On Fri, 4 Dec 2009 12:13:17 -0800 (PST), Bill wrote:

As far as the "soot" term being presently bandied around, it is an
adjective which describes the chemical effects of combustion.

Does your meaning of combustion encompass nuclear fusion?

I once encounter a young wag on campus ( a LaRoucheitte in disguise)
trying to argue (there seemed to be no other outcome expected to this
encounter) that Pythagoras law was wrong.

The hidden agenda seemed (and I say seemed only because this disguised
follower of LaRouche could never get to the point) to be for (or it
could have as easily been against) Nuclear power.

He waved his hands at the sun as the font of all energy (what this had
to do with Pythagorean law was a long and rambling exercise) and that
oil was for naught in comparison. I harkened to comparisons as they
are often fraught with error... my argumentative dwarf snapped on that
hook like an intellectual turtle.

He invoked how much power there was to be had by turning the moon into
our own special sun by nuking it. I venture to offer that we needn't
send missiles to the moon when a match head had enough ooomph to power
Seattle for a day. (I drew my own comparison carefully, knowing the
rhetorical advantage of choice in a match.)

"How could a match head barely light a cigarette, much less power a
city for a day?" Came his indignant, and proud retort - thinly
disguised as the master-stroke of logical humiliation.

I pointed out the difference between nuclear energy (his topic of
choice) and chemical energy (his topic of complete equal ignorance),
two concepts his arguments wandered between without care nor concern
for accuracy in terminology or science.

It was just my luck that all this attracted another eavesdropper who
wanted to dip his oar in this polluted water. I stepped out quickly
with my disguised LaRoucheitte chasing me with epithets such as "I
hope I'm never in YOUR class!"

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC