Why is SEELE still around?

[CorporalChaos]

For being a secret organization that's survived for millenia, their skills at covering up their activities are laughably poor. Instead of emulating the Illuminati, they go and make official cover-ups look like a three-ring circus.

BLOWING A HOLE IN SEELE'S SECOND IMPACT COVER UP STORY
or, Another Astronomically Inspired Rant by Corporal Chaos



While reasonable sounding taken at face value, and without any thought, the Second Impact story, presumably written by SEELE or associates in order to cover up their activity in the Antarctic is almost complete nonsense.

An impacting object, 4 inches in diameter, would be all but invisible to any Earth-based observatories. To be visible, the impacting body would have to be almost completely reflective, and even if it were, be within a few hundred miles of the Earth.

What if Ceimoa Nan was using something other than an optical system, then? About the only other portion of the spectrum that's observable from the Earth's surface is the far-red end of the scale, radio. The only useful radio application for observing an object of this size would be radar.

However, with the registered value of 95% the speed of light, any radar pings reflected off of this object would be blue-shifted far out of this part of the spectrum, hopelessly out of the radar system's ability to detect the return ping. So, we must assume that Nan was working with an optical device.

So, could the object be within a few hundred miles of Earth to be detected using visual means? Using the discovery time of 15 minutes before impact, and the given velocity of 95% light speed, the answer is not only no, but hell no.

An object moving at 95% light speed would travel the distance from the Earth to the Sun in roughly eight and a half minutes. At 15 minutes, the object would be nearly the diameter of the Earth's orbit away from us, about 166 MILLION miles away. At such a distance, not even the largest telescopes in man's arsenal would pick up such an object, even if we knew where to look.

So, it appears SEELE should hire a better person to write their cover-up stories, or they're going to look very, very silly.

[EvangelionFan]

This brings to mind the dramatic 'Second Impact Movie' which Shinji sees in Episode 04:

Man: 'You really couldn't detect it?'
Doctor: 'Correct. An object tens of millimeters in diameter crashed into Antarctica at more than ten percent of the speed of light!'
Assistant A: 'Our technology could neither predict it nor defend against it.'
Woman: 'But it's hell out there! Just what is the purpose of science!?'
Man (Speakers): 'The atmospheric flux caused by the change in the Earth's axis has decreased by 3%.'
Woman: 'So, has it calmed down a little?'
Assisant C: 'Negative!! There's a tidal wave approaching at 230 meters a second!'
Man: 'Doctor! We must evacuate!'
Doctor: 'No… It's my duty to remain here.'
Man: 'Doctor, dying is easy. But you have an obligation to watch this Hell on Earth.'

I think it might be a fair guess that the films' doctor is an interpretation of our cover-up astronomer. It's almost as though the NGE staff included this scene to poke fun at Sensei's explanation of the cover-up in the previous episode - like they want us to know they think it's silly, too.

[Ornette]

95% speed of light is 285 thousand km/s. Shock layer gas temperatures of atmospheric entry is roughly the speed in m/s in Kelvin, so that meteor is going to hit 285 million K. To put that in perspective, the Sun's core temperature is only a mere 15.7 million K. If the meteorite was 4 inches in diameter when it hit the atmosphere, it would have exploded into a million pieces, or disintegrated, depending on what it was actually made of.

So maybe it was considerably bigger, the rocky bits burned off, and we had a 4 inch diameter very dense core that was left. But who knows if that 285 number is right, I honestly don't know if that correlation can be used with objects that are traveling that fast.

[BeoX2]

F=M*A

Small mass, huge HUGE acceleration. It would do damage. A lot of damage.

[Ornette]

F=M*A

Small mass, huge HUGE acceleration. It would do damage. A lot of damage.

What acceleration?

[CorporalChaos]

So maybe it was considerably bigger, the rocky bits burned off, and we had a 4 inch diameter very dense core that was left. But who knows if that 285 number is right, I honestly don't know if that correlation can be used with objects that are traveling that fast.

That's a good point, although, wouldn't the travel time involved between the moment that the impacting object encountered the outermost atmosphere and the moment it encountered Antarctica be very short?

And even then, wouldn't any mass that got vaporized off in that short moment stay in a relatively confined volume, so as to almost behave as if it were the same as the original meteoroid?

EDIT: my thinking on this would be that the speed of the impacting body would be so high as to render the effects of encountering the atmosphere to be practically negligible. In hindsight, I shouldn't be so certain that that would occur at relativistic speeds.

[BeoX2]

What acceleration?

The meteorite supposedly going at 95% the speed of light. That is how fast it is going, IE acceleration. Kinetic energy.

[Ornette]

That's a good point, although, wouldn't the travel time involved between the moment that the impacting object encountered the outermost atmosphere and the moment it encountered Antarctica be very short?

And even then, wouldn't any mass that got vaporized off in that short moment stay in a relatively confined volume, so as to almost behave as if it were the same as the original meteoroid?

It would be very fast, but the affect would still be a temperature shift of something nearly absolute zero to an order of magnitude higher than the Sun's core in a matter of an instant. I don't really know what happens to stuff exposed to that kind of energy, but I'd imagine it would be pretty extreme.

The meteorite supposedly going at 95% the speed of light. That is how fast it is going, IE acceleration. Kinetic energy.

Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity (95% speed of light), velocity is the rate of change between distance. Kinetic energy is proportional to half the mass times velocity squared..

[BeoX2]

Acceleration is the rate of change of velocity (95% speed of light), velocity is the rate of change between distance. Kinetic energy is proportional to half the mass times velocity squared..

Hey, I didn't make up the equation. All I know is that the faster something is moving, the harder it will hit, and with more force. Even something tiny that's traveling at incredible speeds can do massive damage and strike with a lot of force. How much would a 50 mm meteorite weigh? Maybe a pound?

Also, what about the fact that there's no possible way that anything could be propelled to those kind of speeds naturally, or otherwise.

[EvangelionFan]

The meteorite supposedly going at 95% the speed of light. That is how fast it is going, IE acceleration. Kinetic energy.

To clear it up for you:
Speed =/= Acceleration

Speed (or Velocity) is the distance traveled over time.
Acceleration is change in speed over time, or distance traveled over time squared.

Newton's first law of motion states that objects continue to move in a state of constant velocity unless acted upon by an external net force or resultant force

Since it isn't said if the object is accelerating or slowing it's proper for us to assume that its said velocity is a constant IE its acceleration is zero. So it holds with the First Law that if the Earth is the external net force which acts upon the micrometeorite, it is the extreme deceleration of the meteorite - upon contact with Earth - that supposedly sets off Second Impact.

In addition, Kinetic Energy is important in the sensical transfer of energy between colliding parties - if we look at it this way it's the extreme energy of the micrometeorite transferred to the surface of the Earth which supposedly causes Second Impact.

At least that's my two cents, anyway.

[BeoX2]

To clear it up for you:
Speed =/= Acceleration

Speed (or Velocity) is the distance traveled over time.
Acceleration is change in speed over time, or distance traveled over time squared.

Then shouldn't the equation for force really be "F=M*V?"

[Fazmotron]

You're using the equation incorrectly.

If a body with mass M was being accelerated (A), F would be the amount of force acting upon the object causing it to accelerate.

So, for this scenario, the acceleration is the asteroid being stopped by the planet (acceleration is rate of change, positive or negative).

[Ornette]

Like I said, Kinetic energy is 1/2 m v^2, that's the amount of energy that's going to be transfered to the Earth upon impact. You were using the wrong equation to describe what you meant.

But I thought that the whole issue was that the object couldn't of have been detected because it was 4 inches in diameter, 15 minutes away. The 95% speed of light bit is also a bit of a problem, but not because of something not being able to achieve that speed (there was a discovery like a month ago of 3 galaxies colliding with 2 super black holes in the middle that spewing all kinds of crazy shit at relativistic speeds). The thing that's hard for a skeptic to wrap their heads around such a story like this is at such speeds, all kinds of wacko things start happening, and an impact that knocked the Earth off of its axis is not even close to enough wacko. There shouldn't even be people alive.

[soul.assassin]

Seems that the word ablation haven't entered the discussion. That 4-inch object stated in that whitewash, traveling at an extremely high velocity would certainly have only half of its mass vaporized once it hits the atmosphere, and the remaining meteorite will explode, generating a small-sized airburst similar to Tunguska.

For a meteorite to generate enough destructive power to destabilize the earth's axis, produce a tsunami, and disrupt weather for years to come, it has to be very big, say, about the size of four city blocks.

And the astronomer in question is Seymour Nunn, not "Caimoa Nan".

[The Abhorrent]

Then shouldn't the equation for force really be "F=M*V?"

That's actually the equation for momentum (usually denoted as "p"), which is one of the key formulae for calculating what happens just after the actual impact. Unlike energy, it's conserved within the physical mass of the objects involved. It can also be denoted as force multiplied by time.

Anyhow, it's pretty clear that the main formula that was implied was:

KE = 1/2 * m * v^2

Work and energy can also be denoted as force multiplied by distance. Energy is conserved on a fundemental level through the impact, though it is often lost to other sources like sound and heat. Considering how little mass was suggested in the coverup, the object may as well has disintegrated during the impact and would've produced a lot of heat. The ice melts in Antarctica, and maybe that one current that's actually blocked in the real world starts flowing again, putting an end to the current ice age (believe it or not, we technically are in the middle of one, just not at a glacial maximum right now).



But going back to the fact it is a cover-up, the shoddy nature of it may have been a clue for one Kozo Fuyutsuki. Find one inconsistency, then begin prodding the simplest of formulae (seeing as they are not within his primary field of expertise, but it's something he probably touched upon early on in his studies.... or at least not beyond his ability to learn at some point down the line) and eventually uncovering a document with information on the "giant of light" (Adam). When confronting Gendo Ikari and threatening to unveil the whole conspiracy, "poor housekeeping" was cited as the reason the cover-up wasn't quite good enough to fool him. Only after a little convincing was said unveiling averted.

As for why the rest of the world fell for the ruse? The answer can be found in Hogfather by Terry Pratchett (a part of the Discworld series):

"... Which proves that you can be excused (for) just about anything when you're a hero, because no one asks (any) inconvinient questions."

Something which could easily be kept in check by simply having the ability to make people who do ask inconvinient questions.... "disappear".

[carla]

god knows physics isn't my area of expertise, but i'm wondering if such a meteor, regardless of its size, would have enough time to heat up, traveling at such a velocity. it would take that thing about 40 thousands of a second to enter our atmosphere. seems to me like friction would be a non-issue.

and shock layer, well, there will be a shock layer upon entry, but as far as i know the rate of heat transfer in a medium can be generally approximated by the speed of sound in that medium-- in our atmosphere, that's about 0.34 km/s... this alleged meteorite is travelling over eight hundred thousand times faster than that. and the heat transfer within the meteorite itself (assuming some kind of steel body) would be faster, but still about fifty thousand times slower than the speed of the meteorite. seems to me like heat transfer at that speed is negligible, and if the thing breaks, it would be upon impact. but of course this is just off the top of my head, please correct me if i'm wrong.

what really gets to me is that nobody ever questions how rare such a thing is. yes, some bodies in the universe can get accelerated to near the speed of light, especially where black holes are involved because physics go all phooey in those cases. but average meteorite velocity doesn't really go above 70 km/s. the arizona crater was formed by a massive meteorite, yes, but it only traveled at around 16 km/s. why do people believe the idea of a meteorite reaching earth at such a speed so easily? the probability is so very small, you'd think the public would think it outrageous. there should be a lot more skeptics around, and SEELE cannot possibly kill, buy out and/or absorb the entire scientific community, let alone every person in the world with a decent knowledge of physics.

of course, this was a high school textbook, i gather? this explanation might work for teens, but i figure they'd have to get something far more believable for people at higher levels.

[thewayneiac]

For a meteorite to generate enough destructive power to destabilize the earth's axis, produce a tsunami, and disrupt weather for years to come, it has to be very big, say, about the size of four city blocks.

Shouldn't you have said it would have to have the mass of about four city blocks? i.e.: Aren't you making an unfounded assumption about density? A four inch meteor of near black-hole density would easily exceed the mass of many, many, city blocks.

[Merridian]

what really gets to me is that nobody ever questions how rare such a thing is. [...] the probability is so very small, you'd think the public would think it outrageous. there should be a lot more skeptics around, and SEELE cannot possibly kill, buy out and/or absorb the entire scientific community, let alone every person in the world with a decent knowledge of physics.

I figured that most people were too busy starving to death or killing each other in the streets to worry much about cover-ups. It's mentioned that at the time the series takes place, 15 years after the incident, the world is still a complete wreck.

The Abhorrent mentioned Fuyutsuki picking up on the screw-up, but Fuyu only picked up on it because he was dragged into the mess after it had happened. If the suits hadn't come looking for him due to his prior connections, he'd still be a doctor tending to sick & injured in a floating ghetto.

[BeoX2]

But what about the impossibility of anything even getting up to that speed?

[Fazmotron]

This meteor is turning into one bad-ass mother fucker. A meteor that has close to black hole density, travelling at 0.95c would warp the shit out of space-time. Then there's all that lovely mass dilation and time dilation.

FUN-FUN.

But what about the impossibility of anything even getting up to that speed?

Not impossibility, just very unlikely, just like everything else about this meteor. Like Ornette said:

The 95% speed of light bit is also a bit of a problem, but not because of something not being able to achieve that speed (there was a discovery like a month ago of 3 galaxies colliding with 2 super black holes in the middle that spewing all kinds of crazy shit at relativistic speeds).