Something new under the sun

So let us look at the citations. Two are from him so they do not count. One is on z-pinches and the abstract does not mention cosmology (it has 96 citations since 2000). The other is on "renewal-at-π cosmology" which seems to present an alternative to all cosmologies (incliding plasma cosmology).


If you actually read this paper you would see that it is highly relevant to Peratts model, thus why the authors cite his work. They produce a quantitive model for Z-pinch scaleability in plasma, if that is not highly relevant and consistant with Peratts work, I dont know what is.

And there are far more than four citations, i dont know where you were looking up your citations, but the paper you claimed only had four citations has nineteen from what i've seen; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...1986ITPS...14..639P&refs=CITATIONS&db_key=AST

and his second paper has fifteen; http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/n...1986ITPS...14..763P&refs=CITATIONS&db_key=AST

So not only are you making an argument on authority alone (without any reference to the science of why it is actually wrong) you are misrepresenting his material. And If you were to look at his other publications on this issue, not just two of his publications, you would find plenty more citations to his work from established scientists and journals, some published very recently. There seems to be increasing interest in this material now more scientists are becoming aware of it.

Whether the number of citations to an article means that (a) it is factually wrong (b) ignored (c) not understood (d) uncontested (e) unknown (f) politically unpopular , is open to speculation. Citations certainly don't imply veracity or disproof of the published science, though it may give an indication of popularity, which is hardly a scientific comment.

I note that Alfvén's original 1942 paper predicting hydromagnetic waves in Nature journal received only 1 citation in the first 10 years, and only 3 more in the next decade, and 3 more in the 10 years after that.

And Alfvén's article on the same subject in Arkiv f. Mat published in 1943, has received one citation to the article, ever.


Thanks Ian for pointing this out.

RealityCheck, Maybe you should contact all the scientists that cite his work and inform them of their mistake?
 
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On the contrary, you have lost a rare and valuable opportunity to learn something from somebody who actually does know what they are talking about.


I do not dispute that Sol is very knowledgeable about physics, he obviously is, and I have not disagreed with him on on any of the valid scientific contributions he has made, but he continually refused to address the actual material i was presenting. Instead he picked out the fine small points and dodged the main bulk of the work. He also continually refused to answer any of questions about magnetic reconnection, just resorting to the usual "many scientists believe it, so it must be true" tactic.

He agreed with me that the subject we would discuss was plasma scaling experiments and how they can replicate structures in the cosmos. I provided a long and substantial post on this exact subject. To which he just claimed it was vague, without any citations, and he totally ignored the material i presented and decided to change the subject. If he had not put me on ignore, I would have come up with another subject to discuss, since he seemed unable to comment on any of the material i presented on plasma scaling. CIV would have been a good starting point, or the various plasma pinch effects, but instead he changed the original agreement, and didn't comment at all on what I showed.

Its a shame, I really thought he was going to make some worthwhile contributions when I started to post actual plasma universe material, someone as knowledgeable as him I would have thought would at least find it interesting to see new science material he had not seen before. Instead it seemed to anger him. After the usual insulting comments from him and others directed at me I finally gave one post back with some of the same type of personal attacks, which takes a lot to make me do, and he instantly put me on ignore. He can give abuse, but not take. He should have not discounted the physics of the plasma universe so quickly, and by ignoring me he has done himself no favours.

He has perfectly demonstrated what is often referred to as the "curse of knowledge". Just because he was not previously aware of this subject does not make it wrong.
 
Hello, Welcome!

You shall see many things that BAC does , but answer a direct question is not one of them.

I saw what he does.I am lurking on many threads and I saw what he and others like he do.

I just thought that he might clear this...I know I am too optimistic from pesimists. :D

So BAC,any answer to this?
 
I do not dispute that Sol is very knowledgeable about physics, ... he continually refused to address the actual material i was presenting. Instead he picked out the fine small points and dodged the main bulk of the work. He also continually refused to answer any of questions about magnetic reconnection, just resorting to the usual "many scientists believe it, so it must be true" tactic.

I've run into this sometimes, when something is so obvious it can't possibly be missed, yet some people can't see it. It isn't that they deny it exist, it just isn't even there to them. I consider it a mental blindspot, and it is indeed the curse of both scientist and non-scientist.



They don't mention plasma and the model doesn't include electromagnetic effects. They modeled neutral gas and used methods more suited to studying our atmosphere and water. They don't seem to recognize that plasmas behave very differently than neutral gas in the presence of electromagnetic fields ... which we know exist out there.

Ever since you started linking to papers and websites about plasma and related stuff, I've noticed this. I think it has to do with the ponderous nature of scientific publications and the way science is taught. Because gravity and light are obvious and easy to study here on earth, the early view of the Universe was all about gravity and light. Plasma, and electricity and magnetism related to plasmas, didn't enter the picture until recently. It s hard to give up cherished beliefs about the Universe. It often takes a long time before the mainstream will accept something they didn't know, especially if it makes them look dumb.

But you do demonstrate the selective blindness of mainstream supporters ... treating the galaxy once again as if it were a neutral fluid.

I've noticed this. And something else as well.

Your motto is ANYTHING but electricity. And the latest gnome is dark energy stars. Ever hear of them, RC? :D

I haven't. Have any good links? (and did anyone ever answer you?)

We all noticed you had NO response whatsoever to my post on filaments earlier in this thread ... when you denied they are made of plasma.

Get used to it. When people are wrong, they don't like to talk about it.

Earlier in this thread you posted that "It'd be nice if the woos could show any evidence that the filaments of which they speak are by their nature made of plasma." So I did, in a rather long post. And you totally ignored my response.

Yep. Ignoring is a common tactic when somebody is wrong. Or dumb. They just won't answer a question.
 
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
You're hand waving, RC. Plasma physicists do indeed predict all the above types of phenomena. For good reason. Yet, mainstream astrophysicists don't seem to even have those terms in their lexicon. Why is that?

Give me a list of the mainstream astrophysicists that know nothing about plasma physics. I will bet that it is small. They accept that plasma physics is important for plasmas of any size. The effect of plasma physics outside of plasmas is small.

You're still handwaving, RC. First of all, in various threads over the past several months I have already posted links to dozens of articles by and about dozens of different mainstream scientists that never even once used the word plasma (it's always "gas") or any of the other terms I mentioned (such as Birkeland currents, double layers, exploding double layers, z-pinches). How can that be when you admit these phenomena are important for plasmas "of any size" and its widely recognized (even by NASA) that plasmas constitute 99+ percent of everything we can actually see.

You mean the large computer model that includes every known factor to simulate the universe of which warm dark matter is just one?

You apparently aren't all that familiar with the model. That computer model does NOT include EM effects or plasma phenomena like those exemplified by those terms I mentioned above. Hence, it can't possibly include "every known factor". :D

That is not evidence, it is a press release including the usual hype. The scientists state that the structures are "similar" to those seen in the cosmos.

Hype? So why is it ok in this case to think a lab experiment can be studied to better understand the distant universe but not ok when scientists observe that structures seen in space are "similar" to those seen in plasma experiments and phenomena here on earth? Hmmmmm? But I will agree that the Telegraph article is an attempt to sell string theory to the unsuspecting masses. :D
 
What the hell are you talking about? are you seriously suggesting that Peratt just forgot to include the force of gravity in his model? I have continually asked to to actually read and try to comprehend his work, but its obviously completely above your head.
Perhaps you can show me his equations that include gravity?

You also quote (I assume that the highlights are yours)
Although the gravitational force is weaker than the electromagnetic force by 39 orders of magnitude, gravitation is one of the dominant forces in astrophysics when electromagnetic forces neutralize each other, as is the case when large bodies form [5]. Indicative of the analogy of forces for the motion of electrons and ions in the electromagnetic field and the motion of large bodies in the gravitational field is the ease with which a plasma model may be changed to a gravitational model. This transformation requires only a change of sign in the (electrostatic) potential calculation such that like particles attract instead of repel, followed by setting the charge-to-mass ratio equal to the square root of the gravitational constant (a gravitational model cannot be simply changed to an electromagnetic model as the full set of Maxwell's equations are required in the latter). [....]
I have included my highlighting of his misunderstanding of gravity. To start with the gravitational constant is not a ratio and cannot be converted to a charge-to-mass ratio. The sentence implies that he only considered a plasma with 1 sign of charge which is obviously a missstatement since he must know that a plasma has particles of both charges.
 
You're still handwaving, RC. First of all, in various threads over the past several months I have already posted links to dozens of articles by and about dozens of different mainstream scientists that never even once used the word plasma (it's always "gas") or any of the other terms I mentioned (such as Birkeland currents, double layers, exploding double layers, z-pinches). How can that be when you admit these phenomena are important for plasmas "of any size" and its widely recognized (even by NASA) that plasmas constitute 99+ percent of everything we can actually see.
So out of the 1000's of mainstream scientists you can find dozens of papers that usse gas rather than plasma? So what do you think small means?
Why don't you do the comparison?

You apparently aren't all that familiar with the model. That computer model does NOT include EM effects or plasma phenomena like those exemplified by those terms I mentioned above. Hence, it can't possibly include "every known factor". :D
Nor does it include unicorns! :rolleyes:

Hype? So why is it ok in this case to think a lab experiment can be studied to better understand the distant universe but not ok when scientists observe that structures seen in space are "similar" to those seen in plasma experiments and phenomena here on earth? Hmmmmm? But I will agree that the Telegraph article is an attempt to sell string theory to the unsuspecting masses. :D
Noting the similiarity is one thing. Creating an entirely new cosmology based on that similairty is not valid science.
 
I do not dispute that Sol is very knowledgeable about physics, he obviously is, and I have not disagreed with him on on any of the valid scientific contributions he has made, but he continually refused to address the actual material i was presenting. Instead he picked out the fine small points and dodged the main bulk of the work. He also continually refused to answer any of questions about magnetic reconnection, just resorting to the usual "many scientists believe it, so it must be true" tactic.....
The bit about magnetic connection is untrue. An example of an actual potential that shows magnetic reconnection is in this (and other threads). I believe that Sol provided this and told you about it many times.
 
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Perhaps you can show me his equations that include gravity?
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Peratt notes the "approach to the study of cosmic plasma is labeled "gravito-electrodynamic" (attributed to Hannes Alfven and D.A. Mendis, Ref). You can find the general equation for gravitoelectrodynamics here. But Peratt's simulations require more than just one equation since as we all know, plasmas and their behaviors are complex. Peratt details this in his paper:

More is detailed in Peratt's book, Physics of the Plasma Universe (1991) in Chapter 8, "Particle-in-Cell Simulation of Cosmic Plasma".
 
Whether the number of citations to an article means that (a) it is factually wrong (b) ignored (c) not understood (d) uncontested (e) unknown (f) politically unpopular , is open to speculation. Citations certainly don't imply veracity or disproof of the published science, though it may give an indication of popularity, which is hardly a scientific comment.

I note that Alfvén's original 1942 paper predicting hydromagnetic waves in Nature journal received only 1 citation in the first 10 years, and only 3 more in the next decade, and 3 more in the 10 years after that.

And Alfvén's article on the same subject in Arkiv f. Mat published in 1943, has received one citation to the article, ever.

Thanks Ian for pointing this out.

RealityCheck, Maybe you should contact all the scientists that cite his work and inform them of their mistake?
I agree with the quote - the number of citations is partially a measure of popularity and never a measure of scientific truth.

However we are talking about plasma "cosmology". If this theory is true then our fundamental understanding of the universe will have to change. How can a non-cosmologist like myself (I assume that you have an advanced degree in cosmology and are not just parroting other people :rolleyes:) judge a paper that has such a startling and novel concept in it? The questions I have to ask are:
  1. Does the theory look correct according to my basic knowledge of physics?
  2. Was the seminal paper published in a cosmology journal and thus probably peer-reviewed by cosmologists?
  3. Do other cosmologists support the theory?
  4. Do scientists in general support the theory?
  5. Does the pattern of citations follow that of other fundamental theories (an critical phase of low citations then a steady increase as the theory is tested and accepted followed by a plateau as the theory is developed further and references to the seminal paper decrease)?
My knowledge of physics comes from a 20-year old Masters in physics which was never really used (I have been in IT since) so any answer to 1 is almost a layman's answer.
  1. I cannot see how a massive plasma that is neutral overall (or slightly charged) can not have gravitation forces dominating over electromagnetic forces at a distance. The opposite seems to be the basis of plasma cosmology.
  2. The IEEE is not a journal devoted to cosmology. It does accept papers on cosmology but I have no idea whether the papers would be reviewed by cosmologists or by electrical engineers or plasma physicists.
  3. A low rate of citations suggests that the paper is not supported by cosmologists (or is being ignored by them for some reason).
  4. The same low rate suggests that scientists in general are ignoring or not supporting the paper.
  5. The pattern of citations suggests that the paper is (charitably) still in the critical phase. The 4 citations in 1988 could have been the start of great things but the citation rate then decreased.
I was using the Scopus abstract and citation database but the extra citations (19 in 22 years) leads me to think that that database is not as good as others.
 
.
Peratt notes the "approach to the study of cosmic plasma is labeled "gravito-electrodynamic" (attributed to Hannes Alfven and D.A. Mendis, Ref). You can find the general equation for gravitoelectrodynamics here. But Peratt's simulations require more than just one equation since as we all know, plasmas and their behaviors are complex. Peratt details this in his paper:
More is detailed in Peratt's book, Physics of the Plasma Universe (1991) in Chapter 8, "Particle-in-Cell Simulation of Cosmic Plasma".
Equations? Note that if the gravitation constant G is not in the equations then it has nothing to do with gravity.
 
The bit about magnetic connection is untrue. An example of an actual potential that shows magnetic reconnection is in this (and other threads). I believe that Sol provided this and told you about it many times.


Well he certainly didn't do it in any thread I have read. Evidence?

And the video graphic drawn on a computer by someone to represent what is thought to be occuring in Magnetic reconnection is not proof that it can actually physically happen.
 
So out of the 1000's of mainstream scientists you can find dozens of papers that usse gas rather than plasma? So what do you think small means?
Why don't you do the comparison?
.
A keyword search of the NASA ADS database (astronomy only) finds:
  • "stellar" and "plasma" .. .. .. .. . = _8,802 references
  • "stellar" and "ionized gas" .. .. . = _3,118 references
  • "stellar" and "gas" and "plasma" = _1,371 references
  • "stellar" and "gas" .. .. .. .. .. .. = 36,917 references
Looks like stellar astronomy is full of a lot of hot gas.
 
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
So the "actual value of the thing" is not necessarily 3.7 million solar masses like you said. I see.

You do not see. It is very likely to be 3.7 million solar masses since that is what the scientists state.

But not a certainty. Right?

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
And by the way ... they didn't "measure" the mass. They inferred it from "measuring" something other than mass.

No they did not "infer" the mass. They calculated the mass using the orbits of stars around the black hole.

They inferred the mass is present from measurements of star velocities and what they believe is causing those motions. You said they MEASURED the mass. They did not. :)

Its mass keeps it as a black hole.

How can the mass keep it a black hole if it has been reduced to the Planck length (or even smaller)? That is the point where the distinction between quantum reality and our reality disappears.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_foam "The foam is a qualitative description of the turbulence that the phenomenon creates at extremely small distances of the order of the Planck length. At such small scales of time and space the uncertainty principle allows particles and energy to briefly come into existence, and then annihilate, without violating conservation laws."

Is there even such a thing as mass at that level given that the concepts of "space" and "time" are even in doubt?
 
However we are talking about plasma "cosmology". If this theory is true then our fundamental understanding of the universe will have to change. How can a non-cosmologist like myself (I assume that you have an advanced degree in cosmology and are not just parroting other people :rolleyes:) judge a paper that has such a startling and novel concept in it?
.
At the end of the day, you are going to judge for yourself whether Plasma Cosmology (the study of the Plasma Universe), is bunkum.

  1. I cannot see how a massive plasma that is neutral overall (or slightly charged) can not have gravitation forces dominating over electromagnetic forces at a distance. The opposite seems to be the basis of plasma cosmology.
.
Because all space plasmas are magnetized, and the weak local magnetic field overwhelms gravitational forces at a distance. For example, the smaller-scale interplanetary medium (a plasma) although it is populated with the Sun, planets and asteroids, is influenced more by the interplanetary magnetic field than gravity, resulting in the largest structure in the Solar System, the heliospheric current sheet.

  • The IEEE is not a journal devoted to cosmology. It does accept papers on cosmology but I have no idea whether the papers would be reviewed by cosmologists or by electrical engineers or plasma physicists.
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The IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science is where you would expect to find experts on plasmas. If the Moon was made of green cheese, you'd consult a food scientist, not a lunar scientist.

  • A low rate of citations suggests that the paper is not supported by cosmologists (or is being ignored by them for some reason).
.
You wouldn't expect new ideas to be supported by the status quo. Alfvén himself wrote that he had to submit papers to more obscure journals because referees did not understand his papers, and, cosmologists did not like someone trained as an electrical engineer infringing on their area of expertise.

University of Arizona professor Alex Dessler, former editor of the journal, Geophysical Research Letters, notes:

"When I entered the field of space physics in 1956, I recall that I fell in with the crowd believing, for example, that electric fields could not exist in the highly conducting plasma of space. It was three years later that I was shamed by S. Chandrasekhar into investigating Alfvén's work objectively. My degree of shock and surprise in finding Alfvén right and his critics wrong can hardly be described. "​
 
Originally Posted by BeAChooser
And the latest gnome is dark energy stars. Ever hear of them, RC?

I haven't. Have any good links? (and did anyone ever answer you?)

You'll love this. :)

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/12/071203090139.htm "Dark Matter In Newborn Universe Doused Earliest Stars, ScienceDaily (Dec. 4, 2007) — Perhaps the first stars in the newborn universe did not shine, but instead were invisible "dark stars" 400 to 200,000 times wider than the sun and powered by the annihilation of mysterious dark matter, a University of Utah study concludes. ... snip ... the findings "drastically alter the current theoretical framework for the formation of the first stars," says study author and astrophysicist Paolo Gondolo, associate professor of physics at the University of Utah."

http://www.physorg.com/news122034732.html "First stars might have been powered by dark matter, February 12, 2008 ... snip ... By Miranda Marquit, For a long time, scientists have assumed that the very first stars were powered by fusion, in processes similar to what goes on in present day stars. But a new theory is emerging to challenge that view. “The first stars were different in a lot of ways,” Katherine Freese, a theoretical physicist at the University of Michigan, tells PhysOrg.com. Freese, along with Douglas Spolyar at the Unversity of California, Santa Cruz and Paolo Gondolo at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City, posit that dark matter annihilation was the source of energy that powered the earliest stars, formed about the time the universe was between 100 and 200 million years old."

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2007/12/10/2114342.htm "Weird dark stars dotted early universe, 10 December 2007 Larry O'Hanlon ... snip ... The earliest stars in the universe may have been cool expanses of helium and hydrogen, thick with dark matter and spitting with antimatter. There even may be a few still around. What some astrophysicists are calling 'dark stars' would have been dominated by dark matter and could have existed for millennia in the early universe, when dark matter was far more concentrated than today. ... snip ... What's more, these theoretical dark matter stars may be the secret behind the giant black holes called quasars, which appear to have come into existence before galaxies had a chance to create them."

And it's not just dark stars. How about dark galaxies?

http://www.universetoday.com/2007/06/14/no-stars-shine-in-this-dark-galaxy/ "No Stars Shine in This Dark Galaxy, Written by Fraser Cain, An international team of astronomers have conclusive new evidence that a recently discovered "dark galaxy" is, in fact, an object the size of a galaxy, made entirely of dark matter."

:D
 
So out of the 1000's of mainstream scientists you can find dozens of papers that usse gas rather than plasma? So what do you think small means?

Why do you presume those were the only papers I could find, RC? I didn't try to compile a complete list. Those were just the papers published by the top people in the astrophysics world announcing major discoveries. The ones that got the mainstream press. And they ALL use the term "gas" to describe plasma and they ALL treat that material like it is neutral gas or water.

My challenge to your side has always been to post links to ANY mainstream supporting papers that specifically mention, and more importantly, mention and then discount phenomena such as Birkeland currents, double layers and z-pinches as being the cause of space observations. And your side has failed miserably in that task. Because such papers are very rare ... indeed, almost non-existent. In fact, I can't think of a single instance where your side has provided a scientific paper meeting that criteria.

Now I've already provided links in this forum to dozens of papers announcing or describing major discoveries that call what they see "gas", not plasma, and that do not mention any of the well known EM/plasma phenomena that have been mentioned. Even the papers on the computer model you touted call the material out there gas and talk only about gravity. Let's see if YOU can even come up with one scientific paper that correctly identifies the material as plasma and mentions those EM related phenomena that you apparently admit are valid at any size. Can you?
 
There have been many, many things you've said which have been thoroughly debunked. Now you seem to be claiming those weren't actually plasma cosmology.

Fine - why don't you list one single concrete claim of plasma cosmology which disagrees with the mainstream. Perhaps "electromagnetic effects can explain galactic rotation curves". You choose, and choose carefully.

Then we will debunk it, on the condition that you agree to stop posting about PC if we succeed.

Deal?

This seems quite simple, give a single example of where plasma cosmology can explain an observation and contradict existing mainstream theory. His own example was very understandable.

I do not dispute that Sol is very knowledgeable about physics, he obviously is, and I have not disagreed with him on on any of the valid scientific contributions he has made, but he continually refused to address the actual material i was presenting. Instead he picked out the fine small points and dodged the main bulk of the work. He also continually refused to answer any of questions about magnetic reconnection, just resorting to the usual "many scientists believe it, so it must be true" tactic.

But you didn't demonstrate how anything you showed would explain an observation that isn't already fully explained. For example, can your plasma cosmology explain the orbital mechanics of a planet any better than can the accepted theories of gravity?

He agreed with me that the subject we would discuss was plasma scaling experiments and how they can replicate structures in the cosmos. I provided a long and substantial post on this exact subject. To which he just claimed it was vague, without any citations, and he totally ignored the material i presented and decided to change the subject.

Can you point out the post in this thread where Sol Invictus agreed to this subject, I must have missed it. The only post I can see is where he quite rightly dismissed this as too vague and asked for a concrete example.
Showing that there is some visible similarity between two things does not constitute a theory.

If he had not put me on ignore, I would have come up with another subject to discuss, since he seemed unable to comment on any of the material i presented on plasma scaling. CIV would have been a good starting point, or the various plasma pinch effects, but instead he changed the original agreement, and didn't comment at all on what I showed.

ibid

Its a shame, I really thought he was going to make some worthwhile contributions when I started to post actual plasma universe material, someone as knowledgeable as him I would have thought would at least find it interesting to see new science material he had not seen before. Instead it seemed to anger him. After the usual insulting comments from him and others directed at me I finally gave one post back with some of the same type of personal attacks, which takes a lot to make me do, and he instantly put me on ignore. He can give abuse, but not take. He should have not discounted the physics of the plasma universe so quickly, and by ignoring me he has done himself no favours.

He asked, forlornly, for something concrete.

He has perfectly demonstrated what is often referred to as the "curse of knowledge". Just because he was not previously aware of this subject does not make it wrong.

I would be asonished if Sol Invictus was unaware of yours and others claims. It's part and parcel of being a research scientist, in any field, to examine other claims. When the numbers don't add up, the claim is discarded. Clinging to disproved theories because of a dislike of the mainstream is not very logical.

It is interesting that you use the phrase 'curse of knowledge'. It's most recent definition from business management means that highly knowledgeable people do not communicate their ideas efficiently. How does this apply to anything in this thread?
 
I cannot see how a massive plasma that is neutral overall (or slightly charged) can not have gravitation forces dominating over electromagnetic forces at a distance.

They aren't neutral. They are quasi-neutral. They can carry electric current and those currents can produce magnetic fields which can interact with one another over great distances. What do you honestly think produced structures like this:

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/images/nature04554-f1.2.jpg

Gravity? :D

The IEEE is not a journal devoted to cosmology. It does accept papers on cosmology but I have no idea whether the papers would be reviewed by cosmologists or by electrical engineers or plasma physicists.

But it is a journal devoted to EM phenomena ... and that's the point. If papers suggesting EM phenomena that the mainstream is simply ignoring can pass peer review in IEEE journals, perhaps there is something the mainstream is ignoring. :D

A low rate of citations suggests that the paper is not supported by cosmologists (or is being ignored by them for some reason).

Alfven (an example already mentioned) was faced with that situation during his time. His theories (now accepted) on several subjects were ignored and outright supressed because there were scientists who dominated the mainstream who felt threatened by his theories. It could be that the ideas being suggested now vis a vis plasma cosmology threaten the foundation of a gnome-filled religious-like edifice that the mainstream science community has built and now must defend else they will look as foolish as those who claimed the sun orbited the earth. It could be that the ideas threaten the reputations and livelihood of the mainstream scientists who control the scientific establishment in terms of what gets funded, published and taught ... and the giant expensive projects on which those scientists (and many others) work.
 
Equations? Note that if the gravitation constant G is not in the equations then it has nothing to do with gravity.

He pointed you to a link that has this equation.

m dv/dt = mg + q (E + v x B) - mvc v + f

Did you just miss g or were you too lazy to even open the link?
 
Well he certainly didn't do it in any thread I have read. Evidence?

And the video graphic drawn on a computer by someone to represent what is thought to be occuring in Magnetic reconnection is not proof that it can actually physically happen.

I cannot find a post addressed to you in this thread but there is a post to BeAChooser (sometimes it is hard to tell him and you apart) in another thread with an magnetic field that demonstrates magnetic connection (actually posted by Ziggurat).
 
Well he certainly didn't do it in any thread I have read. Evidence?

To reinforce what RC said, I pointed you towards that very post at least once before.

And the video graphic drawn on a computer by someone to represent what is thought to be occuring in Magnetic reconnection is not proof that it can actually physically happen.

I gave the equations. Evaluate the equations if you don't trust the graphics. The irony here is that it's the EU folks claiming reconnection is impossible who are just waving their hands around. Their objections always center around the language used to describe the process, and ignore the math. They never show that a field used to describe magnetic reconnection has a nonzero divergence, and yet they insist that it violates Gauss's law. Talk about not having proof.

You have been called on this issue before. Either conceed that magnetic reconnection doesn't violate Gauss's law, or admit that you're too clueless to evaluate the topic on any level and shouldn't be voicing an opinion at all.
 
This seems quite simple, give a single example of where plasma cosmology can explain an observation and contradict existing mainstream theory.



And I did exactly that by demonstrating that a highly charged anode can produce the exact characteristsics observed on the sun in many shapes and forms. The sun is viewed as overall completely neutral by mainstream opinion, and the experiments I linked to indicate that this is not the case, as none of these effects could be achieved by Birkeland without a substantial charge on the Terrella.

If Sol had actually replied to the material in my post and say why this comparison between the two can not be drawn, that would have been a valid position to take, but he ignored it in its entirity, and did not even address one thing, despite the huge amount of material I presented. If he had been more patient, maybe he could have commented on the plasma scaling formula I wrote just after, that seems to be the sort of mathematical material he was looking for.

Not only did I show Birkeland experiments, but I also showed another one from Winston Bostik as an example of plasma scaling, and I even gave a brief overview of Peratts model of this. If sol could not find any concrete claim in that post, then i'm not sure what he was seeing.


But you didn't demonstrate how anything you showed would explain an observation that isn't already fully explained. For example, can your plasma cosmology explain the orbital mechanics of a planet any better than can the accepted theories of gravity?



What are you talking about here? Do you see any plasma cosmologist trying to refute gravity? No. They are stating that various forces in plasma have a far bigger effect than traditionally accepted by science, and these effects can be stronger than gravity in certain situations. They would not need to explain the orbittal mechanics of a planets, they are already explained reasonably well with gravity.



Can you point out the post in this thread where Sol Invictus agreed to this subject, I must have missed it. The only post I can see is where he quite rightly dismissed this as too vague and asked for a concrete example.
Showing that there is some visible similarity between two things does not constitute a theory.


post #369
"That might be OK. I want you to name a single specific effect or observation in astrophysics or cosmology which PC claims to explain in a way different from the mainstream."

The effect was plasma scalability, and I used Birkelands Terrella experiments to demonstrate this, along with a couple of other examples. The difference in explaining the effect between the two cosmologies was that plasma cosmologists think this experiment can be applied to the sun, whereas mainstream science says they were a co-incidence. I provided the relevant scaling laws, and showed his work.


He asked, forlornly, for something concrete.


I showed him concrete evidence that a charged up Terrella emanating a strong electric field can simulate nearly exactly many completely separate features of the sun. He could not refute Birkelands work, so he tried to change the topic.

How much more concrete can you get?


I would be asonished if Sol Invictus was unaware of yours and others claims. It's part and parcel of being a research scientist, in any field, to examine other claims. When the numbers don't add up, the claim is discarded.


What numbers dont add up? Or have you just presumed that? From what i've seen most plasma astrophysicists that write material relevant to plasma cosmology seem highly mathematically competent. I suggest you read some, and come back when you have found the fatal error that has alluded every single other person on this forum. This site would make a good start, click on the 'publications' link to see some of the peer reviewed papers. There has not been one single refutation of plasma cosmology material put forward so far, peoples opinions, yes, but the plasma cosmology material has been left largely untouched.

Do you know any cosmic electrodynamics? have you read any PC material? have you studied plasma instabilities? plasma scaleability? plasma fusion? double layers? diocotron instabilities? Motion Induced Εlectric Fields? Faraday Disk Dynamo's? Biot-Savart force? Unipolar inductors? Birkeland currents? Magnetic Mirrors? Magnetohydrodynamics? Debye spheres? Critical ionization velocity (CIV)? Current sheets? Debye length? the Wolf effect?

Because i'm pretty sure that plasma cosmologists have, and i'm also pretty sure that they would be the best educated to inform us of their role in space.

Maybe i should have chosen one of them as the subject, but I personally find the work of Birkeland the most interesting, its just as shame the Sol seemed incapable of commenting on what caused the phenomenon observed on his Terrella, or their striking similartities to the sun.

These forces were not even known when current models were formulated, and it is astronomically improbable that these plasma effects would not greatly alter our understanding of how the universe functions. After all, we know now that >99% of the visible universe is matter in the plasma state (refs here), so mainstream science is going to have to get used to plasma-astrophysicists applying these effects to the cosmos.

It is interesting that you use the phrase 'curse of knowledge'. It's most recent definition from business management means that highly knowledgeable people do not communicate their ideas efficiently. How does this apply to anything in this thread?


That is not what the curse of knowledge is, but it is a principle that business is using ever more nowadays, so i can see why you thought that.

The curse of knowledge is basically that the more knowledgeable you become about a specific subject, the harder it becomes for you to doubt what you have learned, and the harder it becomes to understand how people can not know this subject.

Its easy to demonstrate: Just pick a friend and try to explain the theory to them from scratch. You'll notice that the more technical knowledge the person has, the harder it will be to convince them of anything that is paradigm changing. This is called to curse of knowledge, or sometimes refferred to as a "hardening of the categories"

Charles Eisenstein eloquently explores this problem in a paper entitled “A State of Belief is a State of Being”. I’ll quote the abstract in full:

When students in a university classroom are invited to share anomalous stories, the “skeptical” tactics used to debunk them seem reasonable at first, but eventually reveal a worldview that is cynical, arrogant, dogmatic, and unfalsifiable. Because any new evidence can, with sufficient effort, be made to fit a preexisting paradigm, belief is seen to come down to choice. Moreover, like most belief systems, the worldview of the Skeptic has an emotional component, long ago identified by Bertrand Russell and others as a meaninglessness or despair inherent in classical science. The choice of belief therefore extends beyond a mere intellectual decision, to encompass one’s identity and relationship to the world. This approach conflicts with traditional scientific objectivity, which enjoins that belief be detached from such considerations. The relationship between observation and belief is more subtle than the traditional scientific view that the latter must follow dispassionately from the former. Indeed, the “experimenter effect” in psychology, as well as mounting problems with objectivity in mainstream science, suggest a need to reconceive science and the Scientific Method in light of the crumbling of the assumption of objectivity upon which it is based.
 
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And I did exactly that by demonstrating that a highly charged anode can produce the exact characteristsics observed on the sun in many shapes and forms.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: the sun is not an anode. It does not have the properties of an anode, and will not act like an anode. Unlike a metal, there is nothing except gravity binding positive charges to the sun. It can thus can AND WILL self-discharge if you try to put a large charge on it (large being over ~100 Coulombs, which for something the size of the sun is really quite small).

The sun is viewed as overall completely neutral by mainstream opinion,

No. It is treated as close enough to neutral to ignore the charge for most purposes. And for most purposes, a 100 Coulomb charge on the sun really is small enough to ignore.

What are you talking about here? Do you see any plasma cosmologist trying to refute gravity? No.

I guess it depends on who qualifies as a "plasma cosmologist", but refuting gravity is exactly what most of the Electric Universe folks on the web do all the time. They're constantly droning on about how black holes are fake.

What numbers dont add up?

Lots of them. The presumed charge on the sun by electric sun advocates, for example. You yourself seem unwilling to rule out large charges on the sun, though you refuse to indicate any reason you think such charges can significantly exceed ~100 Coulmbs. The numbers don't work for the idea that magnetic fields can account for galactic rotation curves either. I've been through those numbers, and you're short about 20 orders of magnitude there too.

Do you know any cosmic electrodynamics?

"Cosmic electrodynamics"? Sorry, no such thing. There's classical electrodynamics, and there's quantum electrodynamics (QED), but "cosmic electrodynamics" isn't a different subject.
 
I might rebut many of your comments in later posts but the following is the most interesting for examination.

And I did exactly that by demonstrating that a highly charged anode can produce the exact characteristsics observed on the sun in many shapes and forms. The sun is viewed as overall completely neutral by mainstream opinion, and the experiments I linked to indicate that this is not the case, as none of these effects could be achieved by Birkeland without a substantial charge on the Terrella.

Although showing that a small lab experiment is visibly similar to effects seen on the sun doesn't constitute either a theory or a prediction, it leads to an obvious question. What charge would the sun carry to produce the effects seen in Birkeland's Terrella?
 
They aren't neutral. They are quasi-neutral. They can carry electric current and those currents can produce magnetic fields which can interact with one another over great distances. What do you honestly think produced structures like this:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/image/0004/cygloop_blair.jpg
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v440/n7082/images/nature04554-f1.2.jpg
Gravity? :D

Nice pictures.

It depends on how you look at it. Plasmas are quasi-neutral as far as their internal structure is concerned. As soon as you consider objects outside of a plasma then the plasma can be treated as neutral at a distance.

But it is a journal devoted to EM phenomena ... and that's the point. If papers suggesting EM phenomena that the mainstream is simply ignoring can pass peer review in IEEE journals, perhaps there is something the mainstream is ignoring. :D

The point is that a cosmological theory needs to be reviewed by people who have a grounding in cosmology - unless you are conceding that plasma cosmology has nothing to do with cosmology? :D
The scientific method demands that a new theory is supported by the same observations that any theory that it proposes to replace was supported with. Who knows about the observations in cosmology? My guess is cosmologists. What journals are most likely to review papers using cosmologists? Cosmology journals.

Alfven (an example already mentioned) was faced with that situation during his time. His theories (now accepted) on several subjects were ignored and outright supressed because there were scientists who dominated the mainstream who felt threatened by his theories. It could be that the ideas being suggested now vis a vis plasma cosmology threaten the foundation of a gnome-filled religious-like edifice that the mainstream science community has built and now must defend else they will look as foolish as those who claimed the sun orbited the earth. It could be that the ideas threaten the reputations and livelihood of the mainstream scientists who control the scientific establishment in terms of what gets funded, published and taught ... and the giant expensive projects on which those scientists (and many others) work.

Now you are invoking conspiracy theory. There is a topic devoted to this, perhaps you should start posting there.
Basically what you are saying is that your personal opinion concerning the politics in science is more important then the scientific validity of any theory.
Are you saying every scientist in the world has the same mindset? How is science ever done it all scientists support the conventional theories? How come there are any papers at all that challenge standard theories? Why are there even papers about extending the standard theories? Are you aware that proposal of the dark matter (a change to the then standard cosmology) was before the proposal of plasma cosmology? Why didn't every scientist in the world ignore that?
I am sure that all the theoretical cosmologists toiling away in universities are working on "giant expensive projects". :rolleyes:
 
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I've said this before and I'll say it again: the sun is not an anode. It does not have the properties of an anode, and will not act like an anode. Unlike a metal, there is nothing except gravity binding positive charges to the sun. It can thus can AND WILL self-discharge if you try to put a large charge on it (large being over ~100 Coulombs, which for something the size of the sun is really quite small).


Quite possibly correct, I do not fully rule out this possibility. The idea of charge on stars is definately not plasma universe material, it falls under more speculative EU ideas. I am still open to the possibility of the sun retaining a charge over 100 C, there appears to be only one paper (apart from a few older dated ones) that looks into what the potential charge could be, and its from a very theoretical perspective.

We have had this conversation many times before Ziggurat, i suggest we save each other some time and agree to disagree, the actual value is still open to debate and has not been measured in any direct way, so it could turn out to far less or more than 100C.

You say the sun is not an anode, but why then were Birkelands experiments such a resounding success?


No. It is treated as close enough to neutral to ignore the charge for most purposes. And for most purposes, a 100 Coulomb charge on the sun really is small enough to ignore.


If you are thinking on the scale of planets and large bodies, then yes, this charge will have little, if any, effect. But the effect this small amount of charge could have on individual particles is thousands of times greater than gravity, and so this alone could indicate that the particle acceleration and coronal heating problems that have been so troublesome for astronomers to solve could have a solution by employing the suns global E-field.



I guess it depends on who qualifies as a "plasma cosmologist", but refuting gravity is exactly what most of the Electric Universe folks on the web do all the time. They're constantly droning on about how black holes are fake.


Electric universe theorists, maybe, yes, but not plasma cosmologists. They are not refuting gravity as far as i am aware, but they do propose a different cause for it that is not just based on mass.


Lots of them. The presumed charge on the sun by electric sun advocates, for example. You yourself seem unwilling to rule out large charges on the sun, though you refuse to indicate any reason you think such charges can significantly exceed ~100 Coulmbs. The numbers don't work for the idea that magnetic fields can account for galactic rotation curves either. I've been through those numbers, and you're short about 20 orders of magnitude there too.


I think that this calculation you did is not using the full relationships proposed by Peratt, I will have a look at it when I have more time, I would be surprised if you were the first to refute his work when no-one else seems able to fault it, and other authors are still citing it to this day.


"Cosmic electrodynamics"? Sorry, no such thing. There's classical electrodynamics, and there's quantum electrodynamics (QED), but "cosmic electrodynamics" isn't a different subject.


There is no such section of science with that exact name, I agree, but its obvious what it implies, the study of the electrically dynamic nature of the cosmos. It was based on some of Alfvens work, in which he used this term to describe the role of plasma in the universe. See for example his publication called Cosmical electrodynamics, cited over 217 times, and very popular in the scientific community. This material would just be called plasma physics now, or rather plasma astrophysics.
 
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What charge would the sun carry to produce the effects seen in Birkeland's Terrella?


Well, thats the big question isn't it. We know that Birkeland currents show nearly exactly the same form and shape over lengths of 1010, from the lab to the auroras, so the Terrella and the sun should be comparible on some level.

The comparison between the two comes in when you actually look at the precise nature of many of his results. They are far too consistant with the features of the sun to be mere co-incidence, and all were created with electrical effects.

Birkeland had this to say about it, but he never came up with a definitive solution for the scaling relationships between the two;

I have sought by various methods to find a value for the very singular capacity of this globe corresponding to disruptive discharges, a capacity which seems to vary perceptibly according to the conditions of the discharge. In the case of this globe (8 cm. in diameter), this capacity varies about 1/100 of a microfarad, and if I assume that the sun has a corresponding capacity C in the relation of the square of the diameters, I find that C = 3 x 1018 microfarads.
 
....
I think that this calculation you did is not using the full relationships proposed by Peratt, I will have a look at it when I have more time, I would be surprised if you were the first to refute his work when no-one else seems able to fault it, and other authors are still citing it to this day.
....

It would be nice if you could find a paper that states "We tried to refute Peratt's paper but could not". Otherwise it is just a matter of opinion - you say no refutation means a valid theory that is being largely ignored, I say a theory that is being largely ignored to the point of no attempt at refutation is unlikely to be valid.

This reminds me of another problem with looking at citations as an indication of the quality of a paper: The paper may contain many sections with variable quality. Another author may look at this paper, use equations or data from a section of good quality and of course cite the entire paper.
 
Very well then.

Ignore list, meet Zeuzzz.


Score!!! Welcome to the club, Sol. It seems to me that BAC and Zeuzzz insist upon driving away the very people on this forum who actually do know some physics & cosmology

Ah well guys, keep on digging that hole :dig:
 
Ever since you started linking to papers and websites about plasma and related stuff, I've noticed this. I think it has to do with the ponderous nature of scientific publications and the way science is taught. Because gravity and light are obvious and easy to study here on earth, the early view of the Universe was all about gravity and light. Plasma, and electricity and magnetism related to plasmas, didn't enter the picture until recently. It s hard to give up cherished beliefs about the Universe. It often takes a long time before the mainstream will accept something they didn't know, especially if it makes them look dumb.


Robinson, there is another possibility that, for some crazy reason, you cannot seem to get through your head... that BAC and Zeuzzz simply don't know what the hell they're talking about.

I know it's tough to consider, what with the huge scientific conspiracy to ignore and hide the TRUTH, but if you really try you can make your mind consider the possibility...
 
Little g is not the same as big G.


Wow, BAC screws up basic physics again and states that g (localized acceleration due to gravity) is the same thing as G (the universal gravitational constant). And, better yet, robinson catches the error!

Yet another example of BAC's superior knowledge of physics... :rolleyes:
 
No. It is treated as close enough to neutral to ignore the charge for most purposes. And for most purposes, a 100 Coulomb charge on the sun really is small enough to ignore.

... Lots of them. The presumed charge on the sun by electric sun advocates, for example. You yourself seem unwilling to rule out large charges on the sun, though you refuse to indicate any reason you think such charges can significantly exceed ~100 Coulmbs. The numbers don't work for the idea that magnetic fields can account for galactic rotation curves either. I've been through those numbers, and you're short about 20 orders of magnitude there too.

Although showing that a small lab experiment is visibly similar to effects seen on the sun doesn't constitute either a theory or a prediction, it leads to an obvious question. What charge would the sun carry to produce the effects seen in Birkeland's Terrella?


For the benefit of those new to the thread and any lurkers, I once again refer you to post #465 in this thread where I provided a calculation of the Electric Sun claims that show they're complete rubbish. Enjoy!
 
Welcome back mattus. I d'ont think i could get through my day without my daily dose of Mattus word salad. One day you may actually add something worthwhile to the discussion past personal comments, now wouldn't that would be nice.

Care to share your thoughts on the cause of the effects achieved in Birkelands experiments I posted previously in this post?
 
Perhaps someone with good knowledge of Peratt's plasma model of the galaxy can answer this:
Did Peratt model all of the mass of the galaxy as a plasma?

I had assumed that he had a model that treated the 5% by mass of the galaxy that is the Interstellar Medium as a plasma while treating the rest of the mass that is in stars as gravitational sources. Or perhaps he stated a reason to increase the mass of the plasma to a higher percentage?
The quotes that I have seen suggest that he modelled all of the mass of the galaxy as a plasma.
 
For the benefit of those new to the thread and any lurkers, I once again refer you to post #465 in this thread where I provided a calculation of the Electric Sun claims that show they're complete rubbish. Enjoy!


Infact, I already beat you to it. Me (and sol) came to the conclusion that simple eletcrostatics alone could not account for observed deflection of pioneer. Although my calculation was slightly different to yours, I used two variables for the charge and subbed in the force from the known anomalous acceleration using a rearrangement of coulombs law, and finding F from F=ma. In mine you could choose either the charge of the sun, or the spacecraft, but simple electrostatics could not account for it, by quite a few orders of magnitude. Our results are in the same ball park.

How this has anything to do with falsifying the electric sun idea is beyond me. The charge on the spacecraft that far out would be very small (anything between 1.6x10-19 to about 1.6x10-9 C I would imagine) and so even if the sun had a charge of trillions of coulombs, it could not account for the pioneer anomaly. And you say that the charge on the spacecraft could be 1 C in your calculation? do you have any idea how much force that would apply to it? it would quite literally explode. I thought you would have known better than that.

Saying that a charge on the sun could not account for the acceleration of pioneer is a far cry from falsifying the electric sun theory.
 
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