Thunderbolts of the Gods

Cuddles · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
I asked for the scientific reasons, not calculations

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

Cuddles said:

#2

Anyone can prove anything with maths, my point is that he is using numbers that the accuracy of can be argued, and so nothing substanciative can be drawn from the result of those calculations. If he on the other hand had quoted a scienfific principle that refutes the ideas that charge can separate in space for example, then yes that would be fine. But there is no such law.

For any consistent formal, computably enumerable theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory, can be constructed.

Scientists have proven mathematically before that a satelite can not return to the earth as the fuel would weigh too much. Their maths was abosolutely fine, it was, however, based on a faulty premise. How wrong they were.

~enigma~ · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
#2

Anyone can prove anything with maths, my point is that he is using numbers that the accuracy of can be argued, and so nothing substanciative can be drawn from the result of those calculations. If he on the other hand had quoted a scienfific principle that refutes the ideas that charge can separate in space for example, then yes that would be fine. But there is no such law.

For any consistent formal, computably enumerable theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory, can be constructed.

Scientists have proven mathematically before that a satelite can not return to the earth as the fuel would weigh too much. Their maths was abosolutely fine, it was, however, based on a faulty premise. How wrong they were.

Great example of something "proved" with math...

sol invictus · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
Anyone can prove anything with maths
...
For any consistent formal, computably enumerable theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory, can be constructed.

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

sol invictus said:

I'm quite sure that there is nothing wrong with godels theorems. Maybe i should have included the last part, which i thought was obviously inferred by the first section, but you appear to have missed;

For any consistent formal, computably enumerable theory that proves basic arithmetical truths, an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory, can be constructed. That is, any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete.

Please just outline your scientific reasons to dismiss it, its been four posts now.

Maybe I should outline what exactly some aspects of EU are.

The universe is electrically active, ie, charge separation and the properties of plasma are not small secondary effects, they are the predominant forces in the universe, and their effects far outweigh the effects of gravity. Stars are connected and held in place by the EM forces between them created from the flow of particles between them, likewise are galaxies, planets and other cosmic systems.

We now know that planets have millions of amperes of electricity entering their poles from the sun, it is highly likely that so does the sun from the surrounding galaxy.

Since plasma is highly scaleable if you scale the solar system model up many orders of size, you would have a similar process with the galaxy. In which there is a flow of current travelling through the centre, where most of the reactions are seen to be taking place. The general shape of a rotating disk carrying electrical currents in the shape shown by Alfven defines what is called the homopolar motor - generator (or often called a unipolar inductor). This is also one of the reasons why filaments twist into Birkeland currents. This explains why all bodies rotate, something lacking from conventional theories past angular momentum. This model explains excellently the observations of galaxies all lined up, as if attached by a long string. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060123_andromeda_plane.html

Strange Setup: Andromeda's Satellite Galaxies All Lined Up

An unusually high number of galaxies are aligned along a single plane running through the center of the giant Andromeda galaxy. Scientists don't have a theory to explain why.

Galactic cannibalism [ ????? ] or dark matter may be responsible, researchers say. [ ]

Using the Hubble Space Telescope, Eva Grebel and Andrew Koch from the University of Basel in Switzerland found that nine out of Andromeda's fourteen dwarf galaxy satellites reside in a single plane. The plane is about 52,000 light-years wide and is aligned perpendicular to Andromeda's own galactic plane, within which the galaxy's stars orbit about the center.

That nearly 80 percent of Andromeda's satellite galaxy mass is located within a single plane is highly unusual and can't be accounted for by traditional theories of galaxy formation, Grebel said.

Distant galaxies line-up in space - BBC

So these structures seem to fit the morphology expected from the ES model quite well, in fact these type of structures (along the plane of the centre of the galaxy) would be a direct consequence of the current expected from a unipolar motor mechanism. All sorts of objects in space take this shape, the neutron star at the centre of the crab nebula is a fine example where you can see the current through the centre, with the rotating cloud of plasma around it;

So the process that is happening in the sun is a far smaller with far less input into it than that one. In our solar system the currents are very diffuse and only become visible when they are right next to the sun, in the corona. This is where the current density starts to increase as you travel towards the sun, travelling through its E-field, until it become energetic enough to produce visible light which is what produces the corona. The plasma frequency of the solar wind can be determined by the permittivity of free space, the electric field and the charge on the electron. The relationship shows that as the E-field increases as you move towards the sun, so does the current density of the attracted particles. The plasma frequency. Using this relationship it is obvious that as the particles travel towrds the sun, the current density increases as the strength of the E-field increases. When the plasma in the solar wind has sufficient current density near the sun, it moves into its third main mode of operation, into arc mode, which is where it becomes visible in the corona. The fact that there are many free 'conduction electrons' in the solar wind (thats why its called a plasma) many electrons will 'drift' towards the sun due to attractive forces.

The rotation on the sun and other bodies is caused by a unipolar inductor mechanism, which uses direct current input to create rotational motion;

http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Unipolar_inductor

A Unipolar inductor usually refers to a device in which a rotating metal disk rotating in a magnetic field, generates an electric current. The metal disk can be any conductor, including a rotating plasma. It is also known as a homopolar generator, unipolar generator, acyclic generator, disk dynamo, or Faraday disk. Unipolar inductors have been associated with the aurorae on Uranus,[4] binary stars,[5] [6] black holes,[7] [8] pulsars (neutron stars),[2] galaxies,[9] the Jupiter Io system,[10] [11] the Moon,[12] [13] the Solar Wind,[14] sunspots,[15] [16] in the Venusian magnetic tail.[17], the Earth,[18], and comets.[19] [20]

The fact that the corona has a different appearance near the poles indicates that there is something different occurring at the poles than the rest of the sun, and the recent discoveries of the polar holes, polar jets, radiation emission and bright spots on the poles indicate that something more energetic is happening at the poles than previously believed.

Radio waves, ultra violet radiation and polar jets are all known to emanate from the suns poles. There have been many recent discoveries by SOHO and other spacecraft that were not expected or predicted, but seem to be consistent with the ES model, mainly the polar jets.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/307721 - The Astrophysical Journal, 523:444–449, 1999 September 20

We analyze polar jets observed by the Large‐Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) instrument aboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory. Although ballistic trajectories have some success in fitting the observed kinematic motions, there is substantial evidence that gravity alone is not regulating the movement of the jets.

Gravity alone is not regulating the movement, because the suns e-field that is generated from the charge of the sun; that is what is causing the acceleration.

If you look at pics of the corona, it certainly has a different texture at the polar regions, and numerous thin filaments seem to occur at the poles;

And a lot of very recent observations seem to be confirming these ideas. Mainly the huge birkeland currents detected connecting the sun to the earth in late 2007;

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2007/12/massive-magneti.html

"The satellites have found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun. We believe that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras."

So it follows that since the sun also has poles just like every other planet and star, it too should have these currents incident on its poles. Polar holes are another recently found good indication of different than normal activity occuring at the poles.

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/305756

The Solar Corona Above Polar Coronal Holes as Seen by SUMER on SOHO

In order to address two of the principal scientific objectives of the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), studies of the heating mechanisms of the solar corona and the acceleration processes of the solar wind, we deduce electron temperatures, densities, and ion velocities in plumes and interplume regions of polar coronal holes using ultraviolet observations from SUMER (Solar Ultraviolet Measurements of Emitted Radiation) on SOHO.

And another;

http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/Hinode_New_Insights_On_The_Origin_Of_Solar_Wind_999.html

This image clearly shows an x-ray jet launching plasma out into the solar system from the Sun's north polar coronal hole. This image was taken 10 January 2007 by Hinode's X-ray telescope.

While we're on the topic of energetic polar events on the sun, the very recent observation by Japans Hinode spacecraft might make a good addition;

Hinode EUV Study of Jets in the Sun’s South Polar Corona

A number of coronal bright points and associated plasma jet features were seen in an observation of the South polar coronal hole during 2007 January. The 4000 wide slot was used at the focus of the Hinode EUV Imaging Spectrometer to provide spectral images for two of these events.

And some other observations by SOHO seem to add further evidence that the sun is far more electrically dynamic than a slow convecting ball of gas. Maybe soho has the answers.
They seem to have found large electric charge movement near the suns surface;

Jet Stream Runs Swiftly Inside the Sun

(SOHO) spacecraft have discovered "jet streams" or "rivers" of hot, electrically charged gas called plasma flowing beneath the surface of the Sun.

The ‘electrically charged plasma’ found near the suns surface seem to be travelling far to fast for conventional theories. Further evidence of particle acceleration caused by charge separation and the subsequent electrical fields. One of the most outstanding problems in solar physics is the acceleration and heating of the corona. In the electric model you don’t have this problem, as the suns E-field creates the acceleration, and the particles being received remotely by the sun cause the heating in the corona above the surface.

Ziggurat · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
Anyone can prove anything with maths,

[Homer]Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true![/Homer]

Zeuzzz said:
I cant see how you can work out what the maximum charge the sun can have is. Where did you get that from? and what value did you use?

If you can't see where I got it from, then you didn't follow all the links. But here it is (again):
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?opti.../articles/aa/abs/2001/24/aah2649/aah2649.html
The value I used for our sun was 100 Coulombs. And that limit is basically derived from the maximum charge that can be gravitationally confined, because there is no other confinement mechanism.

If you believe that magnetic field lines can be open, and 'reconnect' then you most certainly are challenging Maxwell's equations.

My calculations have absolutely nothing to do with whether or not field lines are open or reconnect, I never said anything about that. Which makes this a strawman. All that is required is that there be a magnetic field for the star to move through, which is the entire point of the model for magnetic effects on galactic rotation.

Lets me get this straight, you are using peratts work on galaxy formation, and saying that the solar system has to mimic this exactly?

No. I'm using his model for galactic rotation curves and demonstrating it cannot explain the galactic rotation of a star. If the model can't explain the orbit of a star about the galactic center, then it cannot be used as evidence that dark matter isn't necessary to explain galactic rotation. It's quite simple, really.

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

The electrons have been observed to be travelling towards the sun, but not much data is know yet as they were only discovered a month ago by the CE/SWEPAM suprathermal electron measurements. Currently there is no real explanation for why only the negative electrons seem to backscatter towards the sun when there is an energetic solar event, but this is easily explained in the ES model with the acceleration resulting from the suns high voltage.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMSH44C..02S

Backstreaming Electrons Associated With Solar Electron Bursts - American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2007. Publication Date: 12/2007.
Quote:

Solar electron bursts are frequently observed in the ACE/SWEPAM suprathermal electron measurements at energies below 1.4 keV. A significant fraction of such events show backscattered electrons, beginning after the burst onset and traveling back towards the Sun along the magnetic field direction. Such backscattered particles imply a scattering mechanism beyond the spacecraft location. Some bursts also show backstreaming conic distributions, implying mirroring at magnetic field enhancements beyond the spacecraft. Here we present a study of these backstreaming particles during solar electron events.

These interstellar electric currents have even been observed and confirmed by various telescopes and published in various peer reviewed papers;

Manifestations of electric currents in interstellar molecular clouds - IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. 20, no. 6, p. 867-873.

Filamentary structures in molecular clouds and the existence of subfilaments of sinusoidal shape and also of helixlike structures are investigated. For two dark clouds, the Lynds 204 complex and the Sandqvist 187-188 complex, such shapes and the possible existence of helices wound around the main filaments are studied. All these features suggest the existence of electric currents and magnetic fields in these clouds. On the basis of a generalization of the Bennett pinch model, the magnitudes of the currents expected to flow in the filaments are derived. Values of column densities, magnetic field strengths, and direction of the fields are derived from observations. Magnetic fields with both toroidal and axial components are considered. The study shows that axial currents of the order of a few times 10 to the 13th power A are necessary for the clouds to be in equilibrium. The mean electron velocities are of the order of 0.01 to 0.00001 m/s, much lower than the thermal velocities in the clouds. It is suggested that helical structures may evolve as a result of various instabilities in the pinched clouds.

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

Ziggurat said:
If you can't see where I got it from, then you didn't follow all the links. But here it is (again):
http://www.aanda.org/index.php?opti.../articles/aa/abs/2001/24/aah2649/aah2649.html
The value I used for our sun was 100 Coulombs. And that limit is basically derived from the maximum charge that can be gravitationally confined, because there is no other confinement mechanism.

I've seen that paper before when I myself linked to it on my other thread on this matter, and i think that it is an underestimate. I still like it however as it shows that the sun is able to retain a net charge, and eminate an electrical field.

http://www.aanda.org/index.php?opti...=129&url=/articles/aa/pdf/2001/24/aah2649.pdf

It is possible that the claim about the electrical neutrality of stars originates in a misunderstanding of net charge on a star. For example in the textbook by Glendenning (1997; p. 71), there is subsection entitled \Electrical Neutrality of Stars", in which the upper limit on the net charge is derived. The net positive charge has to be smaller than 10^-36 qA Coulombs, where q is elementary electric charge (charge of proton) and A is number of baryons in the star. Hence, the author concludes that \the net charge per nucleon (and therefore the average charge per nucleon on any star) must be very small, essentially zero". Of course, we must agree that the charge per nucleon is negligible, even the charge of a small macroscopic volume of plasma is usually negligible. In this sense, we can speak about the neutrality. However, it is necessary to realize that the number A is very large (e.g. A = 10⁵⁷one-solar-mass star) resulting in a signicant global charge of the star as a whole. If a reader is not attentive enough, he or she can easily accept the wrong concept of global neutrality of a star evoked by the title.

This i what i feel the common misconception is with the term 'neutral' in the context it is used so often.

Since this paper was the very first proposing what the charge could be, i'd say that it is not likely correct, and the value will be higher than that when more work is done on observational evidence that confirms what the total charge is.

The purpose of this paper is remind of the existence of the global electrostatic field of the Sun and other stars, since it has been ignored by the authors of textbooks and review papers during the last several decades. Consequently, it has probably not been taken into account in the concerning works [...]

Obviously real stars do not have physical properties completely identical to ideal stars and this causes the instantaneous global charge of a given star to differ from the value Q of an ideal star. Nevertheless, the star permanently tends to set up this charging and wecan assume it as a rough approximation

So they are suggesting that gravity itself is what charges the star by displacing the electrons and protons, which is basically creating a radial ring of small electric dipoles around the sun. This separation caused by gravity is what retains the net positive charge on the sun.

ben m · Feb 19, 2008

So now we've got THREE people posting the exact same database of "arguments" for a plasma universe:

(A) the "OMG PLAZMA!!!!111!!" gambit
1) There is plasma in the solar system
2) There is plasma in the Universe
3) You can run simulations in which plasma does various things
4) ???
5) Therefore (!?) MHD is the dominant force in the real Universe.

To everyone posting pictures of the Sun and Earth: nobody has disagreed with points (1) and (2). We know there are plasmas, winds, etc., in the solar system. Some of the magnetometers and Faraday cups that are probing them were built by friends of mine. These pictures have no bearing on points (4) and (5). Please stop posting pictures of the Sun and Earth as though they support your argument. It's like arguing for Intelligent Design by posting 300 different posts saying "Yes, flagella rotate---stop denying it! Rotation is important! Look, another flagellum picture!".

If MHD is supposed to be the dominant force, this has to relate to actual forces, with actual magnitudes, due to actual force laws. MHD isn't some sort of Magick Faerie Dust which sweeps up plasma and makes it dance; it's just set of couplings between charges, currents, and pressures. The only way MHD can move a star is by, as we've said a zillion times, exerting a Coulomb or Lorentz-type force acting on the Sun's charge or its surface fields; the only way the Sun can respond is via F = ma.

(B) The "DARK MATTER! OH NOES! DO NOT WANT" attack
(1) Say, "If dark matter is so dark, how do we know it's there"?
(2) Google for "dark matter +"scientists baffled"" and cut and paste results
(3) ???
(4) Therefore, dark matter is an old-paradigm relic blah blah Kuhn blah blah.

We don't know dark matter is there. It's a hypothesis. Supporting the hypothesis are the observations that:
a) galaxies have flat, fast rotation curves
b) galaxy clusters have large virial velocities and very hot intracluster gas
c) galaxies and galaxy clusters lens distant light very strongly
d) galaxies, clusters, the Lyman-Alpha forest, the BAO, etc., are a product of self-gravitating collapse of the primordial density fluctuations seen in the CMB
e) The density fluctuations seen in the CMB are an acoustically-processed version of a truly scale-invariant Big Bang density fluctuation spectrum
f) Colliding galaxy clusters, like the Bullet Cluster, have a weak-lensing potential well overlying their pre-collision cluster centers, not overlying the post-collision gas mass.

It only takes one free parameter to explain all of these things. That's the dark matter hypothesis: "There's something out there which is decoupled from photons". The one free parameter is the DM density. Lensing data fits the hypothesis if, and only if, the DM density is 0.23. Rotation curves fit the hypothesis if and only if the DM density is 0.23. The BAO scale fits the hypothesis if and only if the density is 0.23. And so on. Get the picture? Our hypothesis actually fits the data. That's, y'know, why we keep following up. The classic sign of a bad paradigm is that different techniques disagree---in the gravitational measurement of dark matter, everything agrees.

It remains just a hypothesis, but it's a very good one. You know what we do with good hypotheses? We try to test them. Welcome to the world of dark matter experiments. The goal of dark matter experiments is to find out whether or not the dark matter is capable of interacting with normal matter at all. The LHC (among its many capabilities) tests one domain of this, DEAP and CDMS and XENON and so on test another domain, GLAST and VERITAS (among many capabilities) test a third domain. (SNO and Soudan have nothing to do with it: thank you for demonstrating your lack of knowledge so clearly by saying that they do.)

Are there any areas where the hypothesis does not fit the data? Well, sort of. In the domain of small galaxies, we have no idea what the hypothesis tells us. "The dark matter gravitationally collapsed from primordial scale invariant blah blah..." does not immediately make a prediction for, e.g., the inner density profile of the Milky Way, nor for the abundance of dwarf galaxies. It's not that the hypothesis disagrees with the data, it's that the hypothesis doesn't make strong predictions on some of these points.

With that out of the way, let's dismiss the "OH NOES" argument simply: Attacking theory A is not support for theory B. Attacking evolution does not prove creation. Attacking quantum mechanics does not prove Leprechaun Theory. Attacking relativity does not prove any of its fourscore crackpot competitors. Attacking string theory does not prove LQG or whatever. That's a general point in the theory of knowledge, OK? Let's focus on a more specific point: Dark matter is a hypothesis. Saying "You have no proof" over and over does not make it any less of a hypothesis, nor any less worth following up on. Give it a break. There's a huge amount of consensus in the field that this hypothesis is worth spending our experimental money on; that consensus comes from thousands of people who have looked at the data, not from three kids with a Web page and a conspiracy theory.

The "I CAN HAS PEER REVIEWED PAPER LA LA LA" defense
(1) Plasma cosmology has peer-reviewed papers about it
(2) ???
(3) There is no need for me to understand the contents of these papers, citing them proves all my points.

Dude. Go to a physics colloquium some time. Pick a controversial one, where someone is presenting a slightly-off-center theory. Watch what happens when the speaker is challenged:

This does NOT happen:
Q) "Bob, I understand that MOND fits rotation curves, but there are similarly slow accelerations in disk oscillations; why do those look so Newtonian? Doesn't that disprove your theory?"
A) "That's a great question, Professor Zwicky. In fact, you could say that the answer to that question would allow the theory to be conclusively disproven. The answer is presumably in my peer reviewed paper, but I'm not doing your work for you."
Q) "Oh, OK."

This happens---well, assuming that the speaker isn't full of baloney.
Q) "Bob, I understand that MOND fits rotation curves, but there are similarly slow accelerations in disk oscillations; why do those look so Newtonian?"
A) "That's a great question, Professor Zwicky. We looked into that, and the data actually disagree with the old version of the MOND, that's why we're presenting the non-Lorentz-invariant version. For this version, the fit is actually really good."
Q) "I still find it hard to believe; do you have a slide of that?"
A) "It's in the paper; let me pull up a PDF and show you."

Your smug refusal to estimate the forces on a star does not suggest that we're going to give you, and the IEEE peer review system, the benefit of the doubt. Your refusal to estimate the forces tells us that you're full of it. You don't know the forces; if you did know the forces, you would know that they disprove your theory. I looked for a force estimate in Peratt's papers---Peratt didn't estimate them, he explicitly assumed they were large. If you know that the forces are large, it's time to stand up and tell us how you know. Show your work, with units. Get on it.

And, unfortunately, unlike the one-parameter "dark matter gnome", you're inventing a new parameter for every observation we've suggested. You've invented a dozen new bits of physics to put inside the Sun to explain how an invisible polar current could power it without anyone noticing---and, hey, when SNO told you that the solar neutrino rate matches the standard fusion model, you had to invent a new set of parameters to patch up the neutrino data. You've invented magnetic fields and currents to thread through the galaxy---not because we've seen them at the required strengths, but because you want them to have exactly those strengths (tuned per galactic variations, vector directions still unspecified, etc.) because otherwise your rotation curve hypothesis fails. You've slapped a mysterious just-so charge-to-mass ratio onto everything from red supergiant stars to binary pulsars---and, indeed, you have to invent new and different physics for each star type. You've tuned up some sort of weird non-cosmological redshift, tuned it to match some weird non-cosmological dimming, and shoehorned the whole thing into an alternative quasar hypothesis. And so on. If you want to object, please provide a list of the a-priori free parameters in "Plasma Cosmology" and a list of the data used to fit them. Then tell us the chi^2 probability of the global fit. (You have done a global fit, right? No? Don't tell me you don't know what a free parameter is? )

To sum up

Your supposed "defense" of plasma cosmology rests on:
(a) pointing out the existence of solar-system and cosmic plasmas, while utterly failing to argue that they in fact exert large forces on anything.
(b) attacking the dark matter hypothesis by asserting that it sounds stupid
(c) treating MHD as a Magick Super Kung-Fu Force that magically makes everything, whether charged or neutral, dense or diffuse, light or heavy, obey every detail of a mid-1980s computer simulation of a strongly-coupled plasma---and pretending that this is somehow obvious because the computer simulation was peer-reviewed.

In other words, you have been completely incapable of actually defending your pet hypothesis, and indeed---by making me actually read Peratt's papers---you've convinced me that Plasma Cosmology is even stupider than I had previously assumed. (I had been inclined to place it a few steps below MOND, but having seen the "science", I've bumped it downwards towards Autodynamics and Null Physics.)

(PS. That's my parting message, I'll be off the forums for a month or so. )

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

ben m said:
To sum up

Your supposed "defense" of plasma cosmology rests on:
(a) pointing out the existence of solar-system and cosmic plasmas, while utterly failing to argue that they in fact exert large forces on anything.

The force that they exert is through the forces that derive from the separation of charge in the cosmos, mainly EM fields, electrostatics, magnetic confinement, Z-pinch effects, CIV, or any of the other well established products of plasma physics. Unipolar inductors are thought to be able to create the desired rotation observable in nearly every body in space. There are many factors at work, much more than just gravity.

(b) attacking the dark matter hypothesis by asserting that it sounds stupid

Quite to the contrary, it is attacked not because of the sound of it, but specifically because dark matter is a purely hypothetical entity that has never been confirmed. When you can't make a theory work, just make something up to even out the maths, thats the real reason behind dark matter. The gravititational equations are at a complete lack to explain this shape so they fill in the gaps with loads of 'dark matter'

(c) treating MHD as a Magick Super Kung-Fu Force that magically makes everything, whether charged or neutral, dense or diffuse, light or heavy, obey every detail of a mid-1980s computer simulation of a strongly-coupled plasma---and pretending that this is somehow obvious because the computer simulation was peer-reviewed.

Infact many EU proponents do not really like MHD, and it is rarely used to explain observations now. Alfven himself admitted flaws in it in his nobel prize acceptance speech.

In other words, you have been completely incapable of actually defending your pet hypothesis

you know why? because no-one has come up with any substanciative, relevant, consistant reason for us to dismiss it, if you have, I'm all ears.

I really doubt you even read my previous posts. What do you think is causing the electrical currents observed in the ISM between every star? Manifestations of electric currents in interstellar molecular - IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. 20, no. 6, p. 867-873.

What do you think is causing the negative electrons to be backscattered towards the sun?
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AGUFMSH44C..02S

What is causing the acceleration of the corona?

The heating of the corona?

These are all genuine outstanding problems in solar physics, and the ES model has answers to all of them. In fact the ES model seems to fit reality a lot better than the standard model, and explain the problems that the standard model can not aswell.

The acceleration of the corona is caused by the suns e-field, and the heating is caused by the partcles travelling towards the sun, and the associated high current density that they create.

I feel that I should outline the main ideas behind the very basis of the theoretical model, and how you should distinguish between two competing theories and which one holds the most truth.

Parsimony states that of two competing theories with equal explanatory power, the simplest theory is more theoretically appealing than the more complicated one. Strictly defined, parsimony demands us not to “multiply entities beyond necessity.”.

The ES model passes this test far better than the standard model. You can explain the main concepts involved for the ES model to someone in a matter of minutes, whereas the standard model takes a less coherent approach and makes use of many more separate entities to explain the same thing (the solar dynamo, MHD, nuclear fusion, coronal seismology, etc, etc, etc)

Simply put, the theory that explains the most phenomena and disregards the least evidence is the more powerful theory. Put another way, if theory A must disregard some evidence, and theory B does not, theory B is a better theory. In another post here I outlined eight areas where the ES model can explain phenomenon that the standard model can not. So unless the standard model can address these theories, or if you see any problems with my points, please list them so we can compare the theories. If not, ask yourself why this is.

The events espoused by a theory should be repeatable or at least observable in analogous circumstances. Theories that hinge on results that are unrepeatable are suspect as unlikely. This applies to such untested things as ‘magnetic reconnection’, ‘the solar dynamo’ and other ambiguous ideas.

As a further explication of the above criteria, we should recognize that theories that fly in the face of long-standing, fundamental principles (otherwise known as “laws of physics and thermodynamics”), are highly questionable, and require very strong evidence to even consider as plausible, much less as likely explanations. Luckily, the ES model is not only highly consistent with these fundamental principles, but is based entirely on them. The field of electricity and magnetism is very well established, and the ES model adheres perfectly to them. So far from all my posting on various fora no-one has come up with a laws of physics that this theory violates, in fact, that seems to be its strength, it seems highly internally self consistent. On the other hand the standard model seems content with bending various laws of magnetism, creating entirely new metaphysical entities and creating entirely new properties of materials.

So given this, it should be clear that unless more evidence is put forward to refute the ES model, as it currently stands, the ES model is the more powerful and effective theory of the two as it is able to explain many aspects still unexplained by the standard model. Mainly the points from the list supplied by Markus J. Aschwanden of the Trace solar project of some of the Outstanding Problems in Solar Physics, outlined recently in 2007; http://solar.physics.montana.edu/cgi-bin/eprint/index.pl?entry=5190

iantresman · Feb 19, 2008

ben m said:
(A) the "OMG PLAZMA!!!!111!!" gambit
1) There is plasma in the solar system
2) There is plasma in the Universe
3) You can run simulations in which plasma does various things
4) ???
5) Therefore (!?) MHD is the dominant force in the real Universe.

.
Just a small point, MHD (magnetohydrodynamics) is a fluid-based theory in which certain approximations are made, that is valid in some (typically high density) plasma regions, such as stellar interiors.

It is not suitable for many other low and medium density astrophysical plasma regions, such as interplanetary, interstellar and intergalactic space.

MHD is also not suitable for a number of complex plasma phenomena, such as double layers (resulting in charge separation regions), and plasma beams (resulting in jets).

I also think it is better to suggest that gravity is the dominant force in some regions, and electromagnetic forces are dominant in other regions (typically where charged particle mass is less than grain size).

robinson · Feb 19, 2008

This has become the best thread ever.

sol invictus · Feb 19, 2008

You don't even notice when you contradict yourself, even when I help you out with bolding... here, I'll try again.

Zeuzzz said:
Anyone can prove anything with maths
<snip>
an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory, can be constructed.

Zeuzzz · Feb 19, 2008

sol invictus said:
You don't even notice when you contradict yourself, even when I help you out with bolding... here, I'll try again.

Here we go again. Post number five that still has not contained anything of value, scientifically speaking, to refute the information I have relayed to you.

as i have repeatedly said;

I asked for the scientific reasons

and i ask again;

what is your actual main problem with plasma cosmology? Just outline your scientific objections with this in a clear and open way, without any Ad hominem comments.

Ziggurat · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
I've seen that paper before when I myself linked to it on my other thread on this matter, and i think that it is an underestimate.

But you haven't said why, or how big you think it should be. Absent that, I really don't care what you might feel like. There's 20 orders of magnitude to close before there's enough force for magnetism to be relevant to the sun's galactic orbit. Not a factor of 20, but a factor of 10²⁰. Now maybe that upper bound is off by one order of magnitude, I guess that could happen. But that's not enough, not by a bloody long shot. And to convince me that it's off by more than an order of magnitude, you're going to have to show me how that's possible. You've going to have to show me how you can possibly confine such a large charge to the sun. And neither you nor anyone else has done so. Well, I guess there was one web page that claimed to have an answer, but it was a nonsensical violation of Gauss's law.

So they are suggesting that gravity itself is what charges the star by displacing the electrons and protons, which is basically creating a radial ring of small electric dipoles around the sun.

That doesn't charge the sun. That polarizes it. Big difference. An electrically polarized but neutral sun will feel zero net Lorenz force in a magnetic field.

This separation caused by gravity is what retains the net positive charge on the sun.

No, it doesn't. Such a polarization does absolutely nothing to create or maintain a net charge. The field at the surface from a radial polarization is zero, as it must be from Gauss's law. You've completely misunderstood the charging process they refer to: it's due to more thermally excited electrons reaching escape velocity than protons, if the sun is neutral. That's not simply a displacement of charge. But the process stops when the charge hits about 100 Coulombs for a sun-sized star, and would reverse if the charge got any larger. Any larger charge is not stable, and will bleed away. And a charge 10 or 20 orders of magnitude larger would not simply be unstable, it would explode off the sun at relativistic velocities.

sol invictus · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
Here we go again. Post number five that still has not contained anything of value, scientifically speaking, to refute the information I have relayed to you.

as i have repeatedly said;

and i ask again;

You're evidently too lazy to read my posts. I'm not going to waste my time cutting and pasting just so you can ignore them again.

Sorry about that!

robinson · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
Here we go again. Post number five that still has not contained anything of value, scientifically speaking, to refute the information I have relayed to you.

Welcome to the JREF Forum. Where insults are as good as science.

Dancing David · Feb 19, 2008

robinson said:
Welcome to the JREF Forum. Where insults are as good as science.

You also left out appeals to emotion, god of the gaps, assertion without evidence and just saying "you didn't read the link".

BTW your posts make a lot more sense if I imagine hearing "Back in Black" before i read them...

robinson · Feb 19, 2008

Or imagine I am saying them in a loud, slightly pissed off voice, while pointing a finger, which is really funny.

BeAChooser · Feb 19, 2008

~enigma~ said:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1325747b9dde63eccf.jpg[/qimg]

That is a direct proof of dark matter from Chandra dated 8/2006 so what exactly are you babbling about?

Is it?

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0702146 " The Bullet Cluster 1E0657-558 evidence shows Modified Gravity in the absence of Dark Matter,
J. R. Brownstein, J. W. Moffat, Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc. 382 (2007) 29-47"

http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/do...2966.2007.12403.x?cookieSet=1&journalCode=mnr "The collision velocity of the bullet cluster in conventional and modified dynamics, G. W. Angus and S. S. McGaugh, SUPA, School of Physics and Astronomy, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 383 Issue 2 Page 417-423, January 2008 ... snip ... "We consider the orbit of the bullet cluster 1E 0657?56 in both cold dark matter (CDM) and Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) using accurate mass models appropriate to each case in order to ascertain the maximum plausible collision velocity. Impact velocities consistent with the shock velocity (~4700 km s^^-1) occur naturally in MOND. CDM can generate collision velocities of at most ~3800 km s^^-1, and is only consistent with the data, provided that the shock velocity has been substantially enhanced by hydrodynamical effects."

http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.1279 "The wedding of modified dynamics and non-exotic dark matter in galaxy clusters, B. FAMAEY, G. W. ANGUS, G. GENTILE, H. Y. SHAN, H. S. ZHAO, 2007 ... snip ... We summarize the status of Modified Newtonian Dynamics (MOND) in galaxy clusters. The observed acceleration is typically larger than the acceleration threshold of MOND in the central regions, implying that some dark matter is necessary to explain the mass discrepancy there. A plausible resolution of this issue is that the unseen mass in MOND is in the form of ordinary neutrinos with masses just below the experimentally detectable limit. In particular, we show that the lensing mass reconstructions of the rich clusters 1E0657-56 (the bullet cluster) and Cl0024+17 (the ring) do not pose a new challenge to this scenario."

http://allesoversterrenkunde.nl/con...efault&uid=default&ID=721&ww=1&view_records=1 "At a distance of 2.4 billion light years in the constellation of Orion, Abell 520 also consists of two colliding clusters. However, according to a team led by Andisheh Mahdavi and Henk Hoekstra of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, the dark matter in Abell 520 doesn’t appear to be tied to the galaxies. Instead, the lensing observations – carried out with the 3.6-meter Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii – indicate that huge amounts of dark matter are concentrated in the core of the colliding pair, where most of the hot gas is found but few galaxies are seen. As the team writes in their October 20 Astrophysical Journal paper, this dissociation between dark matter and galaxies "cannot be easily explained within the current…dark matter paradigm." "It’s a remarkable result," says cosmologist David Spergel of Princeton University. "A conservative explanation would be that not all dark matter concentrations are efficient in the formation of stars and galaxies. The alternative is that dark matter interacts with itself in response to an unknown, fifth force of Nature, which only involves dark matter." Under the influence of such an attractive force, two clouds of dark matter could no longer pass through each other unimpeded but would eventually be dragged like the hot cluster gas, ending up in the common center of gravity of the colliding clusters. Robert Sanders of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands says there’s a third solution to the problem: modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND). Invented in the early 1980’s by Mordehai Milgrom of the Weizman Institute in Rehovot, Israel, MOND proposes that the observed signatures of dark matter really result from a different behavior of the force of gravity. In particular gravity in low-acceleration regions (like the outskirts of galaxies) would weaken linearly with distance, not exponentially. Even in a MOND universe, some dark matter has to exist, but it could consist of "normal" particles, such as neutrinos, instead of mysterious, undetected stuff. Sanders says he and Milgrom are writing a paper on how MOND can accommodate the cluster observations. "These new results—if they are real—could be an outstanding success for MOND," he says."

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0611777 "An Introduction to Gravitational Lensing in TeVeS, HongSheng Zhao, 2006, Bekenstein’s (2004) TeVeS theory has added an interesting twist to the search for dark matter and dark energy, modifying the landscape of gravity-related astronomy day by day. Built bottom-up rather than top-down as most gravity theories, TeVeS-like theories are healthily rooted on empirical facts, hence immediately passing sanity checks on galaxy rotation curves, solar system constraints, even bullet cluster of galaxies and cosmology with the help of 2eV neutrinos. ... snip ... TeVeS is an exception. It holds the promise of explaining both dark matter and cosmological constant by relaxing the SEP (strong equivalence principle) only in untested weak gravity envionments like in galaxies, but respecting the SEP to high accuracy in the solar system. ... snip ... Angus et al. (2006) found that the lensing peaks of the Bullet Cluster could be explained by adding neutrinos in a TeVeS-like modified gravity ... snip ... TeVeS is found to be • OK with solar system (Bekenstein & Maguijo 2006) • OK with Milky Way and Bulge Microlensing (no cusp problem, Famaey & Binney 2006) • Excellent description of spiral rotation curves (Mc-Gaugh 2005, Famaey et al. 2006) • OK with elliptical galaxies lenses (Zhao, Bacon, Taylor, Horne 2006) • OK with galaxy clusters if with neutrinos (Angus, Shan, Zhao, Famaey, 2006), • TeVeS universe can accelerate (Zhao 2006, astro-ph/0610056) • Structures and CMB can form from linear perturbations (Dodelson & Liguori 2006 ... snip ... • TeVeS is not grossly inconsistent with observations of lensing apart from a few outliers associated with galaxy clusters where massive neutrinos would contribute to the deflection of the light, • CMB anisotropy are predictable (Skordis et al. 2005), • structure formation in non-linear potential can in principle be followed by N-body codes (Ciotti et al. 2006)"

http://arxiv.org/abs/0706.3048 " A Dark Core in Abell 520, A. Mahdavi, H. Hoekstra, A. Babul, D. Balam, P. Capak, 2007, The rich cluster Abell 520 (z=0.201) exhibits truly extreme and puzzling multi-wavelength characteristics. It may best be described as a "cosmic train wreck." ... snip ... Although a displacement between the X-ray gas and the galaxy/dark matter distributions may be expected in a merger, a mass peak without galaxies cannot be easily explained within the current collisionless dark matter paradigm."

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cach..."+"not+dark+matter"&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=13&gl=us , arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0610298, "A New Force in the Dark Sector?, Glennys R. Farrar and Rachel A. Rosen, Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 2007, We study the kinematics of dark matter using the massive cluster of galaxies 1E0657-56. ... snip ... If the discrepancy we find here between predicted and observed dynamics of the bullet subcluster is substantiated by refined observations and analysis, and confirmed in other systems, it would imply the existence of a long-range, non-gravitational force within the dark sector." Oh no ... now it's not just dark matter and dark energy, but dark forces!

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn13280-galaxy-without-dark-matter-puzzles-astronomers.html "Galaxy without dark matter puzzles astronomers, February 2008 ... snip ... According to their combined mathematical model, ordinary luminous stars and gas can indeed account for all the mass in NGC 4736. ... snip ... "If this paper is correct, then this galaxy contains very little or no dark matter," says astrophysicist Jürg Diemand of the University of California, Santa Cruz, US, who is not a member of the team. "That is surprising." ... snip ... "It is unclear how one would form a galaxy without a dark halo, or how one could remove the halo without destroying the galaxy," says Diemand. "A galaxy without dark matter really does not fit into our current understanding of cosmology and galaxy formation." Nor can galaxies with declining rotation curves be easily explained by MOND, says McGaugh. So for now, it seems that some of our missing mass is missing."

And I've already mentioned what plasma cosmologists have to say about the Bullet Cluster. But here it is again. The dark matter explanation is based on a calculation full of assumptions. For one, it assumes that redshift always equates to distance. But mainstream astrophysicists seem to have no way of explaining the extremely large number of extremely unlikely "coincidences" with respect to the location of high red shift objects and low red shift objects ... so they just ignore them. Likewise, they can't explain "coincidences" with respect ot the relative position of objects and axes of rotation in the Local Group (of which the Bullet Cluster is a part)? The dark matter explanation also assumes the clusters are colliding.

Halton Arp, on the other hand, says quasars are not necessarily distant objects but may, in many cases, be relatively nearby objects created and ejected from older galaxies according to the equations in Narlikar's variable mass cosmology. He says BL Lac objects evolve from quasars. He says that instead of colliding, the cluster is actually in the process of forming from a BL Lac object. Arp says the Bullet Cluster is exhibiting the expected features of such an event. It has the redshift typical of BL Lac objects (z = 0.3). That redshift is one of the quantized redshift states in the theory he espouses. BL Lac objects emit x-rays. And Arp observes that other galaxy clusters do too. A collision isn't necessary to explain the X-rays. And as far as lensing is concerned, Arp says arcs are a natural phenomenon in clusters of galaxies. In the mainstream theory, high redshifts in these arcs is a must if they are to be gravitationally lensed distant background objects. However, Arp has shown that nearby Abell galaxy clusters also exhibit arcs and have such low mass that it is impossible for them to act as a gravitational lens. Plus, some of the arcs are radial ... not tangential. Furthermore, the Bullet Cluster fits neatly into his explanation of the Local Group and the relationship of its objects to one another. All without the need for dark matter. Arp's is true observationally based cosmology ... not one relying on gnomes and ignoring inconvenient observations.

Frankly, enigma, I think most readers would be better served investigating each of the links at http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00subjectx.htm than meekly accepting the gnomes that you and the rest of the dark matteroligists have offered to explain away the observations. The universe they posit is far more interesting, beautiful and compelling than yours.

~enigma~ · Feb 19, 2008

BeAChooser said:
The universe they posit is far more interesting, beautiful and compelling than yours.

For an RPG perhaps but then there is the little problem of reality of which you are extremely far removed.

ETA - what the hell does beauty have to do with it? Are you one of those braindead religious zealots?

ETA2 - what, if anything, would be sufficent to prove your claim false in your eyes?

BeAChooser · Feb 19, 2008

robinson said:
Wait, now the dark matter debate has moved to this topic???

Haven't you heard? Dark matter is everywhere (unless JREF is just another great void). And based on what the dark matterologists claim is the ratio of dark matter to ordinary matter, then only about 1/5th of all posts should concern something other than dark matter. And because dark matter is apparently attractive to other dark matter and ignores all other influences (like the actions of moderating forces), the dark matter posts should eventually collapse into a single mega thread, pulling all the ordinary posts with them. This mega thread will likely reach such a density of posts that they will create a dark matter black hole (isn't that possible?) and disappear from our universe forever, taking JREF and all it's posters with it! We can only hope we'll reappear in some other universe that is a lot more rational than one where so many gnomes are needed to make it work.

robinson · Feb 19, 2008

robinson · Feb 19, 2008

That is dangerously close to stealing my material. Watch it Bub, or I will unleash my dark energy.

BeAChooser · Feb 19, 2008

sol invictus said:
As for most matter being ionized, that's correct and known to every astro student in the world.

So why didn't Ziggurat know that? Remember when he *informed* me that most of the matter in the Death Star jet is neutral gas? He said "Because it's not plasma. Plasmas require very high temperatures, and you only get a lot of that with 1) stars and 2) the VERY early stages of the universe. Otherwise, electrons and nuclei (mostly just protons) combine to form gas. And gas is neutral, which means it will neither exert not respond to an electric or magnetic field." Is the explanation that he's not an "astro student"? And yours was the next post ... congratulating him for putting me down. Are you not an "astro student" either?

Ziggurat · Feb 19, 2008

BeAChooser said:
So why didn't Ziggurat know that?

Because I made a mistake. It's happened from time to time, and I said as much quite some time ago. Funny thing, though: of all the calculations I've done, you haven't been able to find a single mistake there. You thought you did once because you screwed up the arithmetic, but that's it. And yet, even though my calculations proved that you can't power the sun electrically, and even though you cannot and have not challenged those calculations, you won't admit that an electrically powered sun is impossible. Why not?

Oh, and as it turns out, saying that most matter is in a plasma state is not actually equivalent to saying most matter is ionized. Low-pressure plasmas can have very small ionization fractions.

BeAChooser · Feb 19, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
This model explains excellently the observations of galaxies all lined up, as if attached by a long string. http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060123_andromeda_plane.html

This 2006 article that talks about the Andromeda satellite galaxies and Milky Way satellites lining up on "planes" is a very significant observation ... one that mainstream astrophysicists can't begin to explain without resorting to still more unverifiable gnomes. So they mostly ignore it.

But both Arp and theorists such as Peratt can explain why galaxies tend to line up. And keep in mind that Arp has found that the Local Group (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051104localgroup.htm ), the Virgo Cluster (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051101virgo.htm ) and the Fornax Cluster (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051103fornax.htm ) of galaxies all seem to line up internally. And many of the axes of the galaxies within them seem to be aligned. And quasars near those groups also tend to line up with their "planes" of alignment (something that is frankly impossible if those quasars are as remote as Big Bang proponents keep insisting). The alignments that mainstream astrophysicists keep announcing are surprising, are not surprising at all. One would think that it might eventually dawn on Big Bang proponents that something is really wrong with their cosmology. One would think.

iantresman · Feb 20, 2008

Ziggurat said:
Oh, and as it turns out, saying that most matter is in a plasma state is not actually equivalent to saying most matter is ionized. Low-pressure plasmas can have very small ionization fractions.

Good point. It's also interesting to know that even so-called H I neutral hydrogen clouds are ionized only to about 10^-4, but which is sufficient to characterize it as a weakly ionized plasma. In this respect, it is similar to the ionization present in a discharge tube.

In other words H I clouds can be treated as neutral hydrogen gas in some respects, and as a plasma in others.

BeAChooser · Feb 20, 2008

ben m said:
(A) the "OMG PLAZMA!!!!111!!" gambit
1) There is plasma in the solar system
2) There is plasma in the Universe
3) You can run simulations in which plasma does various things
4) ???
5) Therefore (!?) MHD is the dominant force in the real Universe.

Here, let me help you fill in #4.

4a You can perform tests in which plasma does various things.
4b These various things are observed everywhere we look in the space but are ignored or misinterpreted by mainstream astrophysicists.

And 5 is simply wrong, ben. In fact, the man who won a Nobel Prize for developing MHD (Hannes Alfven) specifically stated that MHD was not applicable to most space phenomena because some of its underlying assumptions are simply wrong and it does not model a variety of very important phenomena (such as Birkeland currents, double layers, exploding double layers, plasmoids and z-pinches). He warned that mainstream astrophysicists would be led astray if they persisted in using it ... along with the frozen magnetic field, reconnection, open field line and merging field line gnomes they'd created to explain phenomena they otherwise couldn't explain (perhaps because they were ignoring those other very important electrical/plasma phenomena).

ben m said:
To everyone posting pictures of the Sun and Earth: nobody has disagreed with points (1) and (2).

Really? Is that why time and time again, the mainstream refers to gas and not plasma? And talks of wind, bow shock and other phenomena more properly associated with gases than plasmas? And rarely mentions the important effects that electric current has on plasma?

Is that why posters at JREF have repeatedly challenged the claim that there are large filaments of current carrying plasma inside the solar system, in interstellar space, in and between galaxies and clusters of galaxies? Is that why I was authoritatively told by one poster on a recent thread that most of the matter in the universe is neutral and "that's why gravity is dominant"? Because nobody has disagreed with points (1) and (2)? Where have you been, Ben?

ben m said:
We know there are plasmas, winds, etc., in the solar system.

There you go, talking about "wind", a phenomena more appropriate to descriptions of neutral gas in our atmosphere than what happens to plasmas in space that are subject to strong electric currents and magnetic fields.

ben m said:
If MHD is supposed to be the dominant force

It isn't ... which is why you are so far remote from beginning to understand what EU and PC are all about. Go here to read Hanne's Alfven's lecture on the differences between MHD and the approach he recommended for explaining most space phenomena:

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1970/alfven-lecture.pdf

Pay particular attention to the Table in that lecture that explains the differences between the two approaches and note that Alfven stated that with regards to MHD, "we find that in spite of all their elegance, the first approach theories have very little to do with reality."

And read what Hannes Alfven said in 1986 (http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1986stpr.rept..409A) about the use of MHD. "As neither double layer nor circuit can be derived from magnetofluid models of a plasma, such models are useless for treating energy transfer by means of double layers. They must be replaced by particle models and circuit theory. A simple circuit is suggested which is applied to the energizing of auroral particles, to solar flares, and to intergalactic double radio sources. Application to the heliospheric current systems leads to the prediction of two double layers on the Sun's axis which may give radiations detectable from Earth."

ben m said:
MHD isn't some sort of Magick Faerie Dust

You comment just reminds me of what Don Scott, author of that wonderful book "The Electric Sky" called all the various gnomes propping up your mainstream theory: "Fabricated Ad hoc Inventions Repeatedly Invoked in Efforts to Defend Untenable Scientific Theories".

ben m said:
The only way MHD can move a star is by, as we've said a zillion times, exerting a Coulomb or Lorentz-type force acting on the Sun's charge or its surface fields; the only way the Sun can respond is via F = ma.

Let me ask you this. What happens to a boat in a river? If the river moves, does it move the boat ... does it drag it along? During formation of a galaxy, presumably almost all of the matter starts out as plasma that is not yet bound in stars. That matter is in galactic sized plasma filaments acted on by all those phenomena that your MHD models do not reflect.

Peratt's various lab and simulation models, on the other hand, do reflect those phenomena and he's demonstrated that galaxy sized Birkeland current carrying filaments will interact and begin to rotate around one another ... taking shapes that look like all the various types of galaxies we can see in our telescopes. They can form spiral arms. They have the rotation curves that galaxies appear to have. They can produce incredibly powerful jets of synchrotron energy ... just like some galaxies do. And all of this happens before stars have necessarily formed.

It's a hierarchy of filaments. The filaments in these proto-galaxies now begin to interact. And where they pinch, stars are formed. But by this time, the mass of plasma in the galaxy has already assumed the motion induced by the electric currents and magnetic fields in Peratt's (and Alfven's) model. So if what Peratt's model shows is true ... then at least initially, stars will be rotating around the galactic core as his model predicts.

And not all matter in the galaxy is converted to stars. In fact, much of the matter in a galaxy is not in stars at all and thus is still plasma that can be directly influenced by the electric currents and magnetic fields modeled by Peratt. And in those regions where the rotation curves differ from what pure Newtonian gravity predicts given the matter that is visible, even a larger percentage of the matter is now thought to still be in plasma form.

And thus, even ignoring the possibility that star motions are directly affected by galactic magnetic fields, the stars in those areas (which are being used to determine the rotation of that region) will be affected by collisions with the mass of plasma that still is affected by those fields and currents. And like a boat in a river, may be dragged (or blown?, since you like "wind") along with it.

Furthermore, keep in mind that electric universe theorists do not claim that gravity has no effect whatsoever (how refreshing that is compared to the mainstream community that does just the opposite where electromagnetic effects are concerned). So in Peratt's model, electromagnetic effects in a galaxy sized homopolar motor don't have to explain the entire rotation curve. Just the portion that seems to differ from pure Newtonian gravity.

ben m said:
We don't know dark matter is there. It's a hypothesis.

Good, I'm glad it's existence is no longer considered "fact". Now if only you make the mainstream media and many mainstream astrophysicists, who write and speak like it is "fact", understand that.

ben m said:
Supporting the hypothesis are the observations that:
a) galaxies have flat, fast rotation curves

Which, as pointed out repeatedly, can apparently be explained by other far more mundane and demonstrable physics. But you have to use an appropriate model to see it.

Plus, there are instances where galaxies appear to lack any dark matter (according to mainstream models) ... and the mainstream cannot explain this. And there are instances where the mainstream's models appear to show the dark matter residing in the core of galaxies. And they can't explain why this is either.

And now, the latest version of mainstream cosmology even requires that dark matter (and black holes) be present to explain the formation of galaxies in the first place. So gigantic black holes have to have formed and dark matter has to have coalesced very rapidly after the Big Bang. By the way ... what equation in the Big Bang equations explains dark matter? Hmmmmm?

ben m said:
b) galaxy clusters have large virial velocities and very hot intracluster gas

I've linked articles showing that many of the virial velocity cluster calculations may be wrong and overpredict the amount of matter.

For example,

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/381481 "The Astronomical Journal, 127 ... snip ... 2004 ... snip ... Improved Models for the Evolution of the Coma Cluster of Galaxies, Seppo Laine, Jia-Qing Zheng and Mauri J. Valtonen ... snip ... The analysis by Fitchett & Webster of the observations of the Coma cluster of galaxies has demonstrated that the center of the Coma Cluster consists of two subclusters. Therefore, it is important to construct realistic dynamical models of a galaxy cluster with two mass centers. ... snip ... At the end of the N?body simulation of 250 galaxies, we extract the projected galaxy surface density and radial velocity dispersion profiles as a function of the distance from the center of the mass of the cluster. With certain initial parameters, excellent agreement with observations is obtained. In such models, the use of the virial theorem in the standard way gives an overestimate of the cluster mass by a factor of about 3. Therefore, the true mass of the Coma Cluster should be smaller than the usually quoted value by the same factor."

And according to a book by Paul A. LaViolette published in 1995 titled "Genesis of the Cosmos: The Ancient Science of Continuous Creation", Valtonen and Byrd also applied the Virial theorem relationship that mainstream astronomers use to relate velocities to cluster mass to several specific clusters and found no evidence of dark matter. The velocities they measured were normal, based on estimates of the clusters' visible, baryonic mass. So tell us, ben, do some clusters get to have DM and others not? Is this the same dislike for specific neighborhoods that DM seems to have for some galaxies? Hmmmmm?

And speaking of the Coma cluster,

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v341/n6244/abs/341720a0.html "Discovery of intergalactic radio emission in the Coma–A1367 supercluster ... snip ... Here we describe the detection of faint, supercluster-scale radio emission at 326 MHz that extends between the Coma cluster of galaxies (Abell 1656) and the Abell 1367 cluster and which is apparently not associated with any individual galaxy system in the complex. The radiation's synchrotron origin implies the existence of a large-scale intercluster magnetic field with an estimated strength of 0.3–0.6 G, which is remarkably strong."

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/AtHomeMag.html "One of the most compelling pieces of evidence for the existence of supercluster-sized currents comes from the discovery of faint supercluster-scale radio emissions at 326 megahertz between the Coma galaxy cluster and the Abell 1367 cluster. Given that radiation of that frequency must be produced by free electrons moving at certain very high speeds, we can infer magnetic-field strengths of 0.03–0.06 nanotesla stretching for some 490 million light-years. This corresponds to a galactic current of nearly 10¹⁹ amperes."

And very hot intracluster PLASMA (everyone note how Ben called it "gas") is not surprising if the plasma is carrying large currents and interacting with other plasma because of those currents.

ben m said:
c) galaxies and galaxy clusters lens distant light very strongly

I would not suggest that lensing is impossible but lensing calculations depend heavily on some very important assumptions regarding the mass of the lensing object and the distance to that object as well as the lensed object(s). Arp and others have investigated this in a number of cases and found that the mass of the lensing object is clearly not sufficient or that the assumption regarding the distance to the various objects is suspect. The distance assumptions are suspect because they assume that redshift ALWAYS equates to distance and there is a large body of observational and statistical evidence suggesting that is not true. And the arguments against the redshift/distance relationship are mostly ignored by the mainstream rather than debated.

For example, the mainstream has yet to explain such observations as these:

Look at this image: http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/graphics/images/2004/spiralgalaxy.new.gif According to Big Bang's redshift equates to distance relationship, the quasar identified by the arrow in the linked image should be about 93 times farther away from us than the galaxy. But http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v620n1/60493/60493.html concludes the quasar in question is almost certainly on this side of NGC 7319. They base this not only on the likely density of obscuring matter in that region of the galaxy, but on the light characteristics of the quasar and galaxy. Plus, there is a clearly visible plasma filament (jet) seemingly linking the core of the galaxy to that quasar (it can be seen in the image if you look closely). Another paper, http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0409215 , states that "from the optical spectra of the QSO and interstellar gas of NGC 7319 at z = .022 we show that it is very likely that the QSO is interacting with the interstellar gas" which is hardly possible if the quasar is 93 times farther away than NGC 7319.

Another ignored example that challenges the redshift is distance assumption is this:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ/journal/issues/ApJ/v620n1/60493/60493.html "in the last few years, observations from Chandra and XMM-Newton have shown that there are many discrete, powerful X-ray emitting sources that lie close to the nuclei of spiral galaxies, often apparently inside the main body of the galaxy ... snip ... Typical separations are from 1' to 5'." The article points out that because of their power levels they cannot be normal X-ray binaries. They are called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). These sources are either binary systems with black holes or X-ray emitting QSOs. Burbidge suggested in 2003 that they are likely QSOs. The article states that "if this is the case, the fact that they are all very close to the centers of the galaxies strongly suggests that these sources are physically associated with these galaxies and are in the process of being ejected from them." The source further points out that many QSOs have been found to cluster about active spiral galaxies ... such as NGC 1068, 2639, 3516, and 3628. And since the separation of these ULXs from their galaxies is significantly less than the 15'-20' separation of known QSO sources, there is an "even greater likelihood" that they are physically associated. It notes that "Colbert & Ptak (2002) gave a list of 87 IXOs that lie within 5' of the centers of galaxies. Recent spectroscopic studies (Arp et al. 2004) have shown that three IXOs in this list plus 21 other cases that fit these IXO criteria are already known to be normal QSOs."

And here's another challenging observation (look at the image): http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/research_with_Fred/illustrations/figure_1_b.jpg . Two astronomers have written peer reviewed papers (for example, López-Corredoira, Martin and Carlos M. Gutiérrez (2002), “Two Emission Line Objects with z>0.2 in the Optical Filament Apparently Connecting the Seyfert Galaxy NGC 7603 to Its Companion,” Astronomy and Astrophysics) where they conclude, based on better Hubble Telescope observations, that the three objects identified in that image are small compact galaxies. I won't dispute that ... afterall, that just makes the Big Bang redshift problem larger than just an inconsistency in quasar data. The two astronomers say the two objects along the filament are highly unusual dwarf HII galaxies whose light characteristics may themselves be suggestive of a non-cosmological explanation for redshift. In addition, they note that the HII galaxy closest to NGC 7603 is "warped towards NGC 7603" and the other has a faint tail that "could indicate that the material in the filament interacts with the galaxies." They state that the probability of the alignment of all three galaxies on the filament is about 3 x 10^^-9. The authors conclude that "everything points to the four objects being connected among themselves". Yet their redshifts are very different.

And here's one more redshift/distance challenging observation that is being ignored by the mainstream (just to give you a taste of the evidence that is out there): http://72.14.253.104/search?q=cache....gz+NGC+3628+quasars&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5&gl=us discusses a low redshift (Z = .0028) galaxy NGC 3628 surrounded by numerous high redshift quasars. NGC 3628 has an active nucleus with HI plumes emerging in both directions on the minor axis sides. The following image: http://www.eitgaastra.nl/pl/f54a.gif shows the location of some of the quasars relative to the galaxy. According to the above paper, there are three quasars (z = 1.94, 2.43 and 0.408) at the base of the east-north-east plume, coincident with the start of an optical jet. Two more quasars, with z = 2.06 and 1.46, align along what looks to be the opposite side major axis. Three more quasars lie in the southern plume along the minor axis with z = 0.995, 2.15. 1.75. There is candidate quasar called Wee 49 which is the object labeled A near the Z = 1.75 quasar. It has a redshift of Z = 1.70. Both of these lie along a thickening of the plume. According to the paper, Wee 49 lies right at the tip of the southern HI plume. The article concludes "these quasars are not only aligned with the plumes, but positioned along contour nodes. This is strongly indicative of physical association, and implies that these quasars and HI plumes have come out of NGC 3628 in the same physical process." There are also narrow x-ray filaments coming from the galaxy on the minor axis sides. The authors state that the location of the z = 2.15 quasar is at the very tip of one x-ray filament and that alone has a probability of 2 x 10^^-4. The next quasar in toward the nucleus is at z = 0.995 and it is centered on the x-ray filament as well. Notice that at a slightly greater distance on the opposite minor axis side of the galaxy from the Z = 0.995 quasar is a quasar of Z = 0.984. The authors note that "These redshifts are closely matched - a characteristic of many previous pairs of quasars across active galaxies - and demonstrate how unlikely it is that they are unassociated background objects."

Consider the improbability of so many chance alignments in just the above case. So many high redshift quasars clustered around a particular low redshift galaxy rather than more uniformly distributed. Alignments with other quasars, with plumes, with optical jets, with x-ray filaments, with the minor axis, and with the major axis. The chance of this just happening by accident has to be astronomically small (pardon the pun). Yet, Big Bang proponents continue to insist that all these alignments are just pure chance, even though Arp and others have provided dozens of similar examples where groups of quasars (and other objects) are aligned with the minor axis of low redshift galaxies or with some other prominent feature of those galaxies.

Even more interesting, it appears the redshift of quasars tends to decrease as one moves out from the core of the galaxies to which they seem to be associated. It's the case with both NGC 7603 and NGC 3628, mentioned above. Here's still another ... six quasars aligned along the minor axis of NGC 3516 with redshifts decreasing as one moves away from the galaxy. Here is a link to a diagram of that case: http://www.haltonarp.com/articles/astronomy_by_press_release/illustrations/figure_1.jpg . Yet, Big Bang proponents insist that all these alignments are just a matter of pure chance because they have to maintain the belief that redshift ALWAYS equates to distance ... if they hope to keep their Big Bang theory from sinking like the Titanic.

And before I move on from this item, another assumption in many lensing claims is that there is a black hole between us and the lensed objects. But the existence of black holes is by no means a certainty, especially since additional gnomes (like magnetic reconnection and tangled magnetic fields) must be used in MHD models in conjunction with black holes to explain the jets seen emanating from what are claimed to be black holes. (Mind you, EU theorists have a far more mundane and far less *theoretical* explanation for those jets ... one that involves those phenomena that MHD does not model.

)

ben m said:
d) galaxies, clusters, the Lyman-Alpha forest, the BAO, etc., are a product of self-gravitating collapse of the primordial density fluctuations seen in the CMB

This claim is both false and deceptive. Astrophysicists have not been able to explain any of the above objects given density fluxuations measured in the CMB. Ben should provide linked peer reviewed sources if he thinks that's the case. But then he'll be gone for a month so maybe some other Big Bang proponent will attempt that.

In fact, as I noted earlier, the current mainstream model REQUIRES black holes and dark matter to explain the formation of galaxies and clusters in the period right after the Big Bang when they are now claimed to have formed (based on redshift observations and various concerns about metallicity). (See http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/blackhole_history_030128-1.html ). So they are not the product of "self-gravitating" collapse at all. They require gnomes.

Second, the time available now to form them is a problem that mainstream astrophysicists will admit. For example:

http://www.spacedaily.com/news/cosmology-05h.html "Earliest Massive Cluster Of Known Galaxies Discovered, Mar 03, 2005, Combining observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope and ESA's XMM-Newton X-ray observatory, astronomers have discovered the most distant, very massive structure in the Universe known so far. It is a remote cluster of galaxies that is found to weigh as much as several thousand galaxies like our own Milky Way and is located no less than 9,000 million light-years away. The VLT images reveal that it contains reddish and elliptical, i.e. old, galaxies. Interestingly, the cluster itself appears to be in a very advanced state of development. It must therefore have formed when the Universe was less than one third of its present age. The discovery of such a complex and mature structure so early in the history of the Universe is highly surprising. Indeed, until recently it would even have been deemed impossible."

And it's not just one cluster. http://www.physorg.com/news68815789.html "Astronomers Find Hundreds of Young, Distant Galaxy Clusters, June 06, 2006 ... snip ... The team of astronomers from the University of Florida, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has found nearly 300 new galaxy clusters and groups, including nearly 100 at distances of eight to 10 billion light years."

And galaxy formation is a problem too: http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2005/28/full/ "Two of NASA's Great Observatories, the Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes, have teamed up to "weigh" the stars in several very distant galaxies. One of these galaxies, among the most distant ever seen, appears to be unusually massive and mature for its place in the young universe. This comes as a surprise to astronomers because the earliest galaxies in the universe are commonly thought to have been much smaller agglomerations of stars that gradually merged together to build large majestic galaxies like our Milky Way. "This galaxy appears to have 'bulked up' amazingly quickly, within the first few hundred million years after the Big Bang," says Bahram Mobasher of the Space Telescope Science Institute and the European Space Agency, a member of the team which discovered the galaxy. ... snip ... The galaxy is believed to be about as far away as the most distant galaxies and quasars now known. The light reaching us today began its journey when the universe was only about 800 million years old. ... snip ... "This would be quite a big galaxy even today," says Mark Dickinson of the National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO). "At a time when the universe was only 800 million years old, it's positively gigantic."

And the time required to form the giant black holes that are seen is a problem too (and note that the current model has black holes forming at the same time as galaxies by bootstrapping off one another). http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/heavy_blazar_040628.html "Massive Black Hole Stumps Researchers, ... snip ... 28 June 2004, A team of astronomers have found a colossal black hole so ancient, they're not sure how it had enough time to grow to its current size, about 10 billion times the mass of the Sun. Sitting at the heart of a distant galaxy, the black hole appears to be about 12.7 billion years old, which means it formed just one billion years after the universe began and is one of the oldest supermassive black holes ever known. The black hole, researchers said, is big enough to hold 1,000 of our own Solar Systems and weighs about as much as all the stars in the Milky Way. "The universe was awfully young at the time this was formed," said astronomer Roger Romani, a Stanford University associate professor whose team found the object. "It's a bit of a challenge to understand how this black hole got enough mass to reach its size." Romani told SPACE.com that the black hole is unique because it dates back to just after a period researchers call the 'Dark Ages,' a time when the universe cooled down after the initial Big Bang 13.7 billion years ago. That cooling period lasted about one billion years, when the first black holes, stars and galaxies began to appear, he added."

And that's not the oldest giant black hole. http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn12007-new-quasar-is-the-oldest-yet.html "New quasar is the oldest yet, ... snip ... June 2007, When is two million light years just a whisker's breadth? When you're talking about which of two quasars 13 billion light years away is the most distant ever discovered. The new record breaker, just, was announced today by Chris Willott of the University of Ottawa in Canada. ... snip ... He told the Canadian Astronomical Society meeting in Kingston, Ontario, that the survey had found four quasars beyond a red-shift of 6, including one, given the memorable title CFHQS J2329-0301, at a record red-shift of 6.43. That means we're seeing it just 870 million years after the big bang. The new black hole weighs in at 500 million solar masses. "Theoretically, it's very hard to create such a big black hole so early in the universe," Willott told New Scientist.".

Here's another astrophysicist commenting on that particular object: http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/2007/1947654.htm "Oldest black hole ever found, 11*June*2007, ... snip ... The problem is, 13 billion years ago is just 700 million years after the Big Bang. That's generally thought to be a time before galaxies were constructed, says team member Dr John Hutchings of the National Research Council Canada's Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics. It could be that galaxies formed earlier than expected or something else entirely is going on. It's a puzzle, says Hutchings. "

And galaxies and clusters aren't the only observations whose age the mainstream is struggling with: "Extragalactic Radio Sources and the WMAP Cold spot", by Lawrence Rudnick , Shea Brown, Liliya R. Williams, Department of Astronomy, Universityof Minnesota, 3 August 2007" “Not only has no one ever found a void this big, but we never even expected to find one this size.” http://space.newscientist.com/artic...in-space-is-1-billion-light-years-across.html reports "The finding challenges theories of large-scale structure formation in the universe."

The mainstream is even having problems with age and gravity only solar formation: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060328_gas_giant.html "Death Spiral: Why Theorists Can't Make Solar Systems, Ker Than, 8 March 2006 ... snip ... According to the standard model of planet formation, called "core accretion," planets form over millions of years as enormous blocks of rock and ice smash together to form planetary embryos, called "protoplanets," and eventually full-fledged planets. Most scientists agree that core accretion is how terrestrial planets such as Earth and Mars were created, but the model can't convincingly explain how gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn came to be. One major problem is that developing gas giants through core accretion takes too long. According to the best current models, the process requires several million years-longer than the typical observed lifetime of the stellar gas disks from which planets are born. The other main difficulty is the so-called "migration" problem. Protoplanets are not sitting stationary in the gas disks as they bulk up. Due to gravitational interactions with the disks, the protoplanets swirl rapidly inwards toward their central stars in what scientists call "Type 1" migration. Models predict that this death spiral can take as little as 100,000 years. This so-called "migration" problem is the toughest challenge facing theorists trying to explain gas giant formation through core accretion, said Alan Boss, a planet formation expert at the Carnegie Institution of Washington. "The migration problem is scary," Boss told SPACE.com. "[The models] are off by a factor of 10 or 100, so you really have to wonder if there's going to be a solution here."

Hey maybe they should introduce a local version of dark matter to explain our solar system's formation. But then they'd have no excuse for not detecting it.

The Lyman-Alpha forest is also not the result of self-gravitating collapse of density functions seen in the CMB. The Lyman-Alpha forest is only interpreted to mean quasars are at great distance. But the amount of intervening neutral hydrogen out there does not appear to be enough to explain the forest and there are observations that suggest the lines instead result from absorption at the quasar site or due other effects (like CREIL). Some of these alternatives are published in peer reviewed papers.

ben m said:
e) The density fluctuations seen in the CMB are an acoustically-processed version of a truly scale-invariant Big Bang density fluctuation spectrum

If Ben really wants to discuss CMB, maybe he can start by explaining where the shadows are: http://www.physorg.com/news76314500.html "September 01, 2006, ... snip ... In a finding sure to cause controversy, scientists at The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) found a lack of evidence of shadows from "nearby" clusters of galaxies using new, highly accurate measurements of the cosmic microwave background. A team of UAH scientists led by Dr. Richard Lieu, a professor of physics, used data from NASA's Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to scan the cosmic microwave background for shadows caused by 31 clusters of galaxies. "These shadows are a well-known thing that has been predicted for years," said Lieu. ... snip ... If the standard Big Bang theory of the universe is accurate and the background microwave radiation came to Earth from the furthest edges of the universe, then massive X-ray emitting clusters of galaxies nearest our own Milky Way galaxy should all cast shadows on the microwave background. ... snip ... Either it (the microwave background) isn't coming from behind the clusters, which means the Big Bang is blown away, or ... there is something else going on," said Lieu."

ben m said:
f) Colliding galaxy clusters, like the Bullet Cluster, have a weak-lensing potential well overlying their pre-collision cluster centers, not overlying the post-collision gas mass.

See my post earlier on the Bullet Cluster. But here's one possible EU/PC explanation for that observation from it. The dark matter explanation is based on a calculation full of assumptions. For one, it assumes that redshift always equates to distance and I've already discussed the problems with doing that. Likewise, they can't explain "coincidences" with respect ot the relative position of objects and axes of rotation in the Local Group (of which the Bullet Cluster is a part)? The dark matter explanation also assumes the clusters are colliding. Halton Arp, on the other hand, says quasars are not necessarily distant objects but may, in many cases, be relatively nearby objects created and ejected from older galaxies according to the equations in Narlikar's variable mass cosmology. This seems reasonable considering the observations. He says BL Lac objects evolve from quasars. He says that instead of colliding, the cluster is actually in the process of forming from a BL Lac object. Arp says the Bullet Cluster is exhibiting the expected features of such an event. It has the redshift typical of BL Lac objects (z = 0.3). That redshift is one of the quantized redshift states in the theory he espouses. BL Lac objects emit x-rays. And Arp observes that other galaxy clusters do too. A collision isn't necessary to explain the X-rays. And as far as lensing is concerned, Arp says arcs are a natural phenomenon in clusters of galaxies. In the mainstream theory, high redshifts in these arcs is a must if they are to be gravitationally lensed distant background objects. However, Arp has shown that nearby Abell galaxy clusters also exhibit arcs and have such low mass that it is impossible for them to act as a gravitational lens. Plus, some of the arcs are radial ... not tangential. Furthermore, the Bullet Cluster fits neatly into his explanation of the Local Group and the relationship of its objects to one another. All without the need for dark matter. Arp's is true observationally based cosmology ... not one relying on gnomes and ignoring inconvenient observations.

ben m said:
It only takes one free parameter to explain all of these things.

That is false. Big Bang cosmology requires a host of gnomes to even begin to explain the observations. For example, in addition to dark matter, lensing requires that redshift always equate to distance. The black holes that are assumed in many lensing calculations and that are now deemed essential to the formation of galaxies in the first place require magnetic field physics that many electrical engineers and plasma experts say are completely bogus (which might be why they haven't been successfully demonstrated in the lab). And the black hole gnome also requires that redshift always equate to distance, otherwise their use to explain quasar energy output makes no sense. Big Bang's explanation of the universe's structure and CMB also requires inflation, another gnome. And the dark matter proponents are having trouble explaining why their dark matter gnome is found in some galaxies and not others, in certain locations in one galaxy but a different location in another, and in some voids and not others. Some of them even claim that undiscovered gnomes ... forces that act only between dark matter ... are needed to explain certain observations. Things are by no means as simple as claimed. And that's ignoring the fact that a great many observations that EU/PC theorist seem able to explain are completely unexplained by the proponents of dark matter and dark energy. The motions of the pioneer and voyager spacecraft is one example.

ben m said:
That's the dark matter hypothesis: "There's something out there which is decoupled from photons".

No, it must be decoupled from a lot more than just that, else we'd be able to detect it.

ben m said:
Lensing data fits the hypothesis if, and only if, the DM density is 0.23.

This is false. Lensing has several parameters, anyone of which may be wrong. And in fact the percentage of dark matter computed in various objects varies considerably, as well as the location of that supposed DM within apparently similar objects. Why the dark matterologists have even claim there are dark matter galaxies composed almost entirely of dark matter.

ben m said:
Rotation curves fit the hypothesis if and only if the DM density is 0.23.

Again, false, for the same reasons.

ben m said:
The BAO scale fits the hypothesis if and only if the density is 0.23.

Baryon acoustic oscillations seem to have more to do with dark energy than dark matter. So it looks like there are AT LEAST two parameters needed to define it. And it's results depend heavily on the redshift/distance relationship being correct for high redshift objects. Why don't you address that issue, ben? Is it?

And I love how you folks are trying to treat plasma as if it's a neutral sound carrying medium. Just one more example of mainstream astrophysics acting like the universe is filled with "gas" and not plasma.

ben m said:
And so on.

Really? I'd love to see the sources from which you are getting this 0.23 density you claim for each of the above. You can supply that ... right? And will they account for this:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/11/071102152248.htm "Big Chunk Of The Universe Is Missing -- Again, ScienceDaily (Nov. 5, 2007) ... snip ... The University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH). The new calculations might leave the mass of the universe as much as ten to 20 percent lighter than previously calculated. The same UAH group that found what was theorized to be a significant fraction of the "missing mass" that binds together the universe has discovered that some x-rays thought to come from intergalactic clouds of "warm" gas are instead probably caused by lightweight electrons. ... snip ... "A significant portion of what we thought was missing mass turns out to be these 'relativistic' electrons."

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/02/050205074635.htm "Astronomers Find Part Of Universe’s Missing Matter, ScienceDaily (Feb. 7, 2005) ... snip ... Scientists have located a sizeable chunk of the universe that seemed to be missing since back when the stars first formed. It’s floating in super-hot rivers of gas, invisible to the naked eye, surrounding galaxies like our own."

The interesting thing is that the "gas" is described as "rivers of gas" and as being a "100 times hotter than the sun". There is even a Chandra photo in the above link of these "rivers". And you know what? They look a lot like plasma in the form of interacting Birkeland currents. You don't suppose that's a lot more logical than assuming these are relativistic hitting the CMB radiation (the latest explanation from the mainstream), do you?

ben m said:
Welcome to the world of dark matter experiments.

Oh yes ... those "cheap" experiments.

ben m said:
(SNO and Soudan have nothing to do with it: thank you for demonstrating your lack of knowledge so clearly by saying that they do.)

So you don't believe neutrinos fall under the definition of "dark matter"? That would surprise a great many dark matterologists. And I'm curious why they'd name an experiment at the Soudan Mine the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) if it has nothing to do with looking for dark matter. And realize, don't you, that according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WIMP the CDMS data "taken in the Soudan Mine" ruled out "the entire DAMA signal region given certain standard assumptions about the properties of the WIMPs and the dark matter halo." So they weren't just talking about neutrinos, either.

ben m said:
With that out of the way, let's dismiss the "OH NOES" argument simply: Attacking theory A is not support for theory B.

But attacking theory A successfully, as I have here, should motivate anyone someone who is not dogmatic about theory A to look for something better ... to consider all the options ... especially theory B when theory B appears to have none of the problems with the observations that are pointed out. You would think that a successful attack would motivate the powers that be to at least devote some resources to looking at such an alternative. Perhaps that's why a bunch of engineers and scientists signed this:

http://www.cosmologystatement.org/

But alas, dogma (and misinformation, like ben posted) wins out because the proponents of theory A control the funding sources, decisions as to what's funded, much of the media and the schools that educate the next generation of astrophysicists.

ben m said:
There's a huge amount of consensus in the field that this hypothesis is worth spending our experimental money on; that consensus comes from thousands of people who have looked at the data, not from three kids with a Web page and a conspiracy theory.

Ben, you know NOTHING about me or my background. If you have to resort to adhominems in this debate then I suspect you've lost ... not that a debate on this tiny forum will change anything out there in the real world where funding and dogma matter.

ben m said:
Go to a physics colloquium some time.

Like one run by IEEE?

ben m said:
I looked for a force estimate in Peratt's papers---Peratt didn't estimate them, he explicitly assumed they were large. If you know that the forces are large, it's time to stand up and tell us how you know. Show your work, with units. Get on it.

As has been pointed out, Peratt didn't model stars explicitly. But did he need to? And his calculation was done on what passed for a super computer in those days. He presented final results in his peer reviewed papers ... just like you would have done if you'd been in his position. And then he waited for a response from the mainstream community ... and apparently didn't get one. Perhaps if you'd asked him back them to cough up some more specific numbers, he'd have been more than willing. He might still be. He's a very nice man who is generous with his time. Have you got the guts to contact him? Just remember, he's not a "kid" and his credentials are quite impressive.

ben m said:
You've invented magnetic fields and currents to thread through the galaxy ---not because we've seen them at the required strengths

First of all, magnetic fields and what appear to be large Birkeland carrying plasma filaments have been seen throughout the galaxy ... unlike dark matter. And second, do you know what the required strengths are? Because the impression I get from Peratt's many articles is that the measured fields are on the order of what he computed in his model. In fact, his work appears to replicate a host of characteristics observed in the Milky Way and other galaxies. Have you seen the images of the magnetic field derived from galaxy simulation overlaid on the galaxy NGC 4151 (see http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/AtHomeMag.html and http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/mag_fields.html )? And the work continued well after the ignored original papers. For example:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1995Ap&SS.227..167S "Rotation velocity and neutral hydrogen distribution dependency on magnetic field strength in spiral galaxies, Charles M. Snell and Anthony L. Peratt, Astrophysics and Space Science, May 1995, "Abstract: The rotation velocity of a simulated plasma galaxy is compared to the rotation curves of Sc type spiral galaxies. Both show flat rotation curves with velocities of the order of several hundred kilometers per second, modified by E × B instabilities. Maps of the strength and distribution of galactic magnetic fields and neutral hydrogen regions, as-well-as as predictions by particle-in-cell simulations run in the late 1970s, are compared to Effelsberg observations. Agreement between simulation and observation is best when the simulation galaxy masses are identical to the observational masses of spiral galaxies. No dark matter is needed."

Again, with little or no comment from mainstream folks like you. Because you were so sure about your gnomes.

ben m said:
You've slapped a mysterious just-so charge-to-mass ratio onto everything from red supergiant stars to binary pulsars---and, indeed, you have to invent new and different physics for each star type.

Well tell us, ben. In mainstream theory, how have certain stars been able to completely change their location on the Hertzsprung-Russel (HR) diagram in a matter of weeks or months? For example, explain the case of V838 Monocertis. NASA's Picture of the Day announced "Observations indicate that the erupting star transformed itself over a period of months from a small under-luminous star a little hotter than the Sun, to a highly-luminous, cool supergiant star undergoing rapid and complex brightness changes. The transformation defies the conventional understanding of stellar life cycles." Mainstream astronomers clearly can't explain what happened with their model. But electric star proponents appear to be able to do so with ease ... and consistently for each type of star. Just read Donald Scott's book "The Electric Sky" or try this link: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm .

ben m said:
You've tuned up some sort of weird non-cosmological redshift, tuned it to match some weird non-cosmological dimming, and shoehorned the whole thing into an alternative quasar hypothesis.

There's nothing weird about it and you obviously haven't taken even a moment to try and understand the various alternative theories. You might be surprised at the growing number of peer reviewed (and approved) articles on this subject. And in the meantime, we are STILL waiting for the mainstream to address the highly unlikely string of "coincidences" I noted earlier in this post regarding high redshift and low redshift objects. Ignoring them isn't going to make them go away. One reason you haven't successfully silenced the alternative cosmology community is your community's failure to directly address their concerns, data and calculations.

ben m said:
To sum up

Your supposed "defense" of plasma cosmology rests on:

(a) pointing out the existence of solar-system and cosmic plasmas, while utterly failing to argue that they in fact exert large forces on anything.

False. If I choose to argue by pointing to peer reviewed papers written by eminent engineers and scientists and published in mainstream physics/astrophysics journals, and you choose to ignore what those papers say, that's not my problem. It's yours.

ben m said:
(b) attacking the dark matter hypothesis by asserting that it sounds stupid

That is not what we've done. I laid out A PORTION of the case in this post. Let's see if you or the others can make a rational response.

ben m said:
(c) treating MHD as a Magick Super Kung-Fu Force that magically makes everything, whether charged or neutral, dense or diffuse, light or heavy, obey every detail of a mid-1980s computer simulation of a strongly-coupled plasma

YOU need to start by actually understanding the EU/PC's community's models. You clearly don't and haven't tried.

ben m said:
In other words, you have been completely incapable of actually defending your pet hypothesis, and indeed---by making me actually read Peratt's papers---you've convinced me that Plasma Cosmology is even stupider than I had previously assumed.

Well obviously, you didn't actually read Peratt's papers if you think he modeled galaxies using MHD. So what's that make you?

ben m said:
(PS. That's my parting message, I'll be off the forums for a month or so. )

Well ben, this post will be here when you get back. Perhaps I'll even ping you to it to make sure you don't miss it ... like your dark matter.

BeAChooser · Feb 20, 2008

Zeuzzz said:
The force that they exert is through the forces that derive from the separation of charge in the cosmos, mainly EM fields, electrostatics, magnetic confinement, Z-pinch effects, CIV, or any of the other well established products of plasma physics. ... snip ...

Excellent post.

BeAChooser · Feb 20, 2008

iantresman said:
Just a small point, MHD (magnetohydrodynamics) is a fluid-based theory in which certain approximations are made, that is valid in some (typically high density) plasma regions, such as stellar interiors.

Small point? It proves ben hasn't a clue what he's arguing against. MHD is not the model Peratt used or Alfven recommended.

BeAChooser · Feb 20, 2008

~enigma~ said:
little problem of reality

Says someone who believes in mysterious dark matter (and how many different types are there now, enigma?), mysterious dark energy (now what exactly is that again?), mysterious inflation (again, what type, what is it and what causes it?), mysterious black holes (in literally everything it seems), mysterious magnetic reconnection (and the rest of the magnetic gnomes mainstream theorists have dreamed up rather than apply phenomena we already knew about), and whatever other gnomes the mainstream happens to need to make sense of it all (like Dark Matter Force, for instance). And of course the biggest gnome of all ... the Big Bang.

~enigma~ said:
ETA - what the hell does beauty have to do with it?

You don't find an explanation of the universe that man can actually fathom and see beautiful? I feel sorry for you, enigma.

~enigma~ said:
ETA2 - what, if anything, would be sufficent to prove your claim false in your eyes?

I've been asking that question of you folks for a long time. Still no answer because you've always got one more gnome.

~enigma~ · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
You don't find an explanation of the universe that man can actually fathom and see beautiful? I feel sorry for you, enigma.

The question was what does beauty have to do with it. You didn't answer and I am not in the least surprised.

I've been asking that question of you folks for a long time. Still no answer because you've always got one more gnome.

Again you didn't answer and now I can say that you don't want to answer because doing so would be a direct admission that your beliefs are not falsafiable. IOW....non-scientific....your a religious fruitcake and you just earned a spot on ignore.

BeAChooser · Feb 20, 2008

~enigma~ said:
you just earned a spot on ignore.

Let's see if you are really capable of that. Because sol sure isn't.

sol invictus · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
Let's see if you are really capable of that. Because sol sure isn't.

You're a very effective troll, yes.

Are you proud of that? I hope so, because it's the only thing you have going for you.

Dancing David · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
So why didn't Ziggurat know that? Remember when he *informed* me that most of the matter in the Death Star jet is neutral gas? He said "Because it's not plasma. Plasmas require very high temperatures, and you only get a lot of that with 1) stars and 2) the VERY early stages of the universe. Otherwise, electrons and nuclei (mostly just protons) combine to form gas. And gas is neutral, which means it will neither exert not respond to an electric or magnetic field." Is the explanation that he's not an "astro student"? And yours was the next post ... congratulating him for putting me down. Are you not an "astro student" either?

Trolling Karl?

The breeze from the arm waving is nice.

Dancing David · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
Haven't you heard? Dark matter is everywhere (unless JREF is just another great void). And based on what the dark matterologists claim is the ratio of dark matter to ordinary matter, then only about 1/5th of all posts should concern something other than dark matter. And because dark matter is apparently attractive to other dark matter and ignores all other influences (like the actions of moderating forces), the dark matter posts should eventually collapse into a single mega thread, pulling all the ordinary posts with them. This mega thread will likely reach such a density of posts that they will create a dark matter black hole (isn't that possible?) and disappear from our universe forever, taking JREF and all it's posters with it! We can only hope we'll reappear in some other universe that is a lot more rational than one where so many gnomes are needed to make it work.

More underwear!

(This is a South Park reference.)

Dancing David · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
This 2006 article that talks about the Andromeda satellite galaxies and Milky Way satellites lining up on "planes" is a very significant observation ... one that mainstream astrophysicists can't begin to explain without resorting to still more unverifiable gnomes. So they mostly ignore it.

But both Arp and theorists such as Peratt can explain why galaxies tend to line up. And keep in mind that Arp has found that the Local Group (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051104localgroup.htm ), the Virgo Cluster (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051101virgo.htm ) and the Fornax Cluster (http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051103fornax.htm ) of galaxies all seem to line up internally. And many of the axes of the galaxies within them seem to be aligned. And quasars near those groups also tend to line up with their "planes" of alignment (something that is frankly impossible if those quasars are as remote as Big Bang proponents keep insisting). The alignments that mainstream astrophysicists keep announcing are surprising, are not surprising at all. One would think that it might eventually dawn on Big Bang proponents that something is really wrong with their cosmology. One would think.

Worth reading. Are there controls in this one or just limited sampling?

Dancing David · Feb 20, 2008

BeAChooser said:
Let's see if you are really capable of that. Because sol sure isn't.

So BAC, what size magnetic field would be required to explain the rotation curves of galaxies? What size magnetic field would the galaxy need to move our sun fast enough? Is the galactic field strong enough to do that?

Does the inner magneto have to have a mass equivalent to the field it is moving? Please explain the Peratt model to me. The answer could go either way, it could be that the mass of the inner field is moving the entire thing (dragging the outer field with it), or it could be that the whole thing moves in synch. So which is it?

Explain the model? Can you? Or are you just a parrot?

Or is this like the electric sun where you just can't explain what you believe?

Dancing David · Feb 20, 2008

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051104localgroup.htm

Oh my, one citation and that is it? Not a lick of why they make the statements they do? That figures, there is one nice picture at the top.

When Halton says that the galaxies are aligned, what does that mean? I haven't read 'Seeing Red', nor am I likely to, as I am busy with fiction most of the time. The chart appears to be a gross observational thing. So how is this significant?

I am seriously asking becuase i would expect the members of a gravitaionaly associated group (or electro magnetic) for that matter to appear within a small visual area.

Then there is the usual unreferenced and unsupported assertions that make up most of the article.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051101virgo.htm

I am sort of confused, is this a quote from one of Arp's lectures?

It too is unreferenced and uncitated. I like the map however. But it is hard to put it in context without the citations and references. So there sure are a page full of unsupported conclusions and assertions without meaning.

and here is Arp actualy supporting 'arm chair' critiques which is one of BAC recent flags.

“[T]he professional tends to interpret the pictures by using the theory he was taught while the amateur tries to use the picture to arrive at a theory.”
Halton Arp, Seeing Red

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/051103fornax.htm

Seems to be more of the same unsupported assertions and conclusions.

I am really disappointed, I thought these might be something.

The z-pinch thing is cool, as is some of plasma cosmology, but this is up there with the Matterhorn being blasted out of the ground by electricity.

Thunderbolts of the Gods

Penultimate Amazing

Banned

Banned

Philosopher

Banned

Penultimate Amazing

Banned

Banned

Unregistered

Banned

Critical Thinker

Banned

Philosopher

Banned

Penultimate Amazing

Philosopher

Banned

Penultimate Amazing

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Penultimate Amazing

Banned

Critical Thinker

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Banned

Philosopher

Penultimate Amazing

Penultimate Amazing

Penultimate Amazing

Penultimate Amazing

Penultimate Amazing