Electric universe theories here.

Reality Check · Jul 6, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
Enough of the crackpot accusations RealityCheck, one day we might make such accusations back against you to see how you like it. As in my opinion many of the scientific ideas your adhere to are complete crackpottendom. But emotive words like this do nothing other than provoke unecissary emotions.

When I see a cracked pot I call it a cracked pot.
When I see a crackpot I call it a crackpot.
If MM does not want to be labeled a crackpot then he should stop demonstrating that he is one.
He could for example demonstrate that he has some grasp of what empirical means and not his strange measurements done on stufff in labs here on Earth fantasy..

Zeuzzz said:
I would think (based on what EU material I have read) that they doubt that the core of the sun is at 13,600,000 K. But rather the hottest area of the sun is outside of itself in the corona where the glow discharge is taking place (~2⁶ Kelvin compared to vastly lesser ~6³ of the photosphere) and the inner sun is much cooler than most people realize. The corona is millions of degrees hotter than the surface of the sun, and no-one really knows why (in standard models anyway). So if mainstream physics has no definitive models about this, I dont see any reason why not giving an exact answer to this question falsifies anything much. Anymore than the inexplicability of the temparature of the corona falsifies the standard model. But michael may very well have an answer I dont want to tread on his toes here, we'll soon see

So what? That is what science is about - looking for answers to things we do not know.

The coronal heating problem has nothing to do with the fact that MM's solid iron surface is thermodynamically impossible. An anology is if you put an ice cube between the palms of your hand. Do you expect the ice cube to stay colder then your hands?
If you do then you need to produce an mechanism to keep the ice cube solid - MM where is your refrigerator on the Sun?

MM has been touting his Iron Sun notion for over 4 years now in essentially the same form (i.e. look at the pretty pictures that I misinterpret to mean surfaces, mountain ranges, ridges, etc.) without producing a single testable, falsifiable prediction. I doubt that "we will see" anything but the same hand waving that we have already seen

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

D'rok said:
I think there is a glaring flaw in the analogy. In order for the movement of the stars in the background of the LASCO animations to be analogous to movement of features on a hypothetical surface of the sun in your image, the scale would have to be comparable.

Not really. Due to the limited resolution of the SOHO instrument 1024x1024 (great for it's day but far more limited than your average cell phone today), it's really a "relative" issue (related to SOHO). You are correct that the great distances involved in background stars means they "appear' stationary, even if they are expanding away from each other over time. They simply aren't moving nearly as quickly as the CME plasma, or the events inside the solar system, like planets or comets that happen to cruise through the image.

What we are really able to observe here are "moving" things, like that plasma released by a CME event in LASCO images, and the more "stationary" items like the background stars and slow moving planets, etc. The rigid patterns of the background stars is due to the fact they they don't move as quickly (relative to SOHO) as the plasma that is released from the CME event. What the RD image does for us is give us a directional component to work with. Any "bright' item in the first image will likely show up as both a light *AND* dark point in the next image. The dark point is where it came from, and the bright point being where it moved to in the next frame. We now have some idea of the direction of movement, in this case that movement is related to the rotation of the solar surface between images.

What you should be able to understand now is that the statement that there are NO light sources is false. There are actually a lot of light sources, all solar light sources, moving left to right. The statement "flying plasma? What flying plasma, is the epitome of idiotic. It's like saying those waves of plasma you see in the LASCO images that are flying off the sun during a CME do not exist. Of course they exist and we can see them in "black and white" pixels thanks to the RD technique. There is no physical way in the universe that persistence in the image can or would be related to the RD process. The persistent patterns are directly related to persistent photon output from the sun, and the sun is the light source of all the original images *AND* the RD images.

GM is clueless. Even you know INFINITELY more about the RD imaging technique than he does, and how to apply it to these images. Even if you and I never find agreement on this point, I will forever rate you significantly higher as a "scientist' than GM will ever be, if only because you actually took the time to understand my statements and *THEN* attempt to look for problems with my interpretation. He's never done even that much. You would do well to follow the example of Tim and DD and the others here that have at least attempted to keep the conversation focused on "specific ideas" and not on individuals. That's what real science is all about. Thanks.

Tim Thompson · Jul 6, 2009

Dark Matter II

Tim Thompson said:
The appeal to dark matter is nothing more or less than the direct appeal to gravity.

Michael Mozina said:
No, an appeal to gravity alone tells me that your mass estimation techniques related to guesstimating the mass in a galaxy are off by a mile!

Why?

And further regarding galaxy masses ...

Tim Thompson said:
I might ask: What makes you think they're wrong?

Michael Mozina said:
SUSY particle theory is purely theoretical in nature with zip in the way of empirical support. What makes you think it's right?

Who's SUSY, and what does she have to do with determining galaxy masses? Your answer is not even marginally relevant to the question. It tells me you have no idea at all how galaxy masses are determined. So I wonder, how can you be so sure they are all wrong, if you don't even know how they are determined?

Michael Mozina said:
Now explain to me how you're sure that any new forms of exotic material are required to explain these specific observations.

The most efficient way to determine that something is not there is too look for it and not find it. Do that long enough, and it becomes reasonable to assume that the thing you are looking for remains unseen because it really is not there. When Zwicky (Zwicky, 1933; Zwicky, 1937) and Oort (Oort, 1932) first developed the "missing mass" problem, they knew quite well that there was a lot of perfectly ordinary matter that would be simply too dim for them to see, so they did not consider any need for exotica.

However, during the intervening decades, observational capabilities in astronomy have grown enormously. In their day only visible light astronomy was practical, but today we have high resolution and high sensitivity capabilities all the way from long radio to short gamma-ray wavelengths, and we have telescopes with light collecting area as much as 16 times what they could do (i.e, the Keck 10-meter vs. the Mt. Wilson 2.5-meter). We have developed the capability to rule out "ordinary" baryonic matter on the grounds that if it were there, we would see it. So, for instance, thanks to the Hubble Space Telescope, we now know that there are not enough red dwarf stars in the Milky Way halo to account for the missing mass (and see Bahcall, et al., 1994). Gravitational microlensing studies can expand that to assure that there are not enough compact objects of any kind, "normal" or "exotic", to account for the missing mass (Pratt, et al., 1996; Alcock, et al., 1996; Yoo, et al., 2004).

When we look at the "bullet cluster" (Clowe, et al., 2006) we see that the baryonic intracluster mass, visible in X-rays, is not spatially coincident with where we know the mass to be located. only the galaxies are there, but we know that the masses of the galaxies are an order of magnitude too small to account for the observed gravity. We know this partly because we know the stellar mass-luminosity relationship, and we can estimate non-stellar mass by comparing the galaxies to similar type galaxies in the local universe, where non-stellar mass can be directly observed and accounted for. There may be a lack of desired precision, but not a significant lack of accuracy.

In general, gravitational lensing reveals that there appears to be a great deal of gravity in the universe, without the visible matter one would normally associate with mass (i.e., Massey, et al, 2007). At some point the constant association of gravity in the absence of detectable mass has to be dealt with seriously. Non-baryonic dark matter is an elegant and reasonable idea, despite your unreasonable objections. It's no more serious than the simple assumption that there is more of the same kind of stuff we already know about (i.e., neutrinos), but have simply not detected yet.

So there is good reason to believe that most of the mass is not normal baryonic matter. Of course, that is not the unanimous consensus of the community. Quite a few groups are working on the obvious alternative, that we have the law of gravity wrong, and that by modifying it we can dispense with "dark matter" altogether (and maybe "dark energy" as well). But it is the majority opinion primarily because it is much the simpler idea.

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

Tim Thompson said:
Where do you propose that one might build a 1000 km long plasma tube to contain the experiment?

I'm going to have to assume that I will never personally have access to that kind of funding or equipment, and I would think that is probably unnecessary for purposes of this particular point. The "best" laboratory tests I could find seem to be related to the optical test done at Los Alamos. Figuring out how to work their input screens looks to be rather "challenging" at first glance.

http://www.t4.lanl.gov/cgi-bin/opacity/tops.pl

How do you propose to conduct the experiment, if and when it is built?

It seems to me that enough physical tests have probably already been done to answer our question, but we'll have to make some "assumptions". I guarantee you that some light from my arc welder with penetrate at least a couple of feet of a thin hydrogen plasma. How much optical depth I might hope to achieve will be at least as dependent upon the amount of current I use in the arc welder, and therefore the amount of light I generate at the point of origin as the amount of plasma between me and the arc.

You constantly revert to an insistence on controlled laboratory experiments.

Why wouldn't you do that too? Aren't you busting me right here and now on that same issue, and isn't it a valid criticism?

But you yourself will reject even the most controlled of laboratory experiments, when they contradict your pre-conceptions, as you do with magnetic reconnection.

I don't actually "reject" them as you seem to think. At space.com I was handed a paper by someone named Birn, et all that I found to be 'acceptable' in terms of the math and physical explanations, but the term itself "magnetic reconnection" seemed to be it's single flaw. There was no "magnetic reconnection" going on, just particle reconnection at the point of intersection. It would have been equally valid to call this process "particle reconnection" or "circuit reconnection", both of which are significantly more accurate and significantly more universal than the term "magnetic reconnection". No self respecting electrical engineer would use that term when describing electrical events in solids.

More importantly however I don't see how you determined "magnetic reconnection" occurred rather than a combination of particle interactions (as in any ordinary current sheet) and circuit rewiring, and/or a wee bit of induction. There seems to be no way to isolate "MR" from any of the other aforementioned items.

So why should anyone be impressed by your insistence that other people adhere to criteria that you will not adhere to yourself?

You should require of me what I will require of you and everyone else. In other words, there's no point in me playing the role of hypocrite Tim. We should all want to do this the "right way", from beginning to end. I would certainly agree that there is work to be done in this area.

And you fail to notice that some things cannot be demonstrated to your satisfaction in any conceivable controlled laboratory experiment.

What problem did Birkeland have in confirming most (ok, not all) aspects of his electrical discharge model? The moment he turned the sphere into a cathode, he was able to replicate the aurora with it, to generate discharges in the atmosphere, jets, solar wind, etc. Ok, sure, he didn't build a breeder reactor in his lab, but that's been done now too.

This is one example. Even a "thick" plasma, let alone a "thin" plasma, can be transparent or translucent under laboratory conditions,

Fine, but let's start with some basic logic and common sense. When we are talking about "optical depth", we mean "how far" will that light penetrate a plasma (not completely ionized by the way) before we can no longer see it. In other words, if the discharges originate below the surface of the photosphere, we will definitely see those loops before they reach the surface, if only a few kilometers. At this point we're arguing about "how far below" the surface of the photosphere that we might be able to see an electrical discharge of epic proportions. We might start by comparing the event to what we see here on Earth during an electrical storm. In other words, this light source is *POWERFUL* and as long as that current is flowing through the loop, we will certainly see it to some depth below the surface of the photosphere, assuming that the discharge occurs below the photosphere.

I hear you about the need to do some additional work Tim. I do. You also need you to recognize that there will be penetration of these high energy wavelengths to some optical depth. If these loops originate under the photosphere they will be visible below the surface of the photosphere to some specific depth determined by the density and absorption pattern of the plasma, the specific wavelength in question and the light intensity at it's point of origin.

while being opaque in nature because nature exists on spatial scales that cannot be duplicated in any laboratory.

Ya, and I can't get my arc welder to crank up to that current level either, so we'll have to do some scaling sooner or later. First we would need to agree on what material exists in a photosphere and how deep is the "photosphere". I tend to use the standard depth measurement personally, so the depth part seems to be a given, but the composition of that layer is going to result in an immediate argument.

How will you and I even agree on that much?

You must pay attention to the relevant physics, just as you demand of others to do the same, or you just wind up in a thread dominated by a sea of insults and minor conversations on unimportant points, as you are now.

Sure, I agree, but that works both ways. You and I both know that we can fire up an arc welder and demonstrate that we can see light to some depth through just about any type of plasma of the density you're assigning to the surface of the photosphere. Yes, I agree that after some specific depth (could be tens or hundreds or thousands of kilometers), we may not still be able to see a powerful discharge in some wavelengths. You will also have to accept that I am talking about extremely large discharge events, many times more powerful than the ones we observe here in our own atmosphere.

It's also much harder to calculate optical depth in a separated model than you make it sound by the way. The gas model and a plasma separated models are very different, starting with the whole concept of a separation of elements. Whereas you would attempt to calculate the optical depth of the photosphere based upon a "mixture" of various elements, I would have to calculate the opacity of various layers of the atmosphere separately, by the element, based upon the distance from the surface of the photosphere composed of NEON, another plasma layer below made of silicon, and layer of calcium plasma to boot. I have to know all the depths of these things of course and then I have to take into account the fact that that electrons and protons are flying out of the sun at a millions miles an hour, etc, etc, etc. It is a lot more complicated than you make it sound. It's a whole lot easier in a standard gas model because it begins (of course) with a gross oversimplification, namely the concept that all elements will stay mixed together due to convection in the outer layers. Unfortunately that "stratification subsurface" is sitting in the middle of what is suppose to be an open convection zone.

It seems to me Tim that we are arguing about a specific depth, not *IF* we might see through *SOME* amount of the photosphere. It still comes back to where the base of the loops begin.

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

Tim Thompson said:
Why?

Because if you got it right you wouldn't need 80 percent metaphysical invisible "bondo" to make it work right.

Who's SUSY, and what does she have to do with determining galaxy masses? Your answer is not even marginally relevant to the question. It tells me you have no idea at all how galaxy masses are determined. So I wonder, how can you be so sure they are all wrong, if you don't even know how they are determined?

SUSY is the NON STANDARD particle physics theory from which all forms of non baryonic "dark matter" seem to originate and and then used to plug the gaps of your otherwise failed galaxy mass estimations. It's a totally unproven theory and no forms of SUSY particles have been found. I personally think the lensing data sort of blows away the MOND concept so we're left with mass estimations that are not anywhere in the ballpark. Now what?

The most efficient way to determine that something is not there is too look for it and not find it. Do that long enough, and it becomes reasonable to assume that the thing you are looking for remains unseen because it really is not there. When Zwicky (Zwicky, 1933; Zwicky, 1937) and Oort (Oort, 1932) first developed the "missing mass" problem, they knew quite well that there was a lot of perfectly ordinary matter that would be simply too dim for them to see, so they did not consider any need for exotica.

Great. All "MACHO" forms of "dark matter" are just fine by me. Nothing unusual about that idea.

However, during the intervening decades, observational capabilities in astronomy have grown enormously. In their day only visible light astronomy was practical, but today we have high resolution and high sensitivity capabilities all the way from long radio to short gamma-ray wavelengths, and we have telescopes with light collecting area as much as 16 times what they could do (i.e, the Keck 10-meter vs. the Mt. Wilson 2.5-meter).

Still, compared to the distances involved our equipment is still pretty limited.

We have developed the capability to rule out "ordinary" baryonic matter on the grounds that if it were there, we would see it.

Would you "see it" inside of an iron sun? Would you "see it" if it was a dead iron core with no more fissionable material to keep it warm? Would you see entire planets if they are smaller than say Jupiter?

Here's the deal. I'll give you the "missing mass". In other words, the lensing data convinces me that MOND theory isn't the answer and you really did GROSSLY underestimate the mass of a galaxy. Furthermore the lensing data suggests that most of the "missing mass" passes right through the other galaxy during "collision" just as whole solar systems would tend to pass through another solar system in the right circumstances.

Whether or not I'll let you use a mass particle in your equation will depend on whether or not you can demonstrate it exists in nature. I'll give you all the known particles in particles physics and even the Higgs particle just for grins. I throw in every element on the periodic table and I'll even consider some "exotic" macroscopic concepts (like neutron stars/black holes) which some EU theorists would balk at. You still will never explain that much missing mass without fundamentally rethinking some of your "assumptions', like what stars are really made of, or by literally "making up" a new and completely hypothetical form of matter and liberally applying it to everything in outer space. Don't you think you should at least show us an ounce of the stuff *BEFORE* claiming it makes up more of the universe than all the material inside all the elements on the periodic table? Don't you think it's possible that some of your basic "assumptions' might be wrong?

GeeMack · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
The sun is obviously the thing that is moving, as is the SOHO satellite, Earth and everything else in space. The stars "appear" to move because of the movement of the sun and the Earth between the various images. Relative to SOHO, the stars moved from one frame to the next. The RD image will therefore show a bright spot where it moved to, and a dark spot where it moved from.

Actually the people at LMSAL who designed and implemented the TRACE program, and who acquire, analyze, and disseminate the data, including the running difference images and video created from the 171Å band source images from the corona, clearly state otherwise. Their position is that "... a dark 'shadow' in the difference movie is a region that became darker while a bright region is one that became brighter." Moving to or from anything has nothing to do with the bright and dark in the running difference output.

Now where was your analysis of that running difference image, Michael, the one you've never given in all these years? Yes, the one where you start with the pixel in Row 1, Column 1, explain exactly why it is as bright or dim as it is, then move on to Row 1, Column 2, then Row 1, Column 3, and so forth? The detailed, quantitative analysis, the objective one, the one where your method for determining the brightness can be applied by other people to get the same results you have? You know, an analysis that is as good as the one Reality Check and I, and all those people at SFN and BAUT have given?

And how about that lab experiment that demonstrates how you can see 4000 kilometers below the photosphere by making a running difference image using light gathered a couple thousand kilometers above the photosphere? Lab tested, right here on Earth, using no fudge factors or metaphysical crap, mathematically and physically consistent, and objective so that other people can replicate the experiment and come to the same conclusion as you? Making progress on that one yet?

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

Reality Check said:
When I see a cracked pot I call it a cracked pot.

Compared to say "inflation"? Come on. That pot is so cracked it's useless. It's never actually "predicted" anything of value. It's pure dead mythos since it is now gone and nobody can ever "test" for it in real life. It's the ultimate metaphysically cracked pot idea in the universe today.

MM has been touting his Iron Sun notion for over 4 years now in essentially the same form (i.e. look at the pretty pictures that I misinterpret to mean surfaces, mountain ranges, ridges, etc.) without producing a single testable, falsifiable prediction. I doubt that "we will see" anything but the same hand waving that we have already seen

FYI, I've already been talking about cause/effect relationships between 195A SOHO/STEREO events and ACE measurements and LASCO imagery over at space.com. Predicting a CME is a lot (almost exactly) like predicting the precise moment of a volcanic eruption. It's not easy even if you have a very good knowledge of how things work. Cause/effect relationships are a lot easier to demonstrate and I'll continue doing so in real time so you can be sure I'm not "winging" it after the fact. There's no point in duplicating that stuff here however. I just posted something yesterday and followed up with it today. You're welcome to join the ongoing conversations on cause/effect relationships between events seen in 195A and CME's over at space.com.

Vermonter · Jul 6, 2009

One thing to keep in mind is that based on observations, while the sun is a Population I star (meaning heavy element-rich), the actual mass of those heavy elements is a fraction of what the hydrogen/helium content is.

Hydrogen 73.46%
Helium 24.85%
Oxygen 0.77%
Carbon 0.29%
Iron 0.16%
Sulfur 0.12%
Neon 0.12%
Nitrogen 0.09%
Silicon 0.07%
Magnesium 0.05%

This is what we see based on spectral absorption lines. This is a very well-understood phenomenon that has been replicated and tested in laboratories thousands of times. The absorption lines that we see in the lab for each element match what we see when we do an analysis of the Sun's spectrum. Again, this is basic astronomy. Even as an undergrad I played around with mass spectrometers and got to see how different elements absorb or reflect light.

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

GeeMack said:
Actually the people at LMSAL who designed and implemented the TRACE program, and who acquire, analyze, and disseminate the data, including the running difference images and video created from the 171Å band source images from the corona, clearly state otherwise. Their position is that "... a dark 'shadow' in the difference movie is a region that became darker while a bright region is one that became brighter."

And indeed what they said is absolutely true. The stars in the background image of a LASCO-C3 RD move. The dark region is where the "bright" star used to sit in the first image, and the "bright point" is where the star has now moved in the later image.

Moving to or from anything has nothing to do with the bright and dark in the running difference output.

I guess they figured that you had the intelligence to figure that part out on your own based on looking at few LASCO images. I guess they (and I) figured that you already understood the concept of movement in space. Nowhere in my wildest imagination did I think anyone could screw up the explanation of the whole RD technique as badly as you did.

Now where was your analysis of that running difference image,

I don't recall saying I had *ALREADY* "explained" the whole thing, pixel by pixel, frame by frame. You are the only human being I have ever met that ever made that claim in fact. Where's your pixel by pixel, frame by analysis? Oh ya, I forgot...."What flying stuff"? Come on. Even a child can see "flying stuff" and "movement" in the images. You're hopeless.

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

Vermonter said:
One thing to keep in mind is that based on observations, while the sun is a Population I star (meaning heavy element-rich), the actual mass of those heavy elements is a fraction of what the hydrogen/helium content is.

Hydrogen 73.46%
Helium 24.85%
Oxygen 0.77%
Carbon 0.29%
Iron 0.16%
Sulfur 0.12%
Neon 0.12%
Nitrogen 0.09%
Silicon 0.07%
Magnesium 0.05%

This is what we see based on spectral absorption lines. This is a very well-understood phenomenon that has been replicated and tested in laboratories thousands of times. The absorption lines that we see in the lab for each element match what we see when we do an analysis of the Sun's spectrum. Again, this is basic astronomy. Even as an undergrad I played around with mass spectrometers and got to see how different elements absorb or reflect light.

The problem Vermonter is that this particular technique of counting photons *assumes* that all the elements stay "mixed together", iron with hydrogen, Nickel with Helium, etc, happily floating around together at the surface of the photosphere. The problem is that plasmas tend to mass separate in the presence of gravity wells and electrical current and those million mile per hour charged particles in the solar wind are a form of "current flow". The sun's atmosphere is mass separated by the element and it does not stay mixed. That supposedly open convection zone has a "stratification subsurface" sitting in the middle of it, blocking the flow of plasmas from above and below. Your method of calculating abundance percentages is therefore highly suspect and skewed toward the upper elements in the atmosphere, specifically the elements lighter than neon that float above the photosphere, the helium chromosphere and the hydrogen corona. None of the heavier elements are even represented in that spectrum save for the few heavy elements that get ionized inside the coronal loops.

Reality Check · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
No. Let me try to explain it this way, starting with a LASCO RD image. If you go to the SOHO archives and watch some LASCO-C3 RD images for awhile, you will find that the background stars show up in these images and they create "persistent patterns" in the background of the image. They are not moving very fast relative to the plasma so they are visible throughout the movie with the bright side to the right, and the shadow of where it came from to the left. If there are "persistent features" in the image (like the stars and their relationship to each other), that pattern will show up in the RD images, just as it shows up in the original images. If we looked at just a set of background stars in an RD image, they would all appear to be fixed and not moving in relationship to each other. They are of course moving, but relative to each other based on our vantage point here in this solar system, they appear to be fixed and a definite pattern will be seen in such images.

Some links to the web site and the "some LASCO-C3 RD images" would be good.

If we looked at just a set of background stars in the set of original images and they appear to be fixed and not moving in relationship to each other then they would not appear in an RD animation.

However I would expect that an RD animation taken by the SOHO spacecraft would show the stars. They are moving relative to the spacecraft, e.g. the spacecraft is probably rotating a bit to keep the Sun imaged in the telescope (a real astronomer will probaby correct this).
Thus the stars are changing position in the telescope and so show up in the RD animations.
They would not show up in fixed positions in the RD animation unless the asstronomers have cropped the frames to make this happen.

You are still mistaken in your notion that RD animations show "persistent features". They do not - they are graphical representations of chnages in the original images. Things that do not chnage like mountains and fixed stars are removed.

Michael Mozina said:
The easy way to look at this (and the correct way too) is that any lighting that is "persistent", and any shading that is "persistent" will show up in the image, just as moving items (like the flying plasma) also show up in the image. The persistence of the background lighting determines the persistence of the various features. If the light sources are not moving much in relationship to one another, that lack of movement (relative to each other) is also visible in the RD image set. There's nothing magical about it, nor can it be caused by the RD imaging technique. The only thing that can create persistence in an RD image is persistence in the light source(s).

The easy way to look at this (and the correct way too) is that any lighting that is "persistent", and any shading that is "persistent" will show up in the original images. By "persistent" we mean something that does not change between images, e.g. the lighting will cast the same shadows and same highlights in every original image.
The RD processing will see these shadows and highlights in the original images and designate them in the processed frame as unchanged pixels. This will be a grey color. Thus the shadows and highlights in the original images will appear in the processed frams as the same color.

The only things that can create persistence in an RD animation are changes in the pixels between the original images. These are caused by changes in position, temperature and the light source(s).

Reality Check · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
FYI, I've already been talking about cause/effect relationships between 195A SOHO/STEREO events and ACE measurements and LASCO imagery over at space.com. Predicting a CME is a lot (almost exactly) like predicting the precise moment of a volcanic eruption. It's not easy even if you have a very good knowledge of how things work. Cause/effect relationships are a lot easier to demonstrate and I'll continue doing so in real time so you can be sure I'm not "winging" it after the fact. There's no point in duplicating that stuff here however. I just posted something yesterday and followed up with it today. You're welcome to join the ongoing conversations on cause/effect relationships between events seen in 195A and CME's over at space.com.

Can you give us a link to your mathematical model that calculates the "cause/effect relationships between 195A SOHO/STEREO events and ACE measurements and LASCO imagery"?

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

edd said:
So you're saying that the Sun is not absorbing and emitting light largely like that of a black body?

Hmm. Well, *IN TOTAL*, yes, it's radiating "largely like" a "black body". It's photosphere does not do that all by itself. The atmosphere is layered both in terms of elements and heat content with the lightest elements radiating at the hottest temperatures and emitting the most photons. The solid surface and and does radiate largely like a black body but at a much lower temperature than 5-6 thousand degrees. The coronal loops generate a lot of that spectrum too. It's a much more complicated process than the standard model presumes, mostly because elements do not stay "mixed" together and float at the surface of the photosphere.

And that it's emission spectrum is dominated by very specific wavelengths?

It should be dominated by the wavelengths that come from the upper atmosphere where the lightest elements end up, and the temperature is the greatest. That would be the helium chromosphere and the hydrogen corona. Hydrogen is also being "pinched" from plasma in form of neutrons that then decay into hydrogen atoms over about 10 minutes or so. The upper atmosphere is composed of the sun's lightest elements and they also radiate at the highest temperature. Therefore the sun's spectrum is skewed towards hydrogen and helium as is the spectrum of most stars.

Vermonter · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
The problem Vermonter is that this particular technique of counting photons *assumes* that all the elements stay "mixed together", iron with hydrogen, Nickel with Helium, etc, happily floating around together at the surface of the photosphere. The problem is that plasmas tend to mass separate in the presence of gravity wells and electrical current and those million mile per hour charged particles in the solar wind are a form of "current flow". The sun's atmosphere is mass separated by the element and it does not stay mixed. That supposedly open convection zone has a "stratification subsurface" sitting in the middle of it, blocking the flow of plasmas from above and below. Your method of calculating abundance percentages is therefore highly suspect and skewed toward the upper elements in the atmosphere, specifically the elements lighter than neon that float above the photosphere, the helium chromosphere and the hydrogen corona. None of the heavier elements are even represented in that spectrum save for the few heavy elements that get ionized inside the coronal loops.

This isn't counting photons. This is showing what elements are currently emitting photons and what elements aren't emitting photons. The intensity is a matter of the amount, but this isn't trying to count every photon.

I'm not sure how much mixing there is, but the Sun is a heterogeneous mixture of the listed elements. I don't see why in a heated sphere of gas there would be any reason for elements to be sorted.

You're assuming that the sun is...something. So, you're suggesting that we're only seeing high %s of hydrogen and helium because they are lighter, and that we're only seeing a fraction of a % of neon because its heavier? Hogwash.

We're seeing all of the elements present in the photosphere. You really need to get yourself into an astronomy class. You assume the sun is something its not, and then make a big fuss when decades of observations go against your predetermined conclusion. And you have the gall to say, "oh, you guys are doing it wrong. Every single astronomer is wrong, and I'm right." How's it up there on your pedestal?

I show you laboratory observations that go against your idea and you ignore them because you think that for the past 40 years scientists have been too stupid to realize they are taking incorrect measurements? That's not even wrong. That's terribad. Go ask a physics professor, or better yet, a professional astronomer. They'll say the same thing.

Observational evidence says that you are wrong. And yet, you ignore it and claim that we are the ones on the ropes, we are the people being laughed at.

Michael Mozina · Jul 6, 2009

Reality Check said:
Some links to the web site and the "some LASCO-C3 RD images" would be good.

I already did that. I guess you weren't paying attention. You'd think that a self professed "expert" on these images who debates these things in cyberspace would know where to find them already without my help. Oh well, I'll take pity on you.

http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/daily_mpg/

If we looked at just a set of background stars in the set of original images and they appear to be fixed and not moving in relationship to each other then they would not appear in an RD animation.

That depends. If you simply cropped them out of an existing RD LASCO image, and centered them in the frame, you could make them "seem" as though they did not move during a specific compilation of standard RD
images. That's exactly what's going on in these images by the way. They are standard images cropped and fit and centered on a specific feature.

However I would expect that an RD animation taken by the SOHO spacecraft would show the stars. They are moving relative to the spacecraft, e.g. the spacecraft is probably rotating a bit to keep the Sun imaged in the telescope (a real astronomer will probaby correct this).

The surface is also "moving" between images! Gah. The light sources are not sitting still or sitting in *exactly* the same position from one frame to the next. These light sources therefore show up in the RD image. The image set is then simply cropped and centered on a specific pattern in the image as if you cropped it to be centered on a specific pattern of stars in a LASCO RD image.

Thus the stars are changing position in the telescope and so show up in the RD animations.

Likewise the coronal loops are shifting positions slightly as the sun rotates, and therefore they show up in the RD animations too.

They would not show up in fixed positions in the RD animation unless the asstronomers have cropped the frames to make this happen.

Ding, ding, ding.....give the man a cookie.

You are still mistaken in your notion that RD animations show "persistent features". They do not - they are graphical representations of chnages in the original images. Things that do not chnage like mountains and fixed stars are removed.

The mountains move, the coronal loops move, the lighting moves. The time between the images and the solar rotation ensure that you never 'remove' anything completely.

The easy way to look at this (and the correct way too) is that any lighting that is "persistent", and any shading that is "persistent" will show up in the original images. By "persistent" we mean something that does not change between images, e.g. the lighting will cast the same shadows and same highlights in every original image.

That part is true. Now we just need to know what the lighting and shading stay consistent in the image and you need to get it through your head that the sun is rotating between the two shots and this will preclude you from "removing" anything from the image. The coronal loop patterns in the original image are equally obvious in the RD image. The rotation from left to right will ensure that nothing is fully "removed" as you seem to think.

Reality Check · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Peratt's work on galaxy formation models demonstrates that you're dead wrong.

Peratt's work on galaxy formation models demonstrates that he is a plasma physicist that made the fatal mistake of going outside his area of expertise into astronomy without bothering to learn enough about the new area.

Anthony Peratt's Plasma Model of Galaxy Formation
The fatal flaw in his model is that his results do not match reality. But that is not the end of the flaws in his model. A fuller list is in the linked thread but here they are again:

The computer simulations produced maps of plasma locations. These maps were compared to optical images of double lobed radio galaxies and spiral galaxies.
But double lobed radio galaxies are actually elliptical galaxies (they are only double lobed in radio frequencies). He should have got a ellipse of plasma but he got 2 lobes.
And spiral galaxies are not physically spirals. The density of matter between the spiral arms is 10-20% less than the arms. They only look like spirals because the arms have lots of bright young stars in them. Peratt's maps have no plasma in between the arms.
His model completely ignores gravity. He does not assume that EM forces dominate galaxy formation. He assumes that EM forces are the only forces in galaxy formation.
The model has galactic plasma filaments that are estimated to have a width of 35 kiloparsecs (100,000 light years) and a length of from 35 megaparasec to 3.5 gigaparasec (an average length of 350 megaparasec or 1 billion light years). They have a large electric current of unspecified origin flowing through them
These should be easy to detect through their synchrotron radiation, gravitational lensing and the shock waves and detectable X-rays from their movement of filaments through the intergalactic medium.
Galaxies are dynamic – they move. Galactic clusters also move. Galaxies collide. Galactic clusters collide. Galaxies pass each other and cannibalize each other. The filaments considered alone may be stable but I cannot see them maintaining themselves when they get close or even collide. Not only could separate filaments collide and short circuit their electric currents but a filament could even collide with itself!
The galactic plasma filaments are assumed to exist (ex nihilo argument).
The enormous electric current in the galactic plasma filaments are assumed to have some unspecified source (ex nihilo argument).

In addition there is the nitpick that Anthony Peratt chose to publish his paper in the IEEE journal (his 1986 papers) and less read astronomy journals. He thus ensured that his papers would be read and reviewed by as few astronomers as possible (A comment on sources).

Reality Check · Jul 6, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
I already did that. I guess you weren't paying attention. You'd think that a self professed "expert" on these images who debates these things in cyberspace would know where to find them already without my help. Oh well, I'll take pity on you.

Whenever did I say that I am an expert on RD animations?

What I am is a person who can think about things logically and see that something that only shows changes in original images will only show changes in the original images. Thus any "persistent feature" in a RD animation has to be a record of persistent changes in the original images by definition.

What I am is a person who has a good science background (in sold state physics so I am quite ready to be wrong about astronomy).

Basic physics tells me that a detector that is using a filter that is designed to image material at a temperature of between 160,000 K and 2,000,000 K will not see the photosphere or your "surface" as on your web site.

Basic physics tells me that any object with a unspecified temperature < 2000 K in contact with another object with a temperature of ~6000 K means that both objects will change temperature - the cooler one will heat up and the hotter one will cool down. Add in an energy source keeping the ~6000 K object at ~6000 K means that the cooler object will heat up to ~6000 K.

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
That depends. If you simply cropped them out of an existing RD LASCO image, and centered them in the frame, you could make them "seem" as though they did not move during a specific compilation of standard RD
images. That's exactly what's going on in these images by the way. They are standard images cropped and fit and centered on a specific feature.

Where does the web site state that the images are cropped and centered?

The specific feature in the first animation (http://lasco-www.nrl.navy.mil/daily_mpg/090317_c2.mpg) is the entire Sun.

Where does the site specify which animation is a RD and which are not?
The first MPG seems to be original images strung together.

Here is the description on the LASCO/EIT REAL TIME MOVIES page

The latest 48 hours of data are available as both MPEG and animated GIF movies. The movies are updated 8 times a day when we are in real-time contact with the satellite (see link to S/C DSN Query under Operations). See also Daily MPEGS for older data and weekly archive of 13 day mpegs. The Java Movie link provides fewer frames but provides a built in viewer and controls for Java capable browsers such as Netscape and Internet Explorer. The Java Movies are generated on the fly and update every 20 minutes e.g. the movie will automatically update with new data every 20 minutes.

ETA: There are links with "Dif" in the text on the page. So thay could be running difference aminations (but the links do not work for me!)

ETA2: Found some!
They are exactly what I expected from the original images, i.e. changes between the images that includes stars moving across the field of vision.

ETA3:
Most of your "stars" look like cosmic ray impacts on the detector.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Vermonter said:
This isn't counting photons. This is showing what elements are currently emitting photons and what elements aren't emitting photons. The intensity is a matter of the amount, but this isn't trying to count every photon.

The point I'm trying to make here as that the lightest elements are above the photosphere in a region of the sun that is radiating at a much higher temperature than the photosphere itself. The mostly helium chromosphere emits light and also absorbs light from the photosphere. These lighter elements will therefore show up more than the heavier elements under the photosphere. The coronal loops ionize surface material and that does show up in the SERTS data and the solar spectrum as a whole, but by and large only the hydrogen and helium layers radiate at a higher temperature than the photosphere itself.

I'm not sure how much mixing there is, but the Sun is a heterogeneous mixture of the listed elements.

I believe that this is a widespread but false assumption. It would make things much "easier" if that were really the case, and I'm guessing that's part of the attraction, but unfortunately it's not that simple IMO.

I don't see why in a heated sphere of gas there would be any reason for elements to be sorted.

Well, gravity alone would tend to cause some sort of separation to occur over time. EM fields are KNOWN to cause plasma to separate as well. The sun is emitting charged particle current every second of every day. There are at least two good reasons why iron would not stay mixed with hydrogen for very long.

You're assuming that the sun is...something. So, you're suggesting that we're only seeing high %s of hydrogen and helium because they are lighter, and that we're only seeing a fraction of a % of neon because its heavier? Hogwash.

How so?

We're seeing all of the elements present in the photosphere. You really need to get yourself into an astronomy class.

How do you *KNOW* (with absolute certainty) that every photon comes from the photosphere, rather than say a coronal loops, the chromosphere, the corona, etc?

You assume the sun is something its not, and then make a big fuss when decades of observations go against your predetermined conclusion.

Actually I started with no preconceived ideas at first, and the only conclusions I drew were related to solar satellite images. Since that time heliosiesmology data has found a "stratification subsurface" sitting in the middle of what is supposed to be an open convection zone. I've also found lots of other satellite images to support my views since then, I've created a few of my own, I've found supporting evidence from the work of Birkeland, Bruce and Alfven that I never knew about before hand. I've found heliosiesmology and nuclear chemistry data to support my theories too. The opposite of what you claim is true. I had to literally "throw out" what I thought I knew about the sun and learn from mother nature again based on modern technologies. I've been highly impressed with the things that have actually supported these ideas since I first put up my website.

And you have the gall to say, "oh, you guys are doing it wrong. Every single astronomer is wrong, and I'm right." How's it up there on your pedestal?

If Birkeland had not beat me to the idea by 100 years, maybe it might go to my head. As it stands, none of us did it right, me included, for a very long time.

I show you laboratory observations that go against your idea and you ignore them because you think that for the past 40 years scientists have been too stupid to realize they are taking incorrect measurements?

Birkeland got it right. Bruce did too up to a point, as did Alfven. I'm just a "Johnny come lately" to this whole process. Yes, mainstream astronomers can make mistakes and the idea that the sun's elements stay "mixed together" is mistake IMO.

Observational evidence says that you are wrong.

Actually observational evidence of that stratification subsurface, those RD images, and Doppler image all say that it is your model that is flawed. Which standard solar model predicted the existence of that stratification subsurface to exist at .995R prior to Kosovichev's published paper on that topic? Which of you has even touched a single detail of that RD image and done it correctly? I'm afraid that observational evidence is not on the side of the standard solar gas model theory, which is exactly why I jumped ship and went with Birkeland's model instead.

And yet, you ignore it and claim that we are the ones on the ropes, we are the people being laughed at.

Well V, when it comes to comes to actually being able to explain that heliosiesmology data, those solar images, that evidence from nuclear chemistry research, etc, your side seems to have very few (no) scientific answers and lots of nasty commentary. I'm not really laughing at anyone (well maybe GM), nor am I trying to take credit for "discovering" anything that was not already known to science long before I was born.

About the only thing I can do is explain solar satellite images based on Birkeland's solar model. I can't explain them very well based on standard gas model theory so it's certainly not a personal thing. It's just a matter of knowing which solar model works and fits with the satellite images and which does not. I'm personally unimportant, but Birkeland's work is important IMO, not to just me, but to you and to everyone else here as well. I'm simply noting that he figured out something that we all missed, and he did so without a lot of sophisticated satellites and heliosiesmology studies. He did it the "old fashion" way, via empirical methods and real experimentation with actual "control mechanisms" and he did it 100 years ago.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Reality Check said:
Where does the web site state that the images are cropped and centered?

It doesn't say that on their website. You need to download and look at the original FITS files to realize that is what they did. You'd have to actually "analyze" the images in other words, and that seems to be far too much work for you and GM.

Where does the site specify which animation is a RD and which are not?
The first MPG seems to be original images strung together.

Evidently you missed my whole post on page 17. The RD images all have a letter "D" in their designation. The RD images are found in the folders by month and by year. The LASCO C3 images have a _D3 extensions in the file name, and the _D2 files are LASCO-C2 rd images. The _DIT images are all SOHO RD images of the surface in (usually in 195A) and you'll find lots of persistent features in those images too.

ETA2: Found some!
They are exactly what I expected from the original images, i.e. changes between the images that includes stars moving across the field of vision.

Notice that the light sources are the stars and see how the shadow is always on the left? That is because relative to SOHO, the stars are moving and have moved between the images. Likewise the lit parts of the solar atmosphere will rotate left to right in the RD images from SOHO and Trace.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Reality Check said:
Whenever did I say that I am an expert on RD animations?

You certainly are playing the role though aren't you? I mean you are over here for pages telling me I'm wrong and some crackpot and you can't even find the SOHO archives? How exactly did you figure out I was wrong if you don't know what you're looking at or even looking for?

What I am is a person who can think about things logically and see that something that only shows changes in original images will only show changes in the original images. Thus any "persistent feature" in a RD animation has to be a record of persistent changes in the original images by definition.

Those "persistent changes' you're talking about are a direct result of the rotation of the sun, the movement of stars, or whatever. They exist in the RD image because they exist in the original images just as the stars exist in both LASCO original images as bright points, and in RD images as bright *AND* dark points.

What I am is a person who has a good science background (in sold state physics so I am quite ready to be wrong about astronomy).

That's good because you are.

Basic physics tells me that a detector that is using a filter that is designed to image material at a temperature of between 160,000 K and 2,000,000 K will not see the photosphere or your "surface" as on your web site.

Basic physics won't provide all the answers. You'll need to research these images for years as I have done to even begin to understand them, or at least listen to what I've learned and pay attention to what I tell you. Nobody ever said that the surface itself generated these photons. How many times have I told that to you now?

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Reality Check said:
Peratt's work on galaxy formation models demonstrates that he is a plasma physicist that made the fatal mistake of going outside his area of expertise into astronomy without bothering to learn enough about the new area.

That was Alfven's problem too I presume?

The fatal flaw in his model is that his results do not match reality.

Neither do your galaxy formation models which is why they are stuffed with 80 percent metaphysical fudge factors, and only 20 percent normal matter from the periodic table. So what?

DeiRenDopa · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Reality Check said:

Peratt's work on galaxy formation models demonstrates that he is a plasma physicist that made the fatal mistake of going outside his area of expertise into astronomy without bothering to learn enough about the new area.

Click to expand...

That was Alfven's problem too I presume?

Actually, AFAIK, Alfvén was far too smart to venture into that topic.

You see, MM, he apparently knew full-well just how much work he'd have had to do to come to grips with the depth and breadth of the relevant astronomical observations, and theories, in this area.

In many respects, Alfvén really should be your role model MM ... in essence he declared astronomy (as in 'remote observing') to be beyond the bounds of the sort of science he was prepared to dive deeply into (modulo his failures wrt ambiplasma etc).

The fatal flaw in his model is that his results do not match reality.

Click to expand...

Neither do your galaxy formation models which is why they are stuffed with 80 percent metaphysical fudge factors, and only 20 percent normal matter from the periodic table. So what?

So you have, once again, demonstrated that your understanding of contemporary science is flawed, and that your alternative approach is sterile.

Oh, and how's your understanding of the Casimir effect coming along? The one in which you can present a *quantitative* explanation that does not include negative pressure?

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Those "persistent changes' you're talking about are a direct result of the rotation of the sun, the movement of stars, or whatever. They exist in the RD image because they exist in the original images just as the stars exist in both LASCO original images as bright points, and in RD images as bright *AND* dark points.

You still have to show us where there stars are in the LASCO images.

So far all I have seen is cosmic ray impacts and a couple of objects that may be stars.

Michael Mozina said:
Basic physics won't provide all the answers. You'll need to research these images for years as I have done to even begin to understand them, or at least listen to what I've learned and pay attention to what I tell you. Nobody ever said that the surface itself generated these photons. How many times have I told that to you now?

The RD animations are really simple to understand. The people who created them even describe them and do not agree with you.

If the surface does not generate the photons seen in the TRACE 171A pass band then it cannot be seen in the original images or the RD animation. Thank you for confirming that the TRACE 171A images are of activity in the corona.

Your web site states that the RD animation shows ridges and mountain ranges on the surface (your hypothetical, thermodynamically impossible solid iron surface). That contradicts what you have just said.
Which statement is wrong?

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
That was Alfven's problem too I presume?

You presume incorrectly.
Alfven never stated anything about galaxy formation and was not ignorant enough to compare plasma locations with optical images.
What he did was create a cosmological model that according to the knowledge at the time (1960's) was correct. This was a scientific theory because it made testable, falsifiable predictions.
The discovery of the CMB and measurements of the X-ray background falsified his theory.

Michael Mozina said:
Neither do your galaxy formation models which is why they are stuffed with 80 percent metaphysical fudge factors, and only 20 percent normal matter from the periodic table. So what?

Usual MM blather that ignores actual observations. So nothing new there.

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

A bit of a derail from this thread but MM's "metaphysical fudge factors" nonsense reminded me that the Starts With A Bang blog has a series of articles aboutthe history os astronomy in that last 100 years. The latest one is about inflation: The Last 100 Years: 1979 and Before the Big Bang.

Dancing David · Jul 7, 2009

Well, I would like to read why there is 4x the mass that we should be able to see but can't.

MM's contention is just that we are underestimating the observable mass of the universe by a factor of 4.

Dancing David · Jul 7, 2009

I have stared at these pictures for twenty years and concluded, they look like a bunny.

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

A little tidbit about the LASCO images. The George Mason University had a CSI 769/PHYS 590 -Solar Atmosphere course in 2004. One project was to to measure the speed of a coronal mass ejection observed by the LASCO C2/C3 coronagraphs.

Project description (DOC file)

CME images --- http://cdaw.gsfc.nasa.gov/CME_list/images/
All Individual coronagraph images are available in a hierarchical structure as year-month-day. In each day directory, you will find links to images in the order of time and instrumentation. All images are in PNG format. You will find that the given C2 (C3) images are not direct images. Instead, they are so called running difference images, which are the result by subtracting a preceding image from current image in order to review any faint moving feature. The file name of a typical image is, e.g, “c2_rdif.20020104100605.png”, which indicates it is a C2 running difference image taken by the LASCO at 2002 Jan. 04 10:06:05 UT. A CME height is measured based on the position of the bright leading edge.

The image is in a square shape. The field of view of a C2 image is 6 Rs (solar radius), meaning it is 6 Rs from the image center to the edges (not to the corner). The C3 field of view is 30 Rs. You may figure out the CME height (in unit of Rs) based on the pixel distance of the leading edge with respect to the center.

Michal Mozina: How dare these professors of astronpomy lie to their students and say the RD images record moving features

!

tusenfem · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
What problem did Birkeland have in confirming most (ok, not all) aspects of his electrical discharge model? The moment he turned the sphere into a cathode, he was able to replicate the aurora with it, to generate discharges in the atmosphere, jets, solar wind, etc. Ok, sure, he didn't build a breeder reactor in his lab, but that's been done now too.

Michael Mozina, you still have to show where Birkeland is discussing the solar wind, in the way that YOU say that it is operating. In this message on page 12 I go through the whole stuff by Birkie, starting from page 664, as mentioned by you. All the math deals with the motion of particles in a gravitating magnetized sphere. There is no electric field, like you want to have that drives the solar wind, by accelerating the electrons and them dragging along the ions.

Is there going to be any time soon an answer to this? Why can I not find the solar wind and the appropriate math in Birkelands book. Where did zou find it. Please, as you are apparently "the expert" on Birkelands book, where should I look to get this "laboratory experiment" of the solar wind?

edd · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Hmm. Well, *IN TOTAL*, yes, it's radiating "largely like" a "black body". It's photosphere does not do that all by itself. The atmosphere is layered both in terms of elements and heat content with the lightest elements radiating at the hottest temperatures and emitting the most photons. The solid surface and and does radiate largely like a black body but at a much lower temperature than 5-6 thousand degrees. The coronal loops generate a lot of that spectrum too. It's a much more complicated process than the standard model presumes, mostly because elements do not stay "mixed" together and float at the surface of the photosphere.

It should be dominated by the wavelengths that come from the upper atmosphere where the lightest elements end up, and the temperature is the greatest. That would be the helium chromosphere and the hydrogen corona. Hydrogen is also being "pinched" from plasma in form of neutrons that then decay into hydrogen atoms over about 10 minutes or so. The upper atmosphere is composed of the sun's lightest elements and they also radiate at the highest temperature. Therefore the sun's spectrum is skewed towards hydrogen and helium as is the spectrum of most stars.

There's a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot both have it radiating largely like a blackbody and have a spectrum dominated by wavelengths from specific elements.

Also, the way it sounds to me you should be able to predict the levels where certain elements are dominating and measure a changing spectrum across the Sun as a function of the line of sight that goes beyond any change in the temperature at that point, much as limb darkening is observed, and show how that isn't supported in more standard solar models. Is that right?

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
What problem did Birkeland have in confirming most (ok, not all) aspects of his electrical discharge model? The moment he turned the sphere into a cathode, he was able to replicate the aurora with it, to generate discharges in the atmosphere, jets, solar wind, etc. Ok, sure, he didn't build a breeder reactor in his lab, but that's been done now too.

I had not noticed this statement within MM's many posts.

The only aspect of Birkeland's "electric discharge model" that he was able to confirm was its application to the aurora. You may have noticed that much of his book is about observations (gasp - *UNCONTROLLED* experiments!) of the Earth's aurora.
He was not able to confirm "jets, solar wind, etc.".

The Earth (and planets and Sun) are not metallic globes and Birkeland knew this. That is why he is careful to describe his terella experiments as analogies.
An interesting little point: Birkeland seems to persist in emphasizing magnetic aspects to his experiments, e.g. he refers to "magnetic terella" 9 times in his book and then there is Chapter 1 - "PRELIMINARY REMARKS CONCERNING OUR MAGNETIC RESEARCHES".

In the 100 years since he did his work, experiments and observations have been able to show that many of the suggestions in his book were invalid, e.g. Saturn's rings are icy particles (not bright rings from by discharges from a metallic globe).

The best example of science overtaking his knowledge of the universe is his application of the terrella experiments to spiral nebulae. At the time nebulae were ~100,000 blurs in telescopes, many with spiral structures. We have known since 1926 that these are not electrical discharges but are galaxies consisting of billions of stars.

Reality Check · Jul 7, 2009

edd said:
There's a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot both have it radiating largely like a blackbody and have a spectrum dominated by wavelengths from specific elements.

Also, the way it sounds to me you should be able to predict the levels where certain elements are dominating and measure a changing spectrum across the Sun as a function of the line of sight that goes beyond any change in the temperature at that point, much as limb darkening is observed, and show how that isn't supported in more standard solar models. Is that right?

The mention of limb darkening raises a question for a real astronomer in this thread:

Limb darkening refers to the diminishing of intensity in the image of a star as one moves from the center of the image to the edge or "limb" of the image. Limb darkening occurs as the result of two effects:

The density of the star diminishes as the distance from the center increases
The temperature of the star diminishes as the distance from the center increases.

What happens to limb darkening if the density of the Sun has a higher density (of solid iron) at ~0.99R_o (~4800 km below the photosphere) and at the same point the Sun has a temperature that is < 2000 K that then increases to ~6000 K at the Sun's visible surface.

My guess is that there would be a ring seen on the Sun's limb, i.e. instead of the smooth change in intensity that we see and measure, there will be a discontinuity in the intensity.

ETA:
More reading suggests that this is limited to the first 500 km of the photosphere. It also shows that the temperature at that depth in the photosphere is 6400 K as opposed to 5777 K at the top. This may be a problem for MM's solid iron surface.

edd · Jul 7, 2009

Urgh, it's a while since I had to calculate limb darkening. The photosphere is pretty shallow compared to the ~5000km supposed depth as you note in your edit, so I don't think you'd see a ring, but yes, it looks to me without doing any calculations* that if MM were right you'd see limb brightening, not limb darkening. If MM wants to continue defending his ideas this sounds like another sizeable challenge for him to meet. Well spotted, RC.

*MM will undoubtedly want to criticise me for not doing any calculations but given the lack of detail about how his 'model' is supposed to work it isn't exactly easy, and I'm disinclined to invest effort in disproving a model I believe is pretty clearly ludicrous. He's welcome to try to demonstrate that his model predicts limb darkening of the Sun correctly though.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Dancing David said:
I have stared at these pictures for twenty years and concluded, they look like a bunny.

LOL! I'm glad someone around here has a sense of humor.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Actually, AFAIK, Alfvén was far too smart to venture into that topic.

Alfven was *MUCH* closer to my position than to yours as it relates to cosmology. Why is that DRD?

You see, MM, he apparently knew full-well just how much work he'd have had to do to come to grips with the depth and breadth of the relevant astronomical observations, and theories, in this area.

Come to "grips"? Is that what you call it when your industry embraces inflation faeries, dark invisible gnomes, etc? There is nothing to "come to grips" with from a place of empirical physics. All you're peddling now are mythical creatures, some dead, some not so dead. They are all invisible and incapable of being seen in a lab, with maybe the exception of SUSY particles if you happen to get *REALLY* lucky. Don't get your hopes up however, because if such things actually exist, it's probably for only a fraction of a second before reverting into something "baryonic" in nature and they probably won't save your metaphysical theory.

In many respects, Alfvén really should be your role model MM ... in essence he declared astronomy (as in 'remote observing') to be beyond the bounds of the sort of science he was prepared to dive deeply into (modulo his failures wrt ambiplasma etc).

The ambiplasma was probably the only thing he "went on on a limb" about. Considering matter and antimatter exist in nature, and have been seen to annihilate each other near the core of even our own galaxy, it doesn't sound nearly as far fetched as your menagerie of mythical invisible creatures.

So you have, once again, demonstrated that your understanding of contemporary science is flawed, and that your alternative approach is sterile.

No, I have once again demonstrated that my understanding of science is empirical by nature and that nature is empirical. Your approach to science is "dogmatic", and "myth making" by it's very nature. You never demonstrated inflation exists before stuffing it into math formulas. You folks forgot to demonstrate "dark" thingies exist before slapping math to them and pointing to the sky. Inflation is literally a "supernatural" construct because it behaves like no other known field in nature. It's the ultimate "ad hoc" assertion.

Your approach to science is religious-like. Your religion requires "faith" from the beginning. It requires "faith" that mythical entities, some of which no longer even exist in nature somehow shaped our very distant past. "In the beginning inflation did it". From there, it's just more physically, empirically unsubstantiated dogma that is utterly packed with lots of nifty math formulas. You guys are a *VIOLENT* religious math cult. When someone points out that "faith" is required to join your cult, you get all upset. When someone disagrees with your dogma, you personally put them on trial. You hold "witch hunts" and put people on trial for heresy. If they don't toe the line, repent, and join your cult, you slit their virtual throat and belittle them *PERSONALLY* (not just the idea) till the end of time. You personally play the role of the Inquisitor and the executioner.

Oh, and how's your understanding of the Casimir effect coming along?

Evidently a lot better than yours.

The one in which you can present a *quantitative* explanation that does not include negative pressure?

Which of you is going to tell me what you *PHYSICALLY* intend to add to a "perfect" vacuum, one that lacks all known forms of matter and energy (subatomic mass) to achieve "negative" pressure in a vacuum? I'll put money on you running like hell from this *SPECIFIC* question.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

edd said:
There's a fundamental contradiction here. You cannot both have it radiating largely like a blackbody and have a spectrum dominated by wavelengths from specific elements.

Aren't you claiming the spectrum is dominated by hydrogen and helium, and if not, how exactly did you figure out which elements a sun is made of?

Also, the way it sounds to me you should be able to predict the levels where certain elements are dominating and measure a changing spectrum across the Sun as a function of the line of sight that goes beyond any change in the temperature at that point, much as limb darkening is observed, and show how that isn't supported in more standard solar models. Is that right?

In theory we should be able to isolate coronal loop emissions as separate from much of the rest of the background elements, PROVIDED that they rise up through the photosphere and into the corona. Even then, the corona is going to influence what we see. How might I keep hydrogen and helium from influencing even these measurements?

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Reality Check said:
You still have to show us where there stars are in the LASCO images.

How can you miss all those light and dark dots in the background? Are you being coy, or just looking at the wrong LASCO images, like D2 rather than D3 images?

The RD animations are really simple to understand. The people who created them even describe them and do not agree with you.

I've never seen them described incorrectly on any official website. I've never seen people who created the image describe any of the details of this image. The only point that seem to screw up the explanation are you and GM. You no expert by your own admission but you managed to do better than GM. You did let him convince you there were NO light sources, and that was unfortunate, but you two are the only ones I've seen take a whack at the RD technique and you both blew it to some degree or another. In your case, your mistakes were minor and you got several things right. GM missed almost everything.

If the surface does not generate the photons seen in the TRACE 171A pass band then it cannot be seen in the original images or the RD animation. Thank you for confirming that the TRACE 171A images are of activity in the corona.

You are either not listening or intentionally building strawmen of my statements. Which is it?

Your web site states that the RD animation shows ridges and mountain ranges on the surface (your hypothetical, thermodynamically impossible solid iron surface). That contradicts what you have just said.
Which statement is wrong?

Your understanding is still wrong. The rigid features we observe are in fact causes by the mountains and valleys of the crust. The contour of that crust is visible in all these images, even in the original images with the brightness turned up.

Notice all the little light and dark dots along the right side? Not every "loop" is going to be large enough to span more than a single pixel. The loops all along the surface emit light. The windward side of mountainous objects tend to "light up" due to the motion of plasma past the surface. These things are all clearly visible in the images, both the original images, and the RD images.

But of course you personally will have to learn to walk before you can run. If you can't spot stars in a LASCO-C3 RD image yet, you aren't ready for this RD image.

Michael Mozina · Jul 7, 2009

Reality Check said:
The mention of limb darkening raises a question for a real astronomer in this thread:

What happens to limb darkening if the density of the Sun has a higher density (of solid iron) at ~0.99R_o (~4800 km below the photosphere) and at the same point the Sun has a temperature that is < 2000 K that then increases to ~6000 K at the Sun's visible surface.

FYI, there are several layers of different temperature plasmas between the crust and the photosphere, including calcium, silicon and THEN the neon photosphere. Each one radiates at it's own temperature based and has its own unique density as determined by it's position in the atmosphere, its temperature and its atomic weight.

My guess is that there would be a ring seen on the Sun's limb, i.e. instead of the smooth change in intensity that we see and measure, there will be a discontinuity in the intensity.

In terms of the visible light part of the spectrum, there certainly is a very significant discontinuity in the intensity. It's called the photosphere. You'll notice that it has a much more limited depth than you seem to imagine that can be seen an measured in sunspot activity. It's depth is typically listed at 1000KM, with looks about right to me based on the sunspot images and the point along the side of the sunspot where each penumbral filament stops emitting light at the same basic depth.

edd · Jul 7, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Aren't you claiming the spectrum is dominated by hydrogen and helium, and if not, how exactly did you figure out which elements a sun is made of?

No, it's dominated by black body emission with some elemental lines in it but those lines are not the grossest feature of the spectrum.

The key word here is 'dominated'.

Electric universe theories here.

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