Something new under the sun

We know the trajectory, the acceleration, the field, how hard would it be to just come up with a figure?

Or do we not know the field?

We actually don't know the field that well. Although we can predict what is probably happening out there, the Pioneer and Voyager probes are the first manmade things to ever travel so far from the Sun. Recently, at least one of the Voyager probes probably crossed the heliopause (the boundary between the Sun's influence via the solar wind and interstellar space, much like the magnetopause which separates the Earth from the solar wind), and although the other hasn't travelled as far, it is at a significant angle to the equatorial plane and may have reached the heliopause as well. Contact was lost with both Pioneer probes before they got this far. I say they probably have reached the heliopause because we really don't know. None of these craft were designed to measure that sort of thing, and even if they had been, the only thing able to be recieved from that distance was telemetry data.

There have been essentially no measurements of fields or particles that far out in the Solar System. In fact, there has actually been very little measurement even close to Earth. This is why the Pioneer anomaly is an anomaly. We can tell that there is something going on, but we just don't know enough to say what it is. We can make some pretty good guesses, and make ballpark calculations to say that it definitely can't be certain things, but that's pretty much it.
 
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Since all the probable causes have been ruled out, doesn't that give more weight to improbably causes? I am reminded of the following:
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes) The Sign of Four, 1890​

There are two problems with that. Firstly, how do you know you have eliminated everything? There could be any number of explanations that you just haven't thought of yet. This is exactly the same reasoning that creationists use - they try to find a problem with evolution and then declare that since evoution is wrong, creationism must be right. The thing is, even if evolution does turn out to be wrong, it still says nothing about the validity of creationism. The same is true here. Even if we do manage to rule out all other possibilities that we can currently think of, it doesn't add any more weight to the electric universe claims.

The other problem is that Arthur Conan Doyle believed in faries, and various other nonsense, even after they had been proven as hoaxes. Possibly not the best person to take advice from on the scientific method.
 
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Since all the probable causes have been ruled out, doesn't that give more weight to improbably causes?

They have not been ruled out in the case of Pioneer, which has been around for a long time. This more recent stuff hasn't even been published (scientifically) yet.
 
There are two problems with that. Firstly, how do you know you have eliminated everything?

The same question is valid for everything, but we don't let that stop us from making up theories and doing calculations, based on what is observed.

There could be any number of explanations that you just haven't thought of yet.

The same is true for anything, but again, that doesn't stop us from moving forward.

This is exactly the same reasoning that creationists use - they try to find a problem with evolution and then declare that since evoution is wrong, creationism must be right. The thing is, even if evolution does turn out to be wrong, it still says nothing about the validity of creationism. The same is true here.

No, it is nothing like that crap. Please, get a grip there.

Even if we do manage to rule out all other possibilities that we can currently think of, it doesn't add any more weight to the electric universe claims.

Again with the electric Universe! Does every thread have to become the same?

Understanding the Heliosphere and any and all effects from it, is a huge unknown. Resisting the very concept that the solar wind or magnetism or charged particles can interact with a space probe is just dumb.

It is the opposite of science.
 
The same question is valid for everything, but we don't let that stop us from making up theories and doing calculations, based on what is observed.

That's the whole point. Doyle's statement is bollocks because it doesn't matter how many alternative theories you eliminate, all that matters is the evidence. If your theory matches the evidence, it stands on its own. If it doesn't, it fails, regardless of any other theories have also failed.

No, it is nothing like that crap. Please, get a grip there.

I have a perfectly good grip. It's exactly the same argument. Doyle's statement says that if you eliminate the theories you can think of, whatever is left is correct. That is exactly the same thing creationists say - if you can eliminate evolution, creationism is correct. They are both exactly the same and they are both wrong.

Again with the electric Universe! Does every thread have to become the same?

Understanding the Heliosphere and any and all effects from it, is a huge unknown. Resisting the very concept that the solar wind or magnetism or charged particles can interact with a space probe is just dumb.

It is the opposite of science.

What the hell are you talking about?
 
Even if they are consistent within the uncertainties, you'd need an explanation for where all that charge on the probe came from, and why one didn't get any.
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All spacecraft charge in the interplanetary medium via a variety of mechanisms. (ref) (and others)

We also know that the solar system is subject to an "interplanetary electric field" (Refs), and the heliospheric current sheet has its own electric field. However, it's possible that the interplanetary medium shields a spacecraft's varying charge from these fields.
 
This paper gives an overview of electrostatic charging which occurs on spacecraft in different plasma environments. Particular emphasis is given to differential charging between sunlit and shadowed insulated surfaces, a phenomenon which is often observed in the geostationary orbit. It can generate potential differences of several kilovolts between adjacent surfaces. This can lead to discharges and serious spacecraft anomalies such as spurious telecommands caused by voltage and current transients on cable harnesses. Experience with the GEOS and ISEE satellites has demonstrated that differential charging can be avoided by making outer surface elements conductive and connecting them to a common ground.
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1983SSRv...34..289G


Now that is fascinating.

Didn't the voyagers fly through Jupiter and Saturn's magnetic fields?
 
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There are two problems with that. Firstly, how do you know you have eliminated everything?
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You don't, but you do try the most obvious ideas first. I have no doubt when it is solved, that the "answers was staring them in the face all along". I am also making some bald assumptions equating "obvious" with "probable", which isn't very scientific.


The other problem is that Arthur Conan Doyle believed in faries, and various other nonsense, even after they had been proven as hoaxes. Possibly not the best person to take advice from on the scientific method.
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And Isaac Newton studied the occult. I've even heard that some scientists believe in a deity.
 
Try jumping off any cliffs lately?

Can't one argue that this rejoinder isn't necessarily applicable to cosmology? The idea the things don't always scale up seems to be why relativity had to be theorized and tested, which Einstein and others have pursued.

What is observed in the local frame of reference (a Newtonian frame of reference in this case) might be locally true, but not universally true.

As it works out, the local effect of gravity overcomes EM, strong, and weak forces for a walking body at the edge of a cliff when line of travel extends beyond the cliff's edge. (Clumsy wording, I know.)

I am nitpicking here, of course.

DR
 
Can't one argue that this rejoinder isn't necessarily applicable to cosmology?

But that's the difference between knowing gravity exists (which is indeed a fact) and being able to correctly predict its effects with precision (which requires a theory). To say that gravity is a theory is simply wrong. We have a theory of gravity, and it's not called "gravity", it's called general relativity. General relativity is a theory, gravity is a fact.
 
But that's the difference between knowing gravity exists (which is indeed a fact) and being able to correctly predict its effects with precision (which requires a theory). To say that gravity is a theory is simply wrong. We have a theory of gravity, and it's not called "gravity", it's called general relativity. General relativity is a theory, gravity is a fact.
I thought gravity was a force. :p

:duck:

As I said, I was nitpicking, sorry to derail.

(PS: Your Walt Whitman quote's "Never Again" seems to have happened at least once since he wrote that. FWIW.)

DR
 
Just thinking like a ordinary person, why couldn't they just do the calculations and come up with a figure? We know everything about the probes, just plug in the numbers and see what the force is.

They do that with other baffling problems.

Because then the Vacum Energy Dust Bunnies would take thier retribution...
 
Resisting the very concept that the solar wind or magnetism or charged particles can interact with a space probe is just dumb.

It is the opposite of science.

What the hell are you talking about?

If Robinson has hold of this argument by the wrong tail, it seems I have too.

Here's what I'm thinking.
1. The solar system has lots of electromagnetic fields and charged particles in it.
2. We don't know much about their strengths or distribution.
3. Some spacecraft are behaving a very , very slight bit other than we anticipate.
4. The above three facts may be connected.

What did I miss?
 
It would be interesting to see an article on this story that contains more depth.

The article says that the Pioneer anomaly was a minute acceleration towards the sun.

It also says that 5 out of 6 earth flybys show this anomaly. But it does not expressly state the direction of the anomalous acceleration on those probes. Was it towards the earth?

It also makes no mention of magnitude. Were the anomalies near earth all the same (roughly) size? Were they similar to that experience by pioneer?

It's pretty hard to draw any conclusions without knowing.
 
Can't one argue that this rejoinder isn't necessarily applicable to cosmology? The idea the things don't always scale up seems to be why relativity had to be theorized and tested, which Einstein and others have pursued.

Sure - and it has been tested, continuously and in a host of different ways, on every scale we can access.

We have a model which explains almost every observation ever made given a few numbers as inputs (the mass of DM particles, a few couplings, and the cosmological constant, plus the standard model and general relativity). It might be wrong, but to make that compelling you need a competing model that matches the data at least as well with as many or fewer parameters. Little data anomalies like Pioneer have to be taken in that context - the odds are very good it's just something prosaic rather than anything really new.
 
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Is it wholly improbable that EM effects could be responsible for the odd accelerations, even if we put the more radical aspects of the Electric Universe theory in a Faraday cage for the purposes of the discussion?


It certainly doesn't help the cause of those arguing for EM-effects when they say things like "gravity is just a theory", "the big bang is a joke", and comparing modern big bang cosmology to "religious creationism." Not to mention, when those arguing for an EU start making errors in basic physics (repeatedly), misrepresenting a scientific paper to support their claims, and have glaring inconsistencies within their own arguments (GR is a well-established theory but BBC is bogus...), it really doesn't help their cause. This is most especially true with people who do know physics - like me and Sol.

If one of these folks could actually make a decent, self-consistent argument, I might be willing to listen. As yet, all I'm seeing is a whole buncha woo flyin' around.

EDIT: That said, I am highly intrigued by the Pioneer Anomaly. Who knows what the hell is going on with it? I sure don't. But as many others have already stated, not knowing the source of the Anomaly doesn't automatically lend any validity to EU-PU. To state that it does is merely making an argument from ignorance - I might as well say that it's all due to drunken cosmic leprechauns.
 
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The point is that gravity is not "just a theory", it is a Scientific Theory. An ST to a scientist means that it is a hypothesis that encompasses all the relevant facts and has passed all test and observations up to this point after concerted efforts of friend and foe to falsify it. It's age is not important; science as a discipline is barely older than that. This explanation is from Creationism Debunking 101, and most people on this forum were likely shocked - yes, Shocked! - as I was, to hear it seriously applied to gravity. Such words are a staple in ID threads as a put-down of the theory of evolution. What you are saying to us, in essence, is that you don't believe a word of it; it is just part of Newton's alchemy and not fit to discuss.


EXACTLY!!!

I wonder how Zeuzzz and the other EU-PU proponents would react if we started to call their ideas "not a fact - just a theory"?
 
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Since all the probable causes have been ruled out, doesn't that give more weight to improbably causes? I am reminded of the following:
How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, (Sherlock Holmes) The Sign of Four, 1890​

That, as has been pointed out by a number of authors, is a load of malarky. Isaac Asimov, who loved mystery stories (and wrote enough to fill 3 books of them, I think) pointed out the obvious problems pointed out by Cuddles - you can never really eliminate all the possibilities in real life, and you rarely know what all the real possibilities are. Doyle setup the mysteries in such a way as to limit the possibilities, but as the legion Sherlockians have shown, it is both contrived and incomplete in almost every case. Good logic, bad application.

It doesn't even make the improbable more probable. Every hypothesis must stand on its own; creationism and ID are the only "theories" I know of that exist as a result of failure of other theories, and we know why that is.
 
It would be interesting to see an article on this story that contains more depth.

The article says that the Pioneer anomaly was a minute acceleration towards the sun.

It also says that 5 out of 6 earth flybys show this anomaly. But it does not expressly state the direction of the anomalous acceleration on those probes. Was it towards the earth?

Good points.
Pioneer 10 and 11 launched in 1972 and 1973. Today each is several billion miles away, heading in opposite directions out of the solar system.

The discrepancy caused by the anomaly amounts to about 248,500 miles (400,000 kilometers), or roughly the distance between Earth and the Moon. That's how much farther the probes should have traveled in their 34 years, if our understanding of gravity is correct. (The distance figure is an oversimplification of the actual measurements, but more on that in a moment.)

Scientists are quick to suggest the Pioneer anomaly, as they call it, is probably caused by the space probes themselves, perhaps emitting heat or gas. But the possibilities have been tested and modeled and penciled out, and so far they don't add up.

Which leaves open staggering possibilities that would force wholesale reprinting of all physics books:

* Invisible dark matter is tugging at the probes
* Other dimensions create small forces we don't understand
* Gravity works differently than we think
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_041018.html

I'm no rocket scientist, but I know that real rocket scientist, or even more importantly, satellite scientist, take such problems seriously.

Any deviation from the expected trajectory has to have a reason. This is hard science, as hard and real as it gets with satellite scientist. Even a smaller deviation than measured is important. It means something.

...more than a decade ago a researcher noticed something funny about two Pioneer spacecraft that were streaming toward the edge of the solar system. They weren't where they should have been.

Something was holding the probes back, according to calculations of their paths, speed and how the gravity of all the objects in the solar system -- and even a tiny push provided by sunlight -- ought to act on them.

I doubt anybody thought of measuring something like this, because nobody expected it. As somebody wise pointed out, if you don't know what is there, you can't plan in advance on how to measure it.
 
somewhere said:
Which leaves open staggering possibilities that would force wholesale reprinting of all physics books:

* Invisible dark matter is tugging at the probes
* Other dimensions create small forces we don't understand
* Gravity works differently than we think

Whoa, whoa there I say. Ya sound like the world's coming to an end. On the contrary, Newtons mechanics still work very nicely, and around the edges Special Relativity fills in nicely. Even if this turns out to be something as revolutionary as ST, there won't be a need (a NEED, I say - the books will be rewritten in any case, 'cause a buck is a buck) for rewrites. At best, a new additional chapter, because if Newton is still able to predict a satellite's orbit as accurately as it is, it still must be overwhelmingly correct. The suggestions given are probably far down the line in the list of probable causes. One can dream, but lay-people get weary of the NEXT BIG THING, particularly when even scientists don't yet know what to make of it.
 
Whoa, whoa there I say. Ya sound like the world's coming to an end. On the contrary, Newtons mechanics still work very nicely, and around the edges Special Relativity fills in nicely. Even if this turns out to be something as revolutionary as ST, there won't be a need (a NEED, I say - the books will be rewritten in any case, 'cause a buck is a buck) for rewrites. At best, a new additional chapter, because if Newton is still able to predict a satellite's orbit as accurately as it is, it still must be overwhelmingly correct. The suggestions given are probably far down the line in the list of probable causes. One can dream, but lay-people get weary of the NEXT BIG THING, particularly when even scientists don't yet know what to make of it.


These are good points. Even though Newtonian gravity isn't the most modern and accepted version of gravitational theory, it does work well for many things. Just like how we don't completely throw out classical Newtonian mechanics (F = ma) because of special relativity and quantum mechanics. F = ma still works extremely well for most situations (such as car collisions) that we are likely to encounter in our everyday lives.

In this sense, these portions of classical physics are, at best, approximations because they don't give us the most accurate view of things across all scales. General relativity is by far a superior expression of gravity in very intense fields and across the universe, and quantum mechanics definitely makes more sense on the atomic (and smaller) scale.

Newtonian physics has its place. Just not in all cases.

Perhaps some novel new addition or adjustment to our laws of physics awaits with the Pinoeer Anomaly, or perhaps it's something very mundane and boring. Who knows? We'll figure it out eventually, I think.

While I'm on the topic, here's a link to Wikipedia summarizing some of the possible explanations for the Anomaly...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pioneer_anomaly#Possible_explanations

Very interesting indeed - I'm especially interested in what they'll observe with the New Horizons spacecraft. I wonder if there's anyone putting together a betting pool on what the nature of the Anomaly is? :)
 
Furthermore, it is hypothesized that the solar system has escaped the gravity of the Galaxy as evidenced by its orbital speed and radial distance and by the visible mass within the solar system radius. This means that spacecraft which become unbound to the solar system would also be galactically unbound and subject to the Hubble law. This hypothesis and the extended Hubble law may explain the anomalous acceleration found to be acting upon the unbound Pioneer 10 & 11 spacecraft. Thus, the Pioneer anomaly may be a counter example to the dark matter hypothesis.
Because photons have a speed which make them unbound to the Galaxy, it is predicted that the navigation beam in open space would undergo a cosmological redshift in its frequency which would be detectable with modern clocks.
http://arxiv.org/abs/gr-qc/0610029v5

... and then my head exploded.


Again.
 
Self Creation Cosmology (SCC) theory claims the universe's mass is created out of its self contained gravitational and scalar fields. In other words, mass is again not constant over time and can be created by mass concentrations, allowing for the sort of matter creation envisioned by Arp to explain his observations. The original SCC paper appeared in 1982 by G.A. Barber. According to http://toolhost.com/Non-standard_cosmology.html, "The latest version of the theory is conformally equivalent to canonical GR in vacuo so that test particles follow the geodesics of GR in solar system experiments." The above source notes that SCC theory "does not require unknown dark energy, or exotic dark matter, to be concordant with present cosmological constraints. In particular, as an example of a freely coasting model, in which the universe expands strictly linearly with time, SCC clears basic constraints on nucleosynthesis." It also states that "in the Jordan conformal frame of the theory the cosmological solution is closed, static, eternal and singularity free. In this frame rulers 'shrink' and atomic clocks 'speed up' as their atoms exponentially gain mass with cosmological time. ... snip ... Finally, SCC predicts a cosmological 'clock-slip' between atomic clock time and ephemeris time. Consequentially, distant spacecraft should appear to suffer a sunwards acceleration equal to cH, as indeed seems to be observed in the Pioneer anomaly."

More on SCC can be found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-creation_cosmology .
 

Insane crackpot alert!!

Although it is intriguing that the anomalous acceleration of Pioneer is rather close to the Hubble acceleration. I noticed that a few years ago, but didn't (and don't) see how to make use of it.

Another interesting factoid is that most of the modified theories of gravity people have proposed make gravity weaker at long distances (usually because they are trying to solve the cosmological constant problem). But the extra Pioneer acceleration is towards the sun, as if gravity got stronger at long distances...
 
Another interesting factoid is that most of the modified theories of gravity people have proposed make gravity weaker at long distances (usually because they are trying to solve the cosmological constant problem). But the extra Pioneer acceleration is towards the sun, as if gravity got stronger at long distances...

http://www.holoscience.com/news/mystery_solved.html "After launch, a spacecraft accepts electrons from the surrounding space plasma until the craft’s voltage is sufficient to repel further electrons. Near Earth it is known that a spacecraft may attain a negative potential of several tens of thousands of volts relative to its surroundings. So, in interplanetary space, the spacecraft becomes a charged object moving in the Sun’s weak electric field. Being negatively charged, it will experience an infinitesimal “tug” toward the positively charged Sun. Of most significance is the fact that the voltage gradient, that is the electric field, throughout interplanetary space remains constant. In other words, the retarding force on the spacecraft will not diminish with distance from the Sun. This effect distinguishes the electrical model from all others because all known force laws diminish with distance."
 
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=0yfteeje "Voyager 1 at the Edge – of what?, 13 November 2005"

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=55fx8yeh "30 September 2006, Voyager Probes the Sun's Electrical Environment"

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/070912pioneeranomaly.htm "The Pioneer Anomaly, Sep 12, 2007"


More electric-plasma universe woo!!! Just as the thread was getting on track about the Pioneer Anomaly. Arrrggh... :mad:

Since the woos are going to post links, I might as well too...

Comparisons of Plasma Cosmology to Mainstream Cosmology

<snip>
"Plasma cosmology has been developed in much less detail than mainstream cosmology and lacks many of the key predictions and features of the current models[citation needed]. In mainstream cosmology, detailed simulations of the correlation function of the universe, primordial nucleosynthesis, and fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation, based on the principles of standard cosmology and a handful of free parameters, have been made and compared with observations, including non-trivial consistency checks. Plasma cosmology generally provides qualitative descriptions and no systematic explanation for the standard features of mainstream cosmological theories[citation needed].

For example, the standard hierarchical models of galaxy and structure formation rely on dark matter collecting into the superclusters, clusters, and galaxies seen in the universe today. The size and nature of structure are based on an initial condition from the primordial anisotropies seen in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background.[17] Recent simulations show agreement between observations of galaxy surveys and N-body cosmological simulations of the Lambda-CDM model.[18] Most astrophysicists accept dark matter as a real phenomenon and a vital ingredient in structure formation, which cannot be explained by appeal to electromagnetic processes. The mass estimates of galaxy clusters using gravitational lensing also indicate that there is a large quantity of dark matter present, an observation not explained by plasma cosmology models.[19]

Mainstream studies also suggest that the universe is homogeneous on large scales without evidence of the very large scale structure required by plasma filamentation proposals.[20] The largest galaxy number count to date, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, corresponds well to the mainstream picture.[21]

Light element production without Big Bang nucleosynthesis (as required in plasma cosmology) has been discussed in the mainstream literature and was determined to produce excessive x-rays and gamma rays beyond that observed.[22][23] This issue has not been completely addressed by plasma cosmology proponents in their proposals.[24] Additionally, from an observational point of view, the gamma rays emitted by even small amounts of matter/antimatter annihilation should be easily visible using gamma ray telescopes. However, such gamma rays have not been observed. This could be resolved by proposing, as Alfvén did, that the bubble of matter we are in is larger than the observable universe. In order to test such a model, some signature of the ambiplasma would have to be looked for in current observations, and this requires that the model be formalized to the point where detailed quantitative predictions can be made. This has not been accomplished.

No proposal based on plasma cosmology trying to explain the cosmic microwave background radiation has been published since COBE results were announced. Proposed explanations are relying on integrated starlight and do not provide any indication of how to explain that the observed angular anisotropies of CMB power spectrum is (so low as) one part in 105. The sensitivity and resolution of the measurement of these anisotropies was greatly advanced by WMAP. The fact that the CMB was measured to be so isotropic, inline with the predictions of the big bang model, was subsequently heralded as a major confirmation of the Big Bang model to the detriment of alternatives.[25] These measurements showed the "acoustic peaks" were fit with high accuracy by the predictions of the Big Bang model and conditions of the early universe.

Plasma cosmology is not considered by the astronomical community to be a viable alternative to the Big Bang, and even its advocates agree the explanations it provides for phenomena are less detailed than those of conventional cosmology[citation needed]. As such, plasma cosmology has remained sidelined and viewed in the community as a proposal unworthy of serious consideration.
"
</snip>

Good grief... will the flood of woo-crap never cease?! :boggled:
 
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http://www.holoscience.com/news/mystery_solved.html "After launch, a spacecraft accepts electrons from the surrounding space plasma until the craft’s voltage is sufficient to repel further electrons. Near Earth it is known that a spacecraft may attain a negative potential of several tens of thousands of volts relative to its surroundings. So, in interplanetary space, the spacecraft becomes a charged object moving in the Sun’s weak electric field. Being negatively charged, it will experience an infinitesimal “tug” toward the positively charged Sun. Of most significance is the fact that the voltage gradient, that is the electric field, throughout interplanetary space remains constant. In other words, the retarding force on the spacecraft will not diminish with distance from the Sun. This effect distinguishes the electrical model from all others because all known force laws diminish with distance."


Sigh... go back to the beginning of the thread (post #5) to see responses to this same cut n' paste job that Zeuzzz pulled there.

Zero points for originality and scientific usefulness... 109 points for using a time-honored woo tactic of cutting n' pasting pseudoscientific garbage from some book that reveals the "truth."

I think I have my answer to that hypothetical question about the flood of woo-crap...
 
Of most significance is the fact that the voltage gradient, that is the electric field, throughout interplanetary space remains constant. In other words, the retarding force on the spacecraft will not diminish with distance from the Sun. This effect distinguishes the electrical model from all others because all known force laws diminish with distance."

Why should the field remain constant? By Gauss's law, that requires not only a charge on the sun, but a volume charge throughout the entire solar system as well. And not just any volume charge, but a particular volume charge. How can such a volume charge in space be confined, and why should it take on that specific distribution? Such basic questions are not asked, let alone answered. This is not a model, it's hand-waving. Again.

The only motivation for the claim that the electric field is constant as a function of distance appears to be that graph showing the field in a discharge tube. But the geometry is fundamentally different: unlike the surface of a sphere at different radii, the cross-sectional area along a cylinder doesn't vary with distance, so applying Gauss's law gives you something different in that case than would exist for our sun. So it looks like the initial assertion actually comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of electricity. Not surprising, really, nor is it surprising that you didn't catch it.

Oh, and the electric force on a satellite in an electric field can come from more than just the charge on the satellite. If the field itself has a gradient (which it would for anything other than one particular volume charge distribution), then electric polarization of the satellite (which will happen because large parts of it are metal) will create a net force as well.
 
It doesn't even make the improbable more probable. Every hypothesis must stand on its own; creationism and ID are the only "theories" I know of that exist as a result of failure of other theories, and we know why that is.
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In a tennis tournament, if you knock out all the top seeds in the first round, the chances of a once-improbable outsider winning is now a certainty. The odds will change.

I recognize this is not a good analogy since a tennis tournament has a closed set of participants.
 
More electric-plasma universe woo!!! Just as the thread was getting on track about the Pioneer Anomaly. Arrrggh... :mad:

Since the woos are going to post links, I might as well too...

Comparisons of Plasma Cosmology to Mainstream Cosmology

Good grief... will the flood of woo-crap never cease?! :boggled:


Since you are so keen to keep bringing up that small wikipedia entry that purports to debunk plasma cosmology, thats have a look at some of the problems with it. As i said before, your best bet to see PC material is not on wikipedia, this site is far less biased.


"Plasma cosmology has been developed in much less detail than mainstream cosmology and lacks many of the key predictions and features of the current models[citation needed].


Yes, indeed, 'citation needed'


Plasma cosmology generally provides qualitative descriptions and no systematic explanation for the standard features of mainstream cosmological theories[citation needed].


No evidence for the proposition, again.


The mass estimates of galaxy clusters using gravitational lensing also indicate that there is a large quantity of dark matter present, an observation not explained by plasma cosmology models.[19]


This is hilarious! Mainstream scientists are saying that plasma cosmology is not viable because it is not based on things that they made up to plug the numbers in their models! The irony.

The fact that plasma cosmology needs no such epicycles such as 'dark matter' 'dark energy' or 'hidden dimensions' to function correctly is a strong strength of plamsa cosmology, definitely not a weakness.


Mainstream studies also suggest that the universe is homogeneous on large scales without evidence of the very large scale structure required by plasma filamentation proposals.[20]



Well, i don’t know what universe the people who wrote this are living in, but it definitely is not this one. Are they seriously saying that there is not large scale filamentation observed in space?

Even in our own milky way the abundance of filaments has largely remained a mystery to conventional astronomers with their gravitational only equations. They seem to be ignoring the large amount of galaxies recently discovered lined up along filamentary paths, In fact, these filamentary structures seem to be everywhere, from large scale to small scale, and are very hard to explain with gravitational equations alone, EM forces and currents have to be employed.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/galaxy_filaments_040607.html
New observations of the center of our Milky Way Galaxy have revealed the origin of radio-emitting filaments that puzzled astronomers for two decades.

The filaments range from 10 to 100 light-years in length and 1 to 3 light-years across. They occur only in a very narrow area, within about 900 light-years of the galactic center, a region crowded with old and new stars.

The filaments emerge from pockets of intense star formation, the new study found. [......]

The exact mechanism that creates the filaments remains to be discovered.

"One possibility is that they are produced by the collision of winds blown off from individual stars," Yusef-Zadeh said.



Who ever has administration rights over this page at wikipedia clearly lacks an in depth understanding of plasma astrophysics, and what its proponents have discovered over the past couple of decades.

* Microwave Generation from Filamentation and Vortex Formation within Magnetically Confined Electron Beams, A. L. Peratt and C. M. Snell, Physical Review Letters, 54, pp. 1167-1170, 1985 (688K).

* Interstellar Neutral Hydrogen Filaments at High Galactic Latitudes and the Bennett Pinch G. L. Verschuur, Astrophys. Space Sci. 227, pp. 187-198, 1995 (776K).

* Filamentary Structures in planetary nebulae (PDF), 2006-07-04, Seminar, Space & Plasma Physics, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm

* Filamentary structures in planetary nebulae - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 310, Issue 1-2, pp. 65-72, 2007
We have studied small-scale, filamentary features in 14 planetary nebulae and found that some structures are recurrent and shaped like the letters V and Y, with the apex or stem pointing toward the central parts of the nebula. Two such filaments containing dust, one in NGC 3132 and one in NGC 7293, were investigated in more detail. The mass and density of the filaments were obtained from extinction measurements, and their physical properties were derived. We propose that the structures are confined by magnetic fields, and derive magnetic field strengths of about 10‑8 T, in line with earlier estimates. We also estimate the magnitude of the electric currents that we expect are generated in these dynamic systems. We propose a theory where the magnetic fields control the sculpting and evolution of small-scale filaments. This theory demonstrates how the substructures may form magnetized flux ropes that are twisted around each other, in the shape of double helices [Birkeland currents]. Similar structures, and with similar origin, are found in many other astrophysical environments.




The largest galaxy number count to date, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, corresponds well to the mainstream picture.[21]


What they fail to note that these observations are consistent with both mainstream ideas and plasma cosmology, and that is probably why they do not say how this observation actually falsifies plasma cosmology.


Light element production without Big Bang nucleosynthesis (as required in plasma cosmology) has been discussed in the mainstream literature and was determined to produce excessive x-rays and gamma rays beyond that observed.[22][23] This issue has not been completely addressed by plasma cosmology proponents in their proposals.[24] Additionally, from an observational point of view, the gamma rays emitted by even small amounts of matter/antimatter annihilation should be easily visible using gamma ray telescopes. However, such gamma rays have not been observed. This could be resolved by proposing, as Alfvén did, that the bubble of matter we are in is larger than the observable universe.


This is what you get for trusting wikipedia. Light element production has been answered by many plasma cosmologists, I think that Lerners galaxy production method is favoured at the moment, Arp has proposed another method, others have proposed a stellar origin, and there are many others that are all viable contenders. I am very surprised they have not included this work on that page, as it appears to answer all the 'problems' they are saying exist. Heres a few;

* Magnetic Vortex Filaments, Universal Invariants and the Fundamental Constants IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Special Issue on Cosmic Plasma, Vol. PS‑14, No. 6, Dec. 1986, pp. 690‑702.

* Force-Free Magnetic Filaments and the Cosmic Background Radiation IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol.20, no. 6, Dec. 1992, pp. 935-938.

* Galactic Model of Element Formation IEEE Transac*tions on Plasma Science, Vol. 17, No. 3, April 1989, pp. 259‑263.

* Magnetic Self-Compression in Laboratory Plasma, Quasars and Radio Galaxies - Laser and Particle Beams, Vol. 4, Pt. 2, (1986), pp. 193-222.




No proposal based on plasma cosmology trying to explain the cosmic microwave background radiation has been published since COBE results were announced. Proposed explanations are relying on integrated starlight and do not provide any indication of how to explain that the observed angular anisotropies of CMB power spectrum is (so low as) one part in 105. The sensitivity and resolution of the measurement of these anisotropies was greatly advanced by WMAP. The fact that the CMB was measured to be so isotropic, inline with the predictions of the big bang model, was subsequently heralded as a major confirmation of the Big Bang model to the detriment of alternatives.[25]



Again, they seem to be ignoring the solutions offered to these problems.

* Radio Absorption by the Intergalactic Medium The Astro*physical Journal, Vol. 361, Sept. 20, 1990, pp. 63‑68.

* Confirmation of Radio Absorption by the Intergalactic Medium Astrophysics and Space Science, Vol 207, 1993 p.17-26.

* Intergalactic Radio Absorption and the COBE Data Astrophysics and Space Science, Vol.227, May, 1995, p.61-81

* Evidence for a Non-Expanding Universe: Surface Brightness Data From HUDF - Proceedings of the First Crisis in Cosmology Conference, AIP proceedings series 822, 2006, p.60-74.




Plasma cosmology is not considered by the astronomical community to be a viable alternative to the Big Bang. As such, plasma cosmology has remained sidelined and viewed in the community as a proposal unworthy of serious consideration.[/i]"



Well, I largely agree with that. A shame that there is so much resistance it, but the same is true with any new area of science. The trouble is that there is never any substantial, consistent reason proposed to dismiss Plasma cosmology, and so the scientists that support it seem to be growing in number every year.

I am still waiting for your source that refutes plasma cosmology, apart from wikipedia. If you cant find one, ask yourself why that is.

This paper sums up the comparison between the two cosmologies in a far less biased way than wikipedia.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?tp=&arnumber=1265349&isnumber=28301
Two world systems revisited: a comparison of plasma cosmology and the Big Bang
Lerner, E.J.
Lawrenceville Plasma Phys., NJ, USA;

This paper appears in: Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on
Publication Date: Dec. 2003
Volume: 31, Issue: 6, Part 1
On page(s): 1268- 1275

Abstract:

Despite its great popularity, the Big Bang framework for cosmology faces growing contradictions with observation. The Big Bang theory requires three hypothetical entities-the inflation field, nonbaryonic (dark) matter, and the dark energy field-to overcome gross contradictions of theory and observation. Yet, no evidence has ever confirmed the existence of any of these three hypothetical entities. The predictions of the theory for the abundance of /sup 4/He, /sup 7/Li, and D are more than 7/spl sigma/ from the data for any assumed density of baryons and the probability of the theory fitting the data is less than 10/sup -14/. Observations of voids in the distribution of galaxies that are in excess of 100 Mpc in diameter, combined with observed low streaming velocities of galaxies, imply an age for these structure that is at least triple and more likely six times the hypothesized time since the Big Bang. Big Bang predictions for the anisotropy of the microwave background, which now involve seven or more free parameters, still are excluded by the data at the 2/spl sigma/ level. The observed preferred direction in the background anisotropy completely contradicts Big Bang assumptions. In contrast, the predictions of plasma cosmology have been strengthened by new observations, including evidence for the stellar origin of the light elements, the plasma origin of large-scale structures, and the origin of the cosmic microwave background in a "radio fog" of dense plasma filaments. This review of the evidence shows that the time has come, and indeed has long since come, to abandon the Big Bang as the primary model of cosmology.
 
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More electric-plasma universe woo!!! Just as the thread was getting on track about the Pioneer Anomaly. Arrrggh... :mad:

Since the woos are going to post links, I might as well too...
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It would be nice if you didn't use ad hominems.
 
When you don't have good evidence, attack your opponent. It is a time tested scientific method.
 
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In a tennis tournament, if you knock out all the top seeds in the first round, the chances of a once-improbable outsider winning is now a certainty. The odds will change.

I recognize this is not a good analogy since a tennis tournament has a closed set of participants.

Indeed. In a tennis tournament you have a chosen set of entrants, one of which must be the ultimate winner. In dueling scientific theories the "winner" can only be determined from evidence that is beyond the control (ideally) of the theories or theorists, and it might be that evidence is uncovered which determines that none of the entrants is such a winner. "Odds", as such, have no place in the scientific method, because no one has a way of computing a valid probability; if they did, there would be no point for a tournament in the first place.
 
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I recognize this is not a good analogy since a tennis tournament has a closed set of participants.

It's not just not "good" - it illustrates precisely the opposite of what you want it to.

The world is not a tennis tournament - we don't know who the contestants are, or how many there are, or even what the rules of the game are. That's why this kind of logic fails completely.
 
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Not an Ad Hom to call this woo.

It's on its face stupid, revealing a complete lack of understanding of the evidentiary underpinnings of our present understanding of physical laws and a pathetic contempt for those who are smart enough to comprehend that.
 
Not an Ad Hom to call this woo.

It's on its face stupid, revealing a complete lack of understanding of the evidentiary underpinnings of our present understanding of physical laws and a pathetic contempt for those who are smart enough to comprehend that.
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There is a difference between describing a theory as woo, and calling the proponents woos. The latter is an ad hominem.
 

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