For the Benefit of ICANT - About lightning

I just want to add that the topic is "Lightning is not caused by electron-positron annihilation." not "Lightning is caused by" Have we exhausted the topic, ICANT, and are therefore free to move on, or have you just skirted the issue? Hate to be a pest but I see it happening all to often that a position is made totally invalid by the evidence yet it rears its head as soon as we turn ours.And if we have used up the issue, which I'm sure you'll presently confirm, I am also curious if you've gone back to the converstion between you and Taq where you used it as an argument and retracted it.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

I know you wouldn't want to miss it.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

You must remember that there's likely ten of the majority opinion here to one of the minority. When one of the ten says something debatable, often it slides. When the one does so, five of the ten will likely jump on it. Thus it may be prudent for the one to take some time to think and read before posting. Often, even then, if the one says something factual, there will be some of the ten to respond with something goofy, expecting a response now or else.As is the case with ICANT and myself, we are busy people having professions or businesses. Obviously, some here have nothing little else to do. Admin, used to advise to take our time in the threads. I assume that that's still good advice.

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BUZSAW B 4 U 2 C Y BUZ SAW.
The immeasurable present eternally extends the infinite past and infinitely consumes the eternal future.

I don't think that has anything to do with it. And actually, the kid's characterization accounted for that (although I did fail to include that part in my quotation):

quote:

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There is of course every possibility that he's legitimately busy or doesn't like my attitude I am a pain but I have a hunch his slow responses have more to do with his having no real interest in what is or isn't true. If he can toss it into an argument, his arguments being clearly designed to convince himself, not others, it's best if he not know it's invalid.

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Though I 'd still like to see him come back with some type of reasoning that would explain how he came to believe such an easily corrected fallacy.

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One of my favorite phrases...

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And he's right.First off, its very easy to look into the facts here to find out for yourself about positrons and what they are and are not and how annihilating with electrons is kinda a big deal, so to speak.But instead of that, what does ICANT do:

quote:

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lyx2no writes:

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When a positron does happen to be created naturally in the atmosphere it only lasts a few billionth of a second before meeting an electron and poofing into a gamma ray.

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Is that the only possibility?

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The electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has no known components or substructure, and therefore is believed to be an elementary particle.

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The antiparticle of the electron is called the positron, which is identical to the electron except that it carries electrical and other charges of the opposite sign. When an electron collides with a positron, they may either scatter off each other or be totally annihilated, producing a pair (or more) of gamma ray photons. Electrons, which belong to the first generation of the lepton particle family,[9] participate in gravitational, electromagnetic and weak interactions.

Source

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Do you refute that they can just scatter off each other?

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So electrons and positrons are the same thing on one is positive and the other is negative.

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He goes into trying to refute one minor part of what the kid said, and tries to find a science article showing that a positron and an electron might not annihilate every single time always.But so what, that doesn't really having anything to do with whether or not lightning incorporates positrons or not. So what is he really trying to do? It sure seems like he doesn't care about the facts but is only trying to convince himself, like the kid said.And that's my experiences with old debaters. It doesn't have anything to do with how much time or how much opposition is to be had.

It certainly is, as a quality post that takes a day or two is vastly preferable to a quickly hammered-out nonsense post.And since so few of our Creationists tend to stick around and participate meaningfully relative to the number of their opponents, pileups are certainly an issue.But in this thread we have a very siple topic. ICANT mentioned positrons as being partof the mechanism responsible for lightning. This is simply incorrect, and the evidence has been thoroughly pointed out here in this thread. ICANT was close, because the positive/negative charge duality of ions in the atmosphere and on teh ground are indeed whatcauses lightning, but he was inaccurate to identify the particles responsible for the positive charge as positrons.Positrons are antimatter. They don't exist for long when surrounded by normal matter, because mere contact with an electron will cause both to mutually annihilate into gamma rays. Therefore they cannot be responsible for lightning, as it would require a significant buildup of positrons on the ground surrounded by normal matter. When we create and study antimatter in the lab, we need to keep it isolated from any contact with regular matter using very strong (stronger than naturally exists anywhere on Earth) artificial magnetic fields and hard vacuum.Lightning is caused by a buildup in opposing charges from positive and negative ions. It is very basically a similar mechanism to that which causes static electric shocks. When the charge becomes significant enough to overcome the natural electrical resistance of the air, a spark jumps the gap to equalize the charges. We have created artificial lightning in the lab (see Tesla coils, they're really quite cool), and while we don't understand fully all of the specifics on how the charges build up and so on, the basic mechanic of opposing charges, atmospheric resistance, and so on are well understood.This was something of a nitpicking thread on lyx2no's part, identifying an incidental but major inaccuracy in something scientific that ICANT mentioned elsewhere. There's no need for significant discussion here - I'm actually rather surprised that ICANT has not simply said "oops, I meant positive ions, not positrons, thanks for the correction," and left it at that. It's certainly all lyx2no is looking for, and it would be the honest thing to do, instead of trying to somehow suggest (as he's done) that positrons do have a role in lightning and that they don't always annihilate (they do on contact - sometimes no actual contact is made, but in an atmosphere or on the ground or other place densely packed with actual matter, any free positron will be extremely short-lived).

Dangit. I was hoping to start a new company based on the production of antimatter. It was a perfect idea, too. All I needed was 100 employees to shuffle around on carpet while wearing rubber soled shoes. They would then walk over to a positron collector (I was thinking about using my dog's wet nose since it seems to work so well at home) and deposit the positrons for later use in matter-antimatter reactions. But NOOOOO. You just had to dash my dreams with your so called "scientific knowledge". Damn elitists.
Edited by Taq, : No reason given.

We can expect long time before answers that requires complex researches and reasoning. However, when it's about simple high school level physics that takes 10 minutes to check, the "we are busy" excuse just doesn't fly, if you're ignorant about an aspect of science and don't think you have time to study it, then don't bring it up. Of course, if everyone did that, creationists wouldn't have much to tell if they are not even on high school level.Edited by Son, : No reason given.

Hi ICANTHere, I'll help you out. Just cut'n'paste.Wow! And all along I thought it was positrons. Live and learn. Live and learn [size=1](musingly)[/size].

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

Hi ICANTHow are you doing? I'm fine thanks. I got a new computer. Yeah, the other one sent me a S.M.A.R.T alert. So I got a new one. I liked that computer. This one is twice as fast with three times the RAM. And I got everything off the old one. I don't know why I still prefer the old one. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but you know how stubborn we can get in our dotage.I've lost 24 lbs. Got another 92 lbs. to get where I should be. I'm hoping I'll grow into a dozen of em', so, 84 lbs. let's say.The situation with my cousin may soon be resolved. He got kicked out, but they let him come back. He won't last out the month. Or maybe he will. I'd like to see him go back to school and stuff. Get his diploma. He isn't even going for his GED. Can't say I blame him. Nothing tells an employer you'll do what you can to scrap by like a GED.We've just had a wonderful week of spring. (We didn't get a spring last year. It was a dank misery up till the end of a June lashed against a stifling misery till the end of September.) I got a lot of garden work done: deadheading, picking up fallen twigs and my neighbors pine cones thousands blew over the road in last weeks storm. (You should see her yard.) And a new layer of mulch in the flower beds.The crocuses are up. We've got as many in the lawn as in the beds, it seems. I'll mow em' down when the time comes. There's also a hank of daffodils from I don't know whence. I dug up that whole end of the garden in the fall to plant some juniper. And there they are, less then a foot away from one of the larger juniper. Go figure.I got an award: Industrial Arts. I made a pair of Japanese, black lacquer, corner cabinets to match a dresser my BFF already had. He has a Japan room. One of my girl cousins had a Japan room when she was a kid.Well, see ya' around.Bye.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

This thread you requested got so lost several pages down into the stack that you were probably unable to find it. Just remember it was opened For the Benefit of ICANT and type that into the search box. I found it for you though.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

Not drinking 2 liters of Pepsi every day?

Not since October. It wasn't something I wanted to give up, but with my weight gain it became untenable. I could no longer pick things up off the floor or tie my shoes without aid.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.

So in recompense you beat your head against a wall made of icant and lightning?
Well, I suppose it does keep your hands busy.

Actually that has more to do with the fact that ICANT asked me to start this thread merely to blow me off.Edited by lyx2no, : Hide stuff I thought better of.

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You are now a million miles away from where you were in space-time when you started reading this sentence.