From: Dave Thomas <nmsrdave@swcp.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2003 18:44:23 -0600
Fwd Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 14:17:08 -0400
Subject: Re: Investigator's Right & Debunking Hypocrisy -


[Non-Subscriber Post]

>>From: David Rudiak <DRudiak@earthlink.net>
>>To: <ufoupdates@virtuallystrange.net>
>>Date: Fri, 11 Jul 2003 09:19:25 -0700
>>Subject: Investigator's Right & Debunking Hypocrisy

<snip>

>>I recently became aware of the article and am drafting a letter
>>of response to the Inquirer right now. Thomas did exactly the
>>same thing as Printy, claiming that since he could reproduce
>>Moore's (bogus) calculation, Moore was right and I was
>>mathematically "incompetent." The problem was, Moore's
>>calculation was full of "mistakes" and the mathematical
>>equivalent of 2 + 2 = 3. All the fatal math mistakes were
>>pointed out on my website, but Thomas, naturally, doesn't
>>mention a single one of them, calling them only "quibbles" and
>>"shrill accusations."

I have reviewed Rudiak's website again, and my own copy of the
math calculations for Charles Moore's trajectory calculation,
and have come to this conclusion:

David Rudiak has disagreements with C. B. Moore over how to
model the Flight #4 trajectory. Some of these disagreements
might even have some merit - say, using the same wind speed for
a given altitude interval on the way up as on the way down.
However, all of these disagreements amount to simply "Well, if I
was modeling this trajectory, I would have used THIS approach,
and THESE assumptions."

However, I can find NO justification whatsoever for Rudiak's
persistent accusations of fraud and hoaxing against Dr. Moore
(Moore received an honorary doctorate from New Mexico Tech
earlier this year). Instead, the "Fuzzy Math" Rudiak complains
about stems from Rudiak's approach to how HE (Rudiak) would have
done the calculations, and NOT what Moore published or said he
did.

Using Moore's own data, and following the directions in his
table, I was able to easily reproduce Moore's chart. I did not
have to "push back 5 points" as Rudiak claims. I did not have to
"push back all data points" as Rudiak claims. I simply typed in
the givens, applied Moore's stated formulas, and plotted the
trajectory, which agreed extremely well with Moore's own
calculations.

I've included a chart of same on my web page about Rudiak and
the Sci Fi Channel's "Roswell- Smoking Gun" show; this is at:

http://www.nmsr.org/sf-gun.htm

(The link didn't come through on the original message).

Here's an example from my calculation:
The 15th line of Moore's table (reproduced on Rudiak's site here:

http://roswellproof.homestead.com/Flight4_Table5.html

The first 5 entries are givens - assumed values developed by
Moore in his analysis.

The first entry is altitude in feet: 42651.
The 2nd entry is rate of rise in feet per minute: 600.
The 3rd entry is time into the flight, in minutes (67.0)
The 4th entry is wind speed in miles per hour (83 mph).
The 5th entry is the angle the wind is coming from (242 degrees)

The remaining entries are all calculated from the givens. The
6th entry is for u, east-west wind speed in mph: this is
calculated as =D16*SIN((E16-180)*PI()/180) in my spreadsheet,
where cell D16 is 83 mph, and cell E16 is 242 degrees. This
formula results in a value of u for this row that is 73.3 mph
(towards the East). Moore's table shows his calculation to have
the same result: 73.3 mph.

The 7th entry is for v, north-south wind speed in mph: this is
calculated as =D16*COS((E16-180)*PI()/180) in my spreadsheet,
where cell D16 is still 83 mph, and cell E16 is still 242
degrees. This formula results in a value of v for this row that
is 39.0 mph (towards the North), again agreeing exactly with
Moore's calculation in his table.

The 8th and 9th entries are the actual trajectory values (x and
y), the subject of this discussion.

In my spreadsheet, I calculated east-west distance x as the
value of the preceding line's x-position (which was 33.9 miles
in my spreadsheet), PLUS the product of the east-west wind speed
for the interval (73.3 mph) and the time interval. The latter I
obtained by subtracting the previous time value (61.6 minutes)
from the current time value (67.0 minutes), obtaining 67.0 -
 61.6 = 5.4 minutes. This equates to 0.09 hours; multiplying
wind speed (73.3 mph) with this time (0.09 hours) yields an x-
increment of 6.6 miles (6.597 if you wish to assume more
accuracy than is warranted). Adding the increment of 6.6 miles
to the previous x-value of 33.9 miles yields the NEW value for
the 15th line, x = 33.9 + 6.6 = 40.5 miles.

The same goes for the y-value; here, the time interval (still
0.09 hours) times the North-South wind speed (39.0 mph) yields
3.51 miles; adding this to the previous line's y-value of 25.25
miles (in MY spreadsheet, of course) yields a new y-coordinate
of 25.25 + 3.51 = 28.76 miles, which rounds off to 28.8 miles
for the accuracy shown.

Where I got a (u,v) coordinate pair at (40.5mi, 28.8mi), Moore's
own calculation yielded (40.4mi, 28.7mi). That is, my numbers
are not EXACTLY what Moore published - they are a whopping 1/10
of a mile off. I suspect that all that happened here is that
Moore's table used his original data from start to finish; the
"givens" may or may not have been rounded off. For example,
where I typed in the value of 67.0 for time in minutes, perhaps
Moore was using a slightly different value (say, 66.967 min),
which rounded off to 67.0 when displayed with one digit.

The differences between Moore's calculation and mine can be
attributed to round-off, pure and simple. I've seen the very
same thing when converting FORTRAN codes to C++, for example.
The WORST my model did in comparison to Moore's was a 1/4-mile
difference at one data point.

I used exactly what Moore said he used - in his own words from
the afore-mentioned Table 5, "x = balloon displacement toward
the east (sum of products of the mean eastward wind component in
the altitude interval with the time interval required for the
balloon train to rise through the specified layer)," and
similarly for y-values.

Where is the math "mistake"? Does David Rudiak really claim that
33.9 + 6.6 does NOT equal 40.5????

The "fuzzy math" Rudiak decries exists in his own mind, not in
the real world.

Now, if he wants to argue about HOW to model such a balloon
flight, that's no problem. Rudiak is certainly entitled to argue
the merits of how HE would do such a calculation, why he
disagrees with Moore's assumptions re symmetry, and so forth.

However, I see NO evidence of a "hoax" or a "blatant math
error." If Rudiak wishes to continue these accusations, then he
is attempting to discredit Roswell skeptics by character
assassination, pure and simple.

All this model was intended for was to see if it RULED OUT
Flight #4 landing near the Foster Ranch. It did not. If the
model showed the balloon heading to El Paso, now THAT would have
been a problem for the Mogul hypothesis.

I thank David Rudiak for pointing out, through his numerous
attempts to re-model the trajectory, that MANY different
approaches still show the balloon train landing near the Foster
Ranch. The 17-mile "discrepancy" is simply the uncertainty of
simple models based in incomplete data.

I also call on him to cease with his unwarranted attempts at
character assassination. Rudiak wants to marginalize Moore (and
Mogul by extension), but his unreasonable personal attacks
reveal the depths he will sink to to bolster up the leaky
Roswell ship.


Sincerely,

Dave Thomas

http://www.nmsr.org
"Life is too short to occupy oneself with the slaying of the slain more
than once." - Thomas Huxley