Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

Perpetual Student · Feb 16, 2009

Zeuzzz and Michael Mozina:
I believe there is no more fascinating quest than understanding the nature and origin of the universe and life. I dedicate much of my reading to these subjects. So I have great interest in these discussions and I very much appreciate and admire your efforts. Unfortunately, I am limited by having only a masters degree in mathematics and an undergraduate minor in physics so that much of these discussions are beyond my skills and knowledge. As a retired person with some time on my hands, I do my best.
The big bang concept is difficult for me -- the universe having a beginning, expanding, inflating, needing dark energy, etc. are all counter-intuitive and disturbing concepts. Even though I have been reading about these theories for decades from sources like (Scientific American, etc.), I wish alternative theories had more observational support simply because I find them more credible and satisfying.
Having said that, I can't ignore the weight of thousands of theorists in this field who support current prevailing theories. Accusations that they have blinders on or they are merely conforming to some group dogma do not ring true. They struggle to find explanations for astronomical observations that are consistent with known principles of physics. If any one or group of cosmologists, astrophysicists, astronomers, etc. could come up with viable alternative explanations, would they not publish their findings and be heard? They have as much passion for truth as you and would benefit from the esteem that would come from any theory that could overturn the current consensus. If there is any merit to you opinions, eventually you will be vindicated. If not, you have participated in an interesting discussion for old farts like me to ponder. In either case, thanks.

Dancing David · Feb 16, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
I do not pretend they dont exist. I do take it all in, and I appreciate peoples feedback. I'm just stubborn.

You seriously expect me to admit when I'm wrong? Surely, you know me better than this Maybe, (as i recall happened before) a certain said substance reduces my intransigency.

But I still hate you all.*

Coffe removes finger prints from the monitor screen, did you know that?

I do have a model. And I do have a theories. They just dont work.

....well, some anyway.

Many 'alternative' cosmologists have various theories on par with, or at least strikingly similar in approach, to plasma cosmology. But hey, PC (Lerner [1980-95] + Peratt) is pretty much dead. I spoke with Lerner the other day on his fusion forum, he acknowledged this himself. However, the unique and logical plasma based approach to cosmology/astrophysics/EU is still a perspective that could hold fruit. And not just apples and bannanas, but pinapples and gooseberries. I'm not alone in my various views. I'm in good company

As I have stated before Zeuzzz, I think the plasma has a very strong influence in the early universe.

But it is the extension of plasma to all sorts of speculative realms that is not worth merit.

I approached it openly, it is the consistency of theories that is the problem.

Plasma is part of the standard model.

So, meanwhile, I'll just keep picking holes in the silly little thing called BIG BANG. Maybe its more a philosophical quibble than rigourously science based opinion, but hey.

Again I object to the mischaracterization of the theory.

The explanation of the universe we observe is what is is. Most of the problem comes from trying to go past what we can observe.

The universe can be infite in time, but we can't see any evidence from prior to the BBE>

When the more definitive alternatve explantions that explain the inflation field and CMB emerge I'll be the first to post it here. Theres no shortage of people looking, and no shortage of potential theories.

Theres a heck of a lot of material to get though, and a hell of a lot of new theories to contemplate http://www.cosmology.info/

*that was a joke**

**an attempt at one anyway

It was funny.

tusenfem · Feb 16, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
Boloney. A "flux tube" is just your bogus jargon for "current carrying filament". The current flow in the filament is carried through the "flux tube", and that's the part you seem to be utterly oblivious about. It's the 'current flow' that is carried by the "magnetic rope". Alfven described a magnetic rope as a Bennett Pinch.

Evidently, you have no idea what a flux tube is. It is just a bundle of field lines, nothing more nothing less, and there is no reason whatsoever for a current to flow along it. In a perfect vacuum I can have magnetic field and define a flux tube.

Now, if there is a ponderomotive force working on the flux tube, like e.g. shear, or if the tube is bent, then there will be a current flowing along the flux tube. A field aligned current, which will create it's own, extra, magnetic field, twisting the flux tube, creating a flux rope.

And yeah, if there is current flowing, you can consider it as a Bennett pinch, but what exactly are the requierements for a Bennett pinch???

Michael Mozina said:
False again. It is *always the case* that currents flow or you wouldn't have what you are calling a "magnetic line" in the first place. That "tube' is no different that what we observe inside an ordinary plasma ball. It's a "current carrying filament" being 'pinched' by the magnetic field that forms around the current flow.

No, it is not, if I can turn off the conductivity of Io or Europa, then there still will be a flux tube, but there will be no current flowing along it.

You are hooked on semantics and misguided definitions. Unless Alfven said it, it cannot be true. You are oblivious of what magnetic fields do, you think the only flux tubes exist on the sun, I bet you can't even fathom a straight flux tube, in which nothing happens.

A plasma ball is not a flux tube! That is just lightning searching for the path of "least resistance". Naturally there will be small magnetic fields generated by the blue discharges that you see there but they have nothing to do with magnetic flux tubes. If they were magnetic flux tubes, how are they generated? Where is the current that creates that "tube". It cannot be the blue current, coz that only creates a poloidal current around itself.

Michael Mozina said:
You guys are oblivious to the *physics* of what's going on. You may understand the "math" just fine, but when it comes to the actual PHYSICS part, you're totally out to lunch. Magnetic fields not not "disconnect" or "reconnect". Only particles and circuits can do that in plasma.

And you, unfortunately are so messed up with respect to semantics, lack of imagination, and understanding of what a vector field actually does, it is astounding. You still have not told us in any significant way how you describe reconnection, how you describe the change of topology of the magnetic vector field, etc. etc.

Michael Mozina said:
The magnetic field only exists *because* of the current flow inside the tube. You can turn off the plasma ball and watch all the "flux tubes" disappear. You can turn it back on and watch them form again. It's the "current flow" inside that filament that is heating the plasma to millions of degrees! Get real.

No, get this into your head please: the current flowing along a mangetic flux tube CANNOT generate the field it is flowing along, no current can create an aligned magnetic field.

An for the umpteenth time, a plasma ball has nothing to do with magnetic fields and flux tubes.

You may have written a dubious paper once on the CNO cycle in a magnetic loop on the sun, but that does not mean that you understand what magnetic flux tubes, flux ropes, heck what a magnetic vector field is.

tusenfem · Feb 16, 2009

brantc said:
My bold red. I explained that exact process to you. I used mainstream terminology. I have not said anything "woo".

Again. The electron gyro radius in a plasma is much larger than in a solid wire.
The electron is now approaching the motion of an electric current in a SOLENOID. Because of the electrons gyroradius the magnetic field has a parallel component that is visible. Think of the flux tube as a long SOLENOID.
That is where the parallel component/vector comes in.

Conversely as a plasma approaches a solid (wire), the gyroradius becomes almost negligible producing the most extreme case of the right hand rule with almost straight electron travel.

Do you really think that on the scale of solar magnetic loops the gyro radius of the electron has any significance? You are trying to make things sound profounder than they are. A magnetic loop has a diameter of about the Earth's diameter and the field strength is about 10 Gauss (= 0.001 Tesla). What is the energy of the electron? Say lowly relativistic 2 10⁸ m/s, then if I am not mistaken, the larmor radius is 1 km! On the whole scale of these kinds of loops the gyro radius is negligible, unless you start to look at very very small structures. So, the field lines are ALWAYS "solid wires".

brantc said:
Now if you have 2 filaments next to each other they have some repulsive force.
If there is a fluctuation in the current supply feeding the magnetic field, the repulsive force collapses(attractive force takes over) and the filaments touch.
This causes a short circuit and bang "reconnection". Not magnetic reconnection.
The change is current changing from flowing in 2 parallel strands to flowing across 2 strands. There is also a short lived double layer that forms between the two strands as the current flow switches direction. As the current increases in strength "between" the 2 strands the middle will increase in magnetic field strength ejecting some particles.

Again, you forget the most important part in your description, do you have parallel or anti parallel magnetic field in those filamnents? Is the current flowing in the same or in opposite directoin?

I guess anti parallel currents, because you have a repulsive force.
A fluctuation of the current feeding the field, THAT current does not exist! The magnetic loops on the surface of the Sun are maintained by current systems under the surface of the Sun.
If the current fluctuates or disappears, where exactly does the attractive force come from?
Your whole idea does not compute.
And why on Earth (or rather Sun) would there be a double layer created? How is this DL created and why? It sounds nice, but the why?

No magnetic reconnection, ey? Then why does the topology of the loop change from one large loop, to a sort of figure 8, with half the bottom circle of the 8 under the surface of the Sun. You really do not see that the magnetic field topology has significantly changed? That first you could draw field lines along the loop (possibly spiralling a bit) and then out of that there are created two kinds of "loops", one a smaller version of the starting loop and one a closed loop? At some points the field lines that you could draw have at one point a significant changed, whethere they are real or not. You can do the same by just looking at the magnetic vector field with is topologically different.

brantc said:
So no I am not propagating the mainstream viewpoint. I am correcting the mainstream view point in one specific area, and explaining the "somehow" mystery. And in addition, showing how flux tubes are current carriers with a "'parallel" magnetic field.

There is nothing woo about this. Something is making that electromagnetic field, and that is moving electrons. Something is making those electrons move down that flux tube, and that is the electric field across (potential difference) the flux tube. And as such we can say that flux tubes carry electrical current to equalize the potential difference(between objects), no matter the reason for the difference.

From looking at what is going on here, what is lacking is objective causality.
You have to start somewhere. Everything should reduce to one basic idea(ideally). With plasma and magnetic fields that is electric current.
My favorite unit is the eV or electron volt. You can describe most everything in eV....

No, you are not "correcting" mainstream, you just put some profound sounding terms in a row and call it a "model". You have not the first idea of what exactly happens. You don't seem to understand the current systems involved and the topological changes of the magnetic vector field.

Well, the green part does not even sound too bad, but then that is not so profound and any schoolkid learning physics could write up the same.

Maybe we have to start somewhere, and if you want to discuss the sun then you start somewhere deep in the sun in the convection layer, where the solar magnetic field is created.

Michael Mozina · Feb 16, 2009

tusenfem said:
Evidently, you have no idea what a flux tube is. It is just a bundle of field lines, nothing more nothing less, and there is no reason whatsoever for a current to flow along it. In a perfect vacuum I can have magnetic field and define a flux tube.

This is essentially the heart of our disagreement in a nutshell. It is you that do not know what a "flux tube" is. Alfven already described these events tusenfum. He described them tin terms of "electrical discharges", "exploding double layers", "current sheet acceleration" and in terms of *electrical current flow* in plasma. You're simply making up stuff now and ignoring the *physics* entirely.

The "tube" is a direct result of the "current flow" inside that plasma filament. The magnetic fields are simply "pinching" the flow into a filamentary shape, the same exactly kind of thing you find inside of an ordinary plasma ball. The kinetic energy of the particles conveys the "energy" at the point of "reconnection".

Somehow you believe these are stationary magnetic lines without any sort of "current flow" but even a cursory glance at a Hinode image demonstrates that this is absurd. The plasma is *moving* at high velocity tusenfum. That solar wind is whipping by the magnetosphere at over a million miles per hour. Alfven called your theory "pseudoscience' because it doesn't accurately describe the real "physics' going on. It is the movement of charged particles that generates the magnetic fields. If you looked at an ordinary plasma ball filament, it has a magnetic field around the "tube". The "tube" is composed of moving charged particles, AKA "current flow", and the power to generate these movements in plasma comes from the "circuit energy" of the system.

sol invictus · Feb 16, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
This is essentially the heart of our disagreement in a nutshell. It is you that do not know what a "flux tube" is.

tusenfem's usage is standard across all of physics and astrophysics. A flux tube is nothing more or less than a collection of field lines (hence "flux") confined or concentrated into a roughly cylindrical volume (hence "tube").

If you knew even high school level physics you'd know that the current is the curl of the B field. So for a magnetic flux tube the current is potentially non-zero only if there is a non-zero curl. But inside the tube the field can be constant, and on the edge there might be an electric current wrapping around it (as in a solenoid) or some magnetization of the material (zero current). Other possibilities exist too, but in neither of those standard cases is any current flowing down the flux tube.

Michael Mozina · Feb 16, 2009

sol invictus said:
tusenfem's usage is standard across all of physics and astrophysics.

So is the term "magnetic reconnection". You'll need a better excuse than "everybody does it".

A flux tube is nothing more or less than a collection of field lines (hence "flux") confined or concentrated into a roughly cylindrical volume (hence "tube").

How did they get "constrained" into a "tube" shape exactly in your opinion?

If you knew even high school level physics you'd know that the current is the curl of the B field. So for a magnetic flux tube the current is potentially non-zero only if there is a non-zero curl.

Bingo! I also know that the solar wind is whizzing through the whole of interplanetary space at a million miles per hour, so I know that nowhere inside this solar system is curl B= 0, and current flows through the whole thing.

Those are not just intangible magnetic tubes, they are "current carrying filaments" that are "pinched" by the magnetic field that is generated by the current flow of charged particles in the tube. The "tube" is composed of moving charged particles just like we observe in an ordinary plasma ball. The movement of the solar wind and the movement of the plasma inside the plasma ball is a direct result of the charge separation between the sphere in the middle and the outside layer. In this case only the polarity is reversed.

Michael Mozina · Feb 16, 2009

tusenfem said:
Do you really think that on the scale of solar magnetic loops the gyro radius of the electron has any significance?

Yes.

You are trying to make things sound profounder than they are.

You're trying to *oversimplify* the process and ignore the physics entirely!

A magnetic loop has a diameter

How does a "magnetic loop" have a "diameter" exactly? What "physical" thing makes up this "diameter" you're talking about?

It's painfully clear to me that you folks understand a lot about math and almost absolutely *nothing* about physics. What the heck do you figure allows for these "tubes" to form if not the particles that make up that "tube"? Magnetic "lines" don't form as "tubes", the plasma forms "tubes" of flowing particles! You guys keep putting the cart before the horse. That magnetic "tube" is simply following the current flow and "pinching" it into a tube shape just as it does inside of an ordinary plasma ball. There's no mystery here except why you keep trying to ignore the "current flow" that drives the parade.

of about the Earth's diameter and the field strength is about 10 Gauss (= 0.001 Tesla). What is the energy of the electron? Say lowly relativistic 2 10⁸ m/s, then if I am not mistaken,

I guess it would take a boat load of them then to add up to that much energy eh?

The "radius" your talking about is a function of the density of the plasma and the amount of current flow inside the tube. It's not related to a single electron or a single atom, but rather it is related to the "whole system" and the events within the "whole system".

Michael Mozina · Feb 16, 2009

tusenfem said:
No, get this into your head please: the current flowing along a mangetic flux tube CANNOT generate the field it is flowing along, no current can create an aligned magnetic field.

Boloney.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current

Tim Thompson · Feb 17, 2009

Very Amusing

tusenfem said:
No, get this into your head please: the current flowing along a mangetic flux tube CANNOT generate the field it is flowing along, no current can create an aligned magnetic field.

Michael Mozina said:
Boloney.

I hate to break the bad news, but the picture you just posted is a picture of what tusenfem said, a picture of what you called "baloney". Sometimes these boards can be very amusing.

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

Tim Thompson said:
I hate to break the bad news, but the picture you just posted is a picture of what tusenfem said, a picture of what you called "baloney". Sometimes these boards can be very amusing.

No Tim.

Electrons moving along a Birkeland current may be accelerated by a plasma double layer. If the resulting electrons approach relativistic velocities (ie. the speed of light) they may subsequently produce a Bennett pinch, which in a magnetic field will spiral and emit synchrotron radiation that includes radio, optical (ie. light), x-rays, and gamma rays.

Shall we now look at a the definition of a Bennett Pinch?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bennett_pinch

A pinch is the compression of an electrically conducting filament by magnetic forces. The conductor is usually a plasma, but could also be a solid or liquid metal. In a z-pinch, the current is axial (in the z direction in a cylindrical coordinate system) and the magnetic field azimuthal; in a theta-pinch, the current is azimuthal (in the theta direction in cylindrical coordinates) and the magnetic field is axial. The phenomenon may also be referred to as a "Bennett pinch"[1] (after Willard Harrison Bennett), "electromagnetic pinch",[2] "magnetic pinch",[3] "pinch effect"[4] or "plasma pinch".[5]

Pinches occur naturally in electrical discharges such as lightning bolts,[6] the aurora,[7] current sheets,[8] and solar flares.[9] They are also produced in the laboratory, primarily for research into fusion power, but also by hobbyists

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

Perpetual Student said:
Zeuzzz and Michael Mozina:
I believe there is no more fascinating quest than understanding the nature and origin of the universe and life. I dedicate much of my reading to these subjects. So I have great interest in these discussions and I very much appreciate and admire your efforts. Unfortunately, I am limited by having only a masters degree in mathematics and an undergraduate minor in physics so that much of these discussions are beyond my skills and knowledge. As a retired person with some time on my hands, I do my best.

I humbly suggest to you, with all your math skills and physics skills, that these discussions are *not* beyond your abilities at all. They would simply like you to believe that this is the case. They have math skills to be sure, but their understanding of real "physics" at the level of particle physics is about zilch. Maybe one in ten of them have any understanding of electrical theory, and by and large their math skill are superficial in forums such as this one where they have to bark math on command. Some exceptional few might have better math skills, but by and large they aren't that impressive IMO. Most of it is "made up" math that does not have a "physical" explanation, nor is it related to anything physically tangible. None of the "problems" in their papers are mathematical in nature because they are competent in math. Their failing is at the level of physics and I can assure you that they are simply making up the math as they go. That's not real math, that's bogus nonsense they can't demonstrate here on Earth. All of it is related to their subjective (and collective) "interpretation" of the redshift phenomenon and there are far more credible explanations for this phenomenon that are fully mathematically quantified and that scare the hell out of this group as whole.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0411666

Don't worry about that math. I'll be happy to provide you will all the math and physical explanations you want.

The big bang concept is difficult for me -- the universe having a beginning, expanding, inflating, needing dark energy, etc. are all counter-intuitive and disturbing concepts.

It's not just you that find these to be counter-intuitive ideas. That's a growing phenomenon, especially since they stuffed "dark energy" in there about 15 years ago, and the internet started making more information available to the general public. Believe me, you aren't alone in your skepticism.

Even though I have been reading about these theories for decades from sources like (Scientific American, etc.), I wish alternative theories had more observational support simply because I find them more credible and satisfying.

I would respectfully suggest that alternative theories do have more observational support than Lambda-CMD theory, by a large margin in fact. It all depends on what you choose to focus your attention on, and where you look. They want you to compare theories based on following along with their creation mythos. You can't think like that and you have to open your mind to new ideas, especially ideas related to the redshift phenomenon. In every other respect, EU/PC theory is *FAR* more supported by observation than mainstream theory. I'll demonstrate that is this thread over the next few weeks, months and years if that is what it takes.

Having said that, I can't ignore the weight of thousands of theorists in this field who support current prevailing theories. Accusations that they have blinders on or they are merely conforming to some group dogma do not ring true.

If someone accused me of "making up" an EM field in my head and asked for physical evidence that "electricity" wasn't a figment of my imagination, I'll tell them to stick their finger in a working light socket, and I guarantee you they'd never ask me for evidence of electricity ever again.

Now why in the world is it too much to ask for them to demonstrate inflation isn't a figment of Guth's overactive imagination?

They struggle to find explanations for astronomical observations that are consistent with known principles of physics.

Hah! They "made up" the "physics" related to inflation based not on empirical testing, but based on wishful thinking and point at the sky exercises. They don't have any principles of physics that support inflation. Light does not maintain constant density over exponential increase in volume, and no known vector or scalar field in nature does. They literally created a "supernatural" construct with inflation and gave it "supernatural" physical properties that you and I can't even test here on Earth.

If any one or group of cosmologists, astrophysicists, astronomers, etc. could come up with viable alternative explanations, would they not publish their findings and be heard?

They have been published. Whether they are "heard" or not depends on the individual. Birkeland wrote about his "predictions" of coronal loops and jet and high speed solar wind 100 years ago, and most have never even read his work. They still find the solar wind to be a big "mystery" even 100 years later. Hearing is a function of access to data and the openness of one's mind. Until the dawn of the internet, the mainstream was the only one with access to data. That has all changed in the last 15 years or so with the growth of the internet. I had no access to Birkeland's work until I downloaded it from the internet. I ordered Cosmic Plasma by Alfven. Between the two of them, they opened my mind and I see that there are "better" scientific explanations for many observations.

They have as much passion for truth as you and would benefit from the esteem that would come from any theory that could overturn the current consensus.

But unlike me, many of them have written about and talked about inflation and dark energy and their professional and personal ego's are all wrapped up in "being right". I have nothing to lose as it relates to professional stature in this industry so I can speak my mind freely. Not everyone has that luxury. Many times they jobs and livelihood and food on their family's table depend on them "getting along" with their peers. That can have a dramatic influence on whether one is willing to "question the dogma" openly and honestly and with an open mind.

If there is any merit to you opinions, eventually you will be vindicated.

Exactly. I believe there is merit to EU/PC theory and I believe it will eventually be vindicated. It took the mainstream 60 something years to figure out that Birkeland was right and Chapman was wrong. He's still more than 100 years ahead of them today. He had working models. They are still "mystified" by easy things like solar wind acceleration and coronal loops and "jets" and things that Birkeland actually simulated in a lab.

If not, you have participated in an interesting discussion for old farts like me to ponder. In either case, thanks.

I hope you stick around and enjoy the discussion. I think you'll find that most EU/PC proponents have a pretty open minded and fair attitude. I've personally been busting their chops a bit, only to demonstrate that their beloved Lambda-Gumby theory is no better than any other cosmology theory out there. It's got "strengths' and weaknesses, but for "predicting" anything inside the solar system, their cosmology beliefs are almost useless. That is not true of EU theory which has not only "predicted"" solar wind acceleration, but also "simulated" it here on Earth in a lab in controlled experimentation.

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/birkeland.pdf

That is a link to a 160 meg PDF file that contains the bulk of Birkeland's life's work. It opened up my eyes to reality and astronomy.

Perpetual Student · Feb 17, 2009

"http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/birkeland.pdf

That is a link to a 160 meg PDF file that contains the bulk of Birkeland's life's work. It opened up my eyes to reality and astronomy." __M. Mozina

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
OK, thanks. I will review the file. Until just recently, I had not been familiar with Birkeland.

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

sol invictus said:
Dunno if this is precisely what Tim has in mind, but one of the most basic features of plasmas is that magnetic field lines are almost frozen to the plasma around them. Which means if you start with some B field, no matter how small, you can increase its magnitude tremendously through currents (not electric currents - just ordinary net-neutral flows of particles) which carry the lines with them and tangle them up. Very small seed B fields can get multiplied by huge factors, particularly when the flows are fast and turbulent.

Those basic facts are born out by theory, numerical simulations, and experiments.

Okay. So the plasma which is moved by gravity takes a magnetic seed which a little bird dropped after eating from the magnetic tree, and amplifies this using only the force of gravity.

And I doubt turbulence will amplify anything.....

sol invictus · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Okay. So the plasma which is moved by gravity takes a magnetic seed which a little bird dropped after eating from the magnetic tree, and amplifies this using only the force of gravity.

Small magnetic fields are ubiquitous - they arise due to static discharges, EM radiation, ferrous materials, etc. They can come from almost anything. The relevant physics is that regardless of their initial magnitude, they very rapidly get magnified in plasmas.

And I doubt turbulence will amplify anything.....

Your doubts could hardly be less interesting. Facts are facts - now run away and play.

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

tusenfem said:
No, get this into your head please: the current flowing along a mangetic flux tube CANNOT generate the field it is flowing along, no current can create an aligned magnetic field.

Do you think there is a current flowing along this "flux" tube. And I bet it has a parallel vector component due to all the electrons doing their gyro dance around the slinky.

Astronomers find magnetic Slinky in Orion
ttp://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/12_helical.shtml

For the mainstream a flux tube is a mathematical description having no basis in reality.

For EU a flux tube is a physical entity consisting of plasma in a tubelike form that may have either a perpendicular or parallel magnetic field depending on conditions, and carries a electric current in the form of electrons. It may consist of a neutral plasma but that doesnt take into account that like a wire as many electrons are replaced as leave.

Although I dont agree with everything Paul Bellan says I think he makes a couple of really good experimental points. My red and bold.

"PRL 95, 045002 (2005) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS week ending
22 JULY 2005
Dynamic and Stagnating Plasma Flow Leading to Magnetic-Flux-Tube Collimation
S. You, G. S. Yun, and P. M. Bellan
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
(Received 6 February 2005; published 22 July 2005)"

"The results thus provide strong evidence for flow-driven collimation of flared magnetic-flux tubes. This process requires net electrical current, a supply of particles, and stagnation of the driven flow. In an astrophysical context, accretion disks supply plasma and flows stagnate at the lobes; a net axial current is understood to be necessary for self-confinement [26], and recent observations of helical magnetic field structure in jets are indicative of net axial current [27]. The electrical circuit is then closed by radial currents in the accretion disk, returning via the cocoon.
Active solar regions also exhibit unneutralized electrical currents [28]. We emphasize that strong flows and collimation can be driven by even modest amounts of current, before reaching the kink instability (high current)
threshold.
This work was supported by U.S. DoE and NSF.

[24] S. Mar et al., J. Phys. B 33, 1169 (2000).
[25] H. R. Griem, Plasma Spectroscopy (McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1964).
[26] A. Ferrari, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 36, 539 (1998).
[27] Y. Uchida et al., Astrophys. J. 600, 88 (2004).
[28] M. S. Wheatland,"

ttp://ve4xm.caltech.edu/webpub/2005%20You%20Yun%20Bellan%20Phys%20Rev%20Letter%20Jet%20Collimation.pdf

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

sol invictus said:
Small magnetic fields are ubiquitous - they arise due to static discharges, EM radiation, ferrous materials, etc. They can come from almost anything. The relevant physics is that regardless of their initial magnitude, they very rapidly get magnified in plasmas.

Your doubts could hardly be less interesting. Facts are facts - now run away and play.

Simulations are not facts. Sorry.....

sol invictus · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Simulations are not facts. Sorry.....

Yeah, you're right - your ignorant guesses are far more reliable than numerical simulations of Maxwell's equations in plasma, programmed by experts, run on massively parallel supercomputers over years, and supported by observations and experiments.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

Zeuzzz said:
Your list is silly Reality Check. Not all those publications are core areas of PC. Many of them merely act as supporting evidence of one aspect of plasma cosmology. Many of them merely demonstrate that plasma scaling exists, and thus is a valid aspect of plasma cosmology which many of the models are based on. Many of them merely demonstrate the importance of plasma in the the universe, which is often overlooked by BB exclusively gravitationally based theories, but central to plasma cosmology. They are no more core aspects of plasma cosmology than the orbit of Neptune is to the Big Bang.

(bold added)

IIRC, you stated, in a post near the end of the thread as it was then, that one of the "core areas of PC" is this:

Since every part of the universe we observe is evolving, it [plasma cosmology] assumes that the universe itself is evolving as well, though a scalar expansion as predicted from the FRW metric is not accepted as part of this evolution

(bold added)

And you gave as the source a person who is unquestionably a contemporary giant in the PC world, Eric Lerner.

Is this still a core aspect of PC?

So, lets have another go. You say we need to give comparisons between PC and BBT to see what they predict differently.

Maybe listening to Lerner and Peratts breif overview here would be a good idea to start with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-4jPllBldM

BBT: The universe is assumed to have a beginning and an end in time.
PC: The universe is assumed infinite in time and constantly evolving.

BBT: The universe originated from a highly homogeneous state and will remain largely so in the future.
PC: The universe is filamentary and clumpy. The large scale structure of the cosmos will not be homogeneous but highly filamentary.

BBT: CMB radiation will be isotropic.
PC: The CMB will not be entirely isotropic, certianly not the extent the Big Bang originally predicted.

BBT: The anisotropy of the CBR will be random, due mainly to the properties of the gravitational field.
PC: The anisotropy of the CBR will show a strong preferred orientation in the sky. Mainly due to magnetic anisotropy which occurs in a plasma, so that its magnetic field is oriented in a preferred direction.

BBT: The universe is nearly entirely electrically neutral and so EM and plasma considerations do not effect any gravitationally based models at all. The large charge separation we notice on Earth and in our local environment is just magic and a special unique event.
PC: Charge separation occurs in outer space due to various complex non linear plasma characteristics.

BBT: Energy can be created instantaneously out of nothing.
PC: Energy can not be created out of nothing, in accordance with conservation of energy.

BBT: The dark energy field can create energy out of nothing.
PC: Bollocks.

BBT: We can abandon common sense and known physics to explain contradictory observations.
PC: We must stick to well known, testable, provable, laboratory based verifiable physics, without adding ptolemaic epicycles to explain observations and conflicting observations.

There probably a few more about primordial elements too, etc. I'll get back to this list in a bit.

I see others have demolished this list rather robustly, so I'll only comment on the last, the one about "known physics" and "well known, testable, provable, laboratory based verifiable physics", to ask you whether a 'just because (Lerner said so)'* reason for "not accepting" the application of the theory of General Relativity (GR) to the universe as a whole is consistent with science.

ETA: Are you yet able to cite any papers, published in relevant peer-reviewed journals, which report the results of "laboratory based verifiable physics" on the Arpian intrinsic redshift? And no, I don't mean those of Emile Wolf, because, as you know full well, the Wolf effect cannot account for the fact that the redshift of quasar host galaxies is the same as that of the quasars themselves (as has been known since at least ~1983).

* and let's note that Lerner's intellectual father, Alfvén, was not so lacking in integrity as to ever have made this kind of creationist-like pronouncement.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Do you think there is a current flowing along this "flux" tube. And I bet it has a parallel vector component due to all the electrons doing their gyro dance around the slinky.

Astronomers find magnetic Slinky in Orion
ttp://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/12_helical.shtml

For the mainstream a flux tube is a mathematical description having no basis in reality.

For EU a flux tube is a physical entity consisting of plasma in a tubelike form that may have either a perpendicular or parallel magnetic field depending on conditions, and carries a electric current in the form of electrons. It may consist of a neutral plasma but that doesnt take into account that like a wire as many electrons are replaced as leave.

Although I dont agree with everything Paul Bellan says I think he makes a couple of really good experimental points. My red and bold.

"PRL 95, 045002 (2005) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS week ending
22 JULY 2005
Dynamic and Stagnating Plasma Flow Leading to Magnetic-Flux-Tube Collimation
S. You, G. S. Yun, and P. M. Bellan
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
(Received 6 February 2005; published 22 July 2005)"

"The results thus provide strong evidence for flow-driven collimation of flared magnetic-flux tubes. This process requires net electrical current, a supply of particles, and stagnation of the driven flow. In an astrophysical context, accretion disks supply plasma and flows stagnate at the lobes; a net axial current is understood to be necessary for self-confinement [26], and recent observations of helical magnetic field structure in jets are indicative of net axial current [27]. The electrical circuit is then closed by radial currents in the accretion disk, returning via the cocoon.
Active solar regions also exhibit unneutralized electrical currents [28]. We emphasize that strong flows and collimation can be driven by even modest amounts of current, before reaching the kink instability (high current)
threshold.
This work was supported by U.S. DoE and NSF.

[24] S. Mar et al., J. Phys. B 33, 1169 (2000).
[25] H. R. Griem, Plasma Spectroscopy (McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1964).
[26] A. Ferrari, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 36, 539 (1998).
[27] Y. Uchida et al., Astrophys. J. 600, 88 (2004).
[28] M. S. Wheatland,"

ttp://ve4xm.caltech.edu/webpub/2005%20You%20Yun%20Bellan%20Phys%20Rev%20Letter%20Jet%20Collimation.pdf

HI brantc.

I'm a bit late coming (back) to this thread.

Would you mind telling me what this post of yours, and indeed nearly all yours in this thread, has to do with 'Plasma Cosmology'?

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

sol invictus said:
Yeah, you're right - your ignorant guesses are far more reliable than numerical simulations of Maxwell's equations in plasma, programmed by experts, run on massively parallel supercomputers over years, and supported by observations and experiments.

Even still there *is* a significant difference between "software science" and real "hardware science". I'm sure inflation works in a software simulation, it just doesn't work in real life.

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
From looking at what is going on here, what is lacking is objective causality.

That is in fact exactly what is lacking alright. In Birkeland's experiments charge separation and charge attraction were the driving mechanisms behind his observations, whereas the mainstream is putting the cart before the horse and trying to claim the magnetic field does the work. Birkeland's sphere only worked (produced jets, wind, coronal loops) when the surface of the sphere had a charge and there was charge separation between the sphere and the chamber.

Their models don't actually work in a lab, they only work in computer models. It's like inflation code....garbage in, garbage out. Try it in a lab and the whole thing falls apart. To understand "causality" you have to go and do empirical experiments with electricity and they are paranoid about electricity and have absolutely no idea what a real lab experiment with actual control mechanisms might be.

Not only that, they believe that magnetic lines disconnect and reconnect! I guess that's what happens when all your ideas come from a computer rather than from an actual experiment with real control mechanisms and real forces of nature.

tusenfem · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Do you think there is a current flowing along this "flux" tube. And I bet it has a parallel vector component due to all the electrons doing their gyro dance around the slinky.

Okay, question to brantc: Do you know Maxwell's equations?

In your message above you say that the gyro radius of the electrons play a role in the flux tube. However, the electrons will not magically start to gyrate, for that it needs a magnetic field to start with. Otherwise, electrons just move however they want, but not in a gyrating motion, because that needs the Lorentz force, in order to create the centripital force necessary for gyrational motion. The straight line in the figure that micheal mozina put in his message above, in the centre of the gyrating motions is the "core field" which has its source below the surface of the sun and is not maintained nor created by the electrons (and ions by the way) that gyrate around it.

brantc said:
Astronomers find magnetic Slinky in Orion
ttp://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2006/01/12_helical.shtml

For the mainstream a flux tube is a mathematical description having no basis in reality.

For EU a flux tube is a physical entity consisting of plasma in a tubelike form that may have either a perpendicular or parallel magnetic field depending on conditions, and carries a electric current in the form of electrons. It may consist of a neutral plasma but that doesnt take into account that like a wire as many electrons are replaced as leave.

Although I dont agree with everything Paul Bellan says I think he makes a couple of really good experimental points. My red and bold.

"PRL 95, 045002 (2005) PHYSICAL REVIEW LETTERS week ending
22 JULY 2005
Dynamic and Stagnating Plasma Flow Leading to Magnetic-Flux-Tube Collimation
S. You, G. S. Yun, and P. M. Bellan
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, California 91125, USA
(Received 6 February 2005; published 22 July 2005)"

"The results thus provide strong evidence for flow-driven collimation of flared magnetic-flux tubes. This process requires net electrical current, a supply of particles, and stagnation of the driven flow. In an astrophysical context, accretion disks supply plasma and flows stagnate at the lobes; a net axial current is understood to be necessary for self-confinement [26], and recent observations of helical magnetic field structure in jets are indicative of net axial current [27]. The electrical circuit is then closed by radial currents in the accretion disk, returning via the cocoon.
Active solar regions also exhibit unneutralized electrical currents [28]. We emphasize that strong flows and collimation can be driven by even modest amounts of current, before reaching the kink instability (high current)
threshold.
This work was supported by U.S. DoE and NSF.

[24] S. Mar et al., J. Phys. B 33, 1169 (2000).
[25] H. R. Griem, Plasma Spectroscopy (McGraw-Hill,
New York, 1964).
[26] A. Ferrari, Annu. Rev. Astron. Astrophys. 36, 539 (1998).
[27] Y. Uchida et al., Astrophys. J. 600, 88 (2004).
[28] M. S. Wheatland,"

ttp://ve4xm.caltech.edu/webpub/2005%20You%20Yun%20Bellan%20Phys%20Rev%20Letter%20Jet%20Collimation.pdf

WRONG!!!! in the EU apparently field lines do not exist (ask Mr Mozina) so why would a flux tube be a physical entity?

And why would you say Bellan is making the points when the first author apparently is You? Please give credit where it is due. The helical magnetic field in outflow regions and jets is well understood by mainstream physics, but I doubt you would understand it.
And what the heck are "unneutralized" currents?

and by the way here is the paper at ArXiv

tusenfem · Feb 17, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
How does a "magnetic loop" have a "diameter" exactly? What "physical" thing makes up this "diameter" you're talking about?

The diameter at the surface of the Sun, where the magnetic loop comes out. You will hopefully not deny that there is a certain cross section of the footpoints of the loop when they exist the surface?

That diameter I took as roughly 1 Earth diameter, which is nothing special, rather tiny actually, and the field of 10 Gauss and the (perpendicular???) electron velocity of 2/3 c, and then you find a gyro radius of about 1 km, which means that on over that whole structure of the magnetic loop, you can forget about the electron gyroradius. And why is that good, especially for you, MM???????????

Because you want to do MHD created by Saint Hannes, which per definition does not apply at length scales below the largest ion gyro radius. Read your classics MM, maybe you might learn something?

Michael Mozina said:
The "radius" your talking about is a function of the density of the plasma and the amount of current flow inside the tube. It's not related to a single electron or a single atom, but rather it is related to the "whole system" and the events within the "whole system".

No Mr MM, that would be the Debye sphere, or something, the gyro radius is absolutely NOT a function of the plasma density, did you ever read Alfven's work? You unmask yourself as knowledgeable of even the basics of Alfven's work, and you say that I have to read the old master? Get a life!

tusenfem · Feb 17, 2009

MM?? said:
Electrons moving along a Birkeland current may be accelerated by a plasma double layer. If the resulting electrons approach relativistic velocities (ie. the speed of light) they may subsequently produce a Bennett pinch, which in a magnetic field will spiral and emit synchrotron radiation that includes radio, optical (ie. light), x-rays, and gamma rays.

Sentences like this should make anyone, who is serious about plasma physics or space physics weep. I have the feeling this was written by Ian Tresman and appeared on the old double layer wiki page, but that as an aside.

electrons flowing along a Birkeland current: The electrons cannot flow along a Birkeland current, they WOULD BE the Birkeland current, sheesh!
may be accelerated by a double layer: or may be accelerated by just an electric field, why specifically a double layer which will only appear in a current when the density of the current carriers (electrons and ions) is too low to support the current density, and hence have to be accelerated. But not every electric field is a double layer.
If they reach relativistic velocities they may create a Bennett pinch: why should they need to be relativistic (although electrons are easy that way), the Bennett pinch only says that the magnetic force has to overcome the plasma pressure, which can easily be done with strong current without the electrons being relativistic.
which in a magnetic field will spiral: what will spiral? the bennett pinch? No, I guess he means the electrons, and yes they can spiral, but if the are accelerated by a double layer their main velocity will be along the field and thus very little "spiraling" will happen.
and emit radiation: yeah this is definitely a text written by Ian, which appeared in the old double layer wiki page, and in some other places. Fortunately, this time it is not happening in the double layer.

If you quote something, michael mozina please check what is written.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
That is in fact exactly what is lacking alright. In Birkeland's experiments charge separation and charge attraction were the driving mechanisms behind his observations, whereas the mainstream is putting the cart before the horse and trying to claim the magnetic field does the work. Birkeland's sphere only worked (produced jets, wind, coronal loops) when the surface of the sphere had a charge and there was charge separation between the sphere and the chamber.

Their models don't actually work in a lab, they only work in computer models. It's like inflation code....garbage in, garbage out. Try it in a lab and the whole thing falls apart. To understand "causality" you have to go and do empirical experiments with electricity and they are paranoid about electricity and have absolutely no idea what a real lab experiment with actual control mechanisms might be. Not only that, they believe that magnetic lines disconnect and reconnect! I guess that's what happens when all your ideas come from a computer rather than from an actual experiment with real control mechanisms and real forces of nature.

Hi Michael,

I'm not sure how much of this thread you read before you started posting to it, but there's a key part that I feel all readers need to understand, concerning your posts in this thread, namely: what is "Plasma Cosmology"?

If you do read the 'pre-Michael Mozina' parts of this thread, you'll see that a lot of the discussion could have been more focussed if this simple question had been answered by the (then) one and only proponent of Plasma Cosmology (Zeuzzz), and that when he did, finally, provide a sufficiently clear, consistent definition*, the thread came to a rapid conclusion (yes, Plasma Cosmology (PC) is indeed the very definition of (scientific) woo).

I look forward to your answer.

* one, furthermore, which has the benefit of being both public and by an author whose 'PC credentials' cannot possibly be questioned (Eric Lerner).

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

tusenfem said:
Electrons moving along a Birkeland current may be accelerated by a plasma double layer. If the resulting electrons approach relativistic velocities (ie. the speed of light) they may subsequently produce a Bennett pinch, which in a magnetic field will spiral and emit synchrotron radiation that includes radio, optical (ie. light), x-rays, and gamma rays.

Click to expand...

Sentences like this should make anyone, who is serious about plasma physics or space physics weep. I have the feeling this was written by Ian Tresman and appeared on the old double layer wiki page, but that as an aside.

electrons flowing along a Birkeland current: The electrons cannot flow along a Birkeland current, they WOULD BE the Birkeland current, sheesh!

may be accelerated by a double layer: or may be accelerated by just an electric field, why specifically a double layer which will only appear in a current when the density of the current carriers (electrons and ions) is too low to support the current density, and hence have to be accelerated. But not every electric field is a double layer.

If they reach relativistic velocities they may create a Bennett pinch: why should they need to be relativistic (although electrons are easy that way), the Bennett pinch only says that the magnetic force has to overcome the plasma pressure, which can easily be done with strong current without the electrons being relativistic.

which in a magnetic field will spiral: what will spiral? the bennett pinch? No, I guess he means the electrons, and yes they can spiral, but if the are accelerated by a double layer their main velocity will be along the field and thus very little "spiraling" will happen.

and emit radiation: yeah this is definitely a text written by Ian, which appeared in the old double layer wiki page, and in some other places. Fortunately, this time it is not happening in the double layer.

If you quote something, michael mozina please check what is written.

Google is your friend ...

The short para you quoted, tusenfem, comes from Ian Tresman's website.

Someone - maybe IT himself? - has been diligently copying it all over the internet, so much so that the content of the IT webpage on "Birkeland current", which this quote is from, is also the wikipedia page on that topic!

My quick search using google turned up >50 webpages with the core part of this quote, and the ~dozen I checked were all, it seems, direct copies of the IT webpage.

Of course, it may be that the IT webpage is a copy of the wikipedia one, which itself may be a copy of some other one ...

tusenfem · Feb 17, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Google is your friend ...

The short para you quoted, tusenfem, comes from Ian Tresman's website.

Someone - maybe IT himself? - has been diligently copying it all over the internet, so much so that the content of the IT webpage on "Birkeland current", which this quote is from, is also the wikipedia page on that topic!

My quick search using google turned up >50 webpages with the core part of this quote, and the ~dozen I checked were all, it seems, direct copies of the IT webpage.

Of course, it may be that the IT webpage is a copy of the wikipedia one, which itself may be a copy of some other one ...

Yes, I thought so. The wiki page on Birkeland currents is written by IT, and if you look at the discussion page, you will see that I had a bunch of comments about it. I started once to change the page, take out the gravest errors, but did not finish my job, because of lack of time, and at a point lack of interest. I should pick it up again. Some of the dubious statements that have not been corrected are:

Birkeland currents are also one of a class of plasma phenonena called a z-pinch Here cause and result are switched around. A Birkeland current is not a z-pinch. A z-pinch may occur when a field aligned current exists. But there are certain restrictions to that, a pinch can only occur when the field strength increases above a certain level. I am not sure that z-pinches have been observed in the Earth's Birkeland currents.
This can also twist, producing a helical pinch that spirals like a twisted or braided rope, and this most closely corresponds to a Birkeland current. Why does this most closely correspond to a Birkeland current?
Parallel Birkeland currents moving in opposite directions will repel with an electromagnetic force inversely proportional to their distance apart. But anti-parallel Birkeland currents will not occur, as the inflow is on the dawn side and the outflow is on the dusk side.
Electrons moving along a Birkeland current may be accelerated by a plasma double layer. Electrons are not moving along a Birkeland current, they 'are' the Birkeland current.
If the resulting electrons approach relativistic velocities (ie. the speed of light) they may subsequently produce a Bennett pinch No, this is not true, relativistic particles do not increase the current, so if the requirement for a Bennett pinch has not been fulfilled before, then making the electrons relativistic will not make any difference.

don't believe everything you read on wikipedia

Dancing David · Feb 17, 2009

Ian does get kudos in one respect, if you push him and parse you words and senteces carefully, he will admit that he is interpreting , speculating and moving betond the actual material he cites.

I almost got him to admit that he was placing more into one of Alven's statements than it warranted, and he then did admit itw as his opinion and interpretation.

(It was about the amount of 'pue plasma' effects in charged gasses (very low charge plasma/quasi plasmas) and he admited he was overinterpreting Alven's statements)

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
HI brantc.

I'm a bit late coming (back) to this thread.

Would you mind telling me what this post of yours, and indeed nearly all yours in this thread, has to do with 'Plasma Cosmology'?

Mainstream thinks that flux tubes are some mathematical entity with field lines(as it is defined) and is NOT created by electric current flow. And they dont start how they are created or what their purpose is.

EU says the flux tube( we can call them something else to please other people here) carries an electrical current. This is to equalize the charge between to bodies in a plasma.

If the mainstream will accept the simple fact that the only way to form a plasma tube(flux tube) is with an electric current, then this would be over.
This is basic physics, basic electrical engineering.

The only time that these basic rules dont seem to apply is when mainstreamers make posts.

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Mainstream thinks that flux tubes are some mathematical entity with field lines(as it is defined) and is NOT created by electric current flow. And they dont start how they are created or what their purpose is.

EU says the flux tube( we can call them something else to please other people here) carries an electrical current. This is to equalize the charge between to bodies in a plasma.

If the mainstream will accept the simple fact that the only way to form a plasma tube(flux tube) is with an electric current, then this would be over.
This is basic physics, basic electrical engineering.

The only time that these basic rules dont seem to apply is when mainstreamers make posts.

Bingo. The difference of course is that we can demonstrate our point with an ordinary plasma ball, whereas they can't empirically demonstrate their claims at all, regardless of the cost. Birkeland had not trouble explaining solar wind and "jets" and coronal loops over 100 years ago. What's their problem? Oh ya, I forgot. They aren't allowed to mention the forbidden evil word "electricity", therefore "magic magnetic fields did it". They lack physical substance and form as a complete and full continuum yet they can "reconnect" somehow and create form "flux tubes", but only in a computer simulation.

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

DeiRenDopa said:
Hi Michael,

I'm not sure how much of this thread you read before you started posting to it, but there's a key part that I feel all readers need to understand, concerning your posts in this thread, namely: what is "Plasma Cosmology"?

In a broad sense it is the application of MHD theory to objects in space, the combination of GR and MHD theory.

If you do read the 'pre-Michael Mozina' parts of this thread, you'll see that a lot of the discussion could have been more focussed if this simple question had been answered by the (then) one and only proponent of Plasma Cosmology (Zeuzzz),

Sorry, but I'm not Zeuzzz and I refuse to be bound by his personal definition just because it suits you somehow. I'll stick with my definition thanks.

Michael Mozina · Feb 17, 2009

tusenfem said:
The diameter at the surface of the Sun, where the magnetic loop comes out. You will hopefully not deny that there is a certain cross section of the footpoints of the loop when they exist the surface?

You're either avoiding my question or at least you did not address it. What *physical thing* defines this "tube"?

That diameter I took as roughly 1 Earth diameter, which is nothing special, rather tiny actually, and the field of 10 Gauss and the (perpendicular???) electron velocity of 2/3 c, and then you find a gyro radius of about 1 km, which means that on over that whole structure of the magnetic loop, you can forget about the electron gyroradius. And why is that good, especially for you, MM???????????

Huh? What's good for me is a test of concept. You guys never do that. You make up math formulas and stuff them into computer simulations and you never actually "test" any of this stuff.

Because you want to do MHD created by Saint Hannes, which per definition does not apply at length scales below the largest ion gyro radius. Read your classics MM, maybe you might learn something?

From you? Definitely not. Your answer was completely non responsive to my point and evasive to boot.

No Mr MM, that would be the Debye sphere, or something,

No, that would be a strawman or something that is again unresponsive to my point. You're now 0 for 3 in addressing my points. Is that typical? If so, this is going to take forever.

Let's try this one more time, and from a different angle. Yes or no, are there "return currents" in coronal loop activity, and are these events "discharge" related?

ben m · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Mainstream thinks that flux tubes are some mathematical entity with field lines(as it is defined) and is NOT created by electric current flow. And they dont start how they are created or what their purpose is.

We went through this a few threads ago. Both of the following statements are true (modulo a basically unimportant caveat about external fields) in a world where Maxwell's Equations are true:

1) Plasmas can contain arbitrary charge and current fields J; if you know J then you also know the E and B vector fields everywhere.

2) Plasmas can contain E and B fields; if you know these fields then you also know the charge and current everywhere.

Flux tubes and field lines are 100% standard, mathematically valid ways to describe *any* vector field. We very commonly use them to describe the B field. Talking about flux tubes is not "ignoring current", since once is equivalent to the other via a derivative. Talking about contour lines on a topographic map is not "ignoring slope" or "ignoring altitude". Talking about waves in Fourier space is not "ignoring position space".

If you actually care---i.e. if you genuinely object to the flux tube representation for scientific reasons, rather than because Alfven told you to---please show us *exactly* what aspects of your beloved E and J vector fields *are* and *are not* mathematically recoverable from the field-line or flux-tube (they're the same thing) representations of B? It's not hard. Show your math. LaTeX works on this board if you need it.

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

tusenfem said:
Okay, question to brantc: Do you know Maxwell's equations?

In your message above you say that the gyro radius of the electrons play a role in the flux tube. However, the electrons will not magically start to gyrate, for that it needs a magnetic field to start with. Otherwise, electrons just move however they want, but not in a gyrating motion, because that needs the Lorentz force, in order to create the centripital force necessary for gyrational motion. The straight line in the figure that micheal mozina put in his message above, in the centre of the gyrating motions is the "core field" which has its source below the surface of the sun and is not maintained nor created by the electrons (and ions by the way) that gyrate around it.

You still dont get the causality issue. AND that is the root of all MS problems.

The current flows. Magnetic fields arise. Electrons start to gyrate.

Core or whatever other thing you want to invoke, its still an electric current that flows and makes the magnetic field. There is nobody holding a bar magnet next to the flux tubes in space.....

I mean how much clearer do I have to make it?

WRONG!!!! in the EU apparently field lines do not exist (ask Mr Mozina) so why would a flux tube be a physical entity?

You are so totally confused between math and reality.
And again magnetic fields are a continuum. As are the magnetic fields around a flux tube.
If it will make you feel better we can change the name to EU plasma tube minus the MS math description of "field lines are a flux tube".
Its still the same physical thing bound by the same rules.

And why would you say Bellan is making the points when the first author apparently is You? Please give credit where it is due.

"I said Paul makes a couple of really good experimental points". I said nothing as to if he makes my points. And I did give credit..... English is a tuff language.

The helical magnetic field in outflow regions and jets is well understood by mainstream physics, but I doubt you would understand it.

Apparently not because I am still arguing with you about whether the cause is electrical or not. All you have to do is apply the right hand rule and your done, of course making exceptions for the gyroradius of electrons in a plasma.
I have seen MS say things like twisting like a rubber band, rotating elephant trunks, magnetic slinkys etc. If they really understood it there would be a common language , and they would be looking for an electrical source instead of gravity.

I have not seen another MS paper that actually gives the root cause of the helical magnetic fields as electricity, not some fossil 13 billion year magnetic field that came from nowhere....

And what the heck are "unneutralized" currents?

Your the expert, ask Paul.

and by the way [ttp://de.arxiv.org/abs/physics/0506221]here is the paper at ArXiv

I suspect that I could tell you not to touch that wire because its live with 10,000 volts at 1000 amps, and you would touch it, get your hand blown off, and then tell me it wasnt electricity, it was gravity accelerating electrons into your hand causing it to fall off!!!!

Tim Thompson · Feb 17, 2009

Ampere's Law

Tim Thompson said:
I hate to break the bad news, but the picture you just posted is a picture of what tusenfem said, a picture of what you called "baloney". Sometimes these boards can be very amusing.

Michael Mozina said:
No Tim.

Oh, really? Let's do an experiment shall we? Let us start with what tusenfem said ...

tusenfem said:
No, get this into your head please: the current flowing along a mangetic flux tube CANNOT generate the field it is flowing along, no current can create an aligned magnetic field.

OK, so tusenfem is telling us that no current can generate a magnetic field that is parallel to the current. That must mean that the current will generate a magnetic field that is not parallel to the current. So, you post an image ...

Michael Mozina said:
Boloney.
[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/79/Magnetic_rope.png/300px-Magnetic_rope.png[/qimg]

Now, what does the image show? it shows a current flowing along a straight line surrounded by an azimuthal magnetic field. Is an azimuthal magnetic field parallel to the flow of current? No it is not. Did tusenfem say that the magnetic field would not run parallel to the current? Yes he did. So, it must be that the picture you posted is a picture of what tusenfem said, and you are claiming that a picture of what tusenfem said proves that what tusenfem said is "baloney". I trust you understand why someone might be tempted under the circumstances to take what you say on the topic with the legendary "grain of salt"?

Of course any current flow will generate an azimuthal magnetic field around it, this is well known to everyone (Ampère's Law), and there should be no need to fret about it so hard.

I think you simply make too many posts to fast and just don't remember what everybody is saying. Maybe you should try to slow down and substitute quality for quantity?

brantc · Feb 17, 2009

ben m said:
We went through this a few threads ago. Both of the following statements are true (modulo a basically unimportant caveat about external fields) in a world where Maxwell's Equations are true:

1) Plasmas can contain arbitrary charge and current fields J; if you know J then you also know the E and B vector fields everywhere.

2) Plasmas can contain E and B fields; if you know these fields then you also know the charge and current everywhere.

Flux tubes and field lines are 100% standard, mathematically valid ways to describe *any* vector field. We very commonly use them to describe the B field. Talking about flux tubes is not "ignoring current", since once is equivalent to the other via a derivative. Talking about contour lines on a topographic map is not "ignoring slope" or "ignoring altitude". Talking about waves in Fourier space is not "ignoring position space".

If you actually care---i.e. if you genuinely object to the flux tube representation for scientific reasons, rather than because Alfven told you to---please show us *exactly* what aspects of your beloved E and J vector fields *are* and *are not* mathematically recoverable from the field-line or flux-tube (they're the same thing) representations of B? It's not hard. Show your math. LaTeX works on this board if you need it.

"Flux tubes and field lines are 100% standard, mathematically valid ways to describe *any* vector field. "

I totally agree. It is just an approximation....
And it is also a description of a real physical entity unless you want to claim that the mathematical flux tube came before the real thing, and that the math tells the plasma what to do.....
Or just separate the 2 and have 2 different names...
Flux tube for the math and plasma tube for the real thing...

But does a magnetic field actually consist of lines or is it a continuum?
Is it humanly possible to integrate a continuum(no limit)?

And is electromagnetism driven by electric current or gravity?

Is there a first cause?????????????? Charge before magnetic field!!

And a magnetic field(not bar) tells you there is a current flowing!!!!!

Tim Thompson · Feb 17, 2009

Magnetic Reconnection Redux

Tim Thompson said:
Magnetic reconnection certainly has been empirically tested. Evidently you missed my earlier post with the details: Comments on magnetic Reconnection.

Michael Mozina said:
The magnetic lines lack physical substance, and they are physically incapable of "disconnecting" or "reconnecting" to any other magnetic field line.

Wow, you really just don't get it at all. Of course it is all about semantics, and no it is not at all about physics, which you resolutely ignore. The "physical substance" of magnetic field lines could not be more irrelevant to the topic of magnetic reconnection. All physical phenomena are described by mathematical equations. The mathematical equations are used to predict what should be observed in a controlled laboratory experiment. Then we do the controlled laboratory experiment, and we compare what we see with what we predict. If what we see and what we predict agree, then we say that the mathematical description is "correct". If what we see and what we predict do not agree, then we say that the mathematical description is "wrong".

The mathematical description of the physical reconfiguration of the topology of the magnetic field uses field lines and merges them to produce a mathematical description of a physical phenomenon. Hence the title magnetic reconnection. Nobody except you thinks that this means that physical field lines physically merge. So your argument is purely words & their interpretation in reality (semantics) with no basis in science at all.

The key to understanding the relationship between any physical phenomenon and its mathematical description is the relationship between prediction and experiment. I have given you a considerable collection of controlled laboratory plasma physics experiments which produce results which consistently agree with predictions made from the mathematical theory of reconnection. So let us skip all the nonsense about the "physical reality" of the field lines, which nobody cares about anyway, and stick to the point: prediction and experiment are mutually consistent. If you are not prepared to show why specific experiments are wrong, or to dispute that specific experiments do not, as claimed, agree with magnetic reconnection theoretical predictions, then you have no argument based in empirical science. In that case we can all agree on the scientific basis of the physics of magnetic reconnection, and move on to other things.

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

brantc said:
Mainstream thinks that flux tubes are some mathematical entity with field lines(as it is defined) and is NOT created by electric current flow. And they dont start how they are created or what their purpose is.

EU says the flux tube( we can call them something else to please other people here) carries an electrical current. This is to equalize the charge between to bodies in a plasma.

If the mainstream will accept the simple fact that the only way to form a plasma tube(flux tube) is with an electric current, then this would be over.
This is basic physics, basic electrical engineering.

The only time that these basic rules dont seem to apply is when mainstreamers make posts.

Yes, I think I got that (or most of it anyway), but what does it have to do with plasma cosmology (PC, for short)?

Perhaps it would help if could give a definition of what you mean when you use the term ("plasma cosmology").

For example, is the resolution of Olbers' paradox something that is within the scope of PC? Or a quantitative explanation of the observed large-scale structure of the universe?

DeiRenDopa · Feb 17, 2009

Michael Mozina said:
DeiRenDopa said:

Hi Michael,

I'm not sure how much of this thread you read before you started posting to it, but there's a key part that I feel all readers need to understand, concerning your posts in this thread, namely: what is "Plasma Cosmology"?

Click to expand...

In a broad sense it is the application of MHD theory to objects in space, the combination of GR and MHD theory.

Thanks.

In your view, then, does Plasma Cosmology (PC) include - by definition - study of the Earth's magnetosphere? the Moon? Saturn's rings?

Again, in your view, is there any distinction between PC and astronomy? PC and astrophysics? PC and space science? PC and the planetary sciences?

What role, if any, do other parts of physics play in PC? For example, atomic and nuclear physics.

If you do read the 'pre-Michael Mozina' parts of this thread, you'll see that a lot of the discussion could have been more focussed if this simple question had been answered by the (then) one and only proponent of Plasma Cosmology (Zeuzzz),

Click to expand...

Sorry, but I'm not Zeuzzz and I refuse to be bound by his personal definition just because it suits you somehow. I'll stick with my definition thanks.

Indeed, that is true.

I will note, in passing, that your definition of PC seems to be somewhat different than that of Eric Lerner.

Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

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