X-Message-Number: 19289
Date: Sun, 16 Jun 2002 13:19:12 -0400 (EDT)
From: Charles Platt <>
Subject: Re: CryoNet #19283 - #19285

All right, George, try this:

"Studies of the Arizona Meteor Crater, located near Winslow, have lent
support to the experimental observation that even oblique meteoric impacts
produce nearly circular craters. Prior to NASA's experiments, an attempt
was made to find the meteorite that produced Meteor Crater. Since the
crater was almost perfectly circular, it was reasoned that the meteorite
must have come straight down -- perpendicular to the surface of the Earth
-- and therefore the meteorite should be found directly beneath the center
of the crater.

"Drilling apparatus was carted to the bottom of Meteor Crater and drilling
commenced; but after drilling down over one thousand feet to the
underlying rock, no trace of any large meteorite was found. Based upon the
results of several other bore holes plus an analysis of the distribution
of ejected material outside the crater, scientists concluded that the
meteorite had struck the Earth at an angle of about 45 degrees and then
exploded, scattering fragments up to six miles outside the crater."

In addition, your experiment shooting bullets into the ground ignores a
primary factor (really, THE primary factor) affecting extraterrestrial
impacts: Gravity. The Moon is large enough that your imaginary scenario of
objects grazing its surface at a very oblique angle is unlikely to occur.
Because of lunar gravity, the angle of approach of an object will become
less oblique, the nearer it gets to the surface. An analogy should make
this clear:

If you had aimed your gun parallel to the Earth's surface (not a very safe
scenario) and had fired it from the top of a mountain (even less safe!)
you could imagine the bullet following an approximate parabola, so that
when it eventually hit the ground, a mile or two away, it would no longer
be moving parallel to the surface, but would have been pulled down by the
"vertical" force of gravity ("vertical" in quotes because the curvature of
the Earth complicates the scenario somewhat).

Okay?

Also, a few craters on the Moon (such as Messier) are in fact elliptical.

Of course none of this has any relevance to human cryopreservation, and
the time you wasted pondering this question did nothing to improve your
chances of receiving optimal treatment as a cryopatient. But since you
seem absolutely confident that you don't need to do anything to improve
your future chances of resuscitation, because those nice men in the future
will do it all for you, I guess you should spend your time as frivolously
as you wish.

One last comment. What led you to assume that you had found an
astronomical paradox that hundreds of thousands of astronomers were too
stupid to notice? By all means distrust experts, but don't automatically
assume that they are stupid. To me this seems very similar to the attitude
shown by some cryonicists toward most cryobiologists--with unfortunate
consequences.

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