics.
• You cannot compute the lift and drag of an airplane by quantum mechanics, but you can do it by the Navier-Stokes equations, the analog of Maxwell's equations for fluid flow.
• Maxwell and Navier-Stokes are continuum mechanics models describing macroscopics, but macroscopics cannot be described by microscopic quantum mechanics, because macroscopics emerges from interaction of multiple microscopics.
• Climate results from thermodynamics with radiative forcing, and radiation alone cannot tell anything of real significance, such as the effect of changing the atmospheric radiative properties a little: It is not clear if more clouds or water vapour will cause global cooling or warming, or the effect of a small change of CO2. Climate CO2 alarmism is based on a postulate of a climate sensitivity of + 1 C which is a formality without known real significance.

I see very little discussion on these main points. Why? Because physicists say nothing which prevents non-physicists to even listen, because my credibility is unclear and all communication builds on some form of credibility (or prestige). Maybe I am a goofy crackpot as some people seem to believe, but maybe I am not.

But how are people going to tell, in particular if my message is expressed in mathematical terms?

So silence (intertvined with outbreaks of ridicule) from the ruling class, is quite effective. But to say nothing is not sign of strength and control and so the situation can quickly change...Mubarak is saying very little...

To my critics I would like to say:

• I have shown you my equations, now show me your equations and we can have a discussion and compare.

I expect some of you to come with the following response: Consider two blackbodies 1 and 2 of temperatures T1 and T2 in radiative contact, described by the following Stefan-Boltzmann equations as the basic equations of radiative transfer :

• Q1 = sigma T2^4 - sigma T1^4
• Q2 = sigma T1^4 -sigma T2^4

where Q1 is the heat energy absorbed by 1 and Q2 that by 2. So 1 loses sigma T1^4 and gains sigma T2^4 by "backradiation" and 2 loses sigma T2^4 and gains sigma T1^4 by "backradiation". And so you say: "backradiation" exists because in my formulas there appear terms which I have given the name "backradiation".

But then I say that just because you have named something "backradiation", it does not follow that this something has a physical reality. If you believe that, you are either a child or great author but not a scientist. And then I ask you to motivate your equations, to derive them mathematically from some more elementary assumptions.

Then you probably say that this was what Planck did and then I say that he just considered one

body radiating to empty space, and that the above formulas are ad hoc formulas which cannot

be presented as evidence that "backradiation" is physical. And then you say?