Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[The Man]

Originally Posted by Sol88

dude good try, but no dice. A black hole is unfalsifiable, and confirmation bias riengs supreme wrt abstract math and unfalsifiable predictions.

No, just present some testable theory that prevents catastrophic gravitational collapse and you can easily falsify the notion of a black hole. Of course it must explain the observational data as well, if not better.

Originally Posted by Sol88

Such as

Dark matter
Dark energy
Neutron stars
Pulsars
Black holes
Nebula collapse
et cetera

Well here is your confusion, by considering such tests of “abstract math” (as you put it) as attempts to confirm, as opposed to attempts to falsify both the abstraction and the math. That all such falsification attempts have failed (at least for math) does not abdicate your responsibility to present falsifiable tests for your EU/PC conjectures (or at least a self consistent theory), if you want them to be considered science. Some of those considerations you listed did in fact demonstrate a falsification of conjectures, theories, abstractions and math, by many people, some quite prominent. That math survives and accommodates such physical considerations (meaning observable data) simply demonstrates that it is not as abstract as you might like to think. This “abstract math” constitutes the very basis of the technological society we now live in. Hardly ‘abstract’, unless you think a cell phone, computer, TV, flash drive, GPS and perhaps even some medications are abstractions. The large (cosmology) and the small (microchips, chemical and nuclear properties as well as more specifically particle physics) are now related to each other to degrees of precision never known before because of this “abstract math“. What is this abhorrence that EC/PU proponents seem to have for math? Are pictures and subjective interpretations to be the only things considered valid for them (including the plasma ball some might have gotten at Wal-Mart)? ‘Looks like is like’ is more in the realm of sympathetic magic then science.

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by The Man

No, just present some testable theory that prevents catastrophic gravitational collapse and you can easily falsify the notion of a black hole. Of course it must explain the observational data as well, if not better.




Well here is your confusion, by considering such tests of “abstract math” (as you put it) as attempts to confirm, as opposed to attempts to falsify both the abstraction and the math. That all such falsification attempts have failed (at least for math) does not abdicate your responsibility to present falsifiable tests for your EU/PC conjectures (or at least a self consistent theory), if you want them to be considered science. Some of those considerations you listed did in fact demonstrate a falsification of conjectures, theories, abstractions and math, by many people, some quite prominent. That math survives and accommodates such physical considerations (meaning observable data) simply demonstrates that it is not as abstract as you might like to think. This “abstract math” constitutes the very basis of the technological society we now live in. Hardly ‘abstract’, unless you think a cell phone, computer, TV, flash drive, GPS and perhaps even some medications are abstractions. The large (cosmology) and the small (microchips, chemical and nuclear properties as well as more specifically particle physics) are now related to each other to degrees of precision never known before because of this “abstract math“. What is this abhorrence that EC/PU proponents seem to have for math? Are pictures and subjective interpretations to be the only things considered valid for them (including the plasma ball some might have gotten at Wal-Mart)? ‘Looks like is like’ is more in the realm of sympathetic magic then science.

did they or did they not "find" black holes on paper first? You played with SR and GR till whalla!!! an infinitely small and dense object was achieved, when object where observed that are so dense they appear to be made entirely of neutrons, the maths was fiddled to allow for this to happen.

Mainstreams problem is it's reliance on maths for "proof"!

Then when we found extremely small (relatively) highly energetic objects in space, there was only one source for their energy output, gravity!

Then we discovered plasma and magnetic fields (and there attendant electric currents) in space, which we can study in situ as well as in the lab, but gravity well who knows if it could ever be studied in the lab.

the variables for the maths wrt plasma are so dynamic that the maths becomes extremely difficult and only approximation will do!

Maths has it's applications, obviously, but it does not "run" the universe! plasma is like life on Earth, how can you mathematical model that with an equation! It's just to dynamic!

[Sol88]

The Man wrote:

Quote:

(including the plasma ball some might have gotten at Wal-Mart)? ‘Looks like is like’ is more in the realm of sympathetic magic then science.

Which brings up a very interesting point, doe's the plasma ball use shocks, collisions and gravity to produce it's plasma?

Or does it use an electric current? flick a switch and bingo, plasma!!!

[Tubbythin]

Sol88: please define "cosmology" for us all. Thanks.

[Sol88]

Cosmology

Field of study that brings together the natural sciences, especially astronomy and physics, in an effort to understand the physical universe as a unified whole. The first great age of scientific cosmology began in Greece in the 6th century BC, when the Pythagoreans introduced the concept of a spherical Earth and, unlike the Babylonians and Egyptians, hypothesized that the heavenly bodies moved according to the harmonious relations of natural laws. Their thought culminated in the Ptolemaic model (see Ptolemy) of the universe (2nd century AD). The Copernican revolution (see Copernican system) of the 16th century ushered in the second great age. The third began in the early 20th century, with the formulation of special relativity and its development into general relativity by Albert Einstein. The basic assumptions of modern cosmology are that the universe is homogeneous in space (on the average, all places are alike at any time) and that the laws of physics are the same everywhere.


Is that Ok? See that last bold laws of physics are the same everywhere. What laws are applicable over the event horizon?

The 4th revolution began in 1959 when we discovered space was a plasma!

[Tubbythin]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Cosmology

Field of study that brings together the natural sciences, especially astronomy and physics, in an effort to understand the physical universe as a unified whole. The first great age of scientific cosmology began in Greece in the 6th century BC, when the Pythagoreans introduced the concept of a spherical Earth and, unlike the Babylonians and Egyptians, hypothesized that the heavenly bodies moved according to the harmonious relations of natural laws. Their thought culminated in the Ptolemaic model (see Ptolemy) of the universe (2nd century AD). The Copernican revolution (see Copernican system) of the 16th century ushered in the second great age. The third began in the early 20th century, with the formulation of special relativity and its development into general relativity by Albert Einstein. The basic assumptions of modern cosmology are that the universe is homogeneous in space (on the average, all places are alike at any time) and that the laws of physics are the same everywhere.

Ok. Thats more like something from an encyclopedia than a dictionary definition but anyway... could you now tell us, given the above, what moons and the rings of Saturn and comets have to do with cosmology?

Quote:

Is that Ok? See that last bold laws of physics are the same everywhere. What laws are applicable over the event horizon?

Of a black hole? All of them. Its only and the singularity where our mathematics describing the laws of physics break down.

Quote:

The 4th revolution began in 1959 when we discovered space was a plasma!

That is just nonsensical.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

I'm surprised RC!

yes we have observed them, and then The Man's confirmation bias kicks in!

We have observed objects meet every criteria we know for for being black holes. We have no other viable explanation for these objects.
What is this got to do with anyone's confirmation bias?

[edd]

Originally Posted by Sol88

did they or did they not "find" black holes on paper first? You played with SR and GR till whalla!!! an infinitely small and dense object was achieved, when object where observed that are so dense they appear to be made entirely of neutrons, the maths was fiddled to allow for this to happen.

This is called 'making a prediction from theory' and 'adjusting theories based on evidence' and it's a fairly key part of the scientific process. There is also no 'fiddling' of maths involved. Changes of models perhaps (I've not checked the precise history surrounding the discovery of neutron stars), but this is not fiddling of maths.

And by the way - whalla is not a word. Voila is, however. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voila

Quote:

Maths has it's applications, obviously, but it does not "run" the universe! plasma is like life on Earth, how can you mathematical model that with an equation! It's just to dynamic!

That's very much arguable - the fact that some system is too complex (I would not say 'too dynamic') to be precisely modelled by us does not mean that mathematics is not fundamental to the universe, nor does it mean that approximate models are not useful and do not provide insight.

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

We have observed objects meet every criteria we know for for being black holes. We have no other viable explanation for these objects.
What is this got to do with anyone's confirmation bias?

Correct RC!

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

p19/Borrely was found to be HOT and DRY, please explain?

Citation for "HOT and DRY" ?
How hot and compared to what is it "HOT"?
How dry and compared to what is it "DRY"?

Originally Posted by Sol88

Lumps of rock would be an even better description, made at the same time and place as chrondite asteroids! the only difference is the eccentricity of there orbits.

Can you read Sol88? The in-situ composition of only 1 (one, a number between zero and two) comet has been measured. The puzzles observed were

• the number of jets
• their appearance on the dark side of the comet as well as on the light side
• their ability to lift large chunks of rock from the surface of the comet
• the fact that comet Wild 2 is not a loosely cemented rubble pile

Comets are definitely not made at the same place as chrondite asteroids because they have different orbits from asteroids. Objects that are made at the same place tend to share the same type of orbit (e.g. eccentricity). For example the results of the Deep Impact mission to comet 9P/Tempel suggests an origin in the Uranus and Neptune Oort cloud region of the solar system.

The Deep Impact mission showed that that comet is not a "lump of rock" (and yes the results suprised the scientists).

Quote:

A total of 250 million kilograms (551 million pounds) of water[35] and between 10 and 25 million kilograms (22 and 55 million pounds) of dust were lost from the impact.[33]

Initial results were surprising as the material excavated by the impact contained more dust and less ice than had been expected. The only models of cometary structure astronomers could positively rule out were the very porous models which had comets as loose aggregates of material. In addition, the material was finer than expected; scientists compared it to talcum powder rather than sand.[36] Other materials found while studying the impact included clays, carbonates, sodium, and crystalline silicates which were found by studying the spectroscopy of the impact.[11] Clays and carbonates usually require liquid water to form and sodium is rare in space.[37] Observations also revealed that the comet was about 75% empty space, and one astronomer compared the outer layers of the comet to the same makeup of a snow bank.[11] Astronomers have expressed interest in more missions to different comets to determine if they share similar compositions or if there are different materials found deeper within comets that were produced at the time of the solar system's formation.[38]

ETA: Note that this directly contradicts the thunderbolts "prediction".

[The Man]

Originally Posted by Sol88

did they or did they not "find" black holes on paper first? You played with SR and GR till whalla!!! an infinitely small and dense object was achieved, when object where observed that are so dense they appear to be made entirely of neutrons, the maths was fiddled to allow for this to happen.

Mainstreams problem is it's reliance on maths for "proof"!

Then when we found extremely small (relatively) highly energetic objects in space, there was only one source for their energy output, gravity!

Then we discovered plasma and magnetic fields (and there attendant electric currents) in space, which we can study in situ as well as in the lab, but gravity well who knows if it could ever be studied in the lab.

the variables for the maths wrt plasma are so dynamic that the maths becomes extremely difficult and only approximation will do!

Maths has it's applications, obviously, but it does not "run" the universe! plasma is like life on Earth, how can you mathematical model that with an equation! It's just to dynamic!

Actually a mathematician (which I’m sure does not surprise you) Pierre-Simon Laplace, I think was the first person to seriously propose the idea of a body so massive that even light can not escape, back in 1796. However no theoretical model existed at that time to describe their formation and properties. It wasn’t until general relativity provided that framework in 1916, yet even then it was not considered “proof”. It was not until observational evidence supported those models that it became generally accepted. Still even today, as I said, if you could provide a theoretical model the supports the observational evidence and perhaps explains it better, science is always looking for better explanations. I do not know what ‘fiddling’ around you are referring to, it is just a consequence of general relativity which so far has been the best explanation for the observational data that we have. Gravity is being studied in labs around the world, particularly to find its quantum mechanical aspects, and Galileo Galilei was perhaps studying gravity experimentally back in the 1600’s. Plasma was first identified and studied in 1879 by Sir William Crookes as ‘radiant matter’ and it has been the backbone of integrated circuit production since the 1970’s. Apparently it is not “so dynamic that the maths becomes extremely difficult and only approximation will do” since it results in the most precise and intricate electrical circuits we can produce. Micro machines are also being experimented with that result from the same production techniques. As far as your last remarks go, it seems as if you are trying to equate plasma with life. The former we have had considerable success modeling, creating and using while the latter we have as yet been far less successful with.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Correct RC!

What is correct?
That the only viable explanation for the objects is that they are black holes?

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by edd

This is called 'making a prediction from theory' and 'adjusting theories based on evidence' and it's a fairly key part of the scientific process. There is also no 'fiddling' of maths involved. Changes of models perhaps (I've not checked the precise history surrounding the discovery of neutron stars), but this is not fiddling of maths.

And by the way - whalla is not a word. Voila is, however. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/voila


That's very much arguable - the fact that some system is too complex (I would not say 'too dynamic') to be precisely modelled by us does not mean that mathematics is not fundamental to the universe, nor does it mean that approximate models are not useful and do not provide insight.

Quote:

This is called 'making a prediction from theory' and 'adjusting theories based on evidence' and it's a fairly key part of the scientific process.

How many adjustments need to be made before the model is abandoned?

Seems mainstream can ad hoc till their hearts content! when faced with a problem that would falsify that model new physics is invoked or some other fudge factor is "made".

The dirtysnowball theory of comets should have been falsified long ago but ad hocs have kept it together, P19/Borally was one such case as well as Deep impact.

Thornhill made falsifiable predictions wrt Deep impact and others, but seeing how that would make a laughing stock of the mainstreams model, we'll just sweep it under the carpet and hope no one notices!

Oh and thanks for the English (french) lesson, but in Oz we say whalla!!! whalla whalla bing bong! Well north west Oz anyway.

[Tubbythin]

Originally Posted by Sol88

How many adjustments need to be made before the model is abandoned?

Seems mainstream can ad hoc till their hearts content! when faced with a problem that would falsify that model new physics is invoked or some other fudge factor is "made".

The dirtysnowball theory of comets should have been falsified long ago but ad hocs have kept it together, P19/Borally was one such case as well as Deep impact.

Thornhill made falsifiable predictions wrt Deep impact and others, but seeing how that would make a laughing stock of the mainstreams model, we'll just sweep it under the carpet and hope no one notices!

Oh and thanks for the English (french) lesson, but in Oz we say whalla!!! whalla whalla bing bong! Well north west Oz anyway.

Huh? Edd was responding to your ramblings on black holes and you respond with claims about comets? You do know that blackholes and comets are completely different entities don't you?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

How many adjustments need to be made before the model is abandoned?

Seems mainstream can ad hoc till their hearts content! when faced with a problem that would falsify that model new physics is invoked or some other fudge factor is "made".

The dirtysnowball theory of comets should have been falsified long ago but ad hocs have kept it together, P19/Borally was one such case as well as Deep impact.

Thornhill made falsifiable predictions wrt Deep impact and others, but seeing how that would make a laughing stock of the mainstreams model, we'll just sweep it under the carpet and hope no one notices!

The dirty snowball theory of comets has been "falsified" (it was waiting for better data). Deep Impact showed that comments are more like icy dustballs.

This definitely falsified Thornhill's prediction that comets are rocky bodies.

[Reality Check]

G'day Sol88. Since we are forgetting about the cosmology bit of plasma cosmology and derailing into planetary and stellar physics (or that absolute woo that is the Electric Universe) what do you think about gyrochronology as a viable means of estimating the age of stars?

How does the EU model of star formation (whatever it is) affect this?

[edd]

Originally Posted by Sol88

How many adjustments need to be made before the model is abandoned?

My personal standpoint is that you should abandon it in the face of a better model (I cannot even take plasma cosmology as a model at all as you've presented it so don't try to argue that case), and you should have substantially fewer parameters than data - if you need to add parameters to your model to the point where it'll fit anything then you might as well not be bothering.

There's nothing wrong straight off with continuing to refine a model indefinitely however.

There's no rule like "if you've adjusted your theory 100 times it's clearly wrong".

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Mainstreams problem is it's reliance on maths for "proof"!

No. Mainstream physics relies on math for two rather fundamental reasons, neither of which is "proof". It relies on math so that its predictions are quantifiable and hence testable (which is part of what makes it falsifiable), and it relies on math for logical consistency. Math is logic, and we assume that the universe operates in a logical manner. Do you assume otherwise?

Quote:

the variables for the maths wrt plasma are so dynamic that the maths becomes extremely difficult and only approximation will do!

Ever hear of the three-body problem? Making approximations isn't a problem. We do it all the time.

Quote:

Maths has it's applications, obviously, but it does not "run" the universe! plasma is like life on Earth, how can you mathematical model that with an equation! It's just to dynamic!

Nonsense. Not only is plasma far more predictable than life, but population biologists model life with mathematical models all the time. Your ignorance is showing again.

[Zeuzzz]

Originally Posted by edd

There's no rule like "if you've adjusted your theory 100 times it's clearly wrong".

This statement could come in handy in the future. Cheers.

[continues lurking]

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by The Man

Originally Posted by DeiRenDopa

I have a general question concerning any flavour of Plasma Cosmology.

Or rather, concerning any living proponent of any such flavour.

Has there been any suggested tests of PC? If so, some details please.

Some background: in all the hundreds of posts on PC, in this thread and several others; in all the papers cited in those posts I did not read a single, specific, concrete test of PC! As in, "if only astronomers would point the HST at {insert RA and Dec here}, using {insert instrument here}, they would observe {insert expectation here}, which would test the following hypothesis {insert details here}, derived from PC as follows {insert more details here}."

Generalise the HST to any of the thousands of astronomical facilities, covering wavebands from TeV gammas to ~100 MHz radio; generalise a single observation to any observational program; etc.

And not just astronomy; generalise to any space mission (e.g. what commands to send to Cassini, or MESSENGER), or any Earth-based physics facility (e.g. what signals to look for when the LHC gets up and running).

And not just current facilities; generalise to any feasible research program.

But perhaps I missed something; perhaps Thornhill or Scott have published detailed programs, and there are a half-dozen papers by Peratt and Lerner on just how they'd test PC if only they were granted telescope time, and ...

So, does any reader know of any such material/proposals?

And is any other reader curious as to why there is such a dearth of interest, by PC proponents, in actually testing their pet ideas?

Well the usual counter argument, I infer from what I have read on these threads, is the lack of funding or resources to get that ‘testing’ done. As I have said before, for funding, just write a book called “Big Bang Cures They Don’t Want You to Know About” and have Kevin Trudeau do an infomercial, but just don’t let him do the accounting. As most of us know, some who have actually been involved in testing ideas (even our own), some ideas can be tested with minimal expenditure, effort and with existing data, but of course you need an idea to be tested. As you note DRD, most PC/EU claims are such generalizations and we have seen a consistent problem on these threads just trying to pin down what constitutes EU/PC that testing is superfluous until you have something to test. So it remains up to the PC/EU proponents to come up with falsifiable tests. Until then it is not science but just woo and of course a falsifiable test puts one’s idea at risk of being falsified. So I see no mystery as to why such testing is avoided.

This is pretty close to the tentative conclusion I'd come to; namely, that yet one more reason why PC is scientific woo is that none of its contemporary proponents show any interest in having their ideas tested, whether by astronomical observation or laboratory experiment.

There are many aspects to this.

For example, from the hundreds and hundreds of posts here, by PC proponents, it's pretty obvious none of them have more than the vaguest idea of what observational astronomy actually is, as in what telescopes actually are, what the instruments attached to them actually do, how one goes about deciding what to point at, what the data from the instrument is, how it needs to be processed, etc, etc, etc, etc ... and I suspect much the same staggering ignorance prevails wrt in situ space probes, experiments in labs, etc (among contemporary PC heros, Peratt is an obvious except wrt this last).

Then there's how one goes about devising a test, from formulating a hypothesis to obtaining data to analysing it to dealing with confounding factors and statistics to ...

Take part of Thornhill's so-called prediction re the Deep Impact experiment; it illustrates well just how wide and deep the gulf is between, in this case, EU proponents and standard science:

Originally Posted by Thornhill

X-rays will accompany discharges to the projectile, which will not match X-ray production through the mechanics of impact. The intensity curve will be that of a lightning bolt (sudden onset, exponential decline) and may well include more than one peak

"X-rays will accompany discharges to the projectile" -> the detection of a single x-ray photon thus confirms the prediction

"which will not match X-ray production through the mechanics of impact" -> and what is the expected "X-ray production through the mechanics of impact"? and how was this determined? Thornhill does not say, so no one can independently check his work; in particular, no one is able to say whether the method he used to determine what was expected is valid (or not)

"The intensity curve" -> what is this? no definition, so it's impossible to independently verify

"will be that of a lightning bolt (sudden onset, exponential decline)" -> no reference given, so no way to independently check; for example, AFAIK lightning bolts do NOT, typically, have an "intensity curve" that has "a sudden onset and exponential decline", but the so-called prediction is impervious to such an objection

"and may well include more than one peak" -> if there were one peak, EU proponents could claim it was spot on; if there were two peaks, EU proponents could claim it was spot on; if there were 42 peaks, EU proponents could claim it was spot on ... only if there were no peaks could the prediction have been said to have failed.

It would seem that Sol88 is among the EU adherents who proudly markets this non-science, rather than hanging his head in deep embarrassment and shame.

PC and EU proponents also put Birkeland on a pedestal. Aside from the intellectual dishonesty of radically re-writing history (for example, Birkeland did not study plasmas, and certainly never used the term "plasma cosmology"), the conspicuous absence of an active, science-based testing program among these folk shows they have failed, dismally, to learn from the core part of Birkeland's work (it is also richly ironic; one can only wonder how severely he'd've ripped Thornhill's so-called predictions to shreds, for example).

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by The Man

Originally Posted by Sol88

Or shall we dig out W.Thornhill's predictions on deep imapct et cetera


predictions confirmed

Shall I tell you about confirmation bias? Science is not about confirmation testing it is about falsification testing that fails to, well, falsify. Actively trying to disprove a theory is what PC/EU lacks, well, besides a consistent theory.

It's much worse than that ...

... from a quick skim of these, it seems not a single one could be independently verified, as in take the methods Thornhill (etc) used, repeat the steps he took to get to the so-called predictions, and arrive at the same, or similar, conclusions! A more convincing demonstration of non-science would be hard to imagine.

There's only one that concerns an object beyond the solar system, the one on SN1987A, and it begins "If the equatorial ring shows the Birkeland currents in the outer sheath of an axial plasma current column". At first glance this would seem to be a wonderful opportunity for a PC proponent ... develop a quantified model of this system, with "Birkeland currents in the outer sheath of an axial plasma current column", develop hypotheses from this model, publish it, and suggest specific observations that could test the hypotheses (point which telescope at SN1987A, using what instruments, for how long; analyse the data stream how, address confounding factors how, handle statistics how, ...). However, as far as I could see, nothing even remotely like this was done (instead there is only 'bunny picture' non-science).

[DeiRenDopa]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

[...]

Originally Posted by Sol88

As for derailing the threads, DRD asked, I told him!

You may be right - I will leave him to answer the Electric Universe woo.

I can see how I might have somewhat derailed this thread, with my specific mention of Thornhill and of Scott; on doing some checking, I find that neither has written much at all about cosmology, so using their names as I did was misleading, sorry.

Of all the so-called predictions in the link, originally supplied by Sol88, there's only one that could, at a stretch, be said to relate to cosmology:

Originally Posted by Mel Acheson

It’s likely that most ULXs will turn out to be quasars that have been generated recently by the host galaxy.
see

Not even a hint as to how this so-called prediction might be tested ...

But, as you have been saying repeatedly RC, Sol88 has a very idiosyncratic definition of 'cosmology, and for him the EU nonsense is a valid part of PC.

With that clarification to hand, may I repeat my questions? Please, PC only, no EU stuff.

So, does any reader know of any such material/proposals [suggested tests of PC/research programs that include active testing of PC]?

And is any other reader curious as to why there is such a dearth of interest, by PC proponents, in actually testing their pet ideas?

Thanks to all who have answered already.

[Sol88]

DRD wrote

Quote:

PC and EU proponents also put Birkeland on a pedestal. Aside from the intellectual dishonesty of radically re-writing history (for example, Birkeland did not study plasmas, and certainly never used the term "plasma cosmology"), the conspicuous absence of an active, science-based testing program among these folk shows they have failed, dismally, to learn from the core part of Birkeland's work (it is also richly ironic; one can only wonder how severely he'd've ripped Thornhill's so-called predictions to shreds, for example).

Wow you really like 2 x4 piece of wood!

You show your ignorance and bias in the above paragraph is outstanding!

Lets go over it again shall we DRD? Come on, hold my hand and we'll take a walk through history.


Vision of field-aligned currents stirs controversy

Quote:

Birkeland suggested that polar electric currents -- today referred to as auroral electrojets -- were connected to a system of currents that flowed along geomagnetic field lines into and away from the polar region. He provided a diagram of field-aligned currents in his book, "The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902-1903". This diagram is reproduced on the back of the bank note in the lower right corner. This book contains chapters on magnetic storms on the Earth and their relationship to the Sun, the origin of the Sun itself, Halley's comet, and the rings of Saturn. Birkeland's vision of field-aligned currents became the source of a controversy that continued for a quarter of a century, because their existence could not be confirmed from ground-based measurements alone.

The absolute proof of Birkeland's field-aligned currents could only come from observations made above the ionosphere with satellites. A magnetometer onboard a U.S. Navy navigation satellite launched in 1963 observed magnetic disturbances on nearly every pass over the high-latitude regions of the Earth.

The magnetic disturbances were originally interpreted as hydromagnetic waves, but it was soon realized that they were due to field-aligned or Birkeland currents. The first complete map of the statistical location of Birkeland currents in the Earth's polar region was developed in 1974 by A.J. Zmuda and J.C. Armstrong and refined in 1976 by T. Iijima and T.A. Potemra from satellite-borne magnetic field observations.

Also

Quote:

In 1913, Birkeland may have been the first to predict that plasma was ubiquitous in space. He wrote: "It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. We have assumed that each stellar system in evolutions throws off electric corpuscles into space. It does not seem unreasonable therefore to think that the greater part of the material masses in the universe is found, not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in "empty" space. (Ref. See notes)

Quote:

In 1916, Birkeland was probably the first person to successfully predict that the solar wind behaves as do all charged particles in an electric field, "From a physical point of view it is most probable that solar rays are neither exclusively negative nor positive rays, but of both kinds"; in other words, the Solar Wind consists of both negative electrons and positive ions (Ref. See notes)

Birkeland was nominated for the Nobel Prize no less than seven times.

Read those quotes very carefully DRD!

Quote:

The currents were predicted in 1903 by Norwegian explorer and physicist Kristian Birkeland, who undertook expeditions into the Arctic Circle to study the aurora. He discovered, using simple magnetic field measure instruments, that when the aurora appeared the needles of the magnetometers changed direction. This could only imply that currents were flowing in the atmosphere above. He theorized that somehow the Sun was a cathode ray[citation needed], and corpuscules from a solar wind entered the Earth’s magnetic field and created currents, thereby creating the aurora. This view was scorned at by other researchers[citation needed], and it took until the 1960s before sounding rockets, launched into the auroral region showed that indeed the currents posited by Birkeland existed. In honour of his ideas, these currents were named Birkeland currents

You DRD, The Man, RC and others are nothing more than low life trolls!

read on sloths

Quote:

Birkeland currents are also one of a class of plasma phenomena called a z-pinch, so named because the azimuthal magnetic fields produced by the current pinches the current into a filamentary cable. 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. Pairs of parallel Birkeland currents can also interact; parallel Birkeland currents moving in the same direction will attract with an electromagnetic force inversely proportional to their distance apart (Note that the electromagnetic force between the individual particles is inversely proportional to the square of the distance, just like the gravitational force); parallel Birkeland currents moving in opposite directions will repel with an electromagnetic force inversely proportional to their distance apart. There is also a short-range circular component to the force between two Birkeland currents that is opposite to the longer-range parallel forces.[5]

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.

And the absolute kicker!!!

Quote:

In 2007, NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) project "found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun," [9][10] noting "that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras," thus reconfirming Birkeland's model of solar-terrestrial electrical interaction. NASA also likened the interaction to a "30 kiloVolt battery in space," noting the "flux rope pumps 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic!"[11]

Einstein pffff....all he gave you were some maths problems!

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

..snipped Sol88's usual drivel...
You DRD, The Man, RC and others are nothing more than low life trolls!

Einstein pffff....all he gave you were some maths problems!

We know all of this - you are just being stupid as usual Sol88.

We know that what Albert Einstein gave science was a better understanding of the universe.
Kristan Birkeland gave science a better understanding of plasma, aurora and some insights into the solar wind.

[Sol88]

Van Allen radiation belt

Quote:

Prior to the Space Age, the possibility of trapped charged particles had been investigated by Kristian Birkeland, Carl Størmer, and Nicholas Christofilos.[1] The existence of the belt was confirmed by the Explorer 1 and Explorer 3 missions in early 1958, under Dr James Van Allen at the University of Iowa. The trapped radiation was first mapped out by Sputnik 3, Explorer 4, Pioneer 3 and Luna 1.

Shall we move onto Tesla and his discoveries and predictions regarding the ELECTRICAL nature of Earth and space?

And Tesla put it most eloquently

Quote:

“Today's scientists have substituted mathematics for experiments, and they wander off through equation after equation, and eventually build a structure which has no relation to reality.”

Black holes and dark matter spring to mind!

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

We know all of this - you are just being stupid as usual Sol88.

We know that what Albert Einstein gave science was a better understanding of the universe.
Kristan Birkeland gave science a better understanding of plasma, aurora and some insights into the solar wind.

You dropkick, he PREDICTED these effect, again in case you missed the point, PREDICTED.

Einstein, all he had was great scientist hair.

Someone here asking about PREDICTIONS.

Booya!!

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

You dropkick, he PREDICTED these effect, again in case you missed the point, PREDICTED.

Einstein, all he had was great scientist hair.

Someone here asking about PREDICTIONS.

Booya!!

Booya!

Einstein also PREDICTED

Booya!!!

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Van Allen radiation belt



Shall we move onto Tesla and his discoveries and predictions regarding the ELECTRICAL nature of Earth and space?

And Tesla put it most eloquently

Black holes and dark matter spring to mind!

Your ignorance is showing again.

Black holes and dark matter are real observations.

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

Your ignorance is showing again.

Black holes and dark matter are real observations.

something 'bout confirmation bias?

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

something 'bout confirmation bias?

something about actual science?

[Tim Thompson]

Originally Posted by Sol88

did they or did they not "find" black holes on paper first? You played with SR and GR till whalla!!! an infinitely small and dense object was achieved, when object where observed that are so dense they appear to be made entirely of neutrons, the maths was fiddled to allow for this to happen.

Originally Posted by The Man

Actually a mathematician (which I’m sure does not surprise you) Pierre-Simon Laplace, I think was the first person to seriously propose the idea of a body so massive that even light can not escape, back in 1796.

Indeed Laplace put the idea into his 1796 book Exposition du système du Monde, but the idea was originated by geologist John Michell in 1783 (Michell, 1784). Isaac Newton believed that light was made of particles, and there is no reason to prevent bodies massive enough for the escape velocity to exceed the speed of light in Newtonian physics, so such a body would naturally appear dark. But this Newtonian "black hole" is very different from a general relativistic black hole. It is, after all, just a big massive solid object, no different in principle from any other solid object. But the event horizon makes the general relativistic black hole an exotic object in a class by itself in comparison. This is the solution to Einstein's equations that Karl Schwarzschild figured out (Schwarzschild, 1916) within a few months of the appearance of Einstein's original paper (Einstein, 1915).

As for the comments from Sol88, they are as usual, simply too stupid to hold back the laughter. Of course black holes were found "on paper" first (literally true I am sure in the pre-digital age of paper & pencil). So what? As edd has already pointed out, "This is called 'making a prediction from theory'". You make a prediction, and then you conduct a program of observations designed to either verify or falsify that prediction. Are we supposed to be embarrassed or something?

Originally Posted by Sol88

when object where observed that are so dense they appear to be made entirely of neutrons, the maths was fiddled to allow for this to happen.

Ignorance personified again. No, in fact, that is not at all what happened. There were no objects observationally identified as possible black hole candidates until the first rocket borne X-ray telescopes of the 1960's, and the first object seriously considered as a black hole candidate was the X-ray source Cygnus X-1 in the early 1970's. However, the theory of neutron stars had already been introduced many years before in Oppenheimer & Volkoff, 1939. So before there was any observational capability to detect either a black hole or a neutron star, the theories for both were already well established. So what really happened was that the first candidate objects were discovered by X-ray astronomers, but their masses could not be determined with sufficient precision to tell the difference between a neutron star or a black hole. That's why Cygnus X-1 became the first serious candidate, because its mass was clearly just too large to accommodate being a neutron star, which left only black hole in the running.

Originally Posted by Sol88

... but gravity well who knows if it could ever be studied in the lab.

Since this has been explained to you already in detail, one might be excused for suspecting that your investigation of nature here is as honest as one would like to think (gravity is not easy to study in a laboratory, but "we" have been doing it for a long time, i.e., Gundlach, 2005 which is freely accessible).

Originally Posted by Sol88

the variables for the maths wrt plasma are so dynamic that the maths becomes extremely difficult and only approximation will do!

Only for you. People who actually do math are not so mentally encumbered.

Originally Posted by Sol88

Maths has it's applications, obviously, but it does not "run" the universe! plasma is like life on Earth, how can you mathematical model that with an equation! It's just to dynamic!

Well, of course it's not an equation, it's more like several equations. Still, believe it or not, it can be done (NRL Plasma Formulary; Fundamentals of Plasma Physics by Paul Bellan (and see the Bellan Plasma Physics Laboratory at Caltech); Plasma Physics for Astrophysics by Russell Kulsrud; The Physics of Plasmas by Boyd & Sanderson; The Physics of Solar System Plasmas by Thomas Cravens; Space Plasma Physics: School of Space Plasma Physics by Ivan Zhelyazkov; Plasma Astrophysics by Tajima & Shibata, & etc., & etc.).

I don't think that Sol88 cares at all about "plasma cosmology", or anything else related to this thread. I think the only thing that interests him is arguing. Witness that fact that his "arguments" are almost always devoid of intelligence, content, usefulness, or anything else vaguely identifiable with the concept of "smart". Other than perhaps clarifying things for the occasional lurker, which is why I bother at all, there is certainly no value here.

[Sol88]

Quote:

Quote:
In 2007, NASA's THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macroscale Interactions during Substorms) project "found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun," [9][10] noting "that solar wind particles flow in along these ropes, providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras," thus reconfirming Birkeland's model of solar-terrestrial electrical interaction. NASA also likened the interaction to a "30 kiloVolt battery in space," noting the "flux rope pumps 650,000 Amp current into the Arctic!"[11]

Why did it need reconfirming?

I'd just like to highlight this sentance again

"found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun,"

how could this be if space is over all quasi-neutral?

Quote:

This is the solution to Einstein's equations that Karl Schwarzschild figured out

Exactly! the maths must be correct and the Universe MUST conform to these equations.

as Tesla once said

Quote:

In space there is energy. Is it static or kinetic? If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic - and this we know it is - then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.
Nikola Tesla

the BB theory is static the Electric universe is kinetic!

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

the BB theory is static the Electric universe is kinetic!

More of your ignorance.
BB theory is dynamic - have you never heard of the expanding universe?

[Ziggurat]

Originally Posted by Sol88

I'd just like to highlight this sentance again
"found evidence of magnetic ropes connecting Earth's upper atmosphere directly to the sun,"

how could this be if space is over all quasi-neutral?

Your ignorance of basic electrodynamics is showing. Current and charge are not the same thing. The wire in an electromagnet is pretty damned close to neutral. So why would the existence of a magnetic field in space indicate that space is not quasi-neutral?

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Ziggurat

Your ignorance of basic electrodynamics is showing. Current and charge are not the same thing. The wire in an electromagnet is pretty damned close to neutral. So why would the existence of a magnetic field in space indicate that space is not quasi-neutral?

And a moving charge is called....a current! which is not quasi-neutral

[Sol88]

Originally Posted by Reality Check

More of your ignorance.
BB theory is dynamic - have you never heard of the expanding universe?

Yes, I've read about it in farietales!

[Tubbythin]

This is brilliant. According to Sol88, if the prediction was made first then the observation must be confirmation bias. And if the observation was made first then we must have to fiddle the maths. In other words, regardless of the evidence presented before him, Sol88 refuses to believe it.

[Tubbythin]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Yes, I've read about it in farietales!

So you've not read about any of the evidence for it then? Funny that someone should be debating about the veracity of a scientific theory that they've never read anything scientific about. Seems like you're not arguing against the BB at all. You're arguing against some fairytale story about it. Unfortunately, this is the science forum, not the fairytale forum. I think you're in the wrong place.

[Reality Check]

Originally Posted by Sol88

Yes, I've read about it in farietales!

That explains it!
I thought that you were at least a high school student but you must still be in infant school !

[edd]

Originally Posted by Sol88

And a moving charge is called....a current! which is not quasi-neutral

I've checked definitions of quasi-neutrality and can't see anything that means a quasi-neutral plasma cannot carry current.

Are you quite sure about this?

Can you define exactly what quasi-neutral is and why this implies there is no current?