With the loess for instance, Petersen's thesis is that the nodules could not have formed in-situ due to the need for water. And since loess is deposited by wind, not by water, the presence of water inside the nodules is therefor impossible.
While there is no disagreement with the origin of loess, there is no reason to believe that afterwards water was not involved. Rain, ground water etc can provide enough sources of water. Petersen's thesis is that the nodules formed before the loess was deposited or deposited in situ fully formed while the more conventional scenario is that the nodules were formed after deposition (Glenn addressed some of this). Which explains much better the spatial distribution of snails. River snails close to rives, forest snails closer to forrests etc. Given the evidence, I believe that conventional explanations are far better in explaining the distribution and presence of the nodules in loess. No need for a 'deus ex machina'.
If the nodules dropped in place randomly then one would not expect to find snail shells to reflect the actual population of snails in situ. But it appears that it does.
Now onward to thunderstorms:
Janet: "Petersen goes on to suggest that the electric charge which manifests during a thunderstorm might be traced to a phenomenon of this kind--the charge carriers in this case being small droplets of water however."
While there is of course no reason why a magical, invisible and undetectable force like the 4th dimension could not contribute to thunderstorms, the conventional explanation is far simpler and therefor more likely than Petersen's.
Comets:
Janet: "But that comes later. He begins by pointing out that the prevailing theory of cometary origins implies that comets should display a random distribution in their angular momentum about the sun. To test that conclusion he constructs a histogram showing the observed angular momenta of the 235 long-period comets that appeared between January 1, 1901 and 1982. It turns out that their angular momenta are far from randomly distributed; instead, they tend to very small values--close to zero in fact. From this distribution Petersen concludes that in truth they possessed strictly zero angular momentum initially and therefore could only have originated from the sun. "
Comet Motion
"Comets obey the same physical laws as other bodies in space. Therefore, they move according to the basic motion and universal gravitation laws formed by Newton. The orbit of a comet is elliptical. The geometrical constants that describe this ellipse are the semi-major axis (a) and the eccentricity (e). The semi-minor axis (b) relates these quantities by b=a(1-e2). The focus is located a distance a*e from the center of the ellipse. Three other constants are required if the orientation of the ellipse is needed to be
described. The eccentricity of a comet is very large, approaching the value for a parabola. This high value are just as possible as circular orbits."
So a circular orbit will have an excentricity of zero (a=b), and a hyperbolic
Angular momentum h, gravitational constant G, M and m mass
h^2=GM a(1-e^2)
and energy E
E = -G M m/2a
So if a -> infinity, E goes to zero and we have a parabola
Eccentricity Energy Geometry
>1 >0 hyperbola
1 0 parabola
<1 <0 Ellipse
0 <0 circle
The website continues:
"The dynamical constants of this moving body are energy and angular momentum. The total energy is inversely proportional to the semi-major axis. If the energy reaches zero, the semi-major axis becomes infinite, and comet escapes its orbit. The angular momentum is proportional to the eccentricity and the energy, so the larger the angular momentum, the more elongated the orbit. Energy determines the size of the orbit and the angular momentum of the shape"
Scientific American, sept 1998, "The Oort cloud" discusses the distribution of the energy of known long period-comets. Uncorrected for the interactions with the planets their energy appears to be >0, indicating interstellar origin. But when corrected, their distribution is slightly negative, indicating that the comets came from the edge of the solar system.
So did the comets 'come from the sun" ? Probably, but during the formation of our solar system.
The same data pointing to the Oort cloud. Certainly Petersen's assertion that comets could have 'only come from the sun' is incorrect.
An angular momentum of "zero" indicates an eccentricity of 1, or a parabolic trajectory. Which means that the velocity at infinity will go to zero. So an external origin for such comets is highly unlikely. I am curious how Petersen suggests that a parabolic orbit can be established from ejection out of the sun and how this combines to returning comets ? And although many of the comets appear to have an angular momentum close to zero, it actually still points to an elliptic origin, not a parabolic one.
And what about the 'jets' ?
Janet: "Finally in this light one can understand the capacity for high drama that comets often display aloft. The essential clue was discovered by the space probe Giotto when it intercepted Halley's Comet during its recent return. Pictures sent back revealed that the nucleus was far from the passive snowball that had been expected. In fact, its surface was seen to erupt in "jets" at many discrete points. Petersen's model explains that behavior easily. That is, the gaseous material being generated at the eye, near the center of the nucleus, must escape to outer space through a maze of small passages. In the course of time condensable components will freeze in these passages and eventually block some of them. Ultimately only a few would remain open, and those few would spew out gaseous materials in the form of more powerful jets--which would carry along dust-sized particles as well. "
But no 4th dimension is required to understand these 'jets', when the comet approaches the sun and is heated, such jets are merely escaping of 'heated' gasses from the comet. That's what also forms the 'tail of the comet'. http://gumby.spa.umn.edu/juan/halebopp/makeup/nucleus.html
Which would explain why the coma is seen only when the comet approaches the sun.
http://msgc.engin.umich.edu/comets/Halley_measurements.html
Shows how:
gases of the coma include H+, C+, OH+, CO+, CN+, N2+, H2O+, CO+, and H3O+, among others. (These measurements help scientists determine more accurately what the nucleus is made of, as well as verifing what ground-based measurements of molecular spectra had suggested was present.)
So conventional astronomy can very well explain the observations and requires no invisible '4th dimensions' which do not add anything to the explanation and only open more questions.
Janet: "Firstly, he agrees with Donnelly that the supposed ice age residues are indeed products of cometary impact--the boulder clay being identified as precipitation from the comet itself while he traces the loess to a peripheral Fortean-type fall as noted earlier."
Now we also reach Petersen's conclusion about the origin of the clay. It was due to comets impacting earth. And loess deposited in a related "incident' or the '4th dimension'. But we see loess being deposited all the time and no comets impacting. So the conventional explanation once again wins here. No need for the 4th dimension.
Length of the year:
Janet: "This fact, coupled with the skewing effect on the field noted previously, could give rise to an external torque upon the earth which would account for the change in the length of the year from 360 days, as in former times, to the value we know today. It could also tilt the axis slightly and thereby account for the error in alignment of the Heelstone at Stonehenge. "
I am not sure about this, since the data show that the length of the day decreased when going backwards in time. So shorter days in the past. Would that not mean longer years as the earth makes more rotations around its axis while making one rotation around the sun ? I will have to research this more closely.
Janet: "Eighth: This picture gives a plausible explanation for the origin of the terrestrial magnetic field which, vaguely defined though it may be, easily accounts for reversals of the field that we find preserved in rocks and ancient ceramics. It also offers a mechanism for earthquakes which accounts for their well defined focus, and also for volcanism and violent atmospheric phenomena."
Of course, it can explain anything and predict nothing. The 4th dimension has replaced the "Deus ex machina". While conventional physics can explain many of the observations, it does not rely on such "helping hand" which is for all practical purposes indistinguishable from the "helping hand of God".
Earthquakes, volcanism and violent atmospheric phenomena are very well understood and no need for a '4th dimension' or a cometary impact is required.
Janet: "And finally, as already noted, this model of cometary impact defines a catastrophe that answers well to the Great Flood described in the Book of Genesis. In doing so it provides for the fossiliferous rocks and the separation of the continents as aspects of a single episode of upheaval following the impact of a great comet. It is also worth noting that in this light the presently used radiometric dating techniques are not applicable. In fact, Petersen is unable to offer any opinion as to the time when that event occurred. "
I am amused to see how easily the evidence contradicting a global flood are dismissed. Radiometric dating loses its meaning despite the fact that it behaves exactly as would be predicted from theory. For example: The magnetic reversals form stripes as expected from the spreading of the continents, dating show support for this mechanism as well. Nothing is explained by Petersen's ideas but conventional geology can explain the observations without having to deny the existance of evidence. How does Petersen provide an explanation for the fossil structure which is so constant that it is hard to claim a 'catastrophic event' caused it ?
How come that sedimentary layers date exactly as would be expected ? How come that evidence of a global flood is severely lacking ?
Janet: "It should be clear that unless Petersen's theorem can be rebutted, or some more satisfactory interpretation of the loess can be given (either of which options I consider fairly unlikely) then it follows that our prevailing view of nature is very much in error."
Or your ideas that no rebuttal can and has been given are in error. I already pointed you to:
http://www.calvin.edu/archive/evolution/199808/0321.html
Unless his '4th dimension' can be shown to 'predict' and be 'falsified', it cannot be rebutted but it can be shown that using far fewer assumptions the same observations can be explained equally well or better without the need for 'ad hoc' assumptions.
I have shown how conventional science explains the observations equally well or better without the need for 'supernatural' 4th dimension. What prediciting power does the "4th dimension" have, how can it be disproven ? All this is relevant if Petersen wants this to become an issue of scientific inquiry. Your attitude: "I consider this fairly unlikely" is not an attitude that does full justice to 'scientific inquiry' as it relies on you fully understanding conventional knowledge about loess formation.
Finnaly Joseph mentions
"The author says that such fluctuations are sporadic and unpredictable and cannot be explained by
any presently known mechanism."
Some background:
http://www.maa.mhn.de/Comet/Periodic/029p.html
Now I point to:
http://www.tau.ac.il/geophysics/staff/arkee/comphys/node1.html
"My interest in comets also goes back a long ways. In the 1970's I speculated a bit in print about the origin of the strange brightness fluctuations of P/Schwassmann-Wachmann I and in general looked into the question of solar wind shock wave interactions with cometary comae. In the 1980's with Giotto and the others zooming in on P/Halley, I got more seriously involved and went on sabbatical and leave of absence to JPL for two years (1986-88) to peer over the shoulders of the Giotto experimenters there,
Marcia Neugebauer, Bruce Goldstein and Ray Goldstein. I also crossed paths there with Bimla Buti who was visiting on sabbatical from India. This led to a paper with Bimla on the limitations of ideal MHD in comet physics, a model of the diamagetic cavity with Bruce and a major effort on energetic particle generation near the cavity boundary with Ray and others from the Mass Spectrometry
team. We generated a recyling model involving multiple charge exchange interactions to provide the 300 eV heavy ions seen just inside the cavity."
"Back home in 1989, I looked, with a graduate student, Zachi Klopman at the question of generation of the cavity in the light of more detailed analysis of the velocity profile published by Kettmann and others of MPI LIndau and came up with a unidimensional model that explains many of the observed phenomena. We found that including the nonuniformity of the velocity field creates a term of
comparable magnitude and of opposite sign to the friction term, which implies that the attribution of cavity formation to friction/viscous interaction is not in general correct. A second conclusion is that there are cases in which a cavity will not be formed. These cases are, for example, comets with low gas production (small comets or comets that are quite far away from the sun) "
The latest brightening of the comet coincided with it breaking up into several pieces. While all the physics might not be fully understood yet, this hardly requires a '4th dimension'.
"It therefore appears that the actual separation began about one month after the moment of maximum brightness and nearly two months after the perihelion passage. Still, there is little doubt that it is closely related to the processes which led to the dramatic outburst. Further observations will help to refine the description of the break-up process, but a simple explanation is that major cracks and rifts opened in the irregularly shaped icy nucleus already before perihelion as the surface temperature began to increase. Completely ``fresh'' cometary material was thereby exposed to the solar light and the evaporation rate increased quickly, releasing more gas and dust into space. In the course of this process, the rifts gradually widened until the definitive breakage occurred somewhat later."
Btw the article also mentions 1000 times not 10^6 times as the increase in expected brightness.
Could Joseph perhaps give a full reference to Roemer's paper ? Most references I found to her are in the late 60's-early 70's.