Ed Seykota and Radial Momentum

Ed Seykota and Radial Momentum  (http://www.seykota.com/rm/)

"Stop"? Hey, good idea! I think I'll head on over to ESPN...

Ed Seykota is apparently a commodities trader who, in his spare time, is “blowing the whistle” on misuse of Bernoulli’s principle.  “Stop Bernoulli Abuse!” is a phrase repeated here and there, though not as much as “blowing the whistle.”  The jokes I could make about abusing your Bernoulli are simply too easy, and if I had any kind of integrity, I would not even bring them up.  His main claim seems to be about the standard physical description of how planes fly — anyone who’s taken physics is probably familiar with the picture of an airplane wing, and the quartet of forces (lift, drag, thrust, and whistle-blowing) that operate on the plane — the net effect of which is to get it up in the air.  While every book you read says that Bernoulli’s principle is responsible for the lift force (via reduced air pressure over the top of the wing), Seykota proposes that the radial momentum of the moving air is responsible instead.

To be fair, this particular topic does invite its share of disagreement, even within accepted scientific circles.  Over at the Straight Dope, several years ago they discussed similar ideas regarding shower curtains, and Jearl Walker (a respected physics professor, whose name should be familiar to any intro physics student from the name on the cover of their textbook) disputed the relevance of Bernoulli’s principle in making the damn shower curtain stick to your legs every time you take a shower.  Further work on the question using computers suggested that Bernoulli’s principle wasn’t the culprit, but neither was Dr. Walker’s suspect, the Coanda Effect.  Nobody mentioned anything about airplanes, but I’ll concede that the Bernoulli effect might be a little more complicated than you might think.

Our scores are:

1.  Terrible English:   Not quite terrible, but surprisingly boring.  I know I’ve been lambasting all the other websites profiled here for showing too much emotion, for violating the impartiality that yer standard science article should obey.  But man, is his writing dry!  Could it be a remnant from his work in finance?  Could be because of the subject matter, too — radial momentum has got to be about the most booooring topic in all of physics.  Can’t really complain about the quality of writing, overall.  Two out of ten.

2.  All Science Is WRONG:  The typical crackpot website:  Einstein and all of his theories and most of quantum mechanics is wrong and there’s a big conspiracy to keep my theory down.  Ed Seykota:  people have been incorrectly applying a fluid dynamics equation.  Though his scope might be small, you’ve got to admire his laserlike focus on correcting all of us.  Three out of ten.

3.  Irritated, emotional language:  Nope, not that much.  You can check out some interesting email exchanges between Ed and various scientists whom he approached for help and opinions, and seems like Ed keeps his cool pretty much the entire time.  So he gets the lowest score, one out of ten.  Hmm, he’s not scoring very high, is he?

4.  One extremely long and ugly webpage:   Nope — it’s not amazon-dot-com, but it looks about as good as this site.  Of course, we design our site by working out drafts with macaroni, construction paper, and Elmer’s glue.  Two out of ten.

5.  Completely new definitions:   I’m afraid Mr. Seykota will be bringing up the rear in the Wonderdorks “I’ve got a theory and I’m crazy” competition, because I can’t find a single new definition, invented jargon, or new math symbol anywhere.  I gotta say, he’s got himself about the most respectable looking alternative theory that I’ve seen so far.  One out of ten.

And the grand total?  A miniscule, inconsequential, nine out of fifty.  A mere barnacle in the ocean of crackpot alternative physics theories.  If we move back out of the bizarro world of alternative theories, the Radial Momentum theory seen at his site has probably the best shot at some actual trained physicist spending some time to work through the math.  (I don’t count — I’m too lazy to work through the math).  So bravo, Mr. Seykota — if you turn out to be right, you can use your millions of dollars in Nobel Prize winnings to make a website devoted to making fun of me.

>>>  Next Up:  put your hands together, for Randell Mills and the Hydrinooooo-ssssss!!!!!