Review - In the Beginning by Walt Brown - Hydroplate Theory (Part 4)
The Hydroplate Theory: Key Assumption
The key assumption is that until the flood, the world had a series of subterranean tunnels filled with super critical water. Everything then flows from there.
Usually, when I make assumptions on my job (I am an engineer), I usually have a basis for the assumption. It may seem arbitrary to others, but I usually have a reason. I cannot quite call it a conclusion however because a strong feeling that I’m right is not an argument. However, I can proceed to test my assumption. Brown starts with an assumption that I would call an assertion with no basis. But as I said, many of my own assumptions appear to have no basis to others, so I can be rather forgiving in this department. I will grant him the assumption for the sake of argument, and see how far it takes me.
Super critical water (SCW) is something I have never heard of before. However, Brown goes on to explain it. Part of his explanation is a thought exercise. I do these, too, and they can be quite valuable. His thought experiment starts with an experiment he cites, consisting of a sealed test tube of liquid. His focus is on the meniscus (the separation between the liquid and the gas within the test tube) and what might happen as temperatures continue going up.
At these very high temperatures, vapor molecules strike the liquid surface at a furious rate and splash droplets of liquid up into the dense vapor. As the vapor’s density approaches the liquid’s density, the droplets float in the vapor! This process continues until all the liquid below the meniscus is dispersed as tiny droplets in the vapor, so the meniscus suddenly disappears.
The process continues as the droplets increase in number, while decreasing in size, approach that of a single molecule.
Here is where I got stuck…
Would these microscopic droplets float to the top of the vapor? No, but let’s assume they did. It would mean that the vapor was denser than the liquid droplets. Vapor molecules would be closer to each other, on average, than liquid molecules. Therefore, vapor molecules would frequently bond with each other and become liquid droplets. The presence of liquid droplets throughout the supercritical vapor contradicts our assumption that all the liquid had floated to the top of the vapor.
Does this really follow? Recalling pV=nRT, what is density really? It’s a function of how close molecules are to each other, as well as how close the molecule’s electrons, protons, and neutrons are to each other. Ice is less dense than water because its crystalline structure spreads out the volume of a given water molecule; vapor is also less dense than water, but because the individual molecules are further away from each other, and too active to bind with other water molecules. To be more dense than the liquid requires the vapor molecules to take up less space than normal water molecules do. It requires breaking the nuclear bonds within the water’s electron orbits, but without losing molecular cohesion, and without exploding into its component parts… clearly against the laws of physics. Therefore, if the droplets floated to the top, then it must be a different force doing it.
So, what parts of our equation can we play with? n doesn’t change because our system is closed. R is a constant by definition. T is going up. V is constant overall, but could be varying for a given set of molecules within the system. Pressure however should be increasing overall, and can also vary. There as temperature is going up, so is pressure. Pressure on what? Pressure on the vapor? At some point, it would become liquid however. So, increased pressure on the liquid?
Basically, what should happen is this: the temperature should be attempting to vaporize the liquid and spread them apart. The inability to spread apart will cause the pressure. The inability to completely vaporize would cause a constant transition for a given molecule between vapor and liquid, with liquid moving down, and vapor moving up. I foresee no ultimate trend or gathering of liquid molecules in any particular area that could possibly contradict this.Â
Above, I considered the possibility of the vapors essentially ripping apart, but dismissed it. Let us suppose however, that the system could contain it. That in fact might allow for the electrons/protons/neutrons within the vapor to become more dense than the liquid. I would not longer call it vapor, but it might achieve his desired effect. Interestingly, this is a very similar conclusion to Brown’s, as he continues…
With a little thought, it should become clear that liquid droplets almost instantaneously form and disappear within the dense vapor. In the process, many molecules ionize.
Wow. That’s pretty close. My train of thinking would result in ionization of sorts, but through the ripping apart of the vapor, relative to the liquid. He continues on, but I think he now has it backwards…
As temperatures rise, the vapor molecules travel faster and fragment more droplets.
No, the droplets fragment the vapor… it’s the only way to sustain his assumption that the droplets are floating.
The droplets become, on average, even smaller. They also collide and merge more frequently, so at each new temperature, an equilibrium is quickly reached between droplets forming and disappearing.
Replace this with vapor molecules dividing into electrons/protons/neutrons and he’s close. However, once we have free electrons/protons/neutrons we have the makings of brand new atoms having nothing to do with Oxygen, Hydrogen, or even water. Did I say Hydrogen? If we really could have achieved the temperatures necessary, we would have the makings of a hydrogen bomb.
He leads up to this…
When the flood began, the pressure in the jetting SCW dropped in seconds from at least 62,000 psi (4,270 bars) to almost zero. The energy released was huge. Because the 46,000-mile-long fountains continued this release for several weeks, one should not think of it as a single explosion. Instead, the jetting water was a powerful, earth-size engine that launched considerable mass from earth.
Now, had Brown led up to this as I did, then I would be impressed. It makes me wonder if there isn’t something he grasped well enough to get to the point of an energy burst capable of launching “considerable mass from earth”, but misunderstood nonetheless.
Well, it’s the temperature and the explosion that really matter here, and I do agree that such high temperatures sustained in underground water chambers would result in the land explosion he is seeking to set up. He just got the chemistry wrong, but let’s forgive that for the time being. What I have trouble imagining is temperatures that are so hot that it will rip apart water molecules… that temperature must come from somewhere, unless one invokes God at this point in the process.
I won’t discuss Brown’s final section on this page on solubility, but I will point out something, which I believe is a problem for his theory.
Brown made an assumption that SCW, if pushed to the limit, would remain SCW. Remember, he “assumed” that the floating water on vapor assumed the water was less dense. He failed to realize that this only works if the water vapor ceases being water vapor, but breaks up into its hydrogen and oxygen, and potentially further into its component electrons/protons/neutrons. It simply cannot be more dense than liquid and remain true water vapor. Furthermore, to have the ionizing effect he is looking for, to cause a continent-sized explosion would not even allow the atoms to remain intact. The chances of reforming into water would be quite scant. In fact, continue the experiment long enough, and there will be no more water… just unsettled atoms, electrons, protons, and neutrons.
There would be an explosion alright… but it wouldn’t be a flood. In fact, it might destroy the world.
February 5th, 2011 at 9:38 am
I must admit that a lot of this went a bit above my scientific understanding (as you know, my specialty is philosophy, not science), but it seems that again your critique is sound.