The Sinking of MS Estonia: Case Re-Opened

[LondonJohn]

I am not advocating for Braidwood at all, I am strictly neutral.

I'm sorry, what??? Did you write that with a straight face?

He adopted the null hypothesis and sent them to three independent laboratories which rejected the null hypothesis that there had not been an intense detonation within the vicinity of the metal pieces he submitted.

Given the characteristic twinning that was recognised by these laboratories you cannot rule out detonation/s. The BAM institute in Germany did present an alternative theory based on shot blasting, albeit they used their own piece of metal to find out other ways to recreate a similar effect.

You're employing the term "null hypothesis", when it's clear that a) you truly don't know what that term actually means, because b) it's not applicable wrt the example you're describing here (FYI though, the null hypothesis is only ever applicable to statistical tests of a logical condition)

 

[LondonJohn]

Ladies and gentlemen <clink, clink, clink> may I have your attention. You have all just witnessed a terrible accident and the police are going to be asking for your eye witness accounts. Can I just say that I have consulted with a camera expert and he says the flashes of light you may or may not have seen are consistent with that of a camera, so no silly ideas about describing it in any other way. And just so you know, you heard no explosions nor felt any collisions. That was just a fault in the bow visor bolts, so please keep your witness statements to the point, because the experts know best.

What??

This is reaching the stage of outright parody now.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Really? Really?! You're actually serious about comparing a tuned church bell - whose shape and metal (usually bronze, not steel) has been honed and refined over centuries with the specific & sole aim of producing a sonorous ringing tone - with a ship that's made out of steel and whose design is actually predicated on not producing a tuned note when struck??

The wonders - and the abject scientific illiteracy - just keeeeeeeep on comin'

How big is the bell clapper compared to the size of the bell though?

Think of Big Ben. It can be heard right across London. It weighs 13.7 tons.
It is struck by a hammer that weighs only 200kg.

 

[LondonJohn]

How big is the bell clapper compared to the size of the bell though?

Think of Big Ben. It can be heard right across London. It weighs 13.7 tons.
It is struck by a hammer that weighs only 200kg.

Well now I don't know *what* to think. Maybe Vixen's theories are correct after all......

 

[Jack by the hedge]

‘‘Twas a cluster bomb. Obviously.

A cluster something.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

I'm sorry, what??? Did you write that with a straight face?






You're employing the term "null hypothesis", when it's clear that a) you truly don't know what that term actually means, because b) it's not applicable wrt the example you're describing here (FYI though, the null hypothesis is only ever applicable to statistical tests of a logical condition)

I wouldn't normally have too much heartache with using "null hypothesis" colloquially to mean something like "default assumption", but it's clear that Vixen is straining to make this sound as sciency as possible, so it's appropriate and even important to call this out, imo.

 

[Reformed Offlian]

How big is the bell clapper compared to the size of the bell though?

Think of Big Ben. It can be heard right across London. It weighs 13.7 tons.
It is struck by a hammer that weighs only 200kg.

Yeah, but 200 kg is more than 1/70 the mass of 13.7 tones. The ratio for the bow visor/ship mass ratio is less than 1:300. I just *know* that something happens somewhere in that range that changes everything.

 

[whoanellie]

Yeah, but 200 kg is more than 1/70 the mass of 13.7 tones. The ratio for the bow visor/ship mass ratio is less than 1:300. I just *know* that something happens somewhere in that range that changes everything.

Thank you for the information. I was going to figure it out for myself. The mass ratio effect is highly non-linear. [emoji1745]

Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

 

[Kid Eager]

Thank you for the information. I was going to figure it out for myself. The mass ratio effect is highly non-linear. [emoji1745]

Sent from my SM-G981V using Tapatalk

I've been doing some digging on this very subject. Crumforth's Almanack for Dowsers (1906) has a graph that plots pointiness against salinity. There's a noticeable discontinuity once you get to around 161 saltradians when there is also motion in more than one axis.

I'll see if I can find the graph they refer to.

 

[Vixen]

I never once suggested it was a door slamming in the wind. You'd have to have the reading comprehension of an unusually dull garden slug to get that from my posts.

There were loud noises. They were noteworthy and hence not expected in normal service.

This does not mean they were explosions, much less that the witnesses reported them as explosions.

You could have just unconsciously understood explosions when you read "bangs" at one point. At this point, any claims that explosions were reported by several witnesses cross over into blatant lies.

Unless, of course, you have any actual evidence that they genuinely reported hearing explosions, rather than the more ambiguous "bangs".

A bang is a bang IMV, and not a thud, a slam or a loud noise.

 

[Vixen]

What a silly analogy.

A door weighs much less than a house, yet a heavily slammed door produces a noise heard throughout the house and can shake the house.

Nobody but nobody calls it a 'bang' unless they are attributing it to the wind.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Nobody but nobody calls it a 'bang' unless they are attributing it to the wind.

What is your evidence for this?

 

[Andy_Ross]

A bang is a bang IMV, and not a thud, a slam or a loud noise.

So next time I hear banging from next door I should assume explosions not hammering?

 

[GlennB]

A bang is a bang IMV, and not a thud, a slam or a loud noise.

Your 'view' is just plain wrong.

 

[Vixen]

We're not talking about people who reported explosions, Vixen. We're talking about people who reported bangs. You've got your analogy the wrong way 'round.

Witness: I heard a bang.
Vixen: He reported hearing an explosion.
Sane people: No, he said he heard a bang.
Vixen: Don't deny his report! He heard an explosion, you survivor-hater, you!

That's what's going on and you bloody well know it. This could all be settled if you could find someone who reported hearing an explosion (again, I'll note one person said he heard something like an explosion, but only one).

[Usual caveat: We are at least two steps removed from the actual testimony. There was a translation and a summarization required for our source. It totally could be the case that something more suggestive of an explosion was reported initially, but we have no evidence of that so far.]

According to Ilta-Sanomat it describes survivors as reporting a 'pamaus' ['bang']- the Finnish derived word from the sound PAM ( 'P' is like a 'B' sound in Finnish) so BAM. An explosion is räjähdys, and both words can be made into verbs. There is no indication that the survivors were talking about anything other than a sudden alarming noise that sounded like an explosion and not just a loud noise, albeit they didn't actually see one so it may have been caused by something of the same visceral intensity as an explosion.

There have been case of ships experiencing an explosion after water got into the ventilator system. However, the JAIC never looked at the Estonia ventilators, even though divers were sent down there more than once.

 

[Vixen]

I've already pointed out that these passenger reports - of multiple loud bangs over many minutes - are in fact wholly incompatible with conspiracy theories such as ramming by a submarine, striking with a torpedo, or the explosion of some sort of explosive material that was placed within the ship*.

And so far, I don't appear to see anything from you which addresses this rather glaring disparity.


* While at the same time, those reports (multiple loud bangs over many minutes) are entirely compatible with - and explainable by - the bow visor breaking loose on one side and banging repeatedly against the hull, together with the sound of cars/trucks/lorries sliding as the ship listed and crashing against each other and the inside of the hull. Again, you don't seem to have addressed any of this satisfactorily.

The JAIC said the cargo was properly lashed in accordance with the weather conditions.

Okaaaay. The lorries and cars started jamming together at the stroke of Swedish midnight and at the same time all signals were lost for the duration of the sinking.

 

[Vixen]

I'm sorry, what??? Did you write that with a straight face?






You're employing the term "null hypothesis", when it's clear that a) you truly don't know what that term actually means, because b) it's not applicable wrt the example you're describing here (FYI though, the null hypothesis is only ever applicable to statistical tests of a logical condition)

The 'null hypothesis' is the scientific method, as popularised by Popper (no pun intended) and which is how one should conduct any scientific experiment. The JAIC having a foregone conclusion failed in this respect IMV.

 

[Vixen]

How big is the bell clapper compared to the size of the bell though?

Think of Big Ben. It can be heard right across London. It weighs 13.7 tons.
It is struck by a hammer that weighs only 200kg.

And nobody calls Big Ben chimes a bang. More of a BONG!

 

[Vixen]

What is your evidence for this?

We do not hear Big Ben banging, do we?

(Maybe with Big Benjamina we might...)

 

[Vixen]

So next time I hear banging from next door I should assume explosions not hammering?

If you heard bangs, that might be different in quality than banging, suggesting DIY.