Richard Roeper's Top 10 list of conspiracy theories etc.

[Darth Wong]

The rest of your post is fine but this is simply wrong on several counts. There are various estimates for the energy release of the earthquake, but they're all in the low exajoule range (e.g. this estimate, but googling will find several more).

I recall when the event actually occurred, it was estimated that you would need 30,000 megatons to cause that kind of earthquake. If that figure was seriously erroneous, then I suppose it could theoretically be done, albeit with a rather absurdly large proportion of America's nuclear arsenal.

You of all people should be very familiar with converting between joules and megatons - the earthquake was actually equivalent to a nuclear detonation somewhere between 250MT and 1GT. The current declared US nuclear arsenal alone is a little over two gigatons.

The seismic vibration energy would be 475 megatons according to the British Geological Survey.

That said, energy coupling from the earthquake to the tsunami was somewhere around 1%, which is fortunate as the tsunami caused all the actual damage. I don't have the figures for how much energy from a submerged nuclear detonation ends up in the pressure wave, but from what I recall of the effectiveness of nuclear depth charges it's considerably higher than 1%. This would could easily cut the megatonnage required down to something the US could actually plausibly deploy (particular if a string of closely spaced bombs are used to generate the wavefront). Finally the actual energy came primarily from the slippage of stressed continental plates, with some additional input from underwater landslides. In principle the whole event could've been triggered with a much smaller energy release in exactly the right spot, though this is somewhat less plausible as finding the 'right spot' and correctly predicting the results would be extremely hard.

Actually, the nuclear detonations would have to initiate the tsunami and create enough seismic vibrations to simulate the earthquake, since those vibrations were detected all over the world. So the energy requirement would not be decreased by any means.

Of course it's still a stupid conspiracy theory, as it's extremely unlikely nuclear explosions on that scale would fail to be detected, never mind the near impossibility of covering up the operational details and the silliness of the notion that the US leadership would plan and authorise such a thing in the first place. But your statement that the claim violates the laws of physics on energy grounds is wrong.

Well, saying that the US would have to use as much as half of its entire nuclear arsenal is not much more plausible as saying that it would have used several times its entire nuclear arsenal, and the ideas you mentioned about reducing the energy requirement ignore the fact that you have to simulate the earthquake as well as creating the tsunami. Most of your energy has to go into the earthquake, and in fact, you need more energy than the original earthquake because a lot of your energy will go into heating rather than seismic vibration energy. Nevertheless, my original statement was based on some of the early news reports about the tsunami back in 2004, which were apparently printing erroneous figures as you point out.

[Starglider]

I recall when the event actually occurred, it was estimated that you would need 30,000 megatons to cause that kind of earthquake. If that figure was seriously erroneous,

It was - I'm curious where that estimate is from, though I wouldn't be surprised if the real experts were all too busy studying the data coming in and some reporters just grabbed the first authorative-looking person who'd throw out a guess.

Actually, the nuclear detonations would have to initiate the tsunami and create enough seismic vibrations to simulate the earthquake, since those vibrations were detected all over the world. So the energy requirement would not be decreased by any means.

I interpreted 'the sheer amount of energy required for this event' as 'the sheer amount of energy required to cause the observed destruction that showed up in news reports', mainly because the nuts will probably dismiss seismometer evidence as 'establishment fabrications'. Thus I assumed creating the tsunami would be sufficient, from the conspiracy nut's point of view. I imagine they'd go for the 'nuke the fault line' theory too simply because it's shown up in popular fiction so often (e.g. as the main threat in 'A View to a Kill'). But it's a minor point.

Well, saying that the US would have to use as much as half of its entire nuclear arsenal is not much more plausible as saying that it would have used several times its entire nuclear arsenal

Certainly not plausible, but it changes the rebuttal from 'this isn't physically possible' to 'the logistics and politics would be impossible', and unfortunately the later just isn't as snappy and gives the nuts more wiggle room to get around (doubtless invoking a few of their other conspiracy theories as support). I'd note though that if the US still had Mark 41 bombs available (of which ~500 were built) only ten to thirty devices would be needed (possibly just a handful for the tsunami alone). Anyone nutty enough to take this theory seriously in the first place would probably just assume the US still had these (or worse) and had managed to keep them secret.

[Darth Wong]

I recall when the event actually occurred, it was estimated that you would need 30,000 megatons to cause that kind of earthquake. If that figure was seriously erroneous,

It was - I'm curious where that estimate is from, though I wouldn't be surprised if the real experts were all too busy studying the data coming in and some reporters just grabbed the first authorative-looking person who'd throw out a guess.

I'm still not convinced that the figure is erroneous. Seismic energy would only be a small fraction of total energy release, and it's the only kind that you're talking about. It's like hitting a workbench with a hammer, measuring the vibration energy in the table, and assuming that this was the entire kinetic energy of the hammer.

I interpreted 'the sheer amount of energy required for this event' as 'the sheer amount of energy required to cause the observed destruction that showed up in news reports', mainly because the nuts will probably dismiss seismometer evidence as 'establishment fabrications'. Thus I assumed creating the tsunami would be sufficient, from the conspiracy nut's point of view. I imagine they'd go for the 'nuke the fault line' theory too simply because it's shown up in popular fiction so often (e.g. as the main threat in 'A View to a Kill'). But it's a minor point.

Even the nuts would have trouble believing that every country in the world participated in the fraud. Most conspiracy theorists believe it was the US pulling one over on everyone else. They point to the survival of a US navy base as proof.

[Pelranius]

There's also the Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden connection myth that Maximum Leader and the Dark Prince wouldn't stop gabbing up in the run up to the War.

[Starglider]

I'm still not convinced that the figure is erroneous. Seismic energy would only be a small fraction of total energy release, and it's the only kind that you're talking about. It's like hitting a workbench with a hammer, measuring the vibration energy in the table, and assuming that this was the entire kinetic energy of the hammer.

Certainly there is an enormous amount of frictional heating and mechanical shattering, most of it quite diffuse, in any earthquake (or even landslide). But it isn't relevant, as we can't (directly) measure it. The important figures are the amount of energy that ended up in the seismic shockwave and the tsunami wavefront respectively. Nukes (or asteroid impacts) are much more efficient at coupling energy to these effects than a tectonics-derived earthquake - thus the effectiveness of nuclear bunker busters and depth charges. I'd note though that the seismic signature of a string of nuclear detonations would be easily distinguishable from a natural earthquake even if the main shockwaves had similar total energy content, due to the difference in energy distribution over time and general preshock/aftershock patterns. So no, still not even vaguely plausible as the US would have to somehow suppress every single competent seismologist as well as setting off a few hundred megatons of nukes in carefully drilled holes on the bottom of the ocean.

[Darth Wong]

I'm still not convinced that the figure is erroneous. Seismic energy would only be a small fraction of total energy release, and it's the only kind that you're talking about. It's like hitting a workbench with a hammer, measuring the vibration energy in the table, and assuming that this was the entire kinetic energy of the hammer.

Certainly there is an enormous amount of frictional heating and mechanical shattering, most of it quite diffuse, in any earthquake (or even landslide). But it isn't relevant, as we can't (directly) measure it.

It is entirely relevant to the amount of energy required to simulate an earthquake with a nuclear blast.

The important figures are the amount of energy that ended up in the seismic shockwave and the tsunami wavefront respectively. Nukes (or asteroid impacts) are much more efficient at coupling energy to these effects than a tectonics-derived earthquake - thus the effectiveness of nuclear bunker busters and depth charges. I'd note though that the seismic signature of a string of nuclear detonations would be easily distinguishable from a natural earthquake even if the main shockwaves had similar total energy content, due to the difference in energy distribution over time and general preshock/aftershock patterns. So no, still not even vaguely plausible as the US would have to somehow suppress every single competent seismologist as well as setting off a few hundred megatons of nukes in carefully drilled holes on the bottom of the ocean.

It's obviously not even vaguely plausible, but I take exception to your idea that any quantity of energy apart from seismic energy is irrelevant to the amount of energy required to artificially simulate the event. That makes no sense whatsoever.

[Starglider]

It's obviously not even vaguely plausible, but I take exception to your idea that any quantity of energy apart from seismic energy is irrelevant to the amount of energy required to artificially simulate the event. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Of course it does. A real earthquake converts a huge amount of potential energy stored up in stressed rock into frictional heating over a wide area, as the rock at the epicentre slips, shatters and generally moves around. But there's no way we can measure this, other than maybe drilling holes immediately afterwards and checking the temperature of the distressed rock directly. What we usually measure is the amount of energy that ends up in the seismic shockwave, and in this particular case the tsunami. A high-energy near-instantaneous point detonation will transfer a lot more of its energy into a shockwave, compared to a wide-area and relatively low-power release of potential energy.

I'm assuming 'artificially simulate an earthquake' means producing an equivalent shockwave; there is literally no way to 'simulate' the exact effects on the epicentre, since we can't artificially create longitudinal stresses in huge volumes of rock. If efficiency of converting the original source of energy (nukes, in this case) into a shockwave can be much higher than the conversion efficiency for the ultimate energy source for a natural earthquake (stressed rock), then clearly the absolute energy input for the former can be much lower for the same gross effects at surface level (at least, outside the epicentre). I grant that the discrepancy in the figures could be the result of comparing the total amount of potential energy released (most of which ended up as local heat) with the total amount of energy that made it into the seismic shockwave (of which the amount that ended up in the tsunami is a small fraction again). That said, a factor of 100 difference does seem a bit high, and I still suspect that the 30,000 megaton figure was pulled out of someone's ass. That's the kind of energy you'd expect to see from a 1km asteroid impact, not a moderate faultline slippage.

[Darth Wong]

It's obviously not even vaguely plausible, but I take exception to your idea that any quantity of energy apart from seismic energy is irrelevant to the amount of energy required to artificially simulate the event. That makes no sense whatsoever.

Of course it does. A real earthquake converts a huge amount of potential energy stored up in stressed rock into frictional heating over a wide area, as the rock at the epicentre slips, shatters and generally moves around. But there's no way we can measure this, other than maybe drilling holes immediately afterwards and checking the temperature of the distressed rock directly. What we usually measure is the amount of energy that ends up in the seismic shockwave, and in this particular case the tsunami. A high-energy near-instantaneous point detonation will transfer a lot more of its energy into a shockwave, compared to a wide-area and relatively low-power release of potential energy.

OK, I see you're not really getting the point at all. Let's simplify: you are assuming 100% conversion of the nuclear bomb's energy into seismic energy.

I'm assuming 'artificially simulate an earthquake' means producing an equivalent shockwave; there is literally no way to 'simulate' the exact effects on the epicentre, since we can't artificially create longitudinal stresses in huge volumes of rock. If efficiency of converting the original source of energy (nukes, in this case) into a shockwave can be much higher than the conversion efficiency for the ultimate energy source for a natural earthquake (stressed rock), then clearly the absolute energy input for the former can be much lower for the same gross effects at surface level (at least, outside the epicentre). I grant that the discrepancy in the figures could be the result of comparing the total amount of potential energy released (most of which ended up as local heat) with the total amount of energy that made it into the seismic shockwave (of which the amount that ended up in the tsunami is a small fraction again). That said, a factor of 100 difference does seem a bit high, and I still suspect that the 30,000 megaton figure was pulled out of someone's ass. That's the kind of energy you'd expect to see from a 1km asteroid impact, not a moderate faultline slippage.

You can't even create that much seismic energy without necessarily using much more nuclear yield than that, unless you make the rather absurd assumption of 100% conversion.

[Starglider]

OK, I see you're not really getting the point at all. Let's simplify: you are assuming 100% conversion of the nuclear bomb's energy into seismic energy.

You seem to be making a strawman argument. Clearly a nuclear bomb dumps a lot of energy into (super)heating the local rock as well, but over a volume millions of times smaller than for a major earthquake. However if the conversion efficiency for a bomb is even slightly greater than it is for a natural earthquake, the required energy input will be lower. I do not have the exact figures, but I suspect the conversion efficiency would be over 10% for a nuclear bomb and somewhere below 1% for an earthquake, simply due to the vast difference in energy density. Regardless of the exact figure, clearly instantly superheating vaporising a small sphere of rock is going to result in a different distribution of energy than (relatively) slowly heaving and grinding up many cubic kilometers of rock.

[Darth Wong]

OK, I see you're not really getting the point at all. Let's simplify: you are assuming 100% conversion of the nuclear bomb's energy into seismic energy.

You seem to be making a strawman argument. Clearly a nuclear bomb dumps a lot of energy into (super)heating the local rock as well, but over a volume millions of times smaller than for a major earthquake. However if the conversion efficiency for a bomb is even slightly greater than it is for a natural earthquake, the required energy input will be lower.

Oh for fuck's sake, you honestly don't realize that the lowball energy figures you're quoting are for seismic energy only?

I do not have the exact figures, but I suspect the conversion efficiency would be over 10% for a nuclear bomb and somewhere below 1% for an earthquake, simply due to the vast difference in energy density. Regardless of the exact figure, clearly instantly superheating vaporising a small sphere of rock is going to result in a different distribution of energy than (relatively) slowly heaving and grinding up many cubic kilometers of rock.

Obviously. The problem I have is your bizarre assertion that if the 2004 earthquake released roughly 1/2 gigaton of seismic energy, than you need 1/2 gigatons of nuclear weapons in order to release the same amount of seismic energy.

[Starglider]

Point taken. I took 'equivalent to N megatons' at face value in my initial argument and didn't think about the energy conversion properly. The point stands that generating the tsunami alone with submerged nuclear devices would actually be (relatively) practical, but the rest of my argument was fatally flawed.

[Stormbringer]

7. The outcomes of professional sports events, including the NBA playoffs and the Super Bowl, are influenced by the television networks and league officials.

How common is this one? I've never heard anyone seriously propose it.

I was never a big sports fan growing up, and only got into the NBA a few years ago because of my friends (and after just a few short years my devotion has already fallen off quite a bit because of the idiotic behavior of many players and fans). Still, just from reading a few of the more prominent forums, it appears to be quite common among fans on the internet.

In part because it's something that has actually happened on a number of occasions. The fixing of sporting events has happened before, if on a lesser scale than allegations like that would have us believe.

[Starglider]

P.S. Glad I warmed up with something trivial, as I'm clearly horribly out of practice at this. It's been a few years since I last did this sort of debating, but still, that was a stupid oversight.