Howell - the twin brothers [Science, Religion] and their disciples www.BillHowell.ca initial draft ?date? Summary : **************************************************************************** Waiver/ Disclaimer The contents of this document do NOT reflect the policies, priorities, directions, or opinions of any of the author's past current, or future employers, work colleagues family, friends, or acquaintances, nor even of the author himself. The contents (including but not restricted to concepts, results, recommendations) have NOT been approved nor sanctioned at any level by any person or organization. The reader is warned that there is no warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy of the information herein, nor can the [analysis, conclusions, and recommendations] be assumed to be correct. The application of any concepts or results herein could quite possibly result in losses and/or damages to the readers, their associates, organizations, or countries, or the entire human species. The author accepts no responsibility for damages or loss arising from the application of any of the concepts herein, neither for the reader nor third parties. ******************************************* Copyright © 2013 Charles W. Lucas, Jr. of Mechanicsville, Maryland, USA www.CommonSenseScience.org The book being reviewed, and formulae therefrom, are the property of Bill Lucas as indicated. Copyright © 2015 Bill Howell of Hussar, Alberta, Canada This applies to the review analysis and comments on the book of Lucas. Exceptions: • All papers cited are the property of the publisher or author as specified in the books and papers. • All information from conversations with other individuals are potentially the property of that individual, or of third parties. Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify ONLY the non-third-party content of this document under either: The GNU Free Documentation License (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/); with no Invariant Sections, Front-Cover Texts, or Back-Cover Texts. Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 Unported License. It is expected that users of the content will: • Acknowledge William Neil Howell and/or the specific author of content or images on this page as indicated, as the source of the image. • Provide a link or reference back to this specific page. • Allow any modifications made to the content to also be reused under the terms of one or both of the licenses noted above. **************************************************************************** endpage Table of Contents Summary : 1 Introduction 4 Critiques and comments by others 4 Encyclopedia of American Loons ;#897: Bill Lucas & the "Common Sense" Scientists 4 Virginia Tech gets a visit from the tinfoil hat brigade 5 The Return of Lucas Recap. CORR June 15, 2006 10 Dr. Bill Lucas update: 1 week after being discredited 19 Book Review: Dr. C.W. Lucas – The Universal Force, Volume 1 20 Introduction Since ?1967?, William Charles Lucas has been developing advanced concepts in electrodynamics with the intention of correcting for [simplifications, approximations, assumptions, incompleteness] that are inherent to the foundations of 20th century fundamental theoretical physics. If correct(or at least better), his work will extend and continue in the axiomatic manner established by Isaac Netwon, correct and extend James Clerk Maxwell's work, and simply erase that of Max Planc and Albert Einstein. Of course, in doing so many of the well-researched and proven formulae will still remain, sometimes in improved form, as those are supported by data. But as Lucas shows in his book, one can often [fit ythe data, get to the correct formulae] even if one's concept is categorically incorrect. That gem is of great interest to me for my main priority outside of the area of Computational Intelligence (mostly neural networks) : to understand why and how the overwhelming mainstream scientific consensus and scientists fail so routinely, over [decades, hundreds, thousands] of years. My review of Lucas's core concepts is split among several documents : 1. "Howell - math of Lucas Universal Force.ndf" - which goes step-by-step through Lucas's equations, providing "baby steps" to allow a careful verification orf his results. 2. "Howell - Old math of Lucas Universal Force.ndf" - Provides earlier verification attempts that went awry for several equations. In direct violation to the addage "It is better to remain silence and to have others think you a fool, ...", I make it very clear how foolish I can be. 3. "Howell - Verifications of Lucas Universal Force, summary listing .txt" - This shows a quick summary listing of verification results for equations. All equations have much longer comments that can be seen in "Howell - math of Lucas Universal Force.ndf". 4. "Howell - Verifications of Lucas Universal Force, full listing .txt" - This shows a more detailed summary listing of verification results for equations. All equations have much longer comments that can be seen in "Howell - math of Lucas Universal Force.ndf". 5. "Howell - Symbols for Bill Lucas, Universal Force.pdf" - Beyond a listing of Lucas's "variable symbols and notations", which was a great reminder for me during my verification process, this document also provides a description of my own non-standard format for [equations, array & vector notations, basic operations like integration & differentiation]. This will probably be essential for readers of "Howell - math of Lucas Universal Force.ndf" 6. "Howell - Review of Lucas, Universal Force.pdf" - Peer-review style comments on the contents of the book and its concepts, including my perceptions of its strengths, weaknesses, and questions that I have. 7. "Howell - Meta-Level Lucas Universal Force - speculative [context, comments, questions] - random, scattered blah, blah from yours truly. (unwritten as of 24Sep2015) 8. "Howell - the twin brothers [Science, Religion] and their disciples" - There is an uncany resemblance between groups that often see themselves as polar opposites. Comments of a science fiend but non-believer of either. (unwritten as of 24Sep2015) Lucas's Dedication (This is copied directly from his book.) This book is dedicated to all lovers of truth and especially the following : Euclid and the ancient Greeks that developed geometry and the axiomatic method to "Prove" or derive theories of natural philosophy in a systematic and logical way. Sir Isaac Newton who developed the empiracal scientific method to measure and mathematically define the minimal set of force equations to explain nature. James Clerk Maxwell who showed hhow to combine four of the six empirical lasw of electrodynamics to develop his wave equations for electrodynamics which allowed the separate electric and magnetic force laws to be combined into a single electrodynamic force. He explained the wave nature of light which became the foundation of optics. He followed Michael Faraday and Andre-Marie Ampere in emphasizing the role of fields in extending ther electrodynamic force to great distances to replace Weber's action-at-a-distance electrodynamic force. Thomas L. Barnes, professor of Physics at the University of Texas at El Paso, who showed the way to eliminate Einstein's Special Relativity Theory from electrodynamics by taking into account the electrical feedback effects on finite-sized charged particles. Andre Koch Torres Assiz, professor of physics at the University of Campinas - UNICAMP in Brazil, who showed the way to explain gravity as a fourth order electrodynamic effect between vibrating neutral electric dipoles using Weber's electrodynamic force. Alice Pittard Lucas my faithfiul and loving wife who encouraged and supported my research that resulted in this series of books. Critiques and comments by others I have NOT run across any reviews of Bill Lucas's "Universal Force" book, nor of his papers, although it's normal for any science journal or conference peers reviews to be non-public. Encyclopedia of American Loons ;#897: Bill Lucas & the "Common Sense" Scientists http://americanloons.blogspot.ca/2014/01/897-bill-lucas-common-sense-scientists.html Bill Lucas is a fundie who runs the website “Common Sense Science”, which is not about science, but about Lucas rejecting science that conflicts with “common sense”, where “common sense” is, of course, equivalent to what Lucas – being a religious fundamentalist – thinks support his positions. Relativity, for instance, has to go. As they say “[a]t the end of the 20th century, (Thomas) Barnes, (David L.) Bergman, [Glen C. Collins, and] Lucas […] began to build on the older classical work [...] Working outside the mainstream physics establishment, their common goal was to correct what they perceived as deficiencies in modern physics by reapplying what they deemed to be sound scientific methods […] By striving to maintain the principles of reality, causality and unity throughout their work, they hoped to bring ‘common sense’ back to the field of physics.” In other words, replace the scientific method with their own intuitions – which is sort of missing a rather important point. So what are they up to? “Common Sense Science is a body of theory regarding matter and forces that describes the physical world using geometric models, absolute time and Galilean space […] The foundational principles of CSS theory are based upon the law of cause and effect and the assertion that the universe and all natural phenomena are fundamentally electrical in character. These principles have led to the derivation of a universal force law that applies on all scales ranging from the sub-atomic to the cosmic domain and to the development of physical models for elementary particles, nuclei, atoms and molecules. Although the new models are novel and in many ways strikingly different from the standard model of elementary particles, they have an inherent simplicity and physical form that appeals to common sense.” It doesn’t fit with reality, of course, but the premise of their work is precisely that when common sense and reality come into conflict, reality must go. After all, Lucas et al. claim to have Jesus on their side – rummaging through the website you won’t find any evidence for anything, but instead repeated assertions that their model is compatible with Judeo-Christian beliefs. Nor does it add up mathematically, but of course: the number one problem with new scientific theories is that “[p]hysical models of matter were replaced with mathematical equations”. In other words, math is bad since it is not commonsensical, and it fails to be commonsensical because it doesn’t give Lucas et al. the results they need to maintain their Biblically based theories. Crackpottery rarely comes more thoroughly cracked than that. In their page on “Atomism and Quantum Mechanics”, they launch a diatribe against Lucretius, claiming that all of modern physics is derived from the idea of atomism as proposed by Lucretius, and that Lucretius proposed atomism not as an explanation for how things work, but as a way of freeing mankind from the bonds of religion. “Lucretius, not Darwin, has been the principal spokesman for evolution during the last two millennia,” and the relevance just strikes you purely intuitively and commonsensically. Instead, they propose their own model of the atom, on which Lucas has given a number of presentation (including at universities, as sponsored by Campus Bible Fellowships): “The presentation in is the form of a PowerPoint using many pictures to explain the new theory of gravity that supports a Biblical view of creation.” Who needs evidence when you’ve got a PowerPoint with many pictures? Lucas also has a presentation on “Expanding Earth: Evidence For Biblical Creation”. Their links page is given over exclusively to such important, cutting-edge scientific organizations as Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, and so on. Diagnosis: As shining and brilliant example of delusional crackpottery as you are likely to find, and as so often the insanity is attributed to Jesus. The Common Sense Scientists are, however, at present rather old and feeble, and probably rather harmless. Virginia Tech gets a visit from the tinfoil hat brigade http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/09/18/virginia-tech-gets-a-visit-fro/ Posted by PZ Myers on September 18, 2008 CAMPUS BIBLE FELLOWSHIP INVITES YOUR ORGANIZATION MEMBERS TO A CREATION SEMINAR on the “EXPANDING EARTH: EVIDENCE FOR BIBLICAL CREATION” PRESENTED BY DR. BILL LUCAS, B.S., M.S., PH.D in Theoretical Physics TO BE HELD ON FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 19, 2008 AT 7 P.M. IN SQUIRES STUDENT CENTER, ROOM #341 The presentation in is the form of a PowerPoint using many pictures to explain the new theory of gravity that supports a Biblical view of creation. There will be opportunity following the presentation for questions and answers. If you would like to check out the organization that Dr. Lucas works with, you can go to the website: www.commonsensescience.org Any physics-minded people at Virginia Tech who would like to deal with some crackpots coming to your campus? There is a talk at Virginia Tech this Friday by Bill Lucas on his claimed biblical model for the structure of atoms. It looks like very weird stuff. You really have to check out that Common Sense Science site — it’s very glib. They claim to have a new model for the structure of matter that involves spinning rings; nowhere do they explain what problems this model solves. I know, I’m not a physicist, so how would I know this isn’t really an exciting and revolutionary new idea? Well, there’s a couple of clues. First and foremost, it claims to be a new idea in physics, but there’s no math anywhere. That is very surprising. Second, when you rummage around, you won’t find any scientific rationale for anything…but you will find repeated assertions that the model is compatible with Judeo-Christian beliefs. That’s an awfully feeble excuse. And finally, if you expect their links page to give you some useful external sources to check against, think again. The only external sites mentioned are places like Answers in Genesis, the Institute for Creation Research, the Creation Research Society, etc. You will not find any credible physics at any of those sites — actually, you won’t find any science of any kind. And of course, the flier is the clincher. This will be a preachin’ fraud who will try to bedazzle the audience with pseudoscience. If any of you go, let me know what he says! There could be real entertainment value here. You might also want to get in touch with Freethinkers at Virginia Tech; they’re trying to coordinate some kind of response. Howell - below are selcted blog comments from a total of 173, as of 11Sep2015. The last comment dates to 26Jan2009. One blogger (a non-physicist) appears to have downloaded an article from the commonsense website (on H2). qedpro September 18, 2008 OMFG, this is what he claims to have done based on the universal force being identified from the Bible as the Divine force. From the universal force alone Bill was able to describe many aspects of the creation, the mechanism causing Noah’s flood, what happened to all the water after the flood, and what caused the division of the continents 101 years later. Owlmirror September 18, 2008 This might explain why there is no math: The current models are mathematical models and consist of equations. Although these models are more successful, they contain many assumptions, internal inconsistencies, and violations of proven laws. [ From http://www.commonsensescience.org/electron_models.html ] So there you go. Mathematical models are, y’know, internally inconsistent and in violation of proven laws. Owlmirror September 18, 2008 Oh, wait. There’s more. (There always is, isn’t there?) But the electron, proton, and neutron all have measured amounts of spin (angular momentum) and magnetic moment. These features can only exist because the particles have a finite, non-zero size. So, a self-contradiction of the common theory is evident: On one hand, the particles are said to be point-like; on the other hand, they are known to have a finite size (needed to have a spin, magnetic moment and the distribution of charge referenced in the next paragraph). This inconsistency in modern science is incompatible with a Judeo-Christian world view of consistency where expediency is rejected and contradictions are never allowed. [ From http://www.commonsensescience.org/contradictions.html ] IasonOuabache September 18, 2008 Here’s an interesting blog post I found on Lucas: http://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/the-return-of-lucas-recap-corr-june-15-2006/ philosoraptor September 18, 2008 Any fellow physicists around here, have a look at the first slide on Silkworm’s site: http://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/the-return-of-lucas-recap-corr-june-15-2006/ Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but does he have an (R^2 – ( V^2/c^2)*sin^2(theta)) in the denominator of his ‘Force’ equation? It looks like V is velocity and R is radius. I hope he fixed that, because the units don’t even work out right. metres^2 – unitless? (As you can tell by MY units, I’m north of the 49th). Steven Dunlap September 18, 2008 I found a cite for his dissertation on Proquest: LUCAS, CHARLES WILLIAM, JR. 1974. A DIRECT-REACTION MULTIPLE-SCATTERING PION-NUCLEUS OPTICAL MODEL POTENTIAL. Ph.D. diss., The College of William and Mary. In Dissertations & Theses: Full Text [database on-line]; available from http://0-www.proquest.com.library.ggu.edu:80/ (publication number AAT 7422287; accessed September 18, 2008). The descriptor states “Nuclear physics” not “theoretical physics.” I am unable to access even an abstract of this online. I’ll see what else I can dig up. Generally, a 30+ year old dissertation does not mean as much as some would like to think. The policy of “publish or perish” exists for good reason. One must keep up with developments in the field in order to publish. If you do not keep up with your field, your expertise falls out of date and no longer has the relevance and/or accurate needed to hold a claim to having authority in that field. Which is not to say that all Ph.D.s who do not publish are dullards. Just consider the “age” of the information (among many factors) when assessing its accuracy, relevance or usefulness for a given purpose. co September 18, 2008 philosoraptor: Fellow physicist here. You’re absolutely right about his extremely questionable units. Then again, he claims that our current best theories aren’t consistent with each other (did you see the rail against how Jackson—and every other physicist—writes Maxwell’s equations? He complains that they’re not consistent with Galilean relativity. To which I say, “No shit!”), so apparently he’s taking whatever liberties he can get away with. TimJ September 18, 2008 Well, I don’t know. I looked at his ring models for hydrogen and (I think it was) neon. Very..hmmm…well, picturesque? :) Now, to continue his work he needs to use his model to derive the hydrogen spectral lines (including the hyperfine structure) and predict the scattering cross section for Rutherford scattering. I somewhat suspect we may be waiting for some time. Dr. Pablito September 18, 2008 Okay, another physicist here. These sorts of people are actually not that uncommon in physics. People with broken minds like this show up to physics meetings to try to present their latest developments in “Theory of Everything”. They submit papers to journals, send mass emails to the membership lists of professional societies. The rather surprising thing is that most of them do not have the Christian flavor. They tend to be merely suffering from delusions of grandeur, poorly integrated psychological functioning, really bad at social functioning, etc. etc. Please do not waste your time attending this person’s presentation. It will not be interesting. Likely just saddening. The people to watch out for are the fundamentalist zealots who have some amount of power and can influence things. This person does not fall into that camp. a lurker September 18, 2008 This ring of the atom is actually decades-old creationist crap developed by Thomas Barnes who is more famous for his claims that the Earth’s magnetic field is decaying therefore young-earth creationism. He developed these ideas in the Creation “Research” Society Quarterly articles in the 1970 and later in a book published by the ICR called Physics of the Future. The rather pompous title his a nice hint that he was a quack. PZ is wrong that they don’t use math. They did and by the bucket load. Maybe they don’t put it up in their web site so the physics people will actually have to get a hold of obscure reference in order to debunk them. However, I must ask: how hard would it be for someone with physics degrees to come up with B.S. equations? Not very I would imagine. Maybe some physics guys could get some of their “technical” works to debunk them. But in the end the most important thing to note is that these guys reject quantum mechanics, which has been extraordinarily good at explaining and predicting things. Chemists and physicists use quantum mechanics for one reason: it works. And until the “common sense” guys and predict chemical reactivity, spectra, etc. as well as quantum mechanics, I don’t see why anyone needs to take them seriously. Dr. Pablito September 18, 2008 @106, @109 The title and topic of his dissertation are not crazy at all. I haven’t read the thing, of course, but it looks perfectly acceptable, if a little dated. It is likely to be a theoretical treatment of nuclear physics problems — how nuclear reactions occur and can be calculated more accurately. We don’t use that formalism much any more, because it wasn’t a promising research direction. It seems clear that this guy just went off the rails somewhere after (or before — such things happen) completing his dissertation. Again, it’s not worth the trouble to attend this fellow’s “lecture”. The campus fundamentalists have gotten involved with a crazy person because the fundamentalists mistakenly thought that he would support their agenda and bring a veneer of scientific respectability. Pathetic and sad, really. Bouncing Bosons September 18, 2008 Hah, the first sentence on the site sets the tone: “Common Sense Science is a body of theory regarding matter and forces that describes the physical world using geometric models, absolute time and Galilean space in a way that strives to be consistent with experimental observations and free of internal contradictions.” I would point out that experimental observations directly rule out absolute time and Galilean transformations in space as a possible framework to describe reality. astronomer September 18, 2008 I have personally encountered an expanding earth weirdo. He was lurking around the University of Oregon physics department, and he spotted me on the stairs carrying a book about galaxy formation. He started what first appeared to be a casual conversation about galaxy formation, but quickly evolved into an impassioned sales pitch for the expanding earth thing, based on the Neal Adams idea mentioned by previous commenters. His name was Charles Cagle (“physicist” according to his business card), and his website is singtech.com, where he claims to design nuclear fusion reactors, lol. I didn’t argue with him, just let him think I was naive, patiently listening, inwardly marveling at the depths of his sophistry. He totally reminded me of a pushy salesman. Sphere Coupler September 18, 2008 First off theoretical physics is a highly legitimate field. Many scientist are in this category,Bohr, Hawking, Einstein, Rutherford, Tesla, Schrodinger, etc. The original expanding earth theory was put forth by Samuel Warren Carry a geologist,1/11/1911 to 3/20/2002. According to NASA, Landsat data indicated the earth grew by 22 inches in 2007. Every day the sun shines, mass is delivered to the surface of the earth along with all planetary bodies in the solar system.The sun expels a solar wind that contains mass in the form of ions and leptons. I do not know what lunacy is promoted by the speaker in question,but I think it rather odd that plate tech had gained favor over EET by the religious back in the day. Plate tech was more favorable to the religious and still allowed continuing science to proceed. All of the data is not yet in,so I would not discount this theory because of a few adamant people.I haven’t wasted my time to read his theory, but if it conforms to a religous viewpoint I think this is downright screwedup. If there are any particle physicist who would like to comment on where the water came from, seriously and don’t give me that creationist point of view …it don’t wash. Clemens September 18, 2008 At the very beginning of his talk he points out an “incosistency”, namely that the electron is a point particle and yet has a magnetic moment. He says that because of its angular momentum (spin) it has to have finite size. This is a non-sequitur. First of all, spin is not the same as angular momentum. It just is an internal degree of freedom whose mathematical description is formally equivalent to that of angular momentum degrees of freedom. Second, the classical formula for magnetic moment requires a charge distribution to have finite size. This tells nothing about quantum electrodynamics. So his “inconsistency” is merely the fact that quantum mechanics are different from classical mechanics. Big deal. Furthermore, I wonder if his theory describes quantum field effects such as the creation of electron-positron pairs in the vacuum, or the lamb-shift in atomic spectra… Steven Dunlap September 20, 2008 So, Heisenberg is stopped by a traffic cop The cop asks him, “Do you know how fast you were going?” Heisenberg responds, “No, but I know exactly where I am.” Zetetic September 20, 2008 This is an older thread now, so possibly no one will see this comment. And I apologize if someone figured this out earlier and I missed it. My fiance figured out that if you Google for the papers on the Common Sense Science website you will have no problem getting access to them. Apparently they don’t have things set up properly to limit access to those who have paid, so if you have a link to the paper it will allow you to see it. Here is a link to one of them: http://www.commonsensescience.org/pdf/articles/hydrogen.pdf My fiance’s comment on it: “I saw one of the papers on the structure of hydrogen… it didn’t have any math really, only saying that work done has shown that the spectra of hydrogen is predicted by it. But the show stopper was him saying that his model does not allow the hydrogen atom to be stable by itself, and only works for hydrogen molecules (H2)… so therefore it is impossible to have atomic hydrogen. It is not easy to have atomic hydrogen… but this is not in the realm of esoteric particle physics experiments. There are commercial atomic hydrogen generators for use in semiconductor processing.” I’m not a physicist myself, so I can’t speak to it personally. But I thought some of you might be interested in reading his papers without having to support the lunacy financially. The Return of Lucas Recap. CORR June 15, 2006 June 16, 2006 at 9:50 am | Posted in Journal of Anti-Science meetings | 39 Comments on the site "Defending Science, Scientists, and NonScience https://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/the-return-of-lucas-recap-corr-june-15-2006/ The meeting was smaller than expected, only about 30 people. After a delay to solve a technical problem with the audio, Dr. Bill Lucas, from Common Sense Science and confirmed PhD in physics from William & Mary, did join us via closed-circuit television (CCTV), and, so, I finally ended up discrediting him. I have to give credit to JD Lehman and the people at CORR who helped him, they did a fantastic job setting this up. We in the audience were facing a giant screen with Dr. Lucas’ slides on the left and Dr. Lucas himself from his home on the right. I liked this format, it was easy to see both Lucas and his slides. So, Dr. Lucas started his presentation closer to 7:30PM than 7:00PM, but I’m not complaining. He started off explaining his “Divine Force Law,” by explaining why it is necessary. He said that using a point-particle assumption in physics doesn’t allow for the existence of God because that does not allow God to be omnipresent. He said that because of relativity God could not be omniscient. And he said that quantum mechanics does not allow for a definition of sin. These are all of his interpretations, science only uses nature to explain phenomena and can not control for or test for God, so the actions and presence of God are not considered in science, it is limited by nature. His whole point is to apparently make God a being in nature and inside the limitations of science, so he slapped some equations together to get rid of this “problem.” Basically the “Divine Force Law” is a derived equation with no experimental data and makes wild predictions that have no support by actual phenomena. Here it is, still titled “Universal Electrodynamic Force” but he calls it the “Divine Force”: Divine Force And here’s Dr. Lucas’ slide explaining his derived equation’s superiority: [Howell - picture doesn't show, couldn't get...] It’s more lengthy to attack Lucas’ equation than it is the prediction he claims it makes, so here we go. This is a little tough to follow, but I’ll do my best to explain it. Lucas claims that the Earth radiates energy and so loses mass and gravity, while at the same time expanding. So, Lucas claims that the Earth loses energy and so loses mass. This is a prediction his “Divine Force” makes and he made several statements to back it up. One of them that was people in Biblical times lived so long because the intense gravity of the Earth kept more oxygen close to the surface, and said that the gravity now when a maximum life expectancy is 100 years is 1/9th that of in Biblical times when ages of 900 years are reported in the Bible. He also used this very bad geology: Bad Geology 1 Lucas claims that these images are top secret so the Navy can hide subs in the rock formations of these “stretch marks,” but he shared them with us. Lucas’ view as the the Earth started out only as large as land surface would allow, and has been expanding ever since, causing all of the continents to break apart and all move away from each other, causing these cracks, stretch marks, in the surface. He then claimed that all bodies in our solar system show the same thing, showing images of Venus, Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, Mars, and this slide of the Moon: [Howell - picture doesn't show, couldn't get...] Lucas claimed that is is evident that the moon is “cracking” as the “continents of the moon” spread as it expands. He further went on to claim support with really bad chemistry, that his equation predicts a planar structure for cyclohexane. However I don’t have the slide to show this, and I focused on attacking his geology so I’ll stick with that. But I will say that while Lucas claims an sp3 C is cubic, it is very well understood in chemistry is in fact tetrahedral, and that cyclohexane flips between chair and boat formations, it certainly is not planar. When the presentation was over, after about an hour and a half I was the first to ask a question. So I walked up to the front of the room and asked to return to the first geology slide of the presentation and I began. I’m sorry that I don’t have an audio recording of this, and the exchange was too quick and long for me to quote verbatim, but I tried my best to get the points across. Me: “So, Dr. Lucas, your claim is that the Earth is losing mass but expanding, do you have any data to support this? I mean, have you compared the mass of the Earth today compared to that of the mass that Lavoisier came up with 200 years ago? Do you have any data to show that the Earth really is expanding?” Lucas mentioned the cracks so I interrupted. Me: “These cracks that you are referring to is the mid-oceanic ridge. It’s very well known and not top-secret. We don’t know too much about the deep ocean is the sea life because it’s tough to explore due to the pressure. We’re very aware of the mid-oceanic ridge and it’s actually somewhat famous for sea floor spreading and its connection to plate motion, plate tectonics.” Lucas said, “Well, physicists have problems with plate tectonics.” Me: “What physicists? Geologists don’t. You’re taking something that’s part of geology and saying it’s proof that the Earth is expanding, but you have no data. Geologists know that the continents are moving and we have a lot of data proving that. But it’s not all expanding away from each other. North America is going towards Asia, and how do you explain India? How do you explain the Himalayas?” Lucas: “The Himalayas are another crack.” Me: “The Himalayas are still growing today because India is still slamming into Asia. Everything isn’t spreading out, it’s just moving. There is data for that, and you have no data or any support at all for what you’re saying, and you’re going against very well established geology. Do you have any quantifiable data, any numbers?” Lucas: “Yes, I do. Me: “Then where is it? Lucas: “I have data.” Me: “Where? You didn’t present any. Geologists use P, S, and L waves to measure seismic events and determine what’s underneath the surface. Do you have any data about them changing, because an expanding Earth would definitely change them?” Lucas didn’t appear to have an answer, but said something like, “These cracks…” so I moved on. Me: “I’ve explained the cracks and you have no data. Let’s go to the moon.” JD Lehman changed the slide to the moon. “The moon does not have continents and it is not expanding. It is geologically dead. These cracks your talking about are from meteors bombarding it. The moon has no atmosphere to protect it, and hasn’t been geologically active for a very long time so it doesn’t have something like volcanism to cover up its blemishes.” Lucas: “The moon has been hit with meteors but there are cracks.” Me: “I see craters. Do you have any data that the moon is expanding?” Lucas: “You can measure that with GPS.” Me: “Then where is it? You have no data to back up your claims.” Lucas: “I do too, Venus…” Me: “I saw Venus has cracks too. You’re either telling me everything in the solar system is geologically dead or geologically active but still expanding, which is it?” Lucas: “That depends on what you mean by geologically active.” Me: “By geologically active I mean geologically active. This is horrible geology and you have absolutely no data to back up anything that you’ve said. You have absolutely nothing.” Lucas: “It’s hard to explain everything I can’t get every little detail perfect.” Me: “Anything would have been nice.” Lucas: “Have you ever been to a scientific lecture?” Me: “Well, I saw Wootters, a physicist, here, and I saw Dr. Gingerich at Bethany [I meant Bethel, I always get the 2 names confused]. I try to go to as many as I can, and I was hoping for one tonight, but that didn’t happen. This wasn’t scientific. You have no data or support. You have nothing.” Lucas: “I do have something or I wouldn’t have gotten to present at the AAAS in Tulsa.” Me: “You presented at the AAAS at the Tulsa conference?” Lucas: “Yes, they reviewed it, I do have support or I wouldn’t have been able to present.” Me: “You mentioned this when you were here in April, and I did a little research. You did not present to the AAAS you presented to the Natural Philosophy Alliance.” Lucas: “I presented to the AAAS-SWARM.” Me: “You’re on the list for abstracts accepted by the NPA (the list can be found here) and on the NPA’s schedule for presentation at their Tulsa conference that was at the same time and place as the AAAS, but you did not present to AAAS.” Lucas: “It was to the AAAS.” Me: “No you didn’t. I asked the executive director of AAAS-SWARM, David Nash, what the relationship between them and the NPA was. And he said this: To answer your questions: No, AAAS in no way endorses NPA and the NPA and AAAS do not work together at any point. We occasionally allow them to meet at the SWARM regional meetings as their own separate group, but do not advertise or promote their meetings. We are well aware that many of the presenters present (to be kind) “controversial” views and ideas. SWARM’s position is not to attempt to censor any ideas presented in an oral format, but this should in no way be seen as supporting any theories presented in this format. I hope this answers your questions. If you have any others, please don’t hesitate to contact me. David Nash, Executive Director AAAS SWARM Division” Lucas: “That’s not right, the AAAS accepted the papers and I presented to them.” Me: “I asked about that and he said: The NPA abstracts were not reviewed by SWARM, only the NPA folks. No, these presentations should not be considered a presentation to AAAS. It is there own separate meeting held with our meetings, but only superficially. David Nash, Executive Director AAAS SWARM Division” Lucas: “That’s not right. The papers were reviewed by SWARM and I presented to them.” Me: “The executive director of AAAS-SWARM says that you did not present to them, because you didn’t, you presented to the NPA. You couldn’t present this to AAAS because you have nothing, it’s garbage.” Lucas: “David is in an official position and he has to give the politically correct answer.” Me: “Well, it appears as though his ‘politically correct’ answer is the correct answer because he is the Executive Director of a very well respected organization that you say you presented to and that says you never presented to them, and they never reviewed you.” Lucas: “That’s a lie.” Me: “Are you calling David Nash a liar? No wait. Are YOU calling David Nash a liar?” Lucas: “They reviewed me and I presented to them.” Me: “You have absolutely no data, nothing to support your claims, and you’re making up credentials in order to be listened to.” Lucas: “I do have data.” Me: “Okay?” Lucas: “If you look at Venus…” Me: “Wait. Should I pretend to be the AAAS?” Lucas: “You can pretend if you want.” Me: “Because if you’re going to tell people I’m the AAAS I wish you would tell me… I wonder, what are you trying to do here? You’re not conducting yourself honestly. Can you say that presented to the NPA, because you did?” Lucas: “I presented to the AAAS.” Me: “The AAAS says you didn’t. You have absolutely no data and your basic geology is horrible. On top of that, you’re making up credentials. You have absolutely no credibility, sir. You are not a scientist, and I suggest you find another line of work.” With that, I turned to go to my seat. An Indian man, a member of CORR, said to me, “That wasn’t nice.” Me: “He’s lying and he has no accountability. What am I supposed to do? Give him the Nobel Prize?” I sat down and I wondered why this Indian man, who I had talked to many times and seemed rational, thought that I was being rude as Dr. Moore-Jansen approached the mic. Dr. Moore-Jansen was very cool, and very calmly explained how Dr. Lucas’ presentation would be better served by data. As a biological anthropologist, and using the example of people living at different altitudes (and in different concentrations of oxygen) he also explained that there is no correlation between increased oxygen and increased longevity, and he asked where Dr. Lucas got data saying otherwise. Lucas: “Somebody at Johns Hopkins told me if you bathe a chronically ill person, like with diabetes, in oxygen they’ll heal.” Me: “That’s offensive. There is no cure for diabetes, and if it just took a little oxygen we would have cured my sister who’s had it since she was 2. She’s 30 now, we’ve had time to check things out.” Dr. Moore-Jansen said while it’s a pleasant idea he doesn’t really have anything scientific. While others asked questions, I wondered about the Indian man and what the deal was. Then Dr. Van Stipdonk tapped me on the shoulder, “He just said Catholic University.” So I got up and went to the mic, Dave, one of us, gave me the mic. Me: “I’m sorry for the interruption. Did you say you have a professorship at Catholic University?” Lucas: “No.” Me: “I’m sorry, I thought you just said that, but it’s still interesting because here on your resume on the Common Sense Science website, available as recently as today, it says that you were a professor at Catholic University.” [Howell - I have not included Lucas's resume - the main point is that he was NOT a professor, as stated in the resume.] Lucas: “I know. It’s not my fault. That shouldn’t be on there. I asked them to take it off.” Me: “So you’re telling me you’re not responsible for what’s on your resume?” Lucas: “I got a call from Catholic University to notify me.” Dr. Van Stipdonk yelled from the audience, “When was that? I asked them about it and they seemed concerned.” JD Lehman interrupted: “That’s not supposed to be on there. Before he visited (the first time) I asked him about it and he said it shouldn’t be.” Me: “He’s never had a professorship, why should I believe that’s just an accident? He never presented to the AAAS.” I sat back down. Lehman suggested we end the meeting and asked Lucas if he had any last words. I don’t remember what Lucas said, something about the “Divine Force.” Me: “And you have nothing.” Lucas: “I have a lot of support. I have the papers, and they have 150-200 citations.” Moore-Jansen: “Okay, but what do they say, that doesn’t mean they have support? Were those sources peer-reviewed?” Me: “Have you ever been peer-reviewed?” Lucas: “I have 40-60 peer reviewed papers in APS (American Physical Society) journals.” Dr. Van Stipdonk did some work on this and found that he had between 6 and 8 papers that were published. Dr. Moore-Jansen looked at me and I just shook my head, “No,” and said, “but I don’t have the documentation.” Moore-Jansen: “I’m sorry, did you say 4-6 or 40-60?” Lucas: “40-60.” Me: “So, if I look I should be able to find 40-60 articles by you in APS journals?” Lucas: “Well, some of them will be hard to find, they go all the way back to 1960.” Me: “Well, it’s pretty easy to get papers here at the university, and computers are a funny thing nowadays. I can just type in, Lucas, CW and I should be able to find 40-60 in APS journals, right?” Lucas: “I don’t know, they go all the way back to 1960.” Me: “1960 is no problem.” Lucas: “I do have data too, I can email you the papers.” I’d already seen some of them so, Me: “I’m not giving you my email address. I don’t want you SPAMming me.” Lehman: “He’ll send them to me, and I’ll send them out.” Dr. Lucas signed off and the Indian man said to me again, “That wasn’t nice. I never expected that from you.” Me: “He lied. He’s making up false credentials and he’s lying to us. He has no accountability or credibility or data. What am I supposed to do?” JD Lehman came up to me and said, “He is not a liar.” Me: “I’m sorry David, but the AAAS says that he didn’t present to them.” I gave JD Lehman the emails from David Nash and Dr. Van Stipdonk explained that saying you presented to the AAAS and actually didn’t is a very big deal, and Dr. Moore-Jansen came over to explain that having a fake resume will get you into trouble. Dr. Van Stipdonk also explained a lot of the problems with Dr. Lucas’ sources, because he had Dr. Lucas’ papers and their papers were not peer-reviewed. With that, the meeting was over, and a total success. There is no way Dr. Bill Lucas’ credibility could not be in serious question by anyone in the audience. While it’s hard to give this man credit for anything, I believe in giving credit where credit is due. So I thought I’d just identify the least ridiculous claim he made all night. The award goes to his claim of kinship to famous filmmaker George Lucas. I put Dr. Lucas’ picture next to Mr. Lucas’ picture so you can see the family resemblance for yourself. I’m waiting for George Lucas to respond to my email to verify his claim, and I’ll make it a point to post it here. Thank you to Dr. Van Stipdonk for pointing me in the right direction a few times, and Dr. Moore-Jansen and all the other good guys for attending. [Howell - here are selected blog comments from 39 in total...] Comment by Jeff— June 17, 2006 # Very interesting. I got in a long email argument with a proponent of CSS’s work a while back. It wasn’t all about what Lucas claims, but we did end up contacting Lucas and letting him respond to some of my objections. Sadly, he didn’t respond to my response and that was the end of it. It seemed to me that he made some of the kind of broad, unsupported claims (physicists don’t like plate tectonics?) you’re taking issue with. Our discussion was about relativity and I know very little about that subject, so I hesitate to condemn him too harshly. I did notice that there’s very little on the web responding to his arguments. I get the impression that this is because they’re really terrible arguments, but it’s hard for some of us non-physicists to see that. Comment by bigdumbchimp— June 18, 2006 # Dr. Lucas signed off and the Indian man said to me again, “That wasn’t nice. I never expected that from you.” Wasn’t nice? Wasn’t NICE? Since when was science or debate based how cordial you are to someone. I suppose we should be nice to Ham, Hovind, Behe, Dembski et al. and not bring up the factual ineptitude of their movements and that will somehow bring them to the side of facts and evidence? Anyway. Love the blog. Keep up the good work. Comment by nastynista— June 20, 2006 # Silkworm…so I read this blog of yours…harsh, but extremely and respectably understandable. I was offended with his terrible worldly picture pointing out the expanding cracks. Dr Lucas “claims” the images are top secret so the Navy’s subs can hide in these cracks. Well, my brother is in the Navy and as you know my father is a retired Major in the Air Force and has worked in the pentagon on top secret missions in corresponds with Navy and Army. Anything in the military that is “top secret” or not is never shared with the civilian public, NEVER, because it can put America and the people in the everyday world in danger. And they sure as hell will not use that terrible picture that looks like a first grader’s art project and sure as hell would not share any information with Dr Lucas. Anyway, after reading your blog I have became angry and further support all your efforts to defend science b/c all these guys are all talk and no action, no evidence, no common sense, no nothing!! I am proud of you. All I need to do is now is educate myself. signed nastynista Comment by Mike Van Stipdonk, Ph.D.— June 28, 2006 # First, I want all those reading this blog to know that Mr. Rhodes has presented a very accurate recap of the last “lecture” by Dr. Lucas. When challenged by Brock to supply just one piece of scientific evidence to support his hypotheses, Dr. Lucas responsed with obfuscation, misinformation and, worst of all, lies. Second, my thanks to Brock for his tenacity and courage. Thanks also to Chris Leavitt for asking how, using the Lucas Divine Force Law, he might set up a controlled experiment to test for the decay of gravity. Thanks to Dave Franks for penetrating questions about the origin of Lucas’ funding. Ryan Dain asked for scientific evidence that planetary (and I guess satellite) orbits are quantized. None of these guys (Brock included) received fair and satisfying answers to their questions. However, they demonstrated in convincing fashion who the real critical thinkers in the room were. Comment by Pat McComb— September 18, 2008 # A great read! By the way, Lucas still hasn’t gotten around to fixing his resume (PDF): http://tinyurl.com/3wkjat Comment by Michael Neville— September 19, 2008 # Speaking as a retired submarine officer, I can assure everyone that submarines do not hide in Mid-Ocean Ridge “stretch marks.” The ridge is about 2,500 meters (8,200 ft) below sea level, while its flank is about 5,000 meters deeper. With the exception of bathyscapes and Deep Submergence Vehicles like Alvin, no submarine can submerge that deep. Transmittal of Top Secret material (or any other classified documents) to an unauthorized recipient is a felony punishable by imprisonment for life without the possibility of parole (or by death in time of war). Possession of classified material by an unauthorized person is also a felony punishable by imprisonment for up to 20 years and a fine of up to $100,000. Fortunately for Dr. Lucas, lying about possession of classified material is not illegal. Comment by Earl E Dixon Jr.— February 8, 2014 # That was in 2006, do you still feel that way? It is 2014 now and many scientist are fed up with the standard model, Einstein, and QM. I believe Dr. Lucas has solved the structure and forces of the universe. It answers almost all phenomenon. He and his team are real scientist looking for truth……not caring where it leads(being insulted like on this post). The only thing proven here is how hard it is to get to the truth. And bigotry against Christians. Dr. Bill Lucas update: 1 week after being discredited June 22, 2006 at 9:27 pm | Posted in Journal of Anti-Science meetings | 3 Comments https://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/22/dr-bill-lucas-update-1-week-after-being-discredited/ Well, today is Thursday. That’s 1 entire week from last Thursday, when Dr. Bil Lucas presented to Chritians for Origins and Religious Research, a student group at Wichita State University, and was caught in a few lies. (A recap of the meeting can be found here https://silkworm.wordpress.com/2006/06/16/the-return-of-lucas-recap-corr-june-15-2006/). One of these lies was a professorship at Catholic University that is on his resume. Catholic University says he’s never had one. When I confronted him over it, he said that what is on his resume is not his responsibility and he’ll get it corrected. Well, it’s 1 week later, a reasonable amount of time, so I went to check on Dr. Lucas’ progress by viewing his resume here, and the fake professorship still has not been removed from his resume. I’m not going to let this issue die, but I’ll make sure to have a correspondence with American University, who is also listed on his resume as having had him as a professor, before pressing the issue any further. I’ve also let David Nash, executive director of AAAS-SWARM (a well respected scientific organization), know that Dr. Bill Lucas called him a liar, and I’m curious how many of those who actually presented to the Natural Philosophy Alliance, a pseudoscience group who accept people like Lucas, at their Tulsa conference now claim to have presented to the AAAS. I’ve also done a search of Dr. Lucas’ claim of having 40-60 articles published in American Physical Society journals. Through an author search on the APS website, which searches all APS journals all the way back to 1893 (he said I wouldn’t be able to find them all because he claimed they went all the way back to 1960), it was revealed to me that Lucas, in fact, only has 2 APS articles. 1. Threshold Photoproduction of Pions on 6Li F. Cannata, C. W. Lucas, Jr., and C. W. Werntz Phys. Rev. Lett. 33, 1316-1319 (1974) 2. Contributions of nucleon momenta to the pion optical potential F. Cannata, C. W. Lucas, Jr., and C. Werntz Phys. Rev. C 10, 2093-2095 (1974) I’m a reasonable person, but 2 is nowhere near 40, you are responsible for committing fraud on your own resume, and the AAAS is not the NPA. Despite all of this, Lucas still has his following of people who know his lies but still promote him, the leaders of CORR for example. One of these men, Dr. Paul Ackerman is listed “creation scientist” at both Answers in Genesis and the Institute of Creation Research. Each of those organizations are responsible for a library of media that misrepresents textbook science that misleads their audience of nonscientists, I’ve viewed a good portion of it at CORR meetings. Ackerman’s continued embrace of Dr. Lucas is evidence to me that these misrepresentations are intentional lies, and the media itself would more correctly be called propaganda. This propaganda and people like Lucas, of which there are many, do damage. I know for a fact that there are also over 100 people around Wichita who were lied to by Lucas, through who he said he was and what he said about science, and believed him. They may always believe that scientists are a group evil conspirators and that he’s been persecuted by, who come up with riduculous notions and create models that don’t work and use each other to hide and get fat, when really he’s really just a liar. Too bad he’s not the only one. Book Review: Dr. C.W. Lucas – The Universal Force, Volume 1 by Anton Lorenz Vrba | Jun 1, 2015 http://worldnpa.org/ Members of the NPA praise Dr. Lucas scientific work, reason enough to buy the first volume of his four volume work. I immediately noticed that Lucas’ book has many mathematical errors, therefor I cannot take this book seriously and consequently recommend others to also dismiss it. [Howell : NOTE that I have used my own non-standard format below, as the images were problematic and time consuming...] Book Review: Dr. C.W. Lucas – The Universal Force, Volume 1 by Anton Lorenz Vrba | Jun 1, 2015 | 2 comments http://worldnpa.org/book-review-dr-c-w-lucas-the-universal-force-volume-1/ Members of the NPA praise Dr. Lucas scientific work, reason enough to buy the first volume of his four volume work (The Universal Force). To orientate myself in any new work I usually read the opening and closing paragraphs of chapters and interspersed random bits that have caught my attention while scanning through the book. The typesetting and general layout was a bit confusing and inconsistent. Nevertheless, the content is the essence, not the appearance. Lucas, in Chapter 4, makes his first important assertion, quote: Equation (4-44) is the derived version of the electrodynamic force F for an elastic finite-size charged particle to order v [Howell : should be 4...] in Galilean transformation. The v/c factors typically identified with Special Relativity Theory are found to originate from finite-size electrical feedback effects, nonlinear effects, and conservation of energy and momentum. The last sentence is ambiguous: Is v/c dependent on only one of the three cases under certain circumstance, or dependent on varying combination of the three cases? Let’s derive Equation (4-44) on Page 92, the page can be viewed by clicking on the thumbnail to the left.  We start with the Equation (4-43) now renamed to (1) and (2) and we assume these to be correct. (1)   E(r,v) = E0(r) + Ei(r,v) = E0(r)*(1 - β^2)/(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(3/2) and (2)   Bi(r,v) = v/cE(r,v) Lucas states: Now the total electromagnetic force F exerted by the moving charge distribution on a test charge q' is using equation (4-26) for the Lorentz force and begins Equation (4-44) with (3)   F(r,v) = q*{E(r,v) + (v/c)Bi(r,v)} and the confusion and obfuscation begins. We forgive the typo,  the equation uses q and not q' as stated in the preceding text. However, we cannot overlook Lucas’ gross mathematical mistakes. He develops (3) to (4)   F(r,v) = q* E0(r) * (1 - β^2) /(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(3/2) *[(1 - β^2 + β^2*cos^2(θ))*r - (β·r)*r(rβ) ] The (1 - β^2) term marked a should not be multiplied with the unit vecor r_^ and the remaining terms, marked b should be grouped with Eo a scalar equal to the magnitude of E0(r) that is a scalar is multiplied by a vector. The vector product E0*r_^ does not exist in mathematics! Furthermore, how the cos^2(θ) term is obtained remains a mystery to me. The correct development of (3) is (5)   F(r,v) = q*{E(r,v) + (v/c)Bi(r,v)} using (2) to express Bi in terms of E (6)   F(r,v) = q*{ E(r,v) + (v/c)[ (v/c)E(r,v) ] } using (1) to express E(r,v) in terms of E0(r) (7)   F(r,v) = q*(1 - β^2)/(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(3/2)*{ E0(r) + (v/c)[ (v/c)E0(r) ] } using the identity A(BC) = (A·C)B - (A·B)C (8)   F(r,v) = q*(1 - β^2)/(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(3/2)* { + E0(r) + (v/c)*[ (v/c)E0(r) ] - E0(r)*[ (v/c)(v/c) ] } evaluating the dot products i.e  ab = a*b*cosθ and aa = a^2, and grouping the vector quantities. Finally, also making the substitution v/c = β to obtain (9)   F(r,v) = q*(1 - β^2)/(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(3/2)* { + E0(r) *(1 - β^2) + β*[ β*E0(r)*cosθ ] } from which Lucas’ Equation (4-44),  that is Eq. (4) above, cannot be derived! Four pages on, Lucas writes: The generalized potential energy U corresponding to equation (5-1) [which is the same as his (4-44)]  for the electrodynamic force that is accurate to order V [Howell : should be 4...] in the Galillean transformation is (10)   U(r,v) = q*q'*(1 - β^2)/(1 - β^2*sin^2(θ))^(1/2) = q*q'*(1 - β^2)/ [ r^2 - { r(rβ) }^2/r^2 ] At this point I closed the book since the work that followed was based on this flawed mathematics, there was no need for further review.  Mathematics is the final arbitrator; the Eq. (10), which is (5-4) on page 96, is also mathematically incorrect.  One can only square real and complex numbers, one cannot square, or take square roots, of vectors! Lucas’ booked is filled with these and similar errors, therefor I cannot take this book seriously and consequently recommend others to dismiss it too. [Howell - below are both comments posted as of 11Sep2015...] Charles William Lucas on June 30, 2015 at 1:47 pm Chapters 4 and 5 of my book contain the derivation and proof of an improved version of electrodynamics. Anton Vrba comments that he only reads the opening and closing paragraphs of chapters in the derivation and proof of an improved version of electrodynamics shows that he is not capable of understanding a proper derivation and proof in science. More than 1000 professional scientists have purchased this book and none of them have had any problem in following the mathematics, because every step in the derivations are provided. Some typos have been found in the book and corrected over time, but none of them have invalidated the results. In the derivation that Anton gives he leaves out the vector identities that are involved showing his lack of understanding of the derivation. Anton Lorenz Vrba on June 30, 2015 at 2:41 pm … and as such the more than 1000 professional scientist must have been equally disappointed as I was. Lucas’ claim the I show a lack of understanding is contradicted by my clear step by step derivation (5) through (9) using vector identities. I also remind the readers of Frobenius Theorem which clearly states that associative division algebras over the real numbers is isomorphic to either the Reals, Complex Numbers or Quaternions, i.e. that is dimension 1, 2 and 4. As such the square roots or squares of three dimensional vectors, as Lucas formulates in his equations, just do not exist! I will leave it to others to judge who has the better understanding of vector algebra and of the distributive laws of mathematics. enddoc