The Electric Comet theory

[Jrrarglblarg]

What a petulant and childish answer. Why are you stuck on this nonsensical image?

 

[Haig]

As for the Mars flyby, it might be complicated, I haven't looked at it yet. Point me to some calculations done by the EU folks, though, and I'll be impressed. Then I'll show you where they screwed up, because I guarantee you they will. They always do.

Gezz guys,

you all keep dodging this ....

Come on this IS the Electric Comet example and you haven't looked at it yet !!!! Both you and tusenfem .... the rest NO Comment

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10336409#post10336409

 

[Haig]

Well ziggurat you deride the EU folk for not presenting the maths for an electromagnetic phenomenon and yet when given a simple example when compared to the Electric Sun you say it's complicated.

So doing a strawman oversimplification calculation isn't an option this time?

 

[tusenfem]

Care to calculate the energy needed in the Electric Comet Siding Spring reaction with Mars?

HA!

you don't believe anything we calculate, and now you ask for it ....

 

[Andy_Ross]

And in case Sol88 or Haig display ignorance about water not being found around 67P: VIRTIS detects water and carbon dioxide in comet’s coma (07/11/2014)


Some EU cranks in the comments. One argument is the rather dumb one from incredibility - ohhh look comets produce lots of water from ice, I do not like these big numbers so the big numbers actually come from rock .

A good comment from the blog regarding 'electricity' and the Solar Wind producing water

If the solar wind is responsible, acting on silicates, why don't we see this all happening on the moon, with a grandstand view? It's certainly made of silicate rocks, and has no atmosphere or magnetic field to protect it, and is considerably closer to the sun than 67P right now.
The mechanism exists, but doesn't fit the behaviour, and is orders of magnitude too weak.

 

[tusenfem]

How is the tail of a comet pointing away from the Sun make Electric Comets theory wrong? It's actually the opposite it makes it right! Ask yourself if comet tails are just sublimating ices and dust WHY do they stay ATTACHED to a very low gravity body like a comet? and sweep around the sun like a blade at perihelion? That's an electromagnetic effect LS

This is known since the paper by Hannes Alfvén (On the theory of comet tails, Tellus, 9, 92 – 96, 1957). It is called magnetic field line draping, the magnetic field of the solar wind gets "hung up" in the "ionosphere" of the comet, which is created by ionization of the emitted gas from the nucleus. The "ionosphere" (in "" because it is not a real ionosphere, but it is easier to call it that) has a high conductivity, which means that the diffusion of the magnetic field through the plasma is hampered (frozen in magnetic field from Alfvén's MHD theory). At the comet it hangs up, but further away it gets transported by the solar wind, so a tail if formed. (see Alfvén's figure here)

Yes, it is an electrodynamic process, so what? It is a direct consequence of MHD, a well understood mainstream theory, which got Alfvén his Nobel price. It gets more interesting if the outgassing of the comet suddenly changes (at at Halley), what then happens you can soon read in my paper in Annales Geophysicae (A comparison between VEGA 1, 2 and Giotto flybys of comet 1P/Halley: Implications for Rosetta)

 

[Haig]

This is known since the paper by Hannes Alfvén (On the theory of comet tails, Tellus, 9, 92 – 96, 1957). It is called magnetic field line draping, the magnetic field of the solar wind gets "hung up" in the "ionosphere" of the comet, which is created by ionization of the emitted gas from the nucleus. The "ionosphere" (in "" because it is not a real ionosphere, but it is easier to call it that) has a high conductivity, which means that the diffusion of the magnetic field through the plasma is hampered (frozen in magnetic field from Alfvén's MHD theory). At the comet it hangs up, but further away it gets transported by the solar wind, so a tail if formed. (see Alfvén's figure here)

Yes, it is an electrodynamic process, so what? It is a direct consequence of MHD, a well understood mainstream theory, which got Alfvén his Nobel price. It gets more interesting if the outgassing of the comet suddenly changes (at at Halley), what then happens you can soon read in my paper in Annales Geophysicae (A comparison between VEGA 1, 2 and Giotto flybys of comet 1P/Halley: Implications for Rosetta)

I see why you were reluctant to bring this up.

So Electric Comet theory is nonsense but mainstream Magnetic Comet theory is good !!!

Can you separate electricity and magnetism ? Which comes first? Can you have one without the other .... I think NOT.

Alfvèn said after his Nobel Prize he was wrong about frozen in magnetic fields and MHD but mainstream couldn't admit the EU / PC crowd have been right all along!

Dump the stupid Dirty Snowball comet model hello the Magnetic Comet one?

No wonder I had to drag this out of you

 

[tusenfem]

Mainstream or indeed yourself Belz have maths coming out of your wazoo and your theories are still incorrect! yay maths

your maths told you comets are dirtysnowballs, your observations told you that comets are conglomerates of ice, dust and rock as the data says otherwise, but , your maths is 100% correct i.e. 1+1=2

What maths would you be after to sway you the EC way?

So I corrected that for you Sol88.

What maths? Well, if you can find us an EC paper that has actual maths in it, then maybe we could be convinced there is something.

 

[tusenfem]

You can neither confirm or deny ICE on/under the surface of 67P or any comet, whilst I understand you detect OH and H but you have NOT found the source!

Wrong, maybe you should keep up with the actual data, because actual H2O has been measured in its complete isotope diversity by Rosina.

And as usual, EC does not have a model for creating the amount of water that has been measured, or have you found an actual quantitative EC paper for us?

I am sure you get off on "irritating" us with your useless claims.

 

[tusenfem]

P.S Also begs the question, how do the jets stay Colminated??? How does GAS do that in the vacuum of space??

I was wondering what the colmination of this thread would be.

 

[Belz...]

Mainstream or indeed yourself Belz have maths coming out of your wazoo and your theories are still incorrect! yay maths

Again, you betray a deep ignorance of how maths and science work. The math is used to prove that the theory matches observation, and make further predictions. As I told you a few posts ago, it's a progressive process, whereby the theory -- and the associated math -- is adjusted with further observation. It's entirely normal that the theory -- and the associated math -- not fit all future observations, but the key thing is to change the theory to fit these observations. In the end however, you will always have math to ground your theory in something else than rhetoric.

The fact that EU has nothing but rhetoric is a weakness, not a strength.

 

[Belz...]

Mainstream text book science that i read as a kid and young adult said comets were made of dust and ice formed from the leftovers from the formation of the solar system!!

And I read a 70 year old book that said that Jupiter's great spot was a floating iceberg. Did you expect science to get all the answers right on the first try ? And where do you think our knowledge of electricity comes from if not science ?

but if we dumb non scientist don't ask questions your maths can tell us whatever cab get you that next grant!

You are not sufficiently knowledgeable on this topic to even formulate your questions properly. How do you expect to overturn science or keep it honest ?

 

[tusenfem]

So we all agree then...The DIRTYSNOWBALL is dead???

The "dirty snowball" as envisioned by Whipple in the 50s (I guess it starts with Whipple: COMET MODEL. I. THE ACCELERATION OF COMET ENCKE, Astrophysical Journal, 111, 375-394, 1950; A COMET MODEL. II. PHYSICAL RELATIONS FOR COMETS AND METEORS, Astrophysical Journal, 113, 464-474, 1951) has been "dead" ever since we flew by comet 1P/Halley with Giotto.

 

[tusenfem]

Gezz guys,

you all keep dodging this ....

Come on this IS the Electric Comet example and you haven't looked at it yet !!!! Both you and tusenfem .... the rest NO Comment

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=10336409#post10336409

There is nothing in your link that actually gives anything to calculate. Also the link to the MAVEN website does not tell us anything, except that dust and gas from comet SS entered into Mars's induced magnetosphere. Naturally, there will be ionization of the gas and dust and this will add electrons and ions to the ionosphere. Different instruments will measure different things, either electrons or ions.

But there is nothing there that give a hand on calculating anything.

However, you can of course dig up the data that you want interpreted and then a calculation can be done, which you then will reject because we use th wrong physics.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning Sol88,

Mainstream or indeed yourself Belz have maths coming out of your wazoo and your theories are still incorrect! yay maths

your maths told you comets are dirtysnowballs, the data says otherwise, but , your maths is 100% correct i.e. 1+1=2

What maths would you be after to sway you the EC way?

I'm trying to get my head around your "maths" and your love of "the EC way".

Did you see where your mate, Wal, said that 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko is "hot"? I dunno what part of Oz you're from, but it sure looks like a porky-pie to me; I mean, -70C is bloody freezing here in the Big Apple, and truly brass monkeys' weather in Oz, right?

Would Wal telling porky-pies sway you away from the EC way?

How about if the EC says comets are hot, but they'd give brass monkeys brass monkeys (they're that cold), it can't be right can it? I mean, common sense, really.

By the way, I'm a bit sad that you seem to be ignoring me; I've asked you lots of questions, trying to get a civilized dialog going, but you have been giving me the cold shoulder. Why?

 

[JeanTate]

Hi Reality Check

I believe it all started with a crank called Immanuel Velikovsky who thought that his cherry picked myths that looked like they are about astronomical events meant that planets bounced around the Solar System against the laws of gravitation. Thus he evoked electromagnetism as magic to move planets around as he wanted.

A founder of EU is David Talbott who is a "long-time promoter of neo-Velikovskian ideas".

Why other people who should be able to see through the woo of David Talbott associate themselves with it is a whole other matter. Donald E. Scott is a retired electrical engineer. Wallace Thornhill is an Australian physicist. They should have at least basic knowledge of science !
There is another thread exploring this topic: Why is there so much crackpot physics?

ETA: Wallace Thornhill also turns out to be a Velikovskian!

You seem to be well-informed about Talbott, Scott, and Thornhill.

I think I read - on a site Haig post a link to - that they have published books, and that they often ask for donations.

While retired now, Scott was an electrical engineer (you say); what about Talbott and Thornhill, do you know how they make/made their living?

Some of the websites and webpages Haig has posted links to seem to be pretty slick, and the videos can't have been cheap to produce. Do you know where these three guys get the money they need to produce and maintain all this?

 

[JeanTate]

Hi pln2bz,

Hi, I am new here.

I'm even newer here, and it took me a while before I could post links etc; it's frustrating, but hang in there!

I've been looking at the first science sequence infographic which states that the CONSERT instrument, whose purpose is to study the internal structure of the comet nucleus, was scheduled to have run by now.

Is there any information available on whether it has already returned data, and what it returned?

I am hearing that the lander rebound was an indication of higher strength material at the surface, which some mission engineers have described as a surprise.

I understand that this electric comet idea elicits a lot of emotion, as I've seen a lot of these debates online. I am mildly familiar with Wal Thornhill's classical hypothesis for gravity, and this question of whether or not 67P is a rock on the inside would appear to be critically important not just to the notion of electric comets, but also to physics, more generally.

I have to imagine that people would think twice about ridiculing the electric comet idea in light of any CONSERT data that indicates that 67P is a rock throughout. Does the ESA already have this information in hand?

Other members have already replied to you on this, but I thought you might be interested in a new member's perspective.

Before I signed up, I read a lot of the posts in this (long!) thread, but found it really confusing, trying to understand just what "the electric comet theory" is. Fortunately, long-time member Haig was very generous in many of his recent posts; they contain lots of links, and he personally vouched that they contain key, current materials on the electric comet theory.

From reading what's in the links Haig posted, I learned that the electric comet theory is not a stand-alone thing; in fact, it is intricately bound to the electric Sun model (Haig posted a lot of links to that too). While there are certainly aspects of the electric Sun which are relatively independent of the electric comet theory, one part is critical: the Juergens model.

In the Juergens model, there's a huge potential difference between the Sun and the heliosphere (billions of volts, I think Scott said); this is what - ultimately - powers the Sun (though none of the materials Haig posted are all the clear on the details of how this happens). And it's this potential difference which - in the electric comet theory - causes comets to have jets and tails (they're discharges), creates surface features (they're due to EDM), produces water (via EDM), makes comets hot, etc, etc, etc.

As far as I can tell - and Haig has given up trying to help me here - no electrical theorist has published any calculations on any of these things; specifically, there's nothing which relates the (approximately radially symmetric, centered on the Sun) electric potential to size and intensity of jets and tails, nothing on the expected rate of water production, no estimates relating a comet's surface temperature to the level of EDM expected, etc, etc.

I must say, this is all rather surprising to me; the electrical theorists have been working on the electric comet theory for nearly half a century, and have nothing quantitative to show for their work! Doubly surprising as one of them - Scott - was, before he retired - an electrical engineer.

From your reading, have you come across anything concrete, quantitative concerning the electric comet theory, pln2bz? Any published calculations (even back-of-the-envelope ones)?

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning Haig,

I see why you were reluctant to bring this up.

So Electric Comet theory is nonsense but mainstream Magnetic Comet theory is good !!!

Unless you have access to material which addresses the huge failure of the Juergens model, or which shows that the electric comet idea does not depend - critically - on an approximately radially symmetric electric potential (centered on the Sun, ~billions of volts from photosphere to heliosphere), then yes, "Electric Comet theory is nonsense" (perhaps better said, it is incompatible with the relevant experimental and observational results).

Can you separate electricity and magnetism ? Which comes first? Can you have one without the other .... I think NOT.

How is this relevant to the electric comet/Sun ideas?

I can't follow your logic here; could you explain please?

Alfvèn said after his Nobel Prize he was wrong about frozen in magnetic fields and MHD but mainstream couldn't admit the EU / PC crowd have been right all along!

Huh?

Dump the stupid Dirty Snowball comet model hello the Magnetic Comet one?

No wonder I had to drag this out of you

Um, tusenfem cited a paper - as in something published in a peer-reviewed journal - from 1957. It's been around that long, and you - and any other fan of the electric comet/Sun ideas - could have accessed it and read it. And all the subsequent papers which referenced it.

It is not a document whose only copy was sitting in tusenfem's private library. Nor is he your personal research assistant.

Have you done so little investigation, yourself?

By the way, is there a particular reason that you've stopped replying to my posts, even when they contain simple questions (which, from your evident extensive knowledge of the electric comet and Sun ideas, I expect you'd be able to answer in a mere minute or two)?

 

[Ziggurat]

Well ziggurat you deride the EU folk for not presenting the maths for an electromagnetic phenomenon and yet when given a simple example when compared to the Electric Sun you say it's complicated.

So doing a strawman oversimplification calculation isn't an option this time?

I didn't say it was complicated. Since I haven't looked at it yet, how could I make that judgment? That makes no sense. But I've grown to expect you not making sense.

Plus, of course, none of my calculations are straw men. That's merely your latest pathetic attempt to discredit them without actually finding a mistake, which you won't do because you can't. Just like you and the rest of the EU crew can't actually do any calculations of your own. You claim that the Mars comet proves your theory, but you can't present any calculations to show that your theory works and that mainstream theory fails, so there's nothing other than faith and dogma to support this delusion. No actual science, which would require quantitative testing of your ideas.

 

[tusenfem]

I see why you were reluctant to bring this up.

So Electric Comet theory is nonsense but mainstream Magnetic Comet theory is good !!!

How reluctant? I must have written this before here.
There is no "mainstream magnetic comet" there is ONLY mainstream solar-wind-comet interaction which can be well described by a combination of gas dynamics and plasma physics.
Electric comet theory is nonsense in the sense that it "predicts" (okay handwaves) all kinds of things that observations have not shown to happen, like all the discharges that have to happen. Why do we not see any evidence of these discharges in the instruments that would be able to measure them?

Can you separate electricity and magnetism ? Which comes first? Can you have one without the other .... I think NOT.

Why would I want to separate them? Just because you come up with a new invention "the mainstream magnetic comet" does not mean that mainstream actually has this comet. Mainstream has the solar-wind-comet interaction.

Alfvèn said after his Nobel Prize he was wrong about frozen in magnetic fields and MHD but mainstream couldn't admit the EU / PC crowd have been right all along!

No, you misinterprete that. After Alfvén (not Alfvèn) presented his MHD (which is a wonderful tool to work with) people grabbed this tool and used it for ANYTHING without actually checking if the requirements of MHD were fulfilled or not. Thus at the beginning of the MHD era a lot of wrong stuff was done. Nowadays, any first year student of plasma(astro)physics gets it hammered into head that one has to check the validity of the approximation (MHD is an approximation of full plasma physics), e.g. do not look at scales smaller than the largest ion gyro radius, etc.

ETA: I would like to see an actual quote from Alfvén in which he makes claims about the EU/PC crowd. And he never said that MHD was wrong.

Frozen in magnetic fields work very well. Indeed, a "renegate" mainstream magnetospheric physicist (he likes to look differently at some things, which is why I like him) actually looked at the breakdown of the frozen-in condition in the Earth's magnetotail. But searching for these breakdowns is not easy.

Dump the stupid Dirty Snowball comet model hello the Magnetic Comet one?

No wonder I had to drag this out of you ��

There is no "magnetic comet" model, there is only the magnetoplasma interaction of the solar wind with the outgassing comet. And you did not have to drag it out of me, if you would actually read some mainstream comet papers then you would already have known.