Lets have a look at this list again then.
I'll make some quick changes. This is hard to do though, as comparing two completely different paradigms is like comparing chalk and cheese. There are more philosophical issues in this than I can personally get my head around, like what makes a cosmology a cosmology, what it actually has to explain (different cosmologies say different things), the distinction between metaphysics and physical physics, importance of both reduction (exclusive focus on efficient cause) and emergence with both bottom-up (efficient causality) and top-down causation, uncertainly increase back in time and expressing this in a coherent way, etc, but I'll give it a go. I highly recommend reading this article for some of these issues: (
http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0709/0709.3191.pdf) SOME EPISTEMIC QUESTIONS OF COSMOLOGY
And many people I have spoken with online give different definitions, Peratt thinks that
any paper about the plasma universe makes it a PC paper (as most other cosmology relevant papers are based on speculations and unverifiable assumptions, like energy creation out of nothing, steady state theories, LCDM, etc). This is why I considered any paper in a PC journal to be part of PC. So that’s a completely different sort of cosmology than others to begin with, since even papers that have no relation to large scale structure fall under the scope of cosmology, and even includes theories that are not 100% consistent with each other. Which most people would dispute. More a framework than a cosmology strictly speaking. Lerner thinks.... I'm not sure, he's hard to contact (always busy with his fusion devices
) and other people all seem to have their own plasma cosmologies, but reject unspecified areas of other parts with no particular reason. Anyways, lets have a go.
Firstly: A simple definition of plasma cosmology is that it is a simple extrapolation of laboratory physics to space that does not start with the assumption of an initial event of creation. While most cosmologies rely almost exclusively on mathematical constructs, based on various fundamental theories like GR and quantum gravity to find out ‘definitively' when the universe originated, then all work thereafter is formulated from this base, they are always subject to extra assumptions that may or may not turn out to be true. For this reason PC rejects these as a valid proof of an origin in space and time, and leaves the origin of the universe more open until concrete astrophysical data can accurately predict, in many independently verifiable ways, the distant epochs from which the universe is thought to have originated. PC’s position is that currently we do not have the knowledge to accurately know the exact and true origin of the entire universe, it is too hard to know this definitively for something that happened that long ago, the universe is assumed static and infinite, this is a default assumption in PC. Though the details are a bit more complex (see points below)
Now to my edit of RC’s definition of PC:
The
scientific theory of
Plasma Cosmology is that of Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén. Alfvén's hypotheses regarding cosmology can be divided into three distinct areas.
1. The cosmic plasma, an empirical description of the Universe based on the results from laboratory experiments on plasmas
2. Birkeland currents (force free filaments), a proposed mechanism for the formation of large scale structure in the universe.
3. ambiplasma theory, based on a hypothetical matter/antimatter plasma.
Since this, the third point has received little or no experimental verification. Thus rendering the Alfven-Klein plasma cosmology incorrect.
The PC approach to cosmology of points one and two has been continued since by various scientists, with slight variations. This has lead to a generalising of the term plasma cosmology, and the term is often now used to describe any cosmology created within a plasma cosmology framework, instead of a specific cosmological theory. This can be compared to the various cosmological models formed within the Big Bang framework; the Big Bang itself would not be called a cosmology by itself, but cosmologies formed within this framework are. The most notable plasma cosmologies would be the original plasma cosmology of Hannes Alfvén, those theories developed by Peratt, Lerner and others in the 1980's and 90's, and various more recent models, such as the Plasma Redshift cosmology of Ari Brynjolfsson, CREIL based cosmology of Jacques Moret-Bailly, and others. While some aspects of each certainly are inconsistent, there are overlapping areas that are consistent, and it is likely that future plasma cosmologies will use aspects of each as theories are developed.
The definition of what makes a cosmological theory a "plasma cosmology" is that it follows a series of requirements, all with a common thread. A cosmology may be categorised as a plasma cosmology if it: (Note: this is off the top of my head, I may need to reconsider some of these after some thought)
A) Emphasizes the links between physical processes observable in laboratories on Earth and those that govern the cosmos. (Especially the link between the vast and varied properties of laboratory and space plasma, which have the potential to offer alternate explanations for many current theories where none existed previously.)
B) Does not require the introduction of hypothetical entities that have not been experimentally verified in controlled laboratory experiments, such mathematical constructs like inflation, dark matter and dark energy (or others, like quantum loop gravity, brane theories, etc)
C) An origin in time for the universe is rejected, due to causality arguments and rejection of ex nihilo models as a stealth form of creationism.
D) It is accepted that the further backwards in time we go, the larger is the uncertainty about the state. This approach does not necessarily lead to a “creation” at a certain time, nor does it exclude this possibility. In principle, it is also reconcilable with a universe which is “ungenerated and indestructible,” as Aristotle expressed it.
E) Since every part of the universe we observe is evolving, it assumes that the universe itself is evolving as well. A scalar expansion as predicted from the FRW metric is not accepted as part of this evolution, ie, the universe is assumed as static and infinite.
F) Since the universe is nearly all plasma (>99.99%), electromagnetic forces are in equal importance with gravitation on all scales. This negates the need for a finite collapsing universe, or a definitive beginning, as the exclusively attractive field of gravity is not the only force at work.
There seems to be an emphasis on the extension of laboratory experiments in theory to large sizes via
plasma scaling See the Astrophysical application section for details of Peratts work on this scaling. Also see the
Similarity Transformations for particle energy, velocity, potential, current and resistance, which are the basis for much plasma cosmology work. The observational evidence for this scaling has some gaps in it.
PC is well aware that the two or three laboratory experiments on gravity, that form the base of cosmology today, is an untested extrapolation over 14 orders of magnitude. Which is a quite a remarkable phenomenon.
@ me.
