Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

Ziggurat · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
I'd love nothing more to give you a mathematical description of an electric discharge but does one in fact exist?

Yes. Funny how ignorant EU/PC proponents are of actual electrodynamics. Not that I'm surprised, what with your recent confusion about orbitals and dipole moments.

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
Mmmm... science content??

The charging and discharging of the leyden jar not sciencey enough for ya!

Maybe you'd like to partake in a little experimental "science"? You know hands on, getting into it, scientific experiment, much like I show my 4 yr old daughter

I'd love nothing more to give you a mathematical description of an electric discharge but does one in fact exist?

But the leyden jar "scientific" experiment should get the point across with no need to resort to some differe_ntia_tal ve^Ctor integ^ral!!

Obviously there would be a number of very dynamic variables at play in an event such as this so I'm not sure what you maths is going to PROVE!!

All right I'm no mathematician but lets have a crack at a little mathmatical jiggery pokery, I'm sure if I do something wrong someone here will let me know!

In relation to the spider crater on Mercury being an electrical discharge (spark/arc) phenomena and not impact, volcanic or geological. Then we might just be able to do some maths.

Ok lets work out some basics

Electrostatic discharge (spark/arc)

Electrostatic discharge (ESD) is the sudden and momentary electric current that flows between two objects at different electrical potentials caused by direct contact or induced by an electrostatic field.

Futher from the same article

Sparks
Main article: corona discharge

A spark is triggered when the electric field strength exceeds approximately 10 – 30 kV/cm[citation needed] (the dielectric field strength of air). This may cause a very rapid increase in the number of free electrons and ions in the air, temporarily causing the air to abruptly become an electrical conductor in a process called dielectric breakdown.

Perhaps the best known example of a natural spark is a lightning strike. In this case the potential difference between a cloud and ground, or between two clouds, is typically hundreds of millions of volts. The resulting current that flows through the ionized air causes an explosive release of energy. On a much smaller scale, sparks can form in air during electrostatic discharges from charged objects that are charged to as little as 380 volts (Paschen's law).

so as we are not talking about the dielectric field strength of air here but of space/vacuum would could roughly generalize with the electric constant

or

$93625ef2eeb601c7ef202f15d49efa2a.png$

But that's not of much help if what we a really after is Realization of free space in outer space

While only a partial vacuum, outer space contains such sparse matter that the pressure of interstellar space is on the order of 10 pPa (1×10−11 Pa)[31]. For comparison, the pressure at sea level (as defined in the unit of atmospheric pressure) is about 101 kPa (1×105 Pa). The gases in outer space are not uniformly distributed, of course. The density of hydrogen in our galaxy is estimated at 1 hydrogen atom/cm3.[32] The critical density separating a Universe that continuously expands from one that ultimately crunches is estimated as about three hydrogen atoms per thousand liters of space.[33] In the partial vacuum of outer space, there are small quantities of matter (mostly hydrogen), cosmic dust and cosmic noise. See intergalactic space. In addition, there is a cosmic microwave background with a temperature of 2.725 K, which implies a photon density of about 400 /cm3.[34] [35]

The density of the interplanetary medium and interstellar medium, though, is extremely low; for many applications negligible error is introduced by treating the interplanetary and interstellar regions as "free space".

So while we are not talking about IPM or ISM here at Mercuries orbit what is actual plasma density there?

If it's coupled to the solar wind then it's going to be highly variable, I would imagine considering how dynamic the solar wind is (Sun plasma stream).

So which electric constant shall we "pick"?

Anywhoo... according to my theory once a threshold was reached WRT charge separation and electric field strength and the electric constant a corona discharge started.

Firstly

In electricity, a corona discharge is an electrical discharge brought on by the ionization of a fluid surrounding a conductor, which occurs when the potential gradient (the strength of the electric field) exceeds a certain value, but conditions are insufficient to cause complete electrical breakdown or arcing.

That fluid in this case is plasma, remember we are on Mercuries surface here.

Now I believe that the conditions that contributed to the formation of this "spider crater" continued to increase the strength of the local electric field so

If the geometry and gradient are such that the ionized region continues to grow instead of stopping at a certain radius, a completely conductive path may be formed, resulting in a momentary spark, or a continuous arc.

So the steps that involved are quite straight forward.

Pretty pics omitted for the sake of bandwidth

Mechanism of corona discharge:

Corona discharge of both the positive and negative variety have certain mechanisms in common.

1. A neutral atom or molecule of the medium, in a region of strong electric field (such as the high potential gradient near the curved electrode) is ionized by an exogenous environmental event (for example, as the result of a photon interaction), to create a positive ion and a free electron.

2 The electric field then operates on these charged particles, separating them, and preventing their recombination, and also accelerating them, imparting each of them with kinetic energy.

3 As a result of the energisation of the electrons (which have a much higher charge/mass ratio and so are accelerated to a higher velocity), further electron/positive-ion pairs may be created by collision with neutral atoms. These then undergo the same separating process creating an electron avalanche. Both positive and negative coronas rely on electron avalanches.

4 In processes which differ between positive and negative coronas, the energy of these plasma processes is converted into further initial electron dissociations to seed further avalanches.

5 An ion species created in this series of avalanches (which differs between positive and negative coronas) is attracted to the uncurved electrode, completing the circuit, and sustaining the current flow.

now we could use Peeks law,

$981a60ff1f1402292fe3313ec2dd9e6d.png$

but I'm not to sure how'd that work around Mercury!

Could we fiddle it to fit a sphere in space?

mv is an irregularity factor to account for the condition of the wires. For smooth, polished wires, mv = 1. For roughened, dirty or weathered wires, 0.98 to 0.93, and for cables, 0.87 to 0.83.

Lets call the surface of Mercury on a planerty scale smooth, so mv=1

r is the radius of the wires

As we are not talking about wire but a sphere here and Murcuries mean radius is 2,439.7 ± 1.0 km or as we are really after the surface area of a sphere, at least Murcuries the r=7.48 × 107 km²

S is the distance between the wires

S=??? .i.e. we don't know the distance between the two objects here, so lets just make one up based on Terrestrial positive lightning between the ionosphere and ground of 100km and so S=10000km nice round number!

δ is the air density factor. It is calculated by the equation:

Which in space would, I imagine be negligible, so δ=0

gv is the "visual critical" potential gradient, and is calculated by the equation:
$8948ddef8ebbefe04aa8af8040beadaa.png$

as we are not in Earths atmosphere here I could assume the electric-constant would be close enough? So gv=ε0 or whatever it maybe at the surface of Murcury, but will start there.

Could we butcher the equation like that and get something useful out of it?

On the "look" of it (the Spider crater) and the description between a positive and negative corona discharge I'd posit a negative coronal discharge!

Negative coronas

Properties

A negative corona is manifested in a non-uniform corona, varying according to the surface features and irregularities of the curved conductor. It often appears as tufts of corona at sharp edges, the number of tufts altering with the strength of the field. The form of negative coronas is a result of its source of secondary avalanche electrons (see below). It appears a little larger than the corresponding positive corona, as electrons are allowed to drift out of the ionising region, and so the plasma continues some distance beyond it. The total number of electrons, and electron density is much greater than in the corresponding positive corona. However, they are of a predominantly lower energy, owing to being in a region of lower potential-gradient. Therefore, whilst for many reactions the increased electron density will increase the reaction rate, the lower energy of the electrons will mean that reactions which require a higher electron energy may take place at a lower rate.

Mechanism

Negative coronas are more complex than positive coronas in construction. As with positive coronas, the establishing of a corona begins with an exogenous ionisation event generating a primary electron, followed by an electron avalanche.

Electrons ionised from the neutral gas are not useful in sustaining the negative corona process by generating secondary electrons for further avalanches, as the general movement of electrons in a negative corona is outward from the curved electrode. For negative corona, instead, the dominant process generating secondary electrons is the photoelectric effect, from the surface of the electrode itself. The work-function of the electrons (the energy required to liberate the electrons from the surface) is considerably lower than the ionisation energy of air at standard temperatures and pressures, making it a more liberal source of secondary electrons under these conditions. Again, the source of energy for the electron-liberation is a high-energy photon from an atom within the plasma body relaxing after excitation from an earlier collision. The use of ionised neutral gas as a source of ionisation is further diminished in a negative corona by the high-concentration of positive ions clustering around the curved electrode.

Under other conditions, the collision of the positive species with the curved electrode can also cause electron liberation.

The difference, then, between positive and negative coronas, in the matter of the generation of secondary electron avalanches, is that in a positive corona they are generated by the gas surrounding the plasma region, the new secondary electrons travelling inward, whereas in a negative corona they are generated by the curved electrode itself, the new secondary electrons travelling outward.

A further feature of the structure of negative coronas is that as the electrons drift outwards, they encounter neutral molecules and, with electronegative molecules (such as oxygen and water vapour), combine to produce negative ions. These negative ions are then attracted to the positive uncurved electrode, completing the 'circuit'.

A negative corona can be divided into three radial areas, around the sharp electrode. In the inner area, high-energy electrons inelastically collide with neutral atoms and cause avalanches, whilst outer electrons (usually of a lower energy) combine with neutral atoms to produce negative ions. In the intermediate region, electrons combine to form negative ions, but typically have insufficient energy to cause avalanche ionisation, but remain part of a plasma owing to the different polarities of the species present, and the ability to partake in characteristic plasma reactions. In the outer region, only a flow of negative ions and, to a lesser and radially-decreasing extent, free electrons toward the positive electrode takes place. The inner two regions are known as the corona plasma. The inner region is an ionising plasma, the middle a non-ionising plasma. The outer region is known as the unipolar region.

So RC maybe correct in he's assumption of the formation taking place in two separate events! But he's timing may be off, it may not be cosmological time here, the "grabens"/rays/channels formed just before the dielectric strength was exceeded and an spark/arc formed which then formed the crater, time wise maybe only seconds, minutes or hours hell maybe even days passed before discharge was initiated!

Hope that's sciencey enough for our resident boffins, but without the hard data to plug into a highly dynamic process at this stage I'm not to sure if the maths is of much use!

Sol Invictus, Reality Check, tusenfem, Tim Thompson, Ben M, Perp student and others, which bit is hard to understand?

Reality Check · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
So RC maybe correct in he's assumption of the formation taking place in two separate events! But he's timing may be off, it may not be cosmological time here, the "grabens"/rays/channels formed just before the dielectric strength was exceeded and an spark/arc formed which then formed the crater, time wise maybe only seconds, minutes or hours hell maybe even days passed before discharge was initiated!

I never said anything about "cosmological time".
The formation of the crater and the rays differ in depending on the rate of formation of craters. This will be some 1000's of years. Note that the Spider crater itself has no clear craters within it. There are some features that I think may be craters or debris from the crater wall.

Thus you still need to answer the original questions (I added the difference) and a new question:
Hypothesis 1: The Spider crater and rays were created in one event (a lightning strike).
Falsifiable Prediction 1: The Spider crater and rays are the same age.

Hypothesis 2: The Spider crater and rays were created in two events.
Falsifiable Prediction 2: The Spider crater and rays are different ages.

Data: The density of craters on the Spider crater and the terrain containing the rays (and even in the rays themselves) is different. Standard astronomy tells us that the crater is a different age from the rays by a number of years (probably 1000's of years).

For the third time Sol88: Which falsifiable prediction is supported by the data?

Mercury has a magnetic field and so there is no charge separation from the solar wind (as on the Moon and other bodies) to provide a source for the ligtning

For the third time Sol88: Where did your lightning strike come from?

The challenge that sol invictus issued was to do with a strange little "theory" called plasma cosmology. It has nothing to do with planetary science. Thus even if the Spider crater was formed by a lightning strike, it has nothing to do pc. But just in case:

For the first time Sol88: What has this bit of planetary science have to to with plasma cosmology?

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

Reality Check said:
I never said anything about "cosmological time".
The formation of the crater and the rays differ in depending on the rate of formation of craters. This will be some 1000's of years. Note that the Spider crater itself has no clear craters within it. There are some features that I think may be craters or debris from the crater wall.

Thus you still need to answer the original questions (I added the difference) and a new question:
Hypothesis 1: The Spider crater and rays were created in one event (a lightning strike).
Falsifiable Prediction 1: The Spider crater and rays are the same age.

Hypothesis 2: The Spider crater and rays were created in two events.
Falsifiable Prediction 2: The Spider crater and rays are different ages.

Data: The density of craters on the Spider crater and the terrain containing the rays (and even in the rays themselves) is different. Standard astronomy tells us that the crater is a different age from the rays by a number of years (probably 1000's of years).

For the third time Sol88: Which falsifiable prediction is supported by the data?

Mercury has a magnetic field and so there is no charge separation from the solar wind (as on the Moon and other bodies) to provide a source for the ligtning

For the third time Sol88: Where did your lightning strike come from?

The challenge that sol invictus issued was to do with a strange little "theory" called plasma cosmology. It has nothing to do with planetary science. Thus even if the Spider crater was formed by a lightning strike, it has nothing to do pc. But just in case:

For the first time Sol88: What has this bit of planetary science have to to with plasma cosmology?

RC, you do not no much about electrical discharge do you, I strongly suggest reading up on the topic before disregarding it out of hand!

A characteristic of a arc (and you'd know if you'd ever used a stick arc welder) is that when the arc is extinguished it's not a clean break! Secondary smaller crater can from, that accounts for the standards astronomy complete misrepresentation of crater as tools to estimate planetary age!

The spider crater (the "big" one) is the PRIMARY crater! the sequence of events would be charge separation, corona discharge, arc, secondary craters, so I see how you could be all confusimitated and cunfudelled there sport!

so...

For the third time Sol88: Which falsifiable prediction is supported by the data?

The electrical discharge predictions, Mr Dick Cranium! Your (mainstream) explanations (there not even theories) are NOT falsifiable therefore there only worth is to prop up that wobbly coffee table down stairs!

For the first time Sol88: What has this bit of planetary science have to to with plasma cosmology?

That's the biggest appeal for EU/PC it as everything to do with cosmology, unlike standard astronomy which have there own little niche departments that have NO bearing on one and other!

Question for YOU R.Head what does planetary science and cosmology have do with each other?

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

tusenfem said:
Yeah and ....

Just what is going on anywhere, where there are magnetic fields in motion, they induce an electric field and create currents. THE way, by the way to created currents in astrophysical plasmas (unlike anaconda's idea that they are driven by double layers).

By the way, if you would improve your searching skills, you might have seen that you linked to an abstract of a talk at the EGU. So, no, I don't think I can get that paper for you.

Luckily for you there is also this paper in Space Science Review by the same authors, which I might be able to get. What are you planning to do with it?

Be careful, tho, it WILL be full of math and such, which you don't seem to like and sort of the "follow up" paper was in my previous message.

So, unless you can explain to me why you think the Grosser et al. paper is interesting and what you think you can do with it, I am not going to put effort into getting it.

I guess you might also want to have my paper about permanent and induced magnetic fields on Ganymede too, then.

I think it is interesting because that's my understanding of how a transformer works!

A transformer is a device that transfers electrical energy from one circuit to another through inductively coupled conductors — the transformer's coils or "windings". Except for air-core transformers, the conductors are commonly wound around a single iron-rich core, or around separate but magnetically-coupled cores. A varying current in the first or "primary" winding creates a varying magnetic field in the core (or cores) of the transformer. This varying magnetic field induces a varying electromotive force (EMF) or "voltage" in the "secondary" winding. This effect is called mutual induction.

No? So what happens to all that charge in Mercuries core?

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
All right I'm no mathematician but lets have a crack at a little mathmatical jiggery pokery, I'm sure if I do something wrong someone here will let me know!

Indeed, you are not, ouch my beautiful brain!!

Sol88 said:
Sol Invictus, Reality Check, tusenfem, Tim Thompson, Ben M, Perp student and others, which bit is hard to understand?

I would not know where to start to debunk this junk.

Maybe you should have sticked to Earth's lightning, which would be more appropriate for Mercury. Although corona discharge sound more interesting than lightning, so I guess that is why you went down that path. Then you could stop the sillyness of setting r to an area instead of a radius, which would give you trouble in the logarithm because S is a distance and you would have to take the log of something with units km^-1, which is not possible.

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
I think it is interesting because that's my understanding of how a transformer works!

Why on Earth would you want a transformer?
Well, in some way you can see it like that, only that the induced current (through the disturbance of the magnetic field) will flow in that disturbed magnetic field, sort of like the Birkeland currents in the Earth's magnetospere. In this case there is NO linking of two current circuits like in a transformer (where it is usually used to down the voltage of the one circuit to the other circuit).

Sol88 said:
No? So what happens to all that charge in Mercuries core?

What charge in Mercury's core? What are you talking about, where do you get the idea that there should be charge in Mercury's core? As usual I have trouble following your "logic".

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

Here is a slow motion electrical discharge

Awesome Slow-motion lightning!

and

2000 FPS Lightning & Rain in UltraSlo motion

and

Slow Motion Video of a Lightning Positive Ground Flash

Slow Motion Upward Lightning from a Tower

Slow Motion Video of Lightning Positive Leaders

Slow Motion Video of a Lightning Negative Ground Flash

And this one is prolly the best I reckon!

Slow Motion Lightning filmed from an Aircraft

That my friends is MAJIK

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

I thought you where pretty cluey Tusenfem but alas...if it's not in your text book then it's fairly obvious it doe's not exist!

I mean come on

Why on Earth would you want a transformer?

Because that's what they described more or less! Now where would these nutters get something as outlandish as that!

Well, in some way you can see it like that, only that the induced current (through the disturbance of the magnetic field)

In which way am I seeing it?

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
Because that's what they described more or less! Now where would these nutters get something as outlandish as that!

No, they describe the induced magnetic field that is added to the permanent magnetic field of Mercury. From what you could have read yourself:

Grosser et al. said:
This compression of the magnetosphere induces electric currents in the planet's core superposing a magnetic field to the planetary magnetic field.

Sol88 said:
In which way am I seeing it?

I would hope you would see it as curl(E) = - dB/dt

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

tusenfem said:
No, they describe the induced magnetic field that is added to the permanent magnetic field of Mercury. From what you could have read yourself:

I would hope you would see it as curl(E) = - dB/dt

If you say so...

I thought the mainstream where surprised to learn that Mercury had a permanent magnetic field at all!!!

Would not have been a surprise to some!

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

Tusenfem,

Do you have a copy of this paper

Title:
Updated Review of Planetary Atmospheric Electricity
Authors:
Yair, Y.; Fischer, G.; Simões, F.; Renno, N.; Zarka, P.

Along with this one;

The Permanent and Inductive Magnetic Moments of Ganymede

If so may I please have a copy?

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
Tusenfem,

Do you have a copy of this paper

Title:
Updated Review of Planetary Atmospheric Electricity
Authors:
Yair, Y.; Fischer, G.; Simões, F.; Renno, N.; Zarka, P.

Along with this one;

The Permanent and Inductive Magnetic Moments of Ganymede

If so may I please have a copy?

no, yes, maybe

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
I thought the mainstream where surprised to learn that Mercury had a permanent magnetic field at all!!!

It was not expected that Mercury could have an active dynamo in its metal core due to the limited thermal flux. And indeed, the magnetosphere is a miniature.

Sol88 said:
Would not have been a surprise to some!

Really? Who are some, and what would be their reasons for not being surprised?

Dancing David · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
Mmmm... science content??

The charging and discharging of the leyden jar not sciencey enough for ya!

Maybe you'd like to partake in a little experimental "science"? You know hands on, getting into it, scientific experiment, much like I show my 4 yr old daughter

I'd love nothing more to give you a mathematical description of an electric discharge but does one in fact exist?

But the leyden jar "scientific" experiment should get the point across with no need to resort to some differe_ntia_tal ve^Ctor integ^ral!!

Obviously there would be a number of very dynamic variables at play in an event such as this so I'm not sure what you maths is going to PROVE!!

No, what you need to do is show what relevance it has to astronomical events.

So what process is analogous to the leyden jar?
How does it scale to the process?
What mechanisms support it?
What data supports this theory?

You know, something like that.

Duh, Layden jars exist.

What relevance do they have?

Reality Check · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
RC, you do not no much about electrical discharge do you, I strongly suggest reading up on the topic before disregarding it out of hand!

A characteristic of a arc (and you'd know if you'd ever used a stick arc welder) is that when the arc is extinguished it's not a clean break! Secondary smaller crater can from, that accounts for the standards astronomy complete misrepresentation of crater as tools to estimate planetary age!

The spider crater (the "big" one) is the PRIMARY crater! the sequence of events would be charge separation, corona discharge, arc, secondary craters, so I see how you could be all confusimitated and cunfudelled there sport!

So how many years pass between the formation of the primary and secondary craters when arc welding?

You seem to be all "confusimitated and cunfudelled" about how to read (and write) and understand English.

Sol88 said:
...snipped stuff for this guy Mr Dick Cranium (whoever he is)...
That's the biggest appeal for EU/PC it as everything to do with cosmology, unlike standard astronomy which have there own little niche departments that have NO bearing on one and other!

You just get weirder and weirder Sol88.

There is this small thing called gravity. Scientists could say everything to do with it, e.g. the falling of an apple from a tree, is "cosmology". They are not that stupid. Instead they know that "the falling of an apple from a tree" is a small scale thing which demonstrates gravity and is not cosmology.

Planetary science is not cosmology. For a start "planetary science" starts with "p" not "c"

!

Sol88 said:
...snipped stuff for this guy R.Head (whoever he is)...

For the fourth time Sol88: Where did your lightning strike come from?

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

People, just entertain this poor delusional illiterate retard and answer the following questions, as no one so far has advanced anything more than standard astronomy regurgitation.

So lets rule out impact. asteroid and comets

lets rule out Volcanisim.

Lets rule out geological processes expansion and contraction

Lets also rule electric discharge out.

Are there any mainstream or not one I may have missed?

What's left in the arsenal?

Sol88 · Apr 6, 2009

If Mercury has a magnetosphere then I predict it will have aurora.

BenBurch · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
If Mercury has a magnetosphere then I predict it will have aurora.

If it rains tonight, I predict my lawn will be wet!

DeiRenDopa · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
Before I get back into the swing of this thread and reply to Sols 'challenge' in detail (need to be careful what I choose), I just read the paper often cited as the best evidence for dark matter, the one about the Bullet Cluster. The one that supposedly falsifies plasma cosmology, and is somehow statistically significant (along with like one or two other 'direct observations'). Its flipping hilarious!

A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter - astro-ph0608407 and 0608408 by Clowe et al. and Bradac et al.

We present new weak lensing observations of 1E0657-558 (z=0.296), a unique cluster merger, that enable a direct detection of dark matter, independent of assumptions regarding the nature of the gravitational force law. Due to the collision of two clusters, the dissipationless stellar component and the fluid-like X-ray emitting plasma are spatially segregated. By using both wide-field ground based images and HST/ACS images of the cluster cores, we create gravitational lensing maps which show that the gravitational potential does not trace the plasma distribution, the dominant baryonic mass component, but rather approximately traces the distribution of galaxies. An 8-sigma significance spatial offset of the center of the total mass from the center of the baryonic mass peaks cannot be explained with an alteration of the gravitational force law, and thus proves that the majority of the matter in the system is unseen.

Click to expand...

"A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter"

...."A direct empirical proof of the existence of dark matter"

What a ridiculously unsupportable assertion! And what an amazingly inappropriate title.

Z, you may have missed a series of posts a while back ...

Here, astronomical observations, Observations and the forces of nature (gravity), There are no 'observations'; there is only theory, and The EU myth re quasars (and Arp).

I think it would be well worth your time going back and reading them, carefully.

You see, in this post of yours (that I'm quoting) you seem to invoke another EU myth and either grossly misunderstand the nature of observations in astronomy or the role of theory in observations (or both).

Now RC has addressed some of the non-science aspects of your post earlier; I'd like to address some others here.

First, though, there's no need to "falsif[y] plasma cosmology", or rather, it cannot be falsified, in the sense that "falsify" is used wrt science. Why? Well, we've been through this before, more than once .... PC, per the very concise definition you proffered, is non-science ... the very definition of (scientific) woo.

Second, your invocation of "statistically significant (along with like one or two other 'direct observations')" clearly shows that you neither understand the observational evidence for CDM nor statistics; specifically, these two (or three) clusters by themselves would be mere curiosities, but together with thousands (millions?) of other objects, they provide exactly what they claim.

Third, by your own standards - the ones about addressing the science and not indulging in ad homs, use of the fallacy of argument from incredulity, etc - this post is clearly hypocritical.

Fourth, and perhaps most fundamentally, you all but state that you reject contemporary astrophysics as a (branch of) science, and come very close to denying astronomy is one too.

Perhaps, before you embark on further research, you might consider starting a thread on the nature of modern astrophysics and astronomy, as science? I feel that unless and until you are on the same plane as most others who have participated in this thread there will be a great deal of talking past each other, and very little meaningful discussion.

Oh, and btw, if you continue to show you don't read my posts I'll start doing complete copy&paste jobs, in the hope that repetition will succeed.

Perpetual Student · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
All right I'm no mathematician but lets have a crack at a little mathmatical jiggery pokery, I'm sure if I do something wrong someone here will let me know!

In relation to the spider crater on Mercury being an electrical discharge (spark/arc) phenomena and not impact, volcanic or geological. Then we might just be able to do some maths.

Ok lets work out some basics

Electrostatic discharge (spark/arc)

Futher from the same article

so as we are not talking about the dielectric field strength of air here but of space/vacuum would could roughly generalize with the electric constant

or

[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/3/6/93625ef2eeb601c7ef202f15d49efa2a.png[/qimg]

But that's not of much help if what we a really after is Realization of free space in outer space

So while we are not talking about IPM or ISM here at Mercuries orbit what is actual plasma density there?

If it's coupled to the solar wind then it's going to be highly variable, I would imagine considering how dynamic the solar wind is (Sun plasma stream).

So which electric constant shall we "pick"?

Anywhoo... according to my theory once a threshold was reached WRT charge separation and electric field strength and the electric constant a corona discharge started.

Firstly That fluid in this case is plasma, remember we are on Mercuries surface here.

Now I believe that the conditions that contributed to the formation of this "spider crater" continued to increase the strength of the local electric field so

So the steps that involved are quite straight forward.

Pretty pics omitted for the sake of bandwidth

Mechanism of corona discharge:

now we could use Peeks law, [qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/math/9/8/1/981a60ff1f1402292fe3313ec2dd9e6d.png[/qimg] but I'm not to sure how'd that work around Mercury!

Could we fiddle it to fit a sphere in space?

Lets call the surface of Mercury on a planerty scale smooth, so mv=1

As we are not talking about wire but a sphere here and Murcuries mean radius is 2,439.7 ± 1.0 km or as we are really after the surface area of a sphere, at least Murcuries the r=7.48 × 107 km²

S=??? .i.e. we don't know the distance between the two objects here, so lets just make one up based on Terrestrial positive lightning between the ionosphere and ground of 100km and so S=10000km nice round number!

Which in space would, I imagine be negligible, so δ=0

as we are not in Earths atmosphere here I could assume the electric-constant would be close enough? So gv=ε0 or whatever it maybe at the surface of Murcury, but will start there.

Could we butcher the equation like that and get something useful out of it?

On the "look" of it (the Spider crater) and the description between a positive and negative corona discharge I'd posit a negative coronal discharge!

Negative coronas

So RC maybe correct in he's assumption of the formation taking place in two separate events! But he's timing may be off, it may not be cosmological time here, the "grabens"/rays/channels formed just before the dielectric strength was exceeded and an spark/arc formed which then formed the crater, time wise maybe only seconds, minutes or hours hell maybe even days passed before discharge was initiated!

Hope that's sciencey enough for our resident boffins, but without the hard data to plug into a highly dynamic process at this stage I'm not to sure if the maths is of much use!

Sol Invictus, Reality Check, tusenfem, Tim Thompson, Ben M, Perp student and others, which bit is hard to understand?

You cannot really believe that collage of links and cut-and-paste equations proves anything? This is just hopeless!

Reality Check · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
People, just entertain this poor delusional illiterate retard and answer the following questions, as no one so far has advanced anything more than standard astronomy regurgitation.

So lets rule out impact. asteroid and comets

lets rule out Volcanisim.

Lets rule out geological processes expansion and contraction

Lets also rule electric discharge out.

Are there any mainstream or not one I may have missed?

What's left in the arsenal?

That seems to cover most of the bases - except electric discharge which is not even ruled in since:

There is no charge separation caused by the solar wind (as you assume) because Mercury has a shielding magnetic field.
Mercury does not have an atmosphere to support terrestrial forms of lightning.
A falsifiable, testable prediction of the idea would be that similar craters would appear elsewhere. For example there should be examples on the Moon since it is exposed to the solar wind. Since more examples are not seen, the idea is falsified.

FYI: The spider crater and ray system happen to be at the center of the Caloris Basin - one of the largest impact craters in the solar system.

This Planetary Society article has a couple of the ideas about the crater and rays. I suggest that you read it.

An additional idea is that the crater is not connected with the ray system, e.g. the ray system is geological in origin and an impact just happened close to the center.
You will of course ignore this idea since a ray systen without a crater does not look like your picture (your only "evidence" for a electrical origin).

tusenfem · Apr 6, 2009

Solly if you are nice I might just send you the two Mercury magnetosphere papers and the Ganymede paper.
Any other takers can also get them.

ben m · Apr 6, 2009

I will play along with the troll for a second.

Sol88, if you hypothesize that the planet Mercury was once charged up---like a great big capacitor---and that a runaway *discharge* created an arc, and the arc was responsible for the spider-like formation in the Caloris basin ... well, let's do some MATH.

Let's hypothesize that we can charge Mercury up. Just plug in a big jumper cable, or shoot a highly-charged wind at it, or ... something. One way or another, we'll hypothesize that we can build up an electrostatic voltage on the whole planet. How much excess charge can we pack on while doing this?

As an isolated sphere, Mercury's capacitance is about 0.2 millifarads. That's, um, not very much. A *gigavolt* static potential would carry only 200,000 Coulombs (about one car battery). I want to emphasize that a gigavolt is a very, very high potential. There is no way to charge something up to a gigavolt by bathing it in a kilovolt-energy solar wind.

Let's see, how much *energy* do you store when you pack 200,000 C into a gigavolt potential? 2 x 10^14 joules ... about 50 kT of TNT, or something in the ballpark of the Nagasaki atomic bomb.

Therefore, we have (unfortunately) lots of experience with the craters formed by 50 kT energy releases. They're a 100 meters in diameter and a few meters deep---underground explosions might excavate only a hundred meter or so cavity. Moving rock around takes lots of energy.

So what do we find on Mercury? A hole 40,000 meters in diameter.

Sol88, your "arc welder" hypothesis requires energy to be stored somewhere. The largest charge we can expect Mercury to pick up from the Solar Wind is a few kilovolts, giving it a few hundred Joules of energy---whereupon your Giant Arc Discharge Into Space could perhaps occur, but it would barely heat up a cup of tea, much less excavate a 40,000 meter crater.

How much energy do you think you need for the crater, Sol88? How will you charge up an isolated capacitor to the (apparently required) ten teravolts? You can't. Since Mercury could never have been this highly charged, it's never had anything like enough stored electrostatic energy to excavate a crater with an arc discharge. You casually invented an Giant Cosmic Welding Torch, Sol88, but you forgot to find somewhere to plug it in.

You're welcome to do the same calculation under the (equally stupid) assumption that Mercury had (like Earth) a dielectric atmosphere with an internal mechanical charge conveyor. You will have to learn electrostatics to do so.

Zeuzzz · Apr 6, 2009

Tubbythin said:
Still waiting Zeuzzz. What did you mean by "corporate science"?

When money and peoples scientific views stop alternatives getting funding. Its really that simple. Its closely linked to education. I dont think that most graduate education is teaching people to think, to be independant researchers, their taught to be part of a certain scientific paradigm, without the chance to look closely at some of the underlying principles. Its mainly at the 'elitist' institutions that this is the worst.

For example, Arp had worked at the Carnegie Institute observatory for many years documenting many observations that supposedly conflicted with the Big Bang. Eventually the Caltech Head of the telescope allocation comitee threatened him by saying "Unless you change your line of research, we'll take away your telescope time"

Then sent a letter to him saying "The comitee feels that it is no longer suitable to assign time to Arp to pursure researches aimed at establishing the location of quasars with nearby galaxies". Unfortunately for the Carnegie Institutes suppressive actions, Arp soon found work at another Observatory and continued with his work sucessfully. Which didn't make them look very good at all.

Imagine if Arp was allowed to continue and his work was appreciated by the scientific community and instead the recent people looking for observations of Dark Matter were told "Its no longer suitable to look for un-scientific non baryonic un-observable invisble gnomes like as Dark Matter, so your telescope time has been cancelled". We'd probably be in quite a different place now.

If hubble had seen the scattered and random brightness/redshift graph for Quasars (wheres the galaxy one produces a roughly straight/curved line), and seen Arps work, I doubt very much he would have come to the conclusion that v=H₀d, and come to the obvious conclusion that there is no indication that quasars are at their proposed distances due to this evidence. Students or tutors can not afford to go against the Big Bang in most of the 'higher' institutions, they would immediateluy lose their position, or 'tenure'.

Without posting the entire cosmology statement and all the hundreds of signatories [so it doesnt get taken down], I'll post half of it, but you can read it all here (which I highly recommend): http://cosmologystatement.org/

I'll bold all the bits that are relevant to corporate type science.

Supporters of the big bang theory may retort that these theories do not explain every cosmological observation. But that is scarcely surprising, as their development has been severely hampered by a complete lack of funding. Indeed, such questions and alternatives cannot even now be freely discussed and examined. An open exchange of ideas is lacking in most mainstream conferences. Whereas Richard Feynman could say that "science is the culture of doubt", in cosmology today doubt and dissent are not tolerated, and young scientists learn to remain silent if they have something negative to say about the standard big bang model. Those who doubt the big bang fear that saying so will cost them their funding.

Even observations are now interpreted through this biased filter, judged right or wrong depending on whether or not they support the big bang. So discordant data on red shifts, lithium and helium abundances, and galaxy distribution, among other topics, are ignored or ridiculed. This reflects a growing dogmatic mindset that is alien to the spirit of free scientific inquiry.

Today, virtually all financial and experimental resources in cosmology are devoted to big bang studies. Funding comes from only a few sources, and all the peer-review committees that control them are dominated by supporters of the big bang. As a result, the dominance of the big bang within the field has become self-sustaining, irrespective of the scientific validity of the theory.

Giving support only to projects within the big bang framework undermines a fundamental element of the scientific method -- the constant testing of theory against observation. Such a restriction makes unbiased discussion and research impossible. To redress this, we urge those agencies that fund work in cosmology to set aside a significant fraction of their funding for investigations into alternative theories and observational contradictions of the big bang. To avoid bias, the peer review committee that allocates such funds could be composed of astronomers and physicists from outside the field of cosmology.

Allocating funding to investigations into the big bang's validity, and its alternatives, would allow the scientific process to determine our most accurate model of the history of the universe.

Oh well, had to bold all of it.

The Large Hadron Collider is a prime example. How much did that cost? :eye-poppi

How much hype was there that this is going to prove the Big Bang, and reveal all the universes secrets, the illusive Higgs Boson and secrets of gravity? And what was the result? Nothing. Bunk. Crap. And still Focus Fusion technology, derived from plasma cosmology considerations of the magnetic field effect creating a Dense Plasma Focus (DPF), is still lacking sufficient funding to complete the last stage in its setup, despite needing nearly tens of thousands times less money than the projects based on principles closely related (and some even derived) from the big bang. See "Conventional Fusion vs. Focus Fusion"

How long have scientists been trying to re-create continual nuclear fusion on Earth so we can harness this supposed energy? 40-50 years? And still nothing practical we can use :eye-poppi

How much have all these failed projects cost? :eye-poppi

Its a joke.

Their most recent patent can be seen here, and its looking very promising at the moment:

"On January, 27, the US Patent office issued patent 7,482,607, Method and apparatus for producing x-rays, ion beams and nuclear fusion energy, to Eric J. Lerner and Aaron Blake, with the assignment of the patent to Lawrenceville Plasma Physics Inc. "

Get reading.

The only scientific institute that seems willing to fund such alternative ideas is the IEEE. Which also, co-incidentally, publishes the other plasma cosmology material in the Transactions On Plasma Science Journal.

More evidence of high energy ions in DPF

Pavel Kubes et al (IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 37, 83, Jan. 2009) present more evidence of high energy ions in a plasma focus.

Using the PF-1000 device in Warsaw, operating at 2 MA, Kubes et al measured the spread in neutrons energies in the down-axis, up-axis and cross-axis directions.

In all three directions there was large spread in neutrons energy around the 2.45 Mev generated by the nuclear reaction itself.

The peak of the energy distribution was at least around 300 keV (the equivalent of 3.3 billion C), somewhat higher than the energies we observed at a current of 1.4 MA in Texas.

The article cited above is a published version of the paper he and his colleagues presented last August at the International Z-pinch Conference.

Zeuzzz · Apr 6, 2009

Reality Check said:
That is why the two empirical observations of dark matter separate from the visible matter are direct observations of dark matter.

That is why the two empirical observations of Quasars interacting with galaxies both with different redshifts are direct observations of quasar galaxy connections.

Thus we now have two direct empirical observations of dark matter in addition to the many other combined empirical observation of dark matter.

Is this so hard to understand Zeuzzz? (please, please do not let us think that you are as ignorant as Sol88 !)

The paper is inappropriately titled, it doesn't prove at all what it claims. Dark matter, or rather Non-baryonic matter, is by definition different from the ordinary matter observed anywhere on earth, and the paper does nothing to prove the existence of such matter.

It actually proves something quite different: that in the case of this particular pair of colliding galaxies, the greater part of the mass is associated with the galaxies and not with the hot intracluster gas. This evidence is that gravitational-lensing measures of total mass outline the concentrations of galaxies, which are physically separate from the main hot gas concentrations.

So, how do Clowe et al get from what was actually indicated to what they claimed? Only though a big assumption, which is in no way supported by their data.

The major assumption is that all of the baryonic, ordinary matter is in the form of hot plasma or bright stars in galaxies. The paper shows that the total amount of gravitating matter, as measured by gravitational lensing, does not correlate with the amount of hot plasma, as measured by x-rays. Therefore, the authors argue, the gravitating matter is instead associated with the galaxies. Since the gravitating mass is much greater than the mass in easily-visible stars, and by assumption, there is no other baryonic matter, the mass must be non-baryonic or dark matter.

The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio. Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

The Clowe papers in no way contradict these possibilities, so in no way prove the existence of dark, or non-baryonic matter. Instead, they assume that any mass associated with the galaxies that is not in bright stars is non-baryonic, dark matter.

They assume what they seek to prove.

Klimax · Apr 6, 2009

Sol88 said:
People, just entertain this poor delusional illiterate retard and answer the following questions, as no one so far has advanced anything more than standard astronomy regurgitation.

So lets rule out impact. asteroid and comets

lets rule out Volcanisim.

Lets rule out geological processes expansion and contraction

Lets also rule electric discharge out.

Are there any mainstream or not one I may have missed?

What's left in the arsenal?

1)nothing
2)What's the point?

Ziggurat · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
The paper is inappropriately titled, it doesn't prove at all what it claims. Dark matter, or rather Non-baryonic matter, is by definition different from the ordinary matter observed anywhere on earth, and the paper does nothing to prove the existence of such matter.

Except that dark matter is not by definition non-baryonic, and the paper doesn't specify that it's proving the existence of non-baryonic dark matter.

It actually proves something quite different: that in the case of this particular pair of colliding galaxies, the greater part of the mass is associated with the galaxies and not with the hot intracluster gas.

It does more than that: it proves that the greater part of the mass is not visible (hence, it's dark).

ben m · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio. Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

Zeuzzzzz, that would have been a reasonable mainstream hypothesis 30 years ago. In the intervening decades, astronomers searched for exactly these sorts of "dark baryons" with extremely sensitive probes. Any guess at the results of these searches?

1) Decades of microlensing surveys have explicitly counted the number and mass distribution of brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, black holes, free-floating planets, etc. There are not anything like enough of such objects to give the explanation you propose.

2) We have surveyed the Universe in all wavelengths, not just x-ray. "Cool clouds of plasma" will (a) emit light in some band or another and (b) absorb light from background objects. There have been fairly-comprehensive surveys looking for such cool plasmas and gases. Guess what, Zeuzzz? There is *not*, as you want there to be, five times as much of it as expected.

3) This mysterious "cool plasma" you're inventing would not remain cool during a galaxy or cluster collision. Sorry, there is no evidence that colliding galaxies suddenly appear to have 5x as much visible gas.

Seriously, Zeuzzz---this is what we mean when we say "we're not dogmatically attached to non-baryonic dark matter". Once upon a time, we didn't know what the mass components of the Universe were; all options were on the table; astronomers measured each of the components very carefully and because of those measurements we know that the remainder is non-baryonic.

This is also what we mean by saying "learn a bit about the field before you criticise it". Microlensing surveys are not some obscure piece of trivia, they're standard knowledge among astrophysicists.
[/QUOTE]

Zeuzzz · Apr 6, 2009

Ziggurat said:
It does more than that: it proves that the greater part of the mass is not visible (hence, it's dark).

Quick correction:

It does more than that: it assumes that the gravity is the only force at work, and that greater part of the mass is not visible (hence, it's dark).

ben m · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
Quick correction:

It does more than that: it assumes that the gravity is the only force at work, and that greater part of the mass is not visible (hence, it's dark).

... and here you're ignoring the content of the paper. If (as you so badly want) the Bullet cluster doesn't have that much mass, but is orbiting rapidly because EM forces are at work, then that explicitly predicts that the gravitational lensing strength should be small.

You need to compare the orbital velocities, which are due to (in your theory) the sum gravity of all the masses plus an EM force, to the lensing mass which is due only to masses. Your theory predicts that the orbital velocities' "apparent mass" is much greater than the lensing mass. Standard cosmology says they should be the same. Data says they are the same.

Ziggurat · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
Quick correction:

It does more than that: it assumes that the gravity is the only force at work, and that greater part of the mass is not visible (hence, it's dark).

You are correct that it assumes that gravity is the only force responsible for lensing. Based upon this assumption, they conclude that most of the mas is not visible.

So is this a good assumption? Yes, it is a very good assumption. Why? Because it's the only force we know that can cause lensing like that observed. Strong and weak nuclear forces can't cause lensing, because they're too short ranged. And electromagnetism can only cause lensing by changing the index of refraction of a medium. But unless there's something there which has a different index of refraction but remains invisible itself, then electromagnetic forces can't cause the observed lensing. And if there is something there with a different index of refraction but which is invisible, well then that's your dark matter right there. The only other option is a 5th fundamental force. Is that really a preferable answer to you?

DeiRenDopa · Apr 6, 2009

As promised (1)

Zeuzzz said:
That is why the two empirical observations of Quasars interacting with galaxies both with different redshifts are direct observations of quasar galaxy connections.

[...]

As promised ...

Z, if you continue to (willfully?) misunderstand, distort, mis-state, etc standard contemporary astrophysics and astronomy, I will continue to post the material in my previous posts, in the hope that you will engage in a rational discussion of the actual issues, starting with the nature of astronomical observations.

First, The EU myth re quasars (and Arp) (links and some formatting omitted):

To refresh our memories, here's what Z wrote, in post #1948:

Zeuzzz said:
Yet, the 2003 discovery of a high redshift (z = 2.11) quasar that is visually (in ordinary light) between us and the dense core of a low redshift (z = 0.022) galaxy, NGC 7319, is just dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant", along with all of Arps other observations. Where he has documented well over thirty similar cases, probably even more.

One thing we could do is ask Z for clarification of his statement - where was this '2003 discovery' published, what is his source for claiming that it "is just dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant"", is it true that "all of Arps other observations" (bold added) have been also "dismissed out of hand", and so on - and if Z follow his usual track record he will vaguely answer some of these requests for clarification, after a week or more, and not answer others, and we'll learn that his original claim was a wild exaggeration, etc, etc, etc (IOW, Z has plainly demonstrated, over hundreds of posts, that he is an unreliable reporter of the work of scientists).

However, that would not stop him - or others - making similar claims in future, perhaps in other threads.

Better, let's look at 'quasars'.

In an earlier post I briefly described what the classification of astronomical objects involves, how the classifications are developed, etc.

For our purposes, now, we may consider an astronomical object as a 'quasar candidate' if it is a point source in the visual waveband (or UV or IR) and has a colour* that falls in a certain region of a multi-dimensional colour space; it becomes a 'quasar' if its spectrum shows a redshift of >0.01 (or some other minimum).

That is a purely empirical description ... as long as you don't reject any part of the modern physics textbook, I think we can all agree, can't we?

So, with this definition in hand, we can go look at the sky, and discover quasars; and, being astronomers, we will report, or publish, our observations and somehow they will all end up in one or more of the online databases.

And those databases are, for the most part, freely available, and free ... so anyone - Z, BAC, Arp, ... - can download them and do analyses.

One analysis we can do concerns the distribution of quasars, 'on the sky'; another concerns the distribution of quasars wrt galaxies; another concerns how the number of quasars varies as the database is sorted by colour, by redshift, by apparent magnitude, by ...

Now these sorts of analyses have been done, by the thousand, and form the basis for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of published papers.

And on the basis of these - and hundreds of other studies, analyses, etc - over several decades, a unified model emerged, that 'quasars' are 'AGNs' (active galactic nuclei). Further, quasars differ from Seyfert galaxies only in degree, not kind; they differ from 'type 2 quasars' only by viewing angle, and so on. Further, this unified AGN model lead to a great many new hypotheses, concerning quasars, ULXs, galaxies, .... which could be tested using observations from Spitzer, Chandra, XMM-Newton, Fermi, and so on (even Auger!).

Now comes the killer point.

If you wish to make a case that this quasar is 'in front of' this NGC object, you need to either show that this quasar is different from the ~million other ones, OR that all the ~million other quasars are also at distances from us that are radically different from their estimated Hubble flow distances! IOW, that there are at least two quite distinct classes of quasar (despite the extensive research which shows they are a single class of object) - one that is 'local', and the other which is 'cosmological'; OR that all quasars (and all other AGNs) are 'local'.

AFAIK, no one has, in a published paper, tried to make the former case.

And only a few people try to make the latter case, Arp among them.

Now of course, Arp et al. may be right ... but if so, then no only are all quasars 'local', but also the Hubble relationship is an illusion!

There's certainly no doubt that many an EU proponent claims that the Hubble relationship is, indeed, an illusion (i.e. that galaxies' redshifts do not reflect the Hubble flow and thus cannot be used to estimate their distances from us); however, they fail dismally in their attempts to provide an alternative explanation (I explore this in considerable detail in the Alternatives: Cosmological redshift/BBE thread, particularly in posts 43, 54, 72, 80, 82, 86, 89, 90, 105, 108, 110, 116, 125, and 132).

So, far from Arp's observations being "just dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant"", they have been subject to a great deal of scrutiny - especially in the 1960s and 1970s - and found seriously wanting, especially wrt the statistical analyses presented in the paper he (and colleagues) published.

To wrap up: in a world where astronomy caught the quantitative revolution many centuries ago, quasars are AGNs at distances that can be estimated from their redshifts and the Hubble relationship; to those for whom the quantitative revolution has yet to arrive, quasars can be anything you want them to be, provided you write nicely.

* this is a technical term, and has a precise meaning; suffice it to say that it is a quantitative description of broadband features of the spectrum of the object

(to be continued)

DeiRenDopa · Apr 6, 2009

As promised (2)

(continued)

Zeuzzz said:
[...]

The paper is inappropriately titled, it doesn't prove at all what it claims. Dark matter, or rather Non-baryonic matter, is by definition different from the ordinary matter observed anywhere on earth, and the paper does nothing to prove the existence of such matter.

It actually proves something quite different: that in the case of this particular pair of colliding galaxies, the greater part of the mass is associated with the galaxies and not with the hot intracluster gas. This evidence is that gravitational-lensing measures of total mass outline the concentrations of galaxies, which are physically separate from the main hot gas concentrations.

So, how do Clowe et al get from what was actually indicated to what they claimed? Only though a big assumption, which is in no way supported by their data.

The major assumption is that all of the baryonic, ordinary matter is in the form of hot plasma or bright stars in galaxies. The paper shows that the total amount of gravitating matter, as measured by gravitational lensing, does not correlate with the amount of hot plasma, as measured by x-rays. Therefore, the authors argue, the gravitating matter is instead associated with the galaxies. Since the gravitating mass is much greater than the mass in easily-visible stars, and by assumption, there is no other baryonic matter, the mass must be non-baryonic or dark matter.

The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio. Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

The Clowe papers in no way contradict these possibilities, so in no way prove the existence of dark, or non-baryonic matter. Instead, they assume that any mass associated with the galaxies that is not in bright stars is non-baryonic, dark matter.

They assume what they seek to prove.

As promised, lies, damned lies, and a posteriori statistics, all in the name of CDM (Cold Dark Matter) (links and some formatting omitted).

I started a JREF Forum thread on CDM nearly a year ago, it is entitled "Non-baryonic cold dark matter ("CDM"), the observational evidence", and currently has 162 posts. Several JREF Forum members asked questions (and more), including Wrangler and robinson; in addition, Z come in early and posted a lot of stuff that was pretty obviously intended to derail the thread, and made it very clear he had not actually read any of the material in it.

I would urge any reader interested in actually understanding what the observational evidence for CDM is to read that thread, and if you find any of your questions about that evidence are not answered, please post them there and I will try to answer them.

And rather than simply copy tens of thousands of words from that thread, I'll just quote a few of the key points I made there that are of direct relevance to the persistent EU myth Z has repeated.

From post#8: "Finally, do not expect a nice, simple, 'try this at home' explanation [re observational evidence of CDM]; just like the observational basis for SgrA* (the nucleus of the Milky Way) being a super-massive black hole, the observational basis for CDM is a rich, intricately-connected web of millions of observations and very large parts of standard physics textbooks. Depending on what you consider 'really good evidence' to be, you might have to convince yourself of almost all of standard astronomy and astrophysics first, before you could even begin to appreciate the evidence for CDM."

Or, in the words of BenBurch (in post#6): "Basically, the evidence for CDM is just as good or better than the evidence for many other things we see out in the cosmos."

In post#7 there are two points that I think are directly relevant:

"Using textbook physics, these [spiral galaxy rotation] curves can be interpreted to mean that the mass 'closer in' to the centre of the galaxy (than at any radius) keeps increasing as the radius increases. In fact, no other standard physics textbook interpretation has been proposed, that is also consistent with all the relevant observations."

AND

"Somewhat in contrast to rotation curves of spiral galaxies, interpretation of the observations using the other techniques I've briefly mentioned^ does not have to lead to firm conclusions about mass differences ... however, as far as I know, no alternative explanations (based on standard, textbook physics) have been proposed that are also consistent with the 'lensing' observations I will cover next."

Now both these comments apply to galaxies, and largely to spiral galaxies.

However, they are just as applicable to galaxy clusters, in the sense that there are multiple types of observations which yield consistent results. Further, as the observations rely upon quite different physical processes (or mechanisms, if you prefer), it would be remarkable that they give consistent results if there was no such thing as CDM.

And to foreshadow something I'll go into more detail on in a later post, the astronomical (astrophysics, etc) community would be utterly delighted if someone could come up with an alternative explanation that fitted - quantitatively - the totality of 'the CDM observations' at least as well as the CDM idea, and was also consistent with all relevant parts of standard physics.

That's how science, and scientists, works; if it were a marriage, then there'd be a divorce every time a more attractive mate came in sight.

^ in a nutshell, that the mass of the galaxies, out to the distance probed by the objects observed, is considerably greater than the (baryonic) mass estimates derived from analysis of 'light' in terms of specific populations of objects (e.g. stars, dust).

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Shall I continue, Z?

Or would you prefer to start a new thread, to discuss the fundamental basis of contemporary astrophysics and astronomy, as sciences?

Reality Check · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
That is why the two empirical observations of Quasars interacting with galaxies both with different redshifts are direct observations of quasar galaxy connections.

You are still deluded about what Arp's examples are - they are a bad attempt at doing a statistical analysist of the possibility of asspociation of QSO's with AGN galaxies.
They are not "direct observations of quasar galaxy connections" (with or without a

)

Zeuzzz said:
The paper is inappropriately titled, it doesn't prove at all what it claims. Dark matter, or rather Non-baryonic matter, is by definition different from the ordinary matter observed anywhere on earth, and the paper does nothing to prove the existence of such matter.

It actually proves something quite different: that in the case of this particular pair of colliding galaxies, the greater part of the mass is associated with the galaxies and not with the hot intracluster gas. This evidence is that gravitational-lensing measures of total mass outline the concentrations of galaxies, which are physically separate from the main hot gas concentrations.

Now you have to show that there 2 pairs of galactic clusters (and any more observations) are not typical clusters.
What papers did you you read this in Zeuzzz?

Zeuzzz said:
So, how do Clowe et al get from what was actually indicated to what they claimed? Only though a big assumption, which is in no way supported by their data.

The major assumption is that all of the baryonic, ordinary matter is in the form of hot plasma or bright stars in galaxies. The paper shows that the total amount of gravitating matter, as measured by gravitational lensing, does not correlate with the amount of hot plasma, as measured by x-rays. Therefore, the authors argue, the gravitating matter is instead associated with the galaxies. Since the gravitating mass is much greater than the mass in easily-visible stars, and by assumption, there is no other baryonic matter, the mass must be non-baryonic or dark matter.

Read the paper and understand it.
They did not assume it. It is an observation.

Zeuzzz said:
The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio. Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

The flaw in that argument is that it has been considered: Dark matter could be MACHOS but

Zeuzzz said:
A MACHO may be detected when it passes in front of or nearly in front of a star and the MACHO's gravity bends the light, causing the star to appear brighter in an example of gravitational lensing known as gravitational microlensing. Several groups have searched for MACHOs by searching for the microlensing amplification of light. These groups have ruled out dark matter being explained by MACHOs with mass in the range 0.00000001 solar masses to 100 solar masses. One group, the MACHO collaboration, claims to have found enough microlensing to predict the existence of many MACHOs with mass of about 0.5 solar masses, enough to make up perhaps 20% of the dark matter in the galaxy.[1] This suggests that MACHOs could be white dwarfs or red dwarfs which have similar masses. However, red and white dwarfs are not completely dark; they do emit some light, and so can be searched for with the Hubble Telescope and with proper motion surveys. These searches have ruled out the possibility that these objects make up a significant fraction of dark matter in our galaxy. Another group, the EROS2 collaboration does not confirm the signal claims by the MACHO group. They did not find enough microlensing effect with a sensitivity higher by a factor 2.[2]
Observations using the Hubble Space Telescope's NICMOS instrument showed that less than one percent of the halo mass is composed of red dwarfs.[3][4] This corresponds to a negligible fraction of the dark matter halo mass. Therefore, the missing mass problem is not solved by MACHOs.[/QUOTE]

Zeuzzz said:

The Clowe papers in no way contradict these possibilities, so in no way prove the existence of dark, or non-baryonic matter. Instead, they assume that any mass associated with the galaxies that is not in bright stars is non-baryonic, dark matter.

They assume what they seek to prove.

Click to expand...

Read the paper and understand it.

They do not assume anything. Theu do the measurements of the visible and invisible mass and get that they areconcentrated in 2 different locations. Neither using gravitational lensing or visible light assumes that the matter being detected is dark matter.

Tim Thompson · Apr 6, 2009

Graduate school & Arp

Zeuzzz said:
I dont think that most graduate education is teaching people to think, to be independant researchers, their taught to be part of a certain scientific paradigm, without the chance to look closely at some of the underlying principles. Its mainly at the 'elitist' institutions that this is the worst.

Hogwash. What, you couldn't get into graduate school, so you make up stories to explain why it was a good thing? Or maybe you can't imagine that anyone who has not been brainwashed could possibly disagree with you? Your comment is ignorant & insulting, and blatantly false. I came out of that graduate education, as did many others reading this. I know what it's like first hand, you don't. Exactly the opposite is true. Those graduate students are taught to challenge everything. They are like annoying 5 year olds who never stop asking "Why?" until you just tell them to go play and leave you alone.

Zeuzzz said:
For example, Arp had worked at the Carnegie Institute observatory for many years documenting many observations that supposedly conflicted with the Big Bang. ...

You seriously misrepresent Arp's fate, so let me clue you in to the facts. Applications for time always amount to maybe 10 times the amount of time actually available on any telescope. So the time allocation committee (TAC) for the observatory has to decide how to prioritize the requests. Lots of good observers don't get any time, lots of good ideas don't get time, not because of prejudice, but simply because there is not time available. Arp had a good run, and was allowed to make his observations and argue his case for years. However, when it became evident that the rest of the astronomical community was just plain not impressed, and his observations were not having an impact on astronomy, the TAC correctly decided that his observations were no longer high priority, it was time for other, maybe younger observers, with equally good ideas, to have their shot at some telescope time. In short, Arp was told he could no longer hog the telescope because his work was not good enough. You make it sound like some kind of anti-alternative conspiracy, but you are dead wrong.

Zeuzzz said:
Imagine if Arp was allowed to continue and his work ...

No need to imagine "if" because Arp was allowed to continue his work. In fact, Arp is still continuing to do his work even as we speak, at the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, which is one of the most prestigious centers of astrophysical studies in the world! What a way to get "exiled".

Tim Thompson · Apr 6, 2009

Baryonic Dark Matter

Zeuzzz said:
It actually proves something quite different: that in the case of this particular pair of colliding galaxies, the greater part of the mass is associated with the galaxies and not with the hot intracluster gas. This evidence is that gravitational-lensing measures of total mass outline the concentrations of galaxies, which are physically separate from the main hot gas concentrations.

Everything. up to here is quite correct.

Zeuzzz said:
The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio.

But this is not reasonable. The whole point of "dark matter" is that we already know, by direct observation, that this is not the case for the Milky Way. Specific searches with the HST looking for red dwarfs & white dwarfs, and even brown dwarfs, both directly and indirectly (microlensing for example) definitely show that the Milky Way "missing mass" cannot be in the form of any compact object, whether baryonic or not. So we make the reasonable assumption that the same is true for other galaxies, especially spirals like the Milky Way, until we have a good reason to think otherwise. That might be wrong, but it is not at all unreasonable.

Zeuzzz said:
Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

I am not aware of any of these studies. They would be a good reason to do as I said above, and "think otherwise". Therefore I would like to see specific citations to specific studies, that I might assess this information for myself.

ben m · Apr 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio.

I'd like to take this as a nice case study of why outsider physics theories get ignored, and why Sean Carroll's "advice to crackpots" http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/cosmicvariance/2007/06/19/the-
alternative-science-respectability-checklist/ begins with:

1. Acquire basic competency in whatever field of science your discovery belongs to.

You just accused a roomful (indeed, a field-full) of professional, successful scientists of closemindedness and something akin to fraud. It turns out that you had thought of something we could have failed to do; you simply assumed that we hadn't done it and accused us of that.

It's like walking into a dinner party and idly wondering, on the way in, whether some of the guests might be illegally parked---and on the basis of that thought, bursting into the room and denouncing everyone for failing to check their parking meters. And because they're all parking scofflaws they're probably embezzlers too. ("But we *did* check the meters," they protest, "hours ago. In fact, this is a dinner party for the Parking Zoning Board and the Forensic Accounting Association, who are you?")

DeiRenDopa · Apr 6, 2009

Tim Thompson said:
[...]

Zeuzzz said:

The flaw in this argument is this assumption that all the ordinary matter in galaxies is in easily-visible, bright, stars. Instead, most of the mass of galaxies may well be in the form of dwarf stars, which produce very little light per unit mass, in other words have a very high mass-to-light ratio.

Click to expand...

But this is not reasonable. The whole point of "dark matter" is that we already know, by direct observation, that this is not the case for the Milky Way. Specific searches with the HST looking for red dwarfs & white dwarfs, and even brown dwarfs, both directly and indirectly (microlensing for example) definitely show that the Milky Way "missing mass" cannot be in the form of any compact object, whether baryonic or not. So we make the reasonable assumption that the same is true for other galaxies, especially spirals like the Milky Way, until we have a good reason to think otherwise. That might be wrong, but it is not at all unreasonable.

Several studies of galaxies using very long exposures have shown that they have 'red halos', halos of stars that are mostly red dwarfs. Other studies have indicated that the halos may be filled with white dwarfs, the dead remains of burnt-out stars. In addition, there is evidence that a huge amount of mass may be tied up in relatively cool clouds of plasma that do not radiate much x-ray radiation, and would be in closer proximity to the galaxies than the hot plasma.

Click to expand...

I am not aware of any of these studies. They would be a good reason to do as I said above, and "think otherwise". Therefore I would like to see specific citations to specific studies, that I might assess this information for myself.

TT,

You are, I think, new to JREF Forum discussions with Z.

Of course, your questions to him, about his post, as written, are entirely reasonable.

However, in your review of the early parts of this thread - I think you said you'd be undertaking such a review, right? - please pay attention to Z's posting style. In particular, please be on the lookout for posts in which he cites studies that he hints at (in the parts of his post that you quote) ... and the subsequent discussion ...

... or lack of it. You see, several of those who have sought to engage Z in discussion, on the basis of the material he cites, have been quite disappointed, in that simple, straight-forward questions about what he posts are often not responded to at all ...

... but, months later, we find the same general assertions being made, and when pressed the same papers being cited, with not a peep about these having been presented before, nor that questions on them were ignored, and so on.

Now I hope that this time I'm wrong, and that Z will present material that is new to this thread (or this part of the JREF Forum); or, if not, that he will be honest enough to admit that he's posted it before, and reference that posting (so we may all, objectively and independently, see how the discussion proceeded, after his first presentation of that material).

But this aspect of Z's posting behaviour, here in the JREF Forum, is apparently so consistent that some of those who have tried to engage him in a rational, science-based, discussion have grown quite exasperated (I'll provide evidence in a later post, should anyone wish to see it).

Sol88 · Apr 7, 2009

BenBurch said:
If it rains tonight, I predict my lawn will be wet!

Ahhh so we have found aurora on Mercury then?

Links and citations please!

Remember Mars and Venus surprises!

Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

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