Boy, am I disappointed with the History Channel. In this wonderful piece I saw some parts of last night, they seriously suggest that there is a black hole in the Bermuda Triangle. I am smart enough to notice that they start every other sentence with "some people believe," but I also remember what it was like to be a young person, interested in science and old enough to watch the History Channel but too young to pick up on weasel phrases like this. I can just imagine how many kids are in school today saying "I heard there's a black hole in the Bermuda Triangle."
I mean, they sent a camera crew out on a boat with a guy who had invented a magnetic anomaly measurement device that he seriously called a "BTD" (Bermuda Triangle Detector). It some flashing lights and a buzzer that went off now and then but no other readout of any kind. I changed the channel before I could hear this guy's conclusions.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
3 comments:
So you watched the program, saw what this guy was doing, and then changed the channel before hearing the explanation of what went on. That's like walking out of the doctor's office after the doctor has examined you and not waiting to hear his prognosis.
If you'd waited and watched just a little longer, you'd have heard this guy say that his device was designed to detect magnetic anomalies - that is, magnetic signals not consistent with the Earth's normal magnetic field. No other "read outs" other than lights (visual) and buzzers (audio) signals are required for that.
The "BTD" went off repeatedly at the same spot of water in the "Triangle", and strangely that's the same spot where the boat's magnetic compass turned circles rather than pointing to magnetic north.
What does this prove? Only that at that one spot (maybe more spots - the "Triangle's" area is huge, but we're just talking about this one spot for now) there was an anomaly that caused a disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field.
It didn't prove that "The Bermuda Triangle" was "REAL", or that UFOs or other aliens were behind the legends, and that's not what this guy was trying to say, or prove. That anomaly could be caused by some large deposit of iron or some other ferrous metal - who knows? The planet is still full of strange things that we haven't figured out yet.
The "BTD" was just a nickname for a magnetic disturbance detection device. That's it and that's all it does. So maybe next time you may want to consider watching something through to hear the explanation of what you've just seen, rather than switching away before learning what was really done and then lambasting the person who was conducting the experiment when you don't have all the facts.
The Doctor
A very long long time has gone by since I wrote the original post, and I don't actually remember anything about the program, so take this comment for what it's worth, but...
Of course I changed the channel. I don't care who the man in the boat was or what his conclusions were. The BTD was just the icing on the "black hole in the Bermuda Triangle" cake. I'm not a physicist, but I'm pretty sure that if there were a black hole anywhere near the Earth, let alone under the surface of one of our oceans, a few ships and planes getting lost would be the least of our problems. If you're trying to tell me a story called "Earth's Black Hole", I need to see a believable explanation from an astrophysicist for how a black hole could possibly be so nearby without having swallowed us all up already before I'm going to pay any attention to anything else.
I'm not a scientist, but I'm pretty sure that if I were going into the Bermuda Triangle in search of "magnetic anomalies" I would be trying to measure them, not just detect them. In other words, I wouldn't just want a visual and audio notification that there was an anomaly, I'd want to have a way to record the size or strength of the anomaly and whether it changes over time and by how much, and I'd want it connected to my GPS so that (assuming the anomaly doesn't screw up the GPS, which of course it might) I would have a record of the exact location and could try to find it again another day. This guy didn't have that, or at least they didn't show it. What they did show was pure theater.
Finally, I would not call it strange that the spot where a magnetic anomaly detector went off is the same spot where a magnetic compass misbehaves. What that proves, assuming any of this is real, is that the fancy electronic detector was a waste of money: the anomaly was strong enough to be detectable using only a nautical compass and the naked eye.
Post a Comment