Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Zeuzz wrote

You can add our Moon, Jupiters moons, Saturn's moons and comets to that as well.

But as as you said they will most probably say they are insignificant and unrelated phenomena!!

And that's just OUR solar system!

And once again your ignorance is showing. These are charge separations powered by an external source. Charge separations have to be created by an external force.

You still have not told us the mysterious force that separates charge in cosmic plasma filaments. It sound like you are just parroting PC/EU web sites without actually understanding what the actual science is.

[tusenfem]

Originally Posted by Sol88

And when a Beam (electron or Ion) passes thru plasma something called Buneman instability arises from the very fact Ions are 1836 times more massive than the electron.

Whooooohahahahahahahahaha
The Buneman instability arises from the fact that the ions are heavier than the electrons?
Whooooohahahahahahahahaha

Oh Solly just because of these hilariously rediculous pieces of text I stay in this thread!

Originally Posted by Sol88

This sets up all sorts of wonderful plasma effects, like double layers, charge separation, charge equalization channels (FAC's) and lots of funky electromagnetic effects .i.e. radio wave, visual waves, UV , Xray and gamma ray in fact the entire observational spectrum!

And it gets even better, double layers AND charge separation AND charge equalization channels (whatever these are)

WOW!

[tusenfem]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

It is well known that the solid earth is charged up to millions of coulombs, such that there is an atmospheric voltage potential of something like 300,000 Volts (well deduced from lightning discharges and various geophysical consideration). [brief reference: Natural plasmas » Solar-terrestrial forms » The lower atmosphere and surface of the Earth]

How is this large charge separation and voltage maintained?

Unless someone can answer this basic question about charge separation so close home (in an evironment that is infact a very weak plasma), I see no reason why anyone can dismiss any occurence of substantially large charge separation occuring elsewhere in space.

This has already been told to you, Zeuzzz, the atmosphere is a very poor conductor (not a plasma at all not even a weak one) and therefore discharges can only happen in extreme situations like thunderstorms.

In the universe, however, the medium is full plasma, with all charges highly mobile, and thus charge separation can only remain under very specific conditions.

WHY THE FRAK DON'T THE PLASMA UNIVERSE PROPONENTS KNOW THESE KIND OF SIMPLE THINGS???????????????/

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Apologies Zig. Reality check wrote:

*Velocity dispersions of galaxies show missing matter.
* Galaxy clusters also show missing matter.

You are totally correct and we DO agree on this matter, under the standard model there is missing mass, that's undeniable!

So what are we going to make up, as per standard model to make our maths work?

Just add Dark Matter!

Now you may be getting it Sol88. But you really need to learn about the Quote button.

Originally Posted by Reality Check

You need to actually read the posts. That was me replying not Zig.


Dark matter was inferred by the observations of several physical properites:

• Velocity dispersions of galaxies show missing matter.
• Galaxy clusters also show missing matter.
• The measured orbital velocities of galaxies within galactic clusters have been found to be consistent with dark matter observations

Now we have 2 (count them Sol88) actual observations of dark matter.

This is a fact that you consistently ignore.

I do not know what you mean by "tested" but the 2 actual observation are actual tests that show dark matter exists.

We almost agree.
The facts are that there are missing forces in the abbove 3 observations.
Scientists know that electromagnetic forces are not enough to account for the missing forces by 22 orders of magnetude. But you know this (try reading you own posts for a change). That leaves gravitational forces.
Therefore the 3 observations above are eviddence for the xistsence of dark matter.

And then there is the bit you ignored yet again:
Now we have 2 (count them Sol88) actual observations of dark matter.

This is a fact that you consistently ignore.

And then you ignored:

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Your list contains a number of standard plasma physics facts.

One error

• "99.999% of matter in the observable Universe is plasma" should read "99.999% of the visible matter in the observable Universe is plasma". This assumes that all the ionized gas that is actually observed is plasma - which is wrong but Sol88 cannot seem to understand that not all ionized gas is plasma.

You state "Plasma with an electric current flowing through it can “self” organize". What does this mean? If you mean that the plasma can form various shapes then that is obvious. The problem that I have is with the “self” bit. A plasma with an electric current flowing through is is under an external influence (to create the electric current). It is not organizing itself. It is being organized.


You may want to lie to us and remove "Plasma with an electric current flowing through it can
• Form very complex instabilities and behavior".
The whole point about cosmic plasma filaments is that they are plasmas with electric currents running through them and they are stable over billions of years.

You may want to lie to us and remove "12. Plasma exchanging energy is observable across the known Electromagnetic spectrum." because filaments matching the cosmic plasma filaments (paired, 35 kpc wide, 350 Mpc long, connecting galaxies) have never been observed. As a PC/EU proponent you will then want them to be invisible.

Charge separation does occur in astrophysical plasma if there is an external force causing the charges to be separated.
Charges are "separated" by definition in a plasma (electrons are separated from ions). Charge separation as in double layers does not happen spontaneously in astrophysical plasmas.

Thank you Sol88 for yet another bit of evidence against PC/EU:
You state this fact : Plasma with an electric current flowing through it can form very complex instabilities and behavior.
The whole point about cosmic plasma filaments is that they are plasmas with electric currents running through them and they are stable over billions of years.
You have just stated as a fact that cosmic plasma filaments form very complex instabilities. They cannot thus exist for the billoons of yuears that galaxies have been around and powered by them.

[tusenfem]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Zeuzz wrote

You can add our Moon, Jupiters moons, Saturn's moons and comets to that as well.

But as as you said they will most probably say they are insignificant and unrelated phenomena!!

And that's just OUR solar system!

And like what has been told to you, these are interactions of solids with plasmas and not just plasmas. Lots of different stuff, even more complicated than plasma processes, can happen. That would be wayyyyyy to difficult for Sol88 and Zeuzzz to understand, so let's remain with plasmas shall we?

QUESTION:
What is the force that keeps a star running around the centre of the galaxy in the PU? Can either Sol88 or Zeuzzz calculate that for me? Just a simple question that I am sure the PU community has already solved. So, what kind of magnetic fields, what kind of currents, what kind of charges are necessary to keep our sun rotating around the centre of our galaxy?

[Sol88]

3 questions

First to Tim Thompson

Can charge separation occur in astrophysical plasmas?

Tusenfem

Please explain to the posters in this thread what a Buneman instability is and does?

Reality check

Quote:

The conclusion was that PC is no woo. It is non-science.

Are you saying plasma physics is a non science?

[Sol88]

Tusenfem wrote:

Quote:

And like what has been told to you, these are interactions of solids with plasmas and not just plasmas. Lots of different stuff, even more complicated than plasma processes, can happen. That would be wayyyyyy to difficult for Sol88 and Zeuzzz to understand, so let's remain with plasmas shall we?

Stick a magnetic field in the way then i.e. a magnetosphere for instance, what happens?

I think your patronizing tone here is kinda funky, EU/PC proponents understand just how complex, interlinked and dynamic plasma can be compared to gravity, which is ONLY an attractive force unless ad hoc admissions are added, like Dark energy!

The beauty of EU/PC is then we are all connected via electromagnetism/plasma unlike gravity in wich everything is independent from everything else!

Quote:

Lots of different stuff, even more complicated than plasma processes, can happen. That would be wayyyyyy to difficult for Sol88 and Zeuzzz to understand

Try me!!!!

[Sol88]

Tusenfem

Quote:

What is the force that keeps a star running around the centre of the galaxy in the PU?

There are two forces at work here Tusenfem

Electromagnetic and gravity!

EU/PC does not exclude gravity unlike mainstream that does exclude EM forces on the macroscopic scale!

Quote:

Question Charge separation in space is not possible'
Well, this is the mainstream view. Because the attractive electrical forces between electrons and ions are 39 orders of magnitude greater than the gravitational attraction between their masses, it is assumed that these particles quickly find each other and neutralise.

link

Quote:

Question Can Plasma Cosmology live with the Big Bang?

Surprisingly, yes. The Big Bang does not necessarily preclude the importance of Plasma and its electrodynamic properties. Even within conventional Big Bang cosmology, the entire early universe consisted of plasma before recombination (the process in which electrons become confined to protons to make neutral atoms) occurred. However, it should be noted that most scientists and engineers in the Plasma field prefer an actualistic approach to science -- the method of working backwards from observation, rather than starting out at idealised theoretical principals.

The Big Bang fails to account for the 'clumpiness' of the universe and the filamentary structures that we see. These are consistent with Plasma models.

LINK

And the EU/PC guru Hannes Alfvén remarked

Quote:

Our local gravitational system is the “ashes” of a prior electrical system.

because it would seems more than reasonable to say

Quote:

until such time as charges have been neutralized, at which point gravity becomes the dominant force to consider (as it is on Earth, which is in the vast minority of matter in the non-plasma states of solids, liquids and non-ionized gases)

LINK

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Reality check

Are you saying plasma physics is a non science?

No. Plasma physics is standard science.

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Just to remind everyone that the question that this thread was started with has been answered:
The "plasma cosmology" supported by Zeuzzz, BeAChooser and others is definitely a nonscientific, crackpot theory (not woo).

The scientific theory of Plasma Cosmology is that of Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén. This was expanded upon by Anthony Peratt, especially in the area of galaxy formation.

But the "plasma cosmology" that has emerged in this thread is not Plasma Cosmology and is not a scientific theory. Since it's proponents claim that it is a scientific theory that makes it crackpottery.

The definition of "plasma cosmology"is that it is a collection of scientific theories (not one consistent scientific theory) with a common thread. This thread seems to be that the theory either emphasizes the contribution of plasma in the universe or is a steady state cosmological theory.


This collection allows the addition of any new theory that matches the criteria regardless of consistency with existing theories in the collection. Thus the collection allows:

• Multiple inconsistent theories on cosmological redshift.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on the cosmic microwave background.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on the structure of the universe.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on stellar formation.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on anything else that is contained in "plasma cosmology"

The PC collection includes:

• Peratt's plasma model of galaxy formation (His 1986 papers I and II).
• Lerner's model of element formation in galaxies.
• Gallo et al. calculations of Galactic Rotation Described with Bulge+Disk Gravitational Models which directly contradicts Peratt's plasma model.
• Tired-light explanation of cosmological redshifts.
• Wolf Effect (non-cosmological redshifts).
• Coherent Raman Effect on incoherent light (redshifts).
• Intrinsic redshifts from the ejection of quasars from bright galaxies. E.g. Halton Arp's The Origin of Companion Galaxies.
• Other theories which may include the Electric Universe ().
• Lerner's explanation of the CMB.
• Peratt's explanation of the CMB, but it hasn't been introduced yet.
• Peratt's ideas on quasars/QSOs/radio galaxies/AGNs (only tangentially referenced).
• Various ideas on fractal scaling, up to ~tens of Mpc
• Something about 'force free filaments' (unclear whether this is a separate idea or an essential part of one or more of the above). Lerner's paper.
• Baryonic Cold Skeleton of the Universe (Kukushkin, Alexander B. and Rantsev-Kartinov, Valentin A.)
• All standard plasma theories regardless of their applicability to cosmology.
• Electric Universe e.g. electrically powered stars.
• The Van Allen Hypothesis—The Origin of the Magnetic Fields of the Planets and Stars
• etc. (I will add to this list as this thread progresses since no one really knows what theories are included)

There seems to be an emphasis on the extension of laboratory experiments in theory to large sizes via plasma scaling (ignoring the problems with this - see the Astrophysical application section). The observational evidence for this scaling has some gaps in it.

pc completely forgets about the laboratory experiments on gravity that can be scaled in theory without any problems to cosmic scales. The observational evidence for this scaling has some gaps in it.

Of course many of the mutually inconsistent theories included in pc are wrong, e.g.

• Peratt's plasma model of galaxy formation - he neglects gravity, no evidence of billions of pairs of galactic sized plasma filaments, etc.
• Coherent Raman Effect on incoherent light - redshift of host galaxies = redshift of quasar.
• Errors in Tired Light Cosmology.

And then there is the inability of these theories to actually match observations, e.g. a CMB that has a perfect black body thermal spectrum.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

The beauty of EU/PC is then we are all connected via electromagnetism/plasma unlike gravity in wich everything is independent from everything else!

I just have to comment on this bit of stupidity.
Gravity is in fact a better "connector" than electromagnetism/plasma."
Gravity is always attractive. It is always a force with an unlimited range.
Electromagnetism is attractive or positive.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Ok lets have another go and focus just for the time being on Birkeland currents(FAC's), Double layers and Plasmoids!

Because we do have an expert here with us Tusenfem, he even has a few papers out WRT plasma.


We need to take baby steps for some of the members here, so lets ask a general question first to stop any misconception.

Is it commonly believed that a black hole is at the center of our galaxy?

WE have been down this road as well:

You can suggest a Lerner Plasmoid is at the heart of the galaxy, fine.


However we know it has a lower bound of a huge mass, like 30,000,000 stellar masses and that it has an upper bound an how large it is , something like 1 AU.

So how does it avoid gravitational collapse.

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Sol Invictus wrote:

So we can all more or less agree on the BH at the center of the milky way and most probably most others as well.

So how do we know they are BH's of all the different varieties of black holes, if we can not see them.

For simplicity will just use the SMBH at our center as some sort of standard model.

Well one way astronomer use is observation, from Wiki's BH page
Note worthy to mention that jets have been observed from a brown dwarf as well. Another object that mainstream dare not mention are plasmoids and dense plasma focus.


Lets for now not concern our self with abstract math and just "look" at some pretty pictures

First from the wiki BH article

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...et_diagram.jpg

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Bl...et_diagram.jpg

And then E.Lerner's plasmoid

http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/...20Plasmoid.jpg Source

That torus I believe is what mainstream call an event horizon!



SOURCE

and the a real plasmoid in the center of our galaxy

http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/200...oarc_radio.jpg Image courtesy chandra.harvard.edu

And when a Beam (electron or Ion) passes thru plasma something called Buneman instability arises from the very fact Ions are 1836 times more massive than the electron. This sets up all sorts of wonderful plasma effects, like double layers, charge separation, charge equalization channels (FAC's) and lots of funky electromagnetic effects .i.e. radio wave, visual waves, UV , Xray and gamma ray in fact the entire observational spectrum!

Which much to Tim's disgust, of haven't got the maths skills needed to "prove" this effect, though the maths is out there if that's what you need to believe in.

So there may be jets from a number of possible sources.

What keeps the Lerner Plasmoid from collapsing, under the action of gravity?

[Dancing David]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Apologies Zig. Reality check wrote:

*Velocity dispersions of galaxies show missing matter.
* Galaxy clusters also show missing matter.

You are totally correct and we DO agree on this matter, under the standard model there is missing mass, that's undeniable!

So what are we going to make up, as per standard model to make our maths work?



Just add Dark Matter!

Um, considering that you haven't shown that the PC/EU model can explain it,

1. What theory in the PC/EU model explains the rotation curves of galaxies?
2. What predictions does the model make?
3. What data match the predictions.

So far your Perrat model did not do it.

(Remember it was nuetral hydrogen, not stars?)

[Tubbythin]

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

[tusenfem]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Tusenfem

Please explain to the posters in this thread what a Buneman instability is and does?

For all readers

The Buneman instability:
This instability is closely related to the two-stream instability and is actually the electron-ion two stream instability. It arises from current flow across an unmagnetized plasma and can also be treated in the fluid picture. Currents are associated with the relative flow of electrons and ions.

To make it simple:
For the Buneman instability one considers the contribution of the motionless ions to the two-stream instability. Assuming that all plasma components are cold, the dispersion relation can be written as:

ε(ω,k) = 1 - (ω_pi² / ω²) - (ω_pe² / (ω - k v₀)²) = 0

Here the ions take over the position of the motionless component, while all the electrons are assumed to stream across the ion fluid at their bulk velocity v₀. Clearly this will cause a current to flow in the plasma. Becaue the ion plasma frequency is much smaller than the electron plasma frequency the dominating term is the electron term. Instability will arise at the slow negative energy mode

ω_n ≈ k v₀ - ω_pe

while the positive energy wave ω_p ≈ k v₀ + ω_pe does not couple to the instability. One can thus rewrite the above relationship as

(ω - ω_n) ω² = ω_pi² (ω - k v₀)² / (ω - ω_p)

The wavenumber of interest is k ≈ ω_pe / v₀, because for a two-stream instability this wavenumber couples to the negative energy wave. In contrast to the electron two-stream instability, the frequency is small compared to the electron plasma frequency, ω << ω_pe. With these approximations the dispersion relation becomes

ω³ ≈ - (m_e/2 m_i) ω_pe³

Of the three roots of the equation one is a real negative frequency wave

ω ≈ - (m_e/2 m_i)^1/3 ω_pe

The other two are complex conjugate, and one of them has positive imaginary part. To find these two solutions we put ω -> ω + i γ to obtain the following two equations

ω(ω² - 3 γ²) = - (m_e ω_pe³) / 2 m_i
γ² = 3 ω²

The second equation gives γ = +/- 3^1/2 ω. Inserting into the first equation yields for the frequency of the maximum unstable Buneman mode

ω_bun = (m_e / 16 m_i)^1/3 ω_pe ≈ 0.03 ω_pe

from which the growth rate is found to be

γ_bun = (3 m_e / 16 m_i)^1/3 ω_pe ≈ 0.05 ω_pe

This growth rate is very large, of the order of the frequency itself. Hence, the Buneman instability is a strong instability driven by the fast bulk motion of all the electrons movins across the plasma. Onc can expect that this instability will cause violent effects on the current flow, retarding the current and feeding its energy into heating of the plasma. It is interesting to note that the Buneman two-stream waves propagate ralallel to the current flow but otherwise are electrostatic waves.

Basically the condition for instability is found to be

k² v₀² < ω_pe² [ 1 + (m_e / m_i)^1/3 ]³

which justifies our first choice of the unstable wave number showing in addition that any sufficiently long wavelength will become unstable against the electron flow.

(I just could not help myself)
Okay, thank you Rudolf for your help.

Basically, the criterion can be taken that as soon as the bulk velocity of the electrons exceeds the thermal velocity of the electrons (which did not exist in the above analysis, as that was for a cold plasma) this mode becomes unstable.

[tusenfem]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Tusenfem

There are two forces at work here Tusenfem

Electromagnetic and gravity!

[snip]

And, humour me, and write down the forces (the EM force is supposed to be ten-to-the-umpteenth stronger than gravity).

[The Man]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Tusenfem

There are two forces at work here Tusenfem

Electromagnetic and gravity!

Care to elaborate by presenting what you would project to be the magnitudes of the fields involved as well as their sorces?

Originally Posted by Sol88

EU/PC does not exclude gravity unlike mainstream that does exclude EM forces on the macroscopic scale! link

Excluded how, by having entire industries and fields devoted to the study and use of “EM forces on the macroscopic scale”?

Originally Posted by Sol88

LINK

And the EU/PC guru Hannes Alfvén remarked

Quote:

Our local gravitational system is the “ashes” of a prior electrical system.

Care to show us those ashes, if you can find them. You should be aware that “gravitational systems” come with their own driving forces resulting from, well, gravity (that is why it is called a gravitational system). I think the only “ashes” you will find is the notion of a “prior electrical system” simply electrocuting itself.

Originally Posted by Sol88

because it would seems more than reasonable to say

Quote:

until such time as charges have been neutralized, at which point gravity becomes the dominant force to consider (as it is on Earth, which is in the vast minority of matter in the non-plasma states of solids, liquids and non-ionized gases)

Things are not always as one might like them to seem and actually it would be more reasonable for one to explain why charges are not neutralized in something as highly conductive as plasma.

[Tim Thompson]

Originally Posted by Sol88

First to Tim Thompson
Can charge separation occur in astrophysical plasmas?

I already answered that question.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

I'm sure that Tim will say that it does, but thats its "insignificant" in some way.

I have yet to see anyone post here, or publish in any paper, any serious reason to think otherwise.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

It is well known that the solid earth is charged up to millions of coulombs, such that there is an atmospheric voltage potential of something like 300,000 Volts ... How is this large charge separation and voltage maintained? ... Unless someone can answer this basic question about charge separation so close home (in an evironment that is infact a very weak plasma), I see no reason why anyone can dismiss any occurence of substantially large charge separation occuring elsewhere in space.

Originally Posted by tusenfem

This has already been told to you, Zeuzzz, the atmosphere is a very poor conductor (not a plasma at all not even a weak one) and therefore discharges can only happen in extreme situations like thunderstorms. .... In the universe, however, the medium is full plasma, with all charges highly mobile, and thus charge separation can only remain under very specific conditions.

The example of a large potential on Earth is completely irrelevant. We are talking about cosmological scales and nobody disputes extensive small scale charge separation in astrophysics. That said, it is an interesting topic in its own right, and detailed answers to your questions are already in print. Harrison, 2004 is the only fairly recent review of the global electric circuit I know of that is freely accessible via the arXiv server, but you can also seek out Rycroft, et al., 2008; Rycroft, at al., 2007 & Singh, et al., 2007 for more recent reviews. There is a good outline of the basic physics in The Feynman Lectures on Physics, volume II, chapter 9.

Originally Posted by Sol88

TEU/PC does not exclude gravity unlike mainstream that does exclude EM forces on the macroscopic scale!

That is absolutely untrue. It is so common, and so insulting, to rant & rave about how the standard cosmology is all wrong, while at the same time remaining willfully & deliberately ignorant of what it actually is. By no stretch of the imagination does mainstream cosmology exclude electromagnetic forces on any scale, macroscopic or otherwise. They simply understand better the relationship between the two.

The EU & PC models arbitrarily assume, with no basis in physics, that electromagnetic forces always dominate over gravity, even to the extent of steering stars around a galaxy, or powering stars with electric currents known not to exist. In short, the EU/PC models rely on magic, whereas the mainstream relies on physics. That's why EU/PC enthusiasts never respond to specific questions with specific answers. Show us relevant physics, or admit that you just don't have any to show; pick one or the other and do it.

[DeiRenDopa]

This post of Z's, and the one not long after it, contain variants of two persistent myths from the EU corpus; namely, that Arp has really demonstrated something important with all his quasar-galaxy alignments and 'on-the-sky' proximities, and that CDM observations are blatant examples of "false a posteriori statistics" (to quote Z) or "curve fitting" (to quote MM), or ... (basically just some sort of mathematical jiggery pokery).

This post of Z's also reveals a profound ignorance of astronomy, and (most likely) deep confusion over the nature of science (or at least their non-social branches).

In this post and one or two subsequent ones, I intend to address these two persistent EU myths, and also take a stab at explaining to disinterested readers some basics of astronomy, as a science, and in particular what the nature of astronomical 'observations' is.

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

It has not been observed. It has been implied based on the assumption that gravity is the only force at work.

You go on and on about dark matter being directly "observed" in the case of the Bullet Cluster ... even though there are a host of gnomes and assumption based calculations implicit in that so-called observation. Yet, the 2003 discovery of a high redshift (z = 2.11) quasar that is visually (in ordinary light) between us and the dense core of a low redshift (z = 0.022) galaxy, NGC 7319, is just dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant", along with all of Arps other observations. Where he has documented well over thirty similar cases, probably even more.

And you expect us to take you mere two "observations" of dark matter as some sort of definitive proof of its existance? Arp goes and looks (and finds) much more evidence to back up his previous observations and they are all dismissed 'statistically', well I put it to you when astronomers have gone looking for specific cases that prove their Dark Gnomes and come up with the observations you always refer to as 'proof of Dark Matter, it is a blantent textbook case of false a posteriori statistics.

[...]

Without further ado then, lies, damned lies, and a posteriori statistics, all in the name of CDM (Cold Dark Matter).

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

AND

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

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

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

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

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

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

[DeiRenDopa]

This is the second post of mine addressing two persistent EU myths - one about CDM and one about Arp and his 'observations' - and an examination of the nature of astronomical observations.

My first post dealt with CDM, in terms of the observational evidence for it.

This post will look at astronomical observations.

I am adapting what I wrote in the Alternatives: Cosmological redshift/BBE thread, in post #82, together with a post in the Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not? thread, post #1871.

With our eyes - unaided by telescopes, glasses, etc - we can see, on a dark cloudless night, twinkling points of light and fuzzy patches of light (and the Moon); technically, "point sources" and "extended sources". With telescopes and better detectors than our eyes, we can see that some of the point sources can be "resolved", into lots of other point sources and/or extended sources. With various detectors, we can extend the range of wavelengths we can 'see', through telescopes here on the surface of the Earth, from the UV (~300 nm) through to the IR (~1 µ), with small windows at longer wavelengths in the IR.

Well over a century ago a simple explanation for the sources of light in the night sky which moved, relative to the others, over periods of minutes to hours to (sometimes) days was accepted - they are bodies in motion within the solar system: planets, dwarf planets, satellites/moons, comets, asteroids, TNOs, ... Two kinds of extended source are included: zodiacal light and gegenschein.

When radio 'telescopes' were turned to the sky, and when 'telescopes' tuned to other parts of the electromagnetic (EM) spectrum - from TeV gammas to x-rays to UV and IR that the atmosphere blocked - started observing above the atmosphere, point sources and extended sources were also found, and once again solar system sources (objects) could be easily distinguished from all other sources.

Of course, the sky looks quite different in other parts of EM spectrum than it does in the visual (or optical) waveband, but otherwise ...

... well, not quite. In the gamma region (and to a lesser extent the hard x-ray), the sky is dominated by flashes, sometimes intensely bright bursts that last mere milliseconds to perhaps a second or two, and it took many years before these could be shown to be sources way, way beyond the solar system. In the radio region, some point sources are periodic flashes, of such extreme perfection that they are more accurate than even the most expensive of wrist watches (of course there are periodic variables - point sources - in the visual waveband too, but these pulsars - as they were quickly called - are qualitatively different).

The superb pattern-detection machine that is the human brain sorted all the non-solar system sources into neat boxes, based on the characteristics of the sources: stars, galaxies, planetary nebulae (PNe), GRBs, quasars, pulsars, and so on. The important thing to note about these classifications is that they are made on the basis of criteria such as whether they are point sources or not, how bright they are in one waveband vs another (e.g. 'quasar' originally meant 'quasi-stellar radio source'), the type of time-variability they exhibit, their shape and key features in their spectra (e.g. galaxies vs PNe), and so on.

Of course, humans being what they are, simply having a nice label for something - 'star', for example - is not enough; we want to what these things 'really' are!

And as physics developed - from Newton to Maxwell to Einstein to the founders of quantum mechanics to ... - once a really good answer to 'what X really is' was to hand, the purely empirical meaning of a classification came to take on aspects of the explanation, to the point where distinguishing between pure description (features of what is observed) and explanation (what we conclude it 'really is') is often blurred and sometimes difficult to do. For example 'pulsar' is BOTH {insert description, to do with radio flashes} AND a neutron star {insert qualifiers about the radio flashes and their observability}.

The classification of 'things we see in the sky' is critical to showing just how silly the persistent EU myth about quasars and redshift is, starting with the answer to the question of how astronomers can distinguish one source of redshift - in the spectrum of an astronomical object (source) - from another.

And classifications, and their bases, are also key to understanding why much of EU material is nonsense (or just plain wrong); for example, there is, very often, muddle-headedness and confusion over what 'a quasar' is (to take just one example), however, because few laypersons understand the bases of classifications (and, in general, the key role of consistent definitions in science), they are easily fooled by seemingly plausible strings of words.

And yeah, at times this can seem like pedantry gone mad, but it's very important that you, dear reader, grok this ... if only because getting your definitions clean and consistent, and using your terms consistently, etc is an important part of what doing science is all about. Again, this paramount need for clean and consistent definitions, the consistent use of terms, etc is often overlooked or ignored in much of the EU material Z et al. have presented, both here in this thread and in others.

(to be continued)

[DeiRenDopa]

In my previous post I talked about the classifications of astronomical objects, and how a strong desire (of humans) to know 'what things are, really' has lead to not only some satisfying answers (e.g. variable stars with {insert description of time variability of their light curves} ARE eclipsing binaries), but has inextricably involved the application of the physics of the day.

In this post I'd like to take a look at what the process of going from observations - in general, not just in astronomy - to fully internalised theories (in physics) is like, and what it involves. Much of this post is adapted from the second one I provided a link to, in my previous post, in another thread.

What is "gravity"? Does "gravity" exist? Is it "a force of nature"?

In that other thread, a JREF Forum member proposed a very simple test which demonstrates that gravity, as a force of nature, exists; something like this: hold a weight, such as a bottle of water, in one hand, hand facing down; with your other hand underneath it, palm up, let go of the ball ... the ball will drop into your (lower) hand; ergo, gravity exists.

But does it really? After all, all this test shows is that the weight falls when released from one's hand; to call that 'gravity' is rather underwhelming.

However, we can proceed empirically - being very careful to define just what we mean by this word - and make lots of observations, actively (doing 'tests', or 'experiments') or passively, with lots of different objects, in lots of different places, at lots of different times.

We will find - empirically - that there are plenty of cases where objects do not drop, or fall, when released; for example, a leaf on a windy day, a piece of wood released under water. And we need to confront the problem of induction too.

By being careful, and using induction, we can gradually build more and more powerful summaries of the results of hundreds, thousands, millions, ... of observations (whether active experiments or just passive observations), and in the best of these summaries the word 'gravity' will be used, as will the word 'nature'.

In that sense the word 'gravity' may be said to have great explanatory (and predictive) power.

In parallel, and to some extent overlapping, we may develop other summaries of empirical tests (of 'nature') which include another word with great explanatory (and predictive) power, 'force'.

Historically, with some anachronisms and a bit of revisionism, this gets us up to somewhere in the 1500s, maybe a bit earlier, maybe a bit later.

Now we add a true revolution, which I shall term the quantitative revolution ... we can move on from nice word summaries to adding first numbers and then equations, and 'gravity as a force of nature' becomes something whose explanatory and predictive powers expand enormously ... but only if the equations and numbers are understood! We are now in the time of Galileo (more or less).

At that time the heavens and Earth were separate - nature consisted of two almost totally independent parts, each with its own 'forces'; how the planets moved across the sky, for example, had nothing to do with how cannon balls (and feathers) fell when let go.

Then, in the myth, an apple fell on Newton's head while he was gazing at the Moon (it was daytime) ... and nature became unified, and the universal law of gravitation was published.

It was quickly tested, by 'curve fitting' - applying math to points in the sky - and found to work.

And a century or so later - well after Newton had died - a key part of Newton's law was tested in the lab.

So what does all this have to do with a persistent feature of so much EU material? A great deal actually.

First, the 'known forces of nature' that 'EU theorists' are so enamored with, are known via equations and numbers only; if you work at the 'qualitative' level, you cannot have 'known forces of nature'.

Second, a century (or more) may well pass between the first publication of the equations and numbers describing a 'known force of nature' and its testing in the lab.

Third, the application of math to points on the sky can lead to acceptance of a new 'force of nature'.

And so on.

Now we know, from reading lots of EU materials, and from the posts of such JREF Forum members as Z and MM, that many 'EU theorists' reject all three of the above points, especially the third one. This alone makes the EU approach to science very different than that of scientists - or at least physicists - over the past four+ centuries ... and it means that the discussion we should be having is not about Birkeland, plasmas, the CMB, quasars, Einstein's EFE, filaments, etc; rather it should be about what constitutes science (or at least physics).

If we were to have such a discussion, I think we'd find that a key aspect of so many EU proponents' approach is an unstated, and possibly unrecognised, misunderstanding of equations and numbers; in short, a world where the quantitative revolution didn't happen.

(to be continued)

[DeiRenDopa]

There are no 'observations'; there is only theory.

This is the third, and final, post on astronomical observations and one aspect of how (and why) so much EU material is wrong. In a later post I'll address the persistent EU myth concerning Arp and quasars.

This month's (April 2009) 'Source of the Month' from H.E.S.S. is Cen A.

Look at Fig. 1 on that webpage; the caption reads: "Smoothed gamma-ray sky map of the region around Centaurus A. The cross indicates the position of the radio core of the active galaxy. The inset illustrates the effective point spread function of the instrument including the effects of smoothing, showing that the source appears point-like."

Is this an 'observation'?

I would expect that everyone who has posted to this thread would agree that it is, indeed, an astronomical observation.

But what is it, in reality? And how does its nature, as an observation, tell us anything about muddle-headed thinking by EU proponents?

Let's start with the name; H.E.S.S. stands for High Energy Spectroscopic System, and the H.E.S.S. website describes it like this:

Quote:

H.E.S.S. is a system of Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescopes that investigates cosmic gamma rays in the 100 GeV to 100 TeV energy range. The name H.E.S.S. stands for High Energy Stereoscopic System, and is also intended to pay homage to Victor Hess , who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1936 for his discovery of cosmic radiation. The instrument allows scientists to explore gamma-ray sources with intensities at a level of a few thousandths of the flux of the Crab nebula (the brightest steady source of gamma rays in the sky).

WTF is an 'Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope'?!?

Well, if we hadn't twigged to it before, this would be a very strong clue that a H.E.S.S. 'observation' can really only be put into the same class of thing as what you might see when you look up at the sky on a cloudless, Moonless night if you fully accept that all high-tech stuff actually works as advertised ... oh, and that Cherenkov radiation really does exist, that the light the H.E.S.S. detectors detect really is Cherenkov radiation, that ...

In other words, that all the various parts of physics that are embedded in H.E.S.S. really are an accurate description of reality.

One implication of this is quite important, when it comes to thinking about the stuff you find in EU materials; namely, that to the extent that these materials use astronomical images ('observations') to make their case, they are also making a very strong statement that the authors of said material fully accept all the physics that is essential to those images being true to their (original) captions*. The fact that this is implicit, rather than explicit, in no way diminishes the inevitability of this conclusion.

Thus, to demonstrate a fatal inconsistency in an EU proposal, it may be sufficient to show that the proposal involves a denial of, or non-acceptance of, some part of textbook physics ... and as just about all of physics is involved in astronomical observations, collectively, such a fatal inconsistency is almost always inevitable.

Of course, you will almost certainly get nowhere trying this approach, in a discussion with an EU proponent, for reasons given in my last post; namely, that proponent has almost certainly missed the quantitative revolution in science, and so you cannot avoid talking past each other.

(to be continued: the EU myth of Arp and quasars)

* AFAIK, no EU theorist, or proponent, has ever presented any astronomical images that they themselves took; instead, they are all sourced from facilities such as the HST, Chandra, and the VLA.

[Dancing David]

Thanks DRD.

[DeiRenDopa]

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

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

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

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

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

Better, let's look at 'quasars'.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Now comes the killer point.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

[...]

I have seen the [Millennium] simulations, and seen the results, and I am dubious to say the least. Now, were the simulations based entirely on the Lambda-CDM gravity driven model of the universe, or was the large scale structure rather surveyed and then made to fit, with a couple of ad-hoc fixes to the code here and there?

Maybe I am just being naive, but I'm sure you can clarify a few points for me.

So, can you please give a detailed analysis of how gravity (an exclusively attractive field) can produce large scale filamentary structures in the universe?*

*(please do not simply say, well look at this simulation, it totally proves it!, if your going to do that then all the coding and variables used in the simulation need to be posted here and scrutinsed, so we can see what the pictures actually represent and how gravity has been modified to create filamentary structures)

(bold added)

Here's an idea Z: why don't you go read the papers which report this work?

I think you have demonstrated an ability to use the appropriate search tools to do that, and to obtain at least preprints of the relevant papers, haven't you?

Now, I will tell you that the structure you see reported emerged from the simulation, exactly as described.

IOW, no conspiracy, no pre-loading the initial conditions with the answers they wanted to get, ...

Of course, as the quantitative revolution may have passed you by, it is possible that you may not understand how the simulation was done; no worries, there are people here, in the JREF Forum, who'd be happy to answer your questions (but please, start a new thread on it, OK?). In fact, IIRC, someone has already written a post on this very topic, right here in the JREF Forum!

[Tim Thompson]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

I have seen the simulations, and seen the results, and I am dubious to say the least. Now, were the simulations based entirely on the Lambda-CDM gravity driven model of the universe, or was the large scale structure rather surveyed and then made to fit, with a couple of ad-hoc fixes to the code here and there?

I had not noticed this before it was pointed out by DeiRenDopa. I agree with the advice to go read the papers. However, the code for these models will not be found in any paper. So, Mr. Zeuzzz, are you telling us that you believe the entire mainstream cosmology is a deliberate hoax? Do you really mean that you think scientists deliberately falsify their results? If you didn't, then why did you say that?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Zeuzzz

You go on and on about dark matter being directly "observed" in the case of the Bullet Cluster ... even though there are a host of gnomes and assumption based calculations implicit in that so-called observation. Yet, the 2003 discovery of a high redshift (z = 2.11) quasar that is visually (in ordinary light) between us and the dense core of a low redshift (z = 0.022) galaxy, NGC 7319, is just dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant", along with all of Arps other observations. Where he has documented well over thirty similar cases, probably even more.

A couple of points about this Zeuzzz:

Firstly the observations of dark matter has nothing to do with the observation of NGC 7319 (and Arp's other examples) except in the sense that they are both observations. The validity of either set of observations has no effect on the validity of the other.
In fact if you were correct then assuming that Arp's observations are correct means that the dark matter observations are also correct!

Secondly NGC 7319 as a high redshift object in front of a low redshift object is not "dismissed out of hand as being "statistically insignificant"".
It is dismissed because it is based on the assumption that galaxies are uniformly opaque and so it is impossible for objects behind them to be imaged. That is wrong, e.g. we can see external galaxies quite well from the Earth even when we look through thick sections of the Milky Way.
It is especially false in relation with NGC 7319 which is part of the Stephan's Quintet galaxy cluster where the collision has removed most of the hydrogen gas from the interiors of the galaxies. It is this hydrogen gas that primarily obscures objects.

And a minor point: If the QSO is in front of NGC 7319 then why can we not see its host galaxy?

[Sol88]

First up thank you Tusenfem on your excellent post on what The Buneman instability is.

Second, Reality Check thank you for your most detailed post on the state of today's plasma physics.

Third, DeiRenDopa great work on your many post regarding some of the prolems EU/PC is perceived to have in relation to standard cosmology, very detailed and you obviously put a lot of work into writing them, same with Reality check and Tusenfem

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Second, Reality Check thank you for your most detailed post on the state of today's plasma physics.

What post would that be?
The state of today's plasma physics is described in the many textbooks and papers on plasma physics that exist.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Tim Thompson

I had not noticed this before it was pointed out by DeiRenDopa. I agree with the advice to go read the papers. However, the code for these models will not be found in any paper. So, Mr. Zeuzzz, are you telling us that you believe the entire mainstream cosmology is a deliberate hoax? Do you really mean that you think scientists deliberately falsify their results? If you didn't, then why did you say that?

The Simulating the joint evolution of quasars, galaxies and their large-scale distribution preprint names the software:

Quote:

The Millennium Simulation was carried out with a specially customised version of the GADGET2 (Ref. ⁴⁴) code, using the “TreePM” method⁴⁵ for evaluating gravitational forces. This is a combination of a hierarchical multipole expansion, or “tree” algorithm⁴⁶, and a classical, Fourier transform particle-mesh method^47.

N.B. Zeuzzz: "specially customised version" does not mean "the large scale structure rather surveyed and then made to fit, with a couple of ad-hoc fixes to the code here and there".

An interesting little fact: The source code for the software used for the Millennium Simulation is freely available at GADGET-2 (A code for cosmological simulations of structure formation). Even more interesting is the implication that it can be run on individual PCs (simulate the universe on your home PC !).

[Perpetual Student]

DeiRenDopa:

Thanks for taking the time to contribute the above comments.
I am quite curious about this EU/PC cult, the existence of which I have been totally unaware of for all these decades that I have been following developments in physics and cosmology. Why does it exist? It is so odd that such a cult goes on in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting their theories.
Are they somehow similar to creationists? Probably not -- there is no religious basis to preferring their version of reality to mainstream ideas. Are they like modern "flat-earth" people?
Clearly, they dedicate a great deal of time and effort to their subject. Their knowledge of the behavior of plasmas and other EM phenomena in the laboratory indicate a knowledge of physics. So, why do they battle against mainstream ideas? Why do they believe there is some sort of conspiracy to suppress their ideas? It is all very puzzling!

[Sol88]

The Man has decided to join us in this disccusion

Quote:

Care to show us those ashes, if you can find them. You should be aware that “gravitational systems” come with their own driving forces resulting from, well, gravity (that is why it is called a gravitational system). I think the only “ashes” you will find is the notion of a “prior electrical system” simply electrocuting itself.

Ok.

So working from the reasoning that our own solar system, at some point in time, was created and added to (i.e. did not condense out of a primal molecular cloud under gravity alone in one event) then there should be some form of evidence of the past electrical interactions.

These forms of evidence should be visible on nearly all bodies in our Sun system and nearly all bodies in Jupiter and Saturn's systems as well.

Lets look at some pictures shall we, (and no mainstream carry on that looking at pics is not proof of something)

Ok lets start close to home,

Soupdragon42's excellent video:
Planetary Scars (Extended version) Plasma Cosmology

Michael Goodspeed's excellent article The Craters Are Electric

Z. Dahlen Parker's work on
SPIDERY SCARS FROM ELECTRIC DISCHARGES
TO DUST COVERED CRT
PROVIDE A CLUE TO FORMATION
OF SIMILAR FEATURES ON PLANETARY BODIES

JstagenElectrical-discharge machining a paper in Japanese, but still with relevant pictures.

And just for some balance some mainstream articles on impacts ans scars

(Image: NASA/JHUAPL/CIW)

Bizarre spider scar found on Mercury's surface

Quote:

One of the biggest surprises from the close encounter was a strange spider-shaped feature near the centre of a huge impact scar called Caloris basin. The spider shape is formed by a set of troughs that crisscross to form polygonal shapes at the spider's centre and also radiate outwards.

Lunar Impact Crater Geology and Structure

Quote:

Both the Earth and the Moon are the targets of a continuing bombardment of meteorites, asteroids, and comets from outer space. The "shooting stars" that are commonly seen in the night sky are mostly dust-sized objects striking the Earth's atmosphere. Much rarer, larger objects sometimes strike the Earth or Moon, producing holes known as craters. Meteor Crater in Arizona (1.2 kilometers in diameter) is a well-known terrestrial example. Over its history, the Moon has had countless millions of craters form on its surface.

Just for starters before we move onto the other planets in our solar system.

So how could there be any sort of charging/discharging going on?

See post 1808

[sol invictus]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

I am quite curious about this EU/PC cult, the existence of which I have been totally unaware of for all these decades that I have been following developments in physics and cosmology. Why does it exist?

Maybe it's a fetish.

Quote:

Clearly, they dedicate a great deal of time and effort to their subject. Their knowledge of the behavior of plasmas and other EM phenomena in the laboratory indicate a knowledge of physics.

Are you reading the same posts I am???

[Sol88]

reality check, post 1988, was fair dink'm cobber!

[The Man]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

DeiRenDopa:

Thanks for taking the time to contribute the above comments.
I am quite curious about this EU/PC cult, the existence of which I have been totally unaware of for all these decades that I have been following developments in physics and cosmology. Why does it exist? It is so odd that such a cult goes on in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting their theories.
Are they somehow similar to creationists? Probably not -- there is no religious basis to preferring their version of reality to mainstream ideas. Are they like modern "flat-earth" people?
Clearly, they dedicate a great deal of time and effort to their subject. Their knowledge of the behavior of plasmas and other EM phenomena in the laboratory indicate a knowledge of physics. So, why do they battle against mainstream ideas? Why do they believe there is some sort of conspiracy to suppress their ideas? It is all very puzzling!

Well for the most part I think that it just seems easier for some. Modern cosmology and physics require considerable math to fully understand and explore. No one can doubt the unintuitive nature of some of modern physic and quantum mechanics specifically. In fact one of the tenants of most EU/PC proponents on these threads seem to be an almost complete distain for math, it seems they find it secondary to simple personal experience and intuition. You will often find references made to ‘what I perceive from the plasma ball I got from Wal-Mart’. Certainly before the development of advance instrumentality and the associated math the makes the instrumentality not only existent but useful, personal perceptions were the only tools to explore physics and the universe. It seems to me more of a step back then a step forward. Depending on ones personal perceptions and interpretations of things we simply can not directly perceive (like quarks for example) and might find contrary to the extent of our personal experience, without the instrumentally and math that makes that instrumentality possible and the data it presents interpretable.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

reality check, post 1988, was fair dink'm cobber!

That was your post not mine.

FYI: Clicking in a post and then clicking on the Quote button (lower right, second button, has the text Quote) allows you to reply to a post with a quotation of the post.

[Perpetual Student]

Quote:

Quote:

Clearly, they dedicate a great deal of time and effort to their subject. Their knowledge of the behavior of plasmas and other EM phenomena in the laboratory indicate a knowledge of physics.

Are you reading the same posts I am??? ____s. i.

The guru Alfvén did receive a Nobel Prize for work in plasma physics.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

The Man has decided to join us in this disccusion

Ok.

So working from the reasoning that our own solar system, at some point in time, was created and added to (i.e. did not condense out of a primal molecular cloud under gravity alone in one event) then there should be some form of evidence of the past electrical interactions.
...snipped planetary stuff...

1. What has this got to do with cosmology?
2. Why "past electrical interactions" when there are new craters formed all the time?
3. Why are you commiting the "looks like X thus must be X" logical fallacy?
4. You do realize that a meteorite hitting a planet or moon releases a lot of energy? IMHO there may be some craters that actually have discharge patterns etched in the surface. So what?

[Tim Thompson]

Originally Posted by Perpetual Student

I am quite curious about this EU/PC cult, the existence of which I have been totally unaware of for all these decades that I have been following developments in physics and cosmology. Why does it exist? It is so odd that such a cult goes on in spite of overwhelming evidence refuting their theories.

It all actually grew out of a peculiar pseudo-velikovskian cult of Saturnists. They argue that Earth used to orbit Saturn, which is bad enough, but did so in a "polar configuration", where Saturn would appear to be fixed in Earth's sky over the north pole. in the absence of some external torque, that's impossible. So they postulated that electromagnetic forces provide that torque. They imagined visual phenomena like the Biblical "pillar of fire" as a glowing plasma tower, an electric discharge connecting planets. Those people grew into the EU people. Their founding fathers, as far as I can tell, are electrical engineer Don Scott, and physicist Wallace Thornhill (who has a BS or BA in physics, but spent his career in computer system management).

I have been arguing with them now for about 15 years; they don't like me & I don't like them. But they have "morphed" and I rarely hear any of the Saturn talk anymore, it's all electric universe & electric star. The electric sun is allegedly powered by an electric current that flows in somewhere. It used to flow in through the poles, but that's before Ulysses did not observed a current. So now, as I understand it, the current is a "drift current" of super slow electrons (a few cm/sec) flowing in from all directions. How they manage to pull this off against the flow of the magnetized solar wind is something they don't explain. They always postulate the "electric" solution and assume it is correct, while postulating that the standard model cannot be right, which they proceed either to ignore, or seriously misrepresent. They completely misrepresent helioseismology and the solar neutrino problem. They actually do know something about physics, but you would never figure that out from reading their bizarre ideas.

Their ideas were born of the original idea that myths should be interpreted literally. They have told me more than once that, forced to choose, the literal interpretation of myth trumps scientific evidence. If science contradicts myth (as they interpret same) than the science must be wrong. Also see the Immanuel Velikovsky and Saturnism section of Pib Burns' Other Unorthodox Catastrophism page.

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

That was your post not mine.

FYI: Clicking in a post and then clicking on the Quote button (lower right, second button, has the text Quote) allows you to reply to a post with a quotation of the post.

Oh brother!!