The Electric Comet theory

[Reality Check]

...snipped gibberish...It's leftovers from the solar system formation, hangn out in the Oort cloud waiting for some random event......

No, Sol88: Comets are from the solar system formation, hanging out in the Kuiper Belt, Oort cloud, etc. waiting for some random event to perturb them into orbits that get closer to the Sun and give them the coma and tails that are characteristic of comets.

 

[Reality Check]

Why are the orbits of comets not traced back to planets or moons

Another question for the electric comet proponents:
A central tenet of the electric comet idea is that comets were formed by being blasted off the surface of rocky planets or moons by electrical discharges recently (enough so that humans recorded it?).
David Talbott, Sol88 or Haig: Why are the orbits of comets not traced back to planets or moons?

There are comets whose orbits have intersected the Sun and planets and maybe moons. But when astronomers apply orbital mechanics to comets, they see that they originate in the outer solar system, not from planets or moons.

Note that "wishful thinking about electricity" is not an answer!

 

[Cygnus_X1]

[ stuff deleted ].
• x-ray and ultraviolet emissions exceeding any scientific predictions just 20 years ago
[stuff deleted]
David Talbott

There were predictions of X-rays from comets in the 1970s, AND attempts to measure them.

H. W. Hudson, W.-H. Ip, and D. A. Mendis. An Einstein search for X-ray emission from Comet Bradfield. Planetary & Space Science, 29:1373–1376, 1979.

Einstein observatory gave an upper limit of 1e19 ergs/s which was near the upper limit suggested by some theoretical models.

There are also a number of papers from the 1960s and 1970s covering mechanisms such as electrostatic charging enhanced by the dusty plasmas of comets.

Models providing the mathematical details of comet dust tail motion:

M. J. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. I. Model and equations. Astrophysical Journal, 154:327–352, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149761.

and a comparison to observations:

M. L. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. II. Results for Comet Arend-Roland. Astrophysical Journal, 154:353–380, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149762.

I've also written an analysis on my blog of the claim that the low density of 67P could be due to electrostatic repulsion between the comet nucleus and Rosetta. This places pretty interesting constraints on the charge buildup for any specified 'real' density (as opposed to the 'measured' density of 0.4 gm/cc). For a 'real' density of 3.0 gm/cc, the product of charges on the comet and spacecraft is constrained to about 6e-4 coulomb^2.

The big issue is that the charge on any of the individual bodies would be low enough that accumulation of free charges in the solar wind itself could probably flip the sign of the charge, turning that low density into a much higher density.

We continue to await real predictions from Electric Universe supporters.

This is my first post since the forum move and it appears to have reset my URL posting capability, so I can provide no URLs.

Tom

 

[ben m]

The fastest way to find answers wrt the breakdown of distinctions between comets and asteroids is to go to the extremes.

"the fastest way to agree with EC theory is to cherry-pick the subset of evidence that doesn't disprove it."

 

[Reality Check]

Where did the extra mass of comets come from

Yet another question for the electric comet proponents :
A central tenet of the electric comet idea is that comets were formed by being blasted off the surface of rocky planets or moons by electrical discharges recently (enough so that humans recorded it?).
We have the Kuiper belt mass estimated at 25th and 10th the mass of the Earth. To which we add the Oort cloud mass estimated at about 5 Earth masses.

David Talbott, Sol88 or Haig: Why is the total mass of comets greater to or comparable to that of the rocky planets and moons (which still exist!)?

Let me guess: "wishful thinking about electricity"

 

[Reality Check]

Evidence for parts of the surfaces of planets and moons being removed recently

Further to David Talbott, Sol88 or Haig: Why is the total mass of comets greater to or comparable to that of the rocky planets and moons (which still exist!)?

Let us be charitable and assume that the mass of comets is vastly overestimated. We still have a an appreciable (in David Talbott-talk) fraction of the surface of rocky planets and moons being blasted off them and witnessed by human beings.

David Talbott, Sol88 or Haig: What is the physical evidence of appreciable parts of the surfaces of planets and moons being removed in recent (say Neolithic or Early Bronze Age) times?

 

[tusenfem]

There were predictions of X-rays from comets in the 1970s, AND attempts to measure them.

H. W. Hudson, W.-H. Ip, and D. A. Mendis. An Einstein search for X-ray emission from Comet Bradfield. Planetary & Space Science, 29:1373–1376, 1979.

Einstein observatory gave an upper limit of 1e19 ergs/s which was near the upper limit suggested by some theoretical models.

There are also a number of papers from the 1960s and 1970s covering mechanisms such as electrostatic charging enhanced by the dusty plasmas of comets.

Models providing the mathematical details of comet dust tail motion:

M. J. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. I. Model and equations. Astrophysical Journal, 154:327–352, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149761.

and a comparison to observations:

M. L. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. II. Results for Comet Arend-Roland. Astrophysical Journal, 154:353–380, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149762.

I've also written an analysis on my blog of the claim that the low density of 67P could be due to electrostatic repulsion between the comet nucleus and Rosetta. This places pretty interesting constraints on the charge buildup for any specified 'real' density (as opposed to the 'measured' density of 0.4 gm/cc). For a 'real' density of 3.0 gm/cc, the product of charges on the comet and spacecraft is constrained to about 6e-4 coulomb^2.

The big issue is that the charge on any of the individual bodies would be low enough that accumulation of free charges in the solar wind itself could probably flip the sign of the charge, turning that low density into a much higher density.

We continue to await real predictions from Electric Universe supporters.

This is my first post since the forum move and it appears to have reset my URL posting capability, so I can provide no URLs.

Tom

Thanks Tom!

There are some references there that I did not know yet.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning, Reality Check.

David Talbott: If someone thinks that Rosetta will magically measure everything that they want it to measure regardless of the actual scientific instruments on the 2 spacecraft then I will ask the appropriate question:
8 December 2014 David Talbott: What instruments will detect what you state can be detected in your predictions?

8 December 2014 David Talbott:
Which instrument is designed to detect
"electrochemically transformed and burned black" surface?
ice at the source of jets?
electric discharges?
"rocky debris on the surface, as seen on asteroids"?
"electrical erosion"?
"focused glow discharge"?
"electric fields configuring and reconfiguring layers of dust on the surface"?
"removal of “astonishing,” complex crystalline molecules from the surface"?
"stardust"?
support for "compositional zoning"?
"dust configurations "?
"electrochemical production of hydroxyl and/or water by electrical action on surface silicates and clays"?
"improbable hydrogen cloud"?
"additional electrochemical transactions"?

I somehow missed this exchange earlier.

It's somewhat similar to this post of mine, and opens up the important question of how, exactly, one could objectively (and in an independently verifiable way) process the data sent back by Rosetta (etc) so as to show events such as "focused glow discharges" and features such as an "improbable hydrogen cloud"?

In none of the materials Haig has posted links to could I find any evidence of any independent data analyses having been done by Talbott, Thornhill, or Scott (or any other electrical theorist). In fact, as I have said before, it seems that none of these materials cites any primary sources (i.e. published papers), and it's all too common to find even images in these materials that have no credits or any other pointers to their sources. Further - as you have repeatedly noted - the Deep Impact 'confirmed predictions' seem to be highly selective quoting from secondary sources, with no apparent effort having been made to find primary sources or do independent analyses of the data.

However, I think a perhaps more appropriate question to ask is something like "how do you - and/or your associates/colleagues/etc - intend to process the data from Rosetta, in your research to show the existence of X? Specifically, can you please outline - at a high level - what the typical steps in such analyses are likely to be (given what you know about the instruments, etc)?"

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning, David Talbott.

I'm eagerly awaiting the publication of papers. At the same time it would be silly to ignore significant announcements by principal investigators and mission team members. Numerous ESA and NASA news releases are already a goldmine for gaining a sense as to where the mission is taking comet science. And of course attention to such announcements is exactly what ESA and NASA are hoping for.

It's certainly interesting, exciting even, isn't it?

Personally, however, I take the PR stuff with a grain of salt, sometimes a large grain of salt. For example, as tusenfem never seems to tire of pointing out, the repeated use of the 'dirty snowball' meme is very misleading, no matter who keeps using it. It's a bit like how radio astronomers keep referring to 'gas' (in the intracluster medium, say) when they all know perfectly well that it's a plasma (and their models are built on plasma physics).

Also, out of curiosity, what do you consider to be the detection of "appreciable ices on the surface of 67P"?

I hope you're not demanding "quantification" JeanTate.
Let's just say that a light frost descending to the comet's surface from the coma would not be "appreciable." That was the state of the surface of Tempel 1: about .5 percent of the water required by theory to support the volume of water production in the coma. If you have some numerical value you'd want to inject for "quantification" purposes in relation to 67P why not just name it? I'd not ask anyone for fixed numbers ahead of meaningful facts. When you see the word "appreciable" in context, take it as meaning "requiring appreciation by its ability to confirm, or challenge, prior assumptions."

Thanks for the clarification.

May I take it, then, that deciding whether "appreciable ices on the surface of 67P" have been detected necessarily requires an understanding of the models which have been/were/could be used to predict the amounts of such ice?

So in the context of your post (the one where you used this phrase), you were not referring to the detection of ice(s), but the consistency between (unstated) model predictions and what was detected by Rosetta. And this in turn refers to rwguinn's "Prediction: We will detect ices, dust and rubble on the comet. Check"?

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning again, David Talbott.

Well now Jean Tate. Why I am I suspecting that your primary interest here is to continue a ruse about "quantification"? I see you promoting this ruse even in cases where conclusions are inescapable based on officially-announced discovery. Are we supposed to wait until someone has modeled a phenomenon mathematically before we acknowledge the critical discovery itself? Now I'm finding myself laughing every time I see you use the world "quantitative" on the front end of a challenge. Am I overstating something when I suggest that the motive is all too transparent—a desire to obscure facts that carry immediate, obvious, and far-reaching implications?

Just so that I'm clear on this: if the spacecraft which have gone (or are going) out beyond Neptune's orbit - Voyager 2, New Horizons, to pick just two examples - were ever to return to the inner solar system, per the electric comet hypothesis they'd become comets?

Of course not. But then I've assumed you've followed at least a few earlier discussions of the electric comet idea and the issues posed by "asteroids" becoming "comets". An inability to adjust fully to a changing electrical environment is the whole idea of the electric comet. Not just size, but constituent materials of the moving body, the activity of the Sun, the direction of solar outbursts, the strength and configuration of the Sun's electric field, the speed of passage through this electric field, the presence of double layers around the comet, and the density of the regional environmental charge, would all (quite obviously) affect the comet's electrical response.

Okay...let's see now...

But this has not been investigated by electrical theorists, right?

And it came as a surprise to them, right?

As comet science began to acknowledge the breakdown of distinctions between asteroids and comets, that was a milestone admission, certainly not surprising, and we advertised it.

Within the electric comet hypothesis how - quantitatively - should such distinctions be taken into account?

Hmmm, there's that word again. Forget everything I said above. The cited distinctions should have no value, since I didn't do a single mathematical calculation. Conceptual frameworks for developing a new understanding of cause and effect must be avoided at all costs. Just throw out equations floating in the air, and everything will come out fine.

Or perhaps I could actually persuade you to drop this silliness, JeanTate, and help us persuade comet scientists to ask the most essential questions. They're the ones who could bring with them the tools of a multi-billion dollar industry, an industry chartered to carry out observation, measurement, and analysis, including specialized mathematical modeling. After all, wouldn't you agree that, if comet science has been guided by an incorrect idea (dirty snowball, icy dirt ball), the questions posed here actually COUNT FOR SOMETHING?

Sorry to say, all I can see in your recent responses is a deliberate ruse. Please dissuade me from this impression before I wander off. I do not have a high tolerance for wasting time.

I'm quoting this post of yours in full, to preserve what's in it (several recent posts have been edited by moderators), and to let you know that I have seen it. However, it requires considerable attention, and I don't have time for that right now. Later.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning D'rok (love the name!)

It's amazing the rhetorical lengths that EU/EC cranks will go to avoid addressing scientific questions and doing any actual science.

Let me add to the chorus: where are the EU/EC papers based on the freely available data from previous comet missions? This question has been consistently ignored.

I guess data is just too quantitative for EU/EC "scientists" to cope with. The constant lip service to "evidence" by the EU/EC crowd is beyond laughable at this point.

(my bold)

It does seem rather remarkable that, in regard to the ech, rather a lot of evidence has apparently not been even examined, and that which is cited (by David Talbott, Haig, and Sol88, in this thread) seems to suffer from selection biases.

I hate to say it - David Talbott in particular gets very upset - but if you deal with qualitative evidence only, selection biases are extraordinarily difficult to even recognize, let alone account for.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning again, David Talbott.

Apollo objects do not show comas, yet it seems they should(under the EC hypothesis, they spend large amounts of time in low charge space (under the EC hypothesis and then come into highly charged space (under the EC hypothesis), they move from what should eb an area of low charge (under EC hypothesis) to areas of very high charge (under the EC hypothesis)?

The fastest way to find answers wrt the breakdown of distinctions between comets and asteroids is to go to the extremes. The so-called "Great Comets" have MUCH more elliptical orbits, reaching MUCH farther away from the Sun than Apollo asteroids.

If you use this approach, you also need to be extremely careful about selection biases.

For example, as far as I know, the vast majority of comets which have been observed/discovered to date do have highly elliptical orbits, but they are anything but great (i.e. the sungrazers).

Nevertheless it would not be entirely surprising to see minor dust raising events even on some larger Apollo asteroids. In fact the "Apollo asteroid" Wilson-Harrington DID turn out to be a comet.
http://www.cyclopaedia.de/wiki/Comet_Wilson–Harrington

However, the ech does not distinguish between comets which are called comets because of "minor dust raising events", and comets whose tails are produced by electrical discharges, does it?

But the actual history of "asteroidal comets" makes clear that most of the potential instances would likely have to be viewed up close—an example of direct observation trumping arbitrary numerical values. In many instances a rock and rock with a dust cloud will not be easily distinguished. Nor would we want to ignore the essential considerations I noted earlier.

Indeed.

But would I be wrong in concluding that none of these "essential considerations" are objective? independently verifiable? I mean, with nothing but the ech, can anyone - me, D'rok, Dancing David - derive them? And would their derivations be the same as yours?

 

[JeanTate]

A post a bit out of order (I reply to posts pretty much in chronological order, but this is an exception).

There were predictions of X-rays from comets in the 1970s, AND attempts to measure them.

H. W. Hudson, W.-H. Ip, and D. A. Mendis. An Einstein search for X-ray emission from Comet Bradfield. Planetary & Space Science, 29:1373–1376, 1979.

Einstein observatory gave an upper limit of 1e19 ergs/s which was near the upper limit suggested by some theoretical models.

There are also a number of papers from the 1960s and 1970s covering mechanisms such as electrostatic charging enhanced by the dusty plasmas of comets.

Models providing the mathematical details of comet dust tail motion:

M. J. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. I. Model and equations. Astrophysical Journal, 154:327–352, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149761.

and a comparison to observations:

M. L. Finson and R. F. Probstein. A theory of dust comets. II. Results for Comet Arend-Roland. Astrophysical Journal, 154:353–380, October 1968. doi: 10.1086/149762.

I've also written an analysis on my blog of the claim that the low density of 67P could be due to electrostatic repulsion between the comet nucleus and Rosetta. This places pretty interesting constraints on the charge buildup for any specified 'real' density (as opposed to the 'measured' density of 0.4 gm/cc). For a 'real' density of 3.0 gm/cc, the product of charges on the comet and spacecraft is constrained to about 6e-4 coulomb^2.

The big issue is that the charge on any of the individual bodies would be low enough that accumulation of free charges in the solar wind itself could probably flip the sign of the charge, turning that low density into a much higher density.

We continue to await real predictions from Electric Universe supporters.

This is my first post since the forum move and it appears to have reset my URL posting capability, so I can provide no URLs.

Tom

Welcome Tom!

I think you need another four or five posts before you can start including links.

Electric Comets III: Mass vs. Charge is a recent (Sunday, December 7, 2014) post in the blog Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy. It contains some interesting material, and directly addresses at least two recent posts, one by Haig (and those in response to it), and one by David Talbott. I don't expect Haig would be able to meaningfully respond, and David may be unwilling to do so (he seems to regard any and all efforts to quantify anything to do with the ech as verboten, at least until the June conference); however, other ISF members may.

 

[David Talbott]

I don't expect Haig would be able to meaningfully respond, and David may be unwilling to do so (he seems to regard any and all efforts to quantify anything to do with the ech as verboten, at least until the June conference); however, other ISF members may.

No time to chat for now, but the misstatement above is quite representative of the twisted discussion too many Inquisitors bring to the table. The point I've made repeatedly is that, when direct evidence challenges a longstanding assumption, you have to start with new observations and a reconsideration of old observations, ranging from space exploration to experimental data and more. Give to those managing billions of dollars in space exploration and plasma lab research the REASONS to think in broader terms. The institutionalized field of view, though well-funded, has been too narrow. On this, Rosetta will likely be a spectacular prompt in its own right.

 

[tusenfem]

Electric Comets III: Mass vs. Charge is a recent (Sunday, December 7, 2014) post in the blog Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy. It contains some interesting material, and directly addresses at least two recent posts, one by Haig (and those in response to it), and one by David Talbott. I don't expect Haig would be able to meaningfully respond, and David may be unwilling to do so (he seems to regard any and all efforts to quantify anything to do with the ech as verboten, at least until the June conference); however, other ISF members may.

I think Tom is well informed about "dealingwithcreationisminastronomy"

 

[tusenfem]

No time to chat for now, but the misstatement above is quite representative of the twisted discussion too many Inquisitors bring to the table. The point I've made repeatedly is that, when direct evidence challenges a longstanding assumption, you have to start with new observations and a reconsideration of old observations, ranging from space exploration to experimental data and more. Give to those managing billions of dollars in space exploration and plasma lab research the REASONS to think in broader terms. The institutionalized field of view, though well-funded, has been too narrow. On this, Rosetta will likely be a spectacular prompt in its own right.

Dear David,

I think it is time you and yours on Thunderdolts start actually using the data that is publicly available from PDS (NASA) and PSA (ESA) and show you claimed discharges in the fields data. It should not be hard for your experts to find it.

It seems you and yours are failing your own scientific method.

 

[Ziggurat]

It seems you and yours are failing your own scientific method.

Of course he is. But at this point, what else could we possibly expect? I mean, he's spent how many years now claiming to be this iconoclast, speaking truth to power, fighting the conspiracy to conceal the truth with his received wisdom from the prophets? Imagine the mental anguish that would be involved with actually realizing how much nonsense it all is. Imagine how heartbreaking it would be to accept that your efforts weren't merely unsuccessful, but completely pointless, even counter-productive. And then what? He'd basically be out of a job, with no real prospects, and nobody even giving him any respect. The EU crowd would consider him a traitor to the cause, and the mainstream crowd has no use for someone who couldn't figure out the basics to begin with.

It's really too much to ask of a person, to simply throw away their life's work. The fact that he's wrong simply doesn't enter into the psychological equation here. Which is why arguing with him can never convince him that he's wrong. The admission is simply too terrible a psychic burden to bear. The only people who might benefit are lurkers.

 

[The Man]

No time to chat for now, but the misstatement above is quite representative of the twisted discussion too many Inquisitors bring to the table. The point I've made repeatedly is that, when direct evidence challenges a longstanding assumption, you have to start with new observations and a reconsideration of old observations, ranging from space exploration to experimental data and more. Give to those managing billions of dollars in space exploration and plasma lab research the REASONS to think in broader terms. The institutionalized field of view, though well-funded, has been too narrow. On this, Rosetta will likely be a spectacular prompt in its own right.

Wait, so the Electric Comet "field of view" is somehow less narrow? How exactly does considering electrical interactions explain just about everything (in relation to comets) represent a less narrow field of view? That you evidently want the view to be different in no way indicates such a different view couldn't be even more narrow.

Exactly what "direct evidence challenges" have you found to your "longstanding assumption"? What did you "have to start with" then? Have you even looked for any such "direct evidence challenges"?


"twisted discussion" indeed, a bit less spin on your part might help you in that regard.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning again, David Talbott.

This is my substantive response to your post. So that the full context can be appreciated, I've added nested QUOTE boxes; so there's no misunderstanding, many of these are not in your original post.

Well now Jean Tate. Why I am I suspecting that your primary interest here is to continue a ruse about "quantification"?

I cannot know what's in your mind, David. If you want to call what I post "a ruse", I cannot stop you.

However, this is a public forum, not a private two-way conversation. The ISF members who read these posts (and non-members too) may be reading what's posted here in an attempt to understand the electric comet hypothesis ("ech"), and in particular the extent to which it is scientific and consistent with all relevant evidence (at least some member may have such aims, among others).

If you are sincere in your beliefs concerning the ech, its scientific nature, and its consistency with all relevant evidence, I respectfully suggest that you might consider responding to the content of what I write, not what you perceive to be the intent.

I see you promoting this ruse even in cases where conclusions are inescapable based on officially-announced discovery. Are we supposed to wait until someone has modeled a phenomenon mathematically before we acknowledge the critical discovery itself?

I have no idea what you're talking about David; would you care to clarify please?

Now I'm finding myself laughing every time I see you use the world "quantitative" on the front end of a challenge.

I'm glad to read that my humble posts can bring such levity into your life.

Am I overstating something when I suggest that the motive is all too transparent—a desire to obscure facts that carry immediate, obvious, and far-reaching implications?

Yes.

How interesting that the electrical theorist Ralph Juergens, more than 40 years ago, stated in no uncertain terms that the longer time a comet has spent in the outermost regions of the Sun's influence, the more electrons it would contribute to its display. In this, we have a pretty good explanation as to why a sizable intruder from the outer reaches never seems to enter the solar system without becoming a comet. "Great Comets" (Halley, Hale-Bopp, Hyakutake, etc.) do indeed seem to have the most HIGHLY elliptical orbits.

Just so that I'm clear on this: if the spacecraft which have gone (or are going) out beyond Neptune's orbit - Voyager 2, New Horizons, to pick just two examples - were ever to return to the inner solar system, per the electric comet hypothesis they'd become comets?

If part of any 'no' answer involves "they would not be sizable intruders", what does size and/or 'intrusion' have to do with it?

Of course not. But then I've assumed you've followed at least a few earlier discussions of the electric comet idea and the issues posed by "asteroids" becoming "comets". An inability to adjust fully to a changing electrical environment is the whole idea of the electric comet. Not just size, but constituent materials of the moving body, the activity of the Sun, the direction of solar outbursts, the strength and configuration of the Sun's electric field, the speed of passage through this electric field, the presence of double layers around the comet, and the density of the regional environmental charge, would all (quite obviously) affect the comet's electrical response.

Thank you for the clarification.

Indeed I have read material like that, in the many links posted here; however, I am having an extremely difficult time separating what's truly in the ech (and central to it), what's wild speculation by people who are not electrical theorists, and what's in between. Then there's the apparent many changes that the ech has undergone, over the past few years, not least of which is its morphing from "theory" to "model" to (today) "hypothesis".

Of course, by now I know it's pointless to ask, but have any of these effects been quantified?

Recently you'll have surely noticed that I've started investigating the ech from a somewhat different direction than "quantification" (I get it David; the ech has nothing quantified whatsoever); namely, whether predictions published by electrical theorists can be derived from the ech, objectively, and in an independent manner.

Okay...let's see now...

Of course, it's well established that many "asteroids" have erupted with comet-like comas or tails. And though ellipticity of orbits seems to be a major factor, when considering orbits alone there is a zone of ambiguity between comets and asteroids. The ability of constituent matter to adjust to regions of different charge would surely contribute to the differences.

But this has not been investigated by electrical theorists, right?

And it came as a surprise to them, right?

As comet science began to acknowledge the breakdown of distinctions between asteroids and comets, that was a milestone admission, certainly not surprising, and we advertised it.

Sorry, but I don't think you answered my questions.

But let's try this: can you please point to a publication, by electrical theorists, stating that some asteroids will appear to have comet tails (or similar)? A publication dated before the discovery of this phenomenon.

What does not appear ambiguous is the fact that large bodies falling toward the Sun from the outermost reaches never fail to become comets. So both the ambiguous and unambiguous distinctions between comets and asteroids must be taken into account.

Within the electric comet hypothesis how - quantitatively - should such distinctions be taken into account?

Hmmm, there's that word again. Forget everything I said above. The cited distinctions should have no value, since I didn't do a single mathematical calculation. Conceptual frameworks for developing a new understanding of cause and effect must be avoided at all costs. Just throw out equations floating in the air, and everything will come out fine.

I think you're not being honest, David. But even if you are, you surely recognize this as a strawman, don't you?

Or perhaps I could actually persuade you to drop this silliness, JeanTate, and help us persuade comet scientists to ask the most essential questions.

Sure, why not?

I suspect this may be a sterile exercise however, if only because "the most essential questions" would have to be framed in a form which can be acted upon. In short, they'd have to be quantitative.

They're the ones who could bring with them the tools of a multi-billion dollar industry, an industry chartered to carry out observation, measurement, and analysis, including specialized mathematical modeling.

I think you may have missed the post of mine, earlier in this thread, where I said I am a zooite? As in a citizen scientist (one of ~a million) who participates in Zooniverse projects ... the one I'm currently most heavily involved with is Radio Galaxy Zoo. As a citizen scientist, I have taught myself Python, learned how to query online databases (via SDSS' CasJobs for example), done my own (quantitative) analyses, etc.

Although I knew essentially nothing about 'comet science' before starting to read this thread, I continue to be astonished that electrical theorists have apparently done so little actual scientific research on comets, these past several decades.

After all, wouldn't you agree that, if comet science has been guided by an incorrect idea (dirty snowball, icy dirt ball), the questions posed here actually COUNT FOR SOMETHING?

(my bold)

I think I already addressed this too, in an earlier post, but anyway.

What questions, David?

This thread is about the ech (as it should now be called, per you). The key questions to be asked should be about the ech, shouldn't they?

Sorry to say, all I can see in your recent responses is a deliberate ruse. Please dissuade me from this impression before I wander off. I do not have a high tolerance for wasting time.

Me neither.

But to repeat what I said earlier, this is not a private, two-way conversation.

 

[JeanTate]

Good morning, David Talbott.

Now here is an interesting contradiction.

I've mentioned that, when a scientist wants to attend a Thunderbolts conference anonymously we grant him that request. I can't imagine that anyone who's read the slanderous comments about other scientists posted here would wonder why we protect newcomers to our group by means of anonymity if requested. Anonymity is business as usual in science. In fact, until sufficient reviewers of a hypothesis have been (anonymously) persuaded, it typically NEVER makes it through peer review.

There are certainly quirks and peculiarities in the scientific publication process, and in many respects it's far from ideal.

However, those who present at conferences are not anonymous (although I suppose 'closed sessions' do exist). And there are several ways to get good research papers published, even if it may be difficult to find a journal to publish them; arXiv, for example.

But then:

Once more ...

In short, you have set out on a path which you know full well is antithetical to some core principles of science (e.g. the need for hypotheses to be objective and independently verifiable).
...
In fact, aren't you the author of a poster, on the electric comet theory (?), presented at a plasma physics conference many years' ago? (I may be misremembering; I thought I read that in one of the links Haig posted).

Yes I was, at the last minute, invited by plasma scientist Tony Peratt to give a poster presentation on the electric comet at the IEEE conference, Transactions on Plasma Science, 2006, as i recall.

Thanks for that.

So you never followed up by building on what was in the poster and turning it into at least a good draft paper?

On the other hand, I would never seek to deprive you of your own anonymity on this forum,

My work as a citizen scientist is open for all to read; everything I posted on Zooniverse forums has my name on it, ditto on the CosmoQuest forum. I hope the day will not be too long in coming when the first paper with my name as a co-author is published (quite a few of my fellow zooites already have this honor).

and I wouldn't suggest that your highly subjective contributions here can't be assessed objectively. We don't need to know who you are, even if seeing your intent might make some people wonder.

So unless I'm misunderstanding what prompted your response,

Clearly, you did misunderstand.

the contradiction seems pretty clear. Moreover, allowing people to come to our conferences anonymously has already led to significant progress, including the independent SAFIRE project.

Which, interestingly, no one seems willing to answer questions posed about it.

No one lost anything by anonymity in the short term, and everyone gained. I could give you quite a number of examples spanning decades. Come to our conference in 2015 anonymously and discover the advantage for yourself. You would not be happy if everyone knew that "JeanTate has arrived."

Thank you for the invitation.

I'm quite puzzled though; why would anyone be unhappy to know that I "have arrived"?