Finally I got back to my EC&HCC notes from last year's summer
So here they are:
p.97
"...nearly 3500 [fireballs] were observed in 2013."
Q: But the table shows 3525 so it should be over ?
p.132
" At this point a second phenomenon called piezo electricity might intervene. Some crystals, in particular quartz, which is very frequent in granite rocks, will deform if subjected to electric current (that's almost the reverse of the above described phenomenon, where mechanical deformation triggers electric currents)"
Q: This would deserve more explanation. In Wiki I found this:
The
piezoelectric effect is understood as the linear electromechanical interaction between the mechanical and the electrical state in crystalline materials with no
inversion symmetry.[4] The piezoelectric effect is a
reversible process in that materials exhibiting the direct piezoelectric effect (the internal generation of electrical charge resulting from an applied mechanical
force) also exhibit the reverse piezoelectric effect (the internal generation of a mechanical strain resulting from an applied electrical field). For example,
lead zirconate titanate crystals will generate measurable piezoelectricity when their static structure is deformed by about 0.1% of the original dimension. Conversely, those same crystals will change about 0.1% of their static dimension when an external electric field is applied to the material. The inverse piezoelectric effect is used in production of ultrasonic sound waves.
So do I understand correctly, the whole earthquake phenomenon could be of piezo electric nature if the affected rocks contain enough i.e.quartz since piezo includes both processes - pressure converted to e-current and vice versa?
p.146
"Even if it [Earth's magnetic shield] disappeared entirely, the number of incoming cosmic rays would only increase by 3%. {#420}"
Reference #420 Ibid, p.61
Q: There is nothing related to the topic of cosmic rays on the page 61, it about the Sun's companion star. What am I missing here?
p.147
"Also, muons have an extremely short life {#427} and they quickly transform into electrons {#428}
#427 2 millionths of a second. Ibid p.55
#428 Ibid p.54-55
Q: Again, pages 54-55 are related to Nemesis, without an obvious connection.
p.181
"The composite illustation in figure 147..."
Q: Apparent typo, should be 'illustration'?
p.187
"The Jet Stream is not limited by coasts and its latitudinal range is very narrow (few kilometres), so no Coriolis Effect applies to it and the Lorentz force freely propels it eastwards all around the globe."
Q: Should it be few hundred kilometres? On page 185 it reads "Jet streams are fast-flowing, narrow (a few hundred miles wide and less than three miles tall)...".
p.205-206
"[George Dodwell] gathered 120 measurements spanning the last four millennia, from 1100 BC up to the 20th century. The graph in figure 169 covers the period 2450 BC to 1960 AD"
Q: The blue line representing Dodwell's data in the figure starts from around 2400 so what's up with that 1100 BC?
p.215
"Notice that most, but not at all, geomagnetic reversals are preceded by magnetic surges, accompanied with global cooling episodes and followed by mass extinctions."
Q: Apparent typo, should be 'but not all'?
p.217-219
"The fact that natural catastrophes and the 'symptoms' described above are becoming more frequent and intense suggest that Nemesis and its accompanying cometary swarm have not yet reached perihelion (...) and may still be approaching somewhere in the far reaches of the solar system."
Q: This sounds logical to me but I also remember that not long ago C's have said the companion star has already passed the perihelion. Can anyone confirm? There would naturally be some delay before the inner system is reached by the swarm's peak wave if the perihelion was around Oort cloud (a few years 3,4,5?) but if the perihelion was at the distance of Pluto's orbit, then the swarm should have already been here or should be observable around Jupiter / Mars by now. Any thoughts on that? So perhaps the swarm is not Nemesis' all-time companion but it is what's generated by Nemesis' passage through Oort cloud and travels towards the centre of our Solar system much slower compared to the sister star?
p.234-235
"The Bush family purchased a 45000-hectare (100000 acres) ranch by in Paraguay in 2006."
Q: Apparent typo, should be 'ranch in Paraguay'?
p.263
"In 1340s there was a veritable rash of sismic activity, ...."
Q: Typo, should be seismic?
p.279
"#839 The human body is estimated to contain about 7 x 1027 atoms."
Q: 7 x 10^27 ?
p.293
Figure 231 - Information as a function of entropy
Q: I want to ask what are the variables k, c & e ?
That's it
---------------
Thank you, Pierre and the crew, for putting together this book. I enjoyed and learned so much from it. And a lot is still left to learn once I come back to read it again. Very enjoyable. The only con, as has been said, is the quality of images, at least in the printed version I referred to. That should be fixed before another edition. Other than that, 5 * from me (out of four ;) ).
