Something new under the sun

[robinson]

Space contains magnetic fields that direct the flow of plasma, an energetic fourth state of matter consisting of positive ions and electrons. The plasma particles normally follow the paths of the magnetic field lines like streams of cars following highways.

Magnetic reconnection can release that stored energy when two magnetic field lines bend towards each other and fuse to create new field lines. The effect is not unlike an earthquake forcibly realigning parallel highways into perpendicular routes and channeling cars along the newly created paths. Although some released plasma energy travels in a straight line — called a super-Alfvenic electron jet — other plasma particles fan out as though escaping the opening of a trumpet.

http://www.space.com/businesstechnology/080206-tw-magnetic-reconnection.html

It is such an interesting subject.

The plasma particles normally follow the paths of the magnetic field lines like streams of cars following highways.

An example like that makes me wonder. Are they saying the plasma is the source of the energy? That, like cars, plasma expends energy following a path?

Magnetic reconnection can release that stored energy when two magnetic field lines bend towards each other and fuse to create new field lines.

What stored energy? Right there, the issue of stored energy is just brought up, but no explanation is offered. Where does the energy come from? How is it stored?

The effect is not unlike an earthquake forcibly realigning parallel highways into perpendicular routes and channeling cars along the newly created paths.

If an earthquake actually did that, cars would not follow a "perpendicular route", driving into the sky, or making a hard right angle, (I'm not sure what they actually mean), just flowing along the new route.

But accepting that the lines are changed somehow, in new directions, why is there some huge release of energy because the magnetic field has changed?

If a highway was abruptly changed, by an earthquake, I can understand the earthquake supplied a lot of energy, but how do cars taking a new path serve as an example of a stored energy release?

There is so little about this, (The Wiki page is a good example), it doesn't really seem to be very hard science. Yet.

 

[Reality Check]

...snip...There is so little about this, (The Wiki page is a good example), it doesn't really seem to be very hard science. Yet.

Magnetic fields store energy - see the magnetic dipole section of the Wikipedia article on magnetism or Energy in Electric and Magnetic Fields or a lesson on magnetic energy (especially the last equation on the page).

 

[Dancing David]

It is, isn't it? Like a train wreck.

Sometimes I think psychology is even more interesting than physics...

Well, it can be, however the woo factor is psychology is just amazing. The ability of otherwise competant people to come out with some sort of woo bomb matterial is daunting.

I think my favorite was when a therapist said something about how exposure to sexual material of TV was causing children to physicaly mature at a younger age.

 

[Dancing David]

I was commenting on the magnetism stuff. I almost started a thread on magnetism a long time ago, but this conversation, which started off about gravity, ended up being about plasma and magnetism and all kinds of fascinating stuff.

Every person who is insulting, rather than scientific, you just lose credibility each time you say something dumb.

"But the pension fund was just sitting there...." to quote Uncle Duke in Doonesbury

 

[Zeuzzz]

Funny how you didn't comment at all when I said this exact same statement about ten times before. I expect your going to claim that I have just completely changed my position yet again, without any evidence.

I have never changed my position, my problem with magnetic reconnection are specifically about the energy being released (somehow) from the interaction of the lines themselves.


Shall we have a look at a few of my continual requests for someone to explain how the lines connecting releases this energy?

What are you talking about? How does a standard example of a neutral point between four magnets show magnetic reconnection?

The field lines did exactly what they should do, cancelled out in the necessary places, and due to this the topology of the abstract lines changed. The lines certainly appear to 'reconnect' or cross, but there is a good reason for that, they cancel out and form a neutral points. No energy release involved.

Yes. I was referring to the idea of open magnetic fields and how they cant exist according to Maxwell, and your field is not an open configuration. Helps if you read my posts, or the links i have provided you with.

Yes, the lines appear to reconnect, just as they do in any model of a standard neutral point. Given the definition of what field lines are representing, it would not make any sense for them to not. A simple interaction between solenoid fields can easily demonstrate this.

In your example, the topology of the lines describing the vector field do appear to reconnect, Yes. And there is a simple reason for that: cancelling opposite and equal magnitudes of a vector field. And as far as i am aware, this process releases no energy.

None, thats what magnetic fields do. This is nothing to do with what is claimed to be occuring in 'magnetic reconnection'.

Anyone knows the difference between the purported 'magnetic reconnection process' and the topology of magnetic field lines when put in certain conditions.

I have asked continually for Sol, or anyone, to provide experimental evidence of this breaking, and reconnectiong of magnetic field lines, acting as physical things and releasing large amounts of energy. No-one so far has been able to.

Hmmm, i think you are confusing what we mean by 'magnetic reconnection' with canceling magnetic field vectors in a simple field diagram, which just brings two lines together as they cancel. I'm sure that magnetic field vectors doing this do not violate maxwells laws, as you demonstrated.

The only thing reconneting is in your mind. The magnetic field lines you are using to claim that magnetic reconnection can occur are areas where two points on the vector field cancel out, and so the separate lines appear to reconnect as they are the summation of the two points.

You are claiming that the field that you showed exhibits magnetic reconnection, when it doesn't. It shows a neutral point where the vectors in question cancel, and the lines showing these vectors are brought towards each other. By definition, magnetic reconnection is the release of energy from the lines of the field reconnecting.

As far as i can see, reconnection (or cancelling) of metaphysical lines describing the magnitude of an abstract vector field should not result in any release of energy. This is what you described.

There seems to have been a severe misunderstanding by what people mean by "magnetic reconnection", and the merging (cancelling) of field lines in standard magnetic field configurations.

You still think that the field you posted back then is an example of magnetic reconnection?

Since you have been completely unable to explain how the energy is liberated from this system, it is quite obviously not magnetic reconnection, or you would have posted an explanation for how this occurs by now.

I never said it didn't exist, I myself quoted those papers at MRX before you did. I just dispute that their interpretation of it what is creating the energy ("splicing" field lines). Thats the issue i've had all along, and Alfvens model in Scotts paper seems much more likely to me.

Just saying reconnection happens, then lots of energy is released, is not an explanation! Just explain how the lines reconnecting create the observed energy.

Can we agree now that the cancelling of magnetic field vectors in a simple magnetic setup can not release energy? And you have to describe some other process associated with these lines to create the actual energy?

This is coming from people interpretting what magnetic reconnection means in different ways. You can not achieve magnetic connection with fridge magnets, because there will be no energy release, and you are not taking into account any plasma physics in your calculations. So although the field you claim exhibits "magnetic reconnection" involves a standard cancelling of vectors across a neutral point in which the lines merge together, there is no energy release, and so is definately not the process that astronomers refer to as magnetic reconnection in plasma.

It didn't show magnetic reconnection, its showed the topologies of magnetic field lines around a neutral point, but included no calculations of the energies released by the splicing lines. Which was the point I have continually been asking for (at least twenty times now) for how splicing field lines release energy.

Do you understand my position Now? The same position that I have had all along, no matter how much you make false statements about what I am claiming. I never said that the configuration of standard field lines that appear to reconnect violtaes any of maxwells laws, and I never disputed the field configuration you showed around a neutral point could exist. What I am arguing against is all listed above. No-one has come up with an example of me disputing the connection of field lines around a standard neutral point, but there is a good seven pages worth of me continually asking anyone for the explanation of the energy release from these lines.

So far the closest we've got to how these interacting lines release the energy associated with magnetic reconnection is this from Sol:

"one of the tangles has been undone, the energy density decreases, and lots of energy gets released.

That's all there is to it."

The longer you ingore this question, or any of the other ones I have continually asked, the more foolish you make yourself look. And please dont repsond to this one yet again with more word salad "look he's changing his position aggain" without ever giving a reference to what my change in position was. It just comes across as you being totally unable to explain the energy release from magnetic reconnection used so much in astrophysics.




If my position is so untenable, why do so many scientists seem to dispute the current explanation for the energy release from the magnetic reconnection process?

http://www.irf.se/Publications/IRFreport280.pdf

Magnetic reconnection/merging was introduced by by Jim Dungey in 1961 to explain the transfer of solar wind energy through the magnetopause and large scale convection in the magnetosphere. Magnetic reconnection was quickly adopted by many researchers in space plasma physics, but it also stirred up an intense controversy that remained for a long time. Among many of the contemporary critics were Hannes Alfvén, the founder of the concept “frozen-in magnetic field lines”, a concept that formed the basis for the original thesis by Jim Dungey.

Magnetic reconnection has evolved extensively since the early 1960s and has become well recognized by most space researchers as an important plasma process capable of expeditiously converting large amounts of magnetic energy to both thermal energy and bulk acceleration of the plasma. However to say that the controversy is over and the intrinsic properties of magnetic reconnection are well understood is an opinion rather than the truth.
Magnetic reconnection deals with a fundamental force-field in nature, the magnetic field, in a topological sense such that magnetic field lines from one source of the magnetic field may be tied to another source. Considering that the magnetic field is immaterial we have a problem in conveying the model to a general physics community.

http://www.answers.com/topic/magnetospheric-convection-and-magnetic-storms?cat=technology

It is sometimes claimed that "in a plasma, field lines move with the plasma," even while others protest that such lines (like lines of latitude and longitude) are artificial constructs, making their motion meaningless. Indeed, "field line motion" is meaningful only if we identify the field line by means of the particles which share it. Otherwise it should be viewed merely as a visualization aid, providing an intuitive meaning to the interplay of bulk motion and magnetic field, while avoiding the need of deriving the electric field which makes that motion possible.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4287017/04287018.pdf?temp=x

Long-Standing Unsolved Problems in Solar–Terrestrial Physics

Akasofu, S.-I.
Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

This paper is not intended for firm believers of magnetic reconnection. It calls for attention of the young generation to the following facts: (1) there are a number of unsolved problems such as sunspots, solar flares, and magnetospheric substorms in spite of almost 50 years of effort; (2) one of the reasons for this failure to solve them may be because the guiding principles in understanding those phenomena are not well founded and are misleading; (3) thus, it is encouraged to cast doubt on the leading paradigms and develop new ideas.

 

[sol invictus]

Funny how you didn't comment at all when I said this exact same statement about ten times before. I expect your going to claim that I have just completely changed my position yet again, without any evidence.

There's no point in providing evidence to you, Zuezzz - you just ignore whatever you don't like (and accept whatever you do and then claim you always believed it).

It's entertaining for readers of this thread, but it's not a dialog.

So far the closest we've got to how these interacting lines release the energy associated with magnetic reconnection is this from Sol:

You don't seem to be able to comprehend that magnetic reconnection is a phenomenon that exists independently of plasma physics. Or rather, you're trying to pretend you weren't wrong before by focusing on a specific aspect - the energy released when reconnection occurs in plasmas. Of course you're wrong about that as well.

I've posted links to papers and simulations explicitly solving Maxwell's equations in plasma and showing the large release of energy that accompanies reconnection (in plasma). I've posted links to experimental results from plasma labs showing the same thing. I've given an intuitive explanation - several times, and in different terms - for those results using some basic facts about Maxwell's equations and the high conductivity of plasmas. You've ignored all of that.

You're like a little child plugging his ears and screaming when anyone else speaks.

 

[Zeuzzz]

There's no point in providing evidence to you, Zuezzz - you just ignore whatever you don't like (and accept whatever you do and then claim you always believed it).

It's entertaining for readers of this thread, but it's not a dialog.


You don't seem to be able to comprehend that magnetic reconnection is a phenomenon that exists independently of plasma physics. Or rather, you're trying to pretend you weren't wrong before by focusing on a specific aspect - the energy released when reconnection occurs in plasmas. Of course you're wrong about that as well.

I've posted links to papers and simulations explicitly solving Maxwell's equations in plasma and showing the large release of energy that accompanies reconnection (in plasma). I've posted links to experimental results from plasma labs showing the same thing. I've given an intuitive explanation - several times, and in different terms - for those results using some basic facts about Maxwell's equations and the high conductivity of plasmas. You've ignored all of that.

You're like a little child plugging his ears and screaming when anyone else speaks.

Yet another hand waving post. . Truly unbelievable.

Hows about you address some of the material in my previous post? or answer one of the many questions i re-posted above that no-one has been able to answer from the beginning?

So you still cant explain how the energy is released from the lines in magnetic reconnection? over ten pages of posts on magnetic reconnection, and still no model of how the shape of the field lines releases this energy.

Looks like i'm not the one dodging questions, i have posted a quite substantial amount of material, most of which you seem completely unable to comment on.

Science is not a democracy, by the way. We do not vote on ideas based upon who is saying them, contrary to the increasing belief that this is how it works. Instead, we should attempt to understand the arguments that are being made and discuss the logic behind both sides in the argument. Alfven received the Noble Physics Prize for his creation of magnetohydrodynamics, which is the mathematics used to model space plasmas. You may be surprised to learn that in his acceptance speech, he disagreed with the idea of modeling space plasmas with frozen-in-place magnetic fields -- a technique which he originated and that persists to this day.

If a theory appears to be logically coherent and supported by observational evidence, then it stands a chance of being true regardless of how many adherents it possesses (nature does not care what people prefer to believe), and it deserves investigation and even attempts to quantify it. Evaluating theories purely on the basis of who looks or sounds the smartest is a downward spiral.

I'll just post (again) some of the material you keep continually ignoring;

http://www.irf.se/Publications/IRFreport280.pdf

Magnetic reconnection/merging was introduced by by Jim Dungey in 1961 to explain the transfer of solar wind energy through the magnetopause and large scale convection in the magnetosphere. Magnetic reconnection was quickly adopted by many researchers in space plasma physics, but it also stirred up an intense controversy that remained for a long time. Among many of the contemporary critics were Hannes Alfvén, the founder of the concept “frozen-in magnetic field lines”, a concept that formed the basis for the original thesis by Jim Dungey.

Magnetic reconnection has evolved extensively since the early 1960s and has become well recognized by most space researchers as an important plasma process capable of expeditiously converting large amounts of magnetic energy to both thermal energy and bulk acceleration of the plasma. However to say that the controversy is over and the intrinsic properties of magnetic reconnection are well understood is an opinion rather than the truth.
Magnetic reconnection deals with a fundamental force-field in nature, the magnetic field, in a topological sense such that magnetic field lines from one source of the magnetic field may be tied to another source. Considering that the magnetic field is immaterial we have a problem in conveying the model to a general physics community.

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4287017/04287018.pdf?temp=x

Long-Standing Unsolved Problems in Solar–Terrestrial Physics

Akasofu, S.-I.
Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on

This paper is not intended for firm believers of magnetic reconnection. It calls for attention of the young generation to the following facts: (1) there are a number of unsolved problems such as sunspots, solar flares, and magnetospheric substorms in spite of almost 50 years of effort; (2) one of the reasons for this failure to solve them may be because the guiding principles in understanding those phenomena are not well founded and are misleading; (3) thus, it is encouraged to cast doubt on the leading paradigms and develop new ideas.

http://www.answers.com/topic/magnetospheric-convection-and-magnetic-storms?cat=technology

It is sometimes claimed that "in a plasma, field lines move with the plasma," even while others protest that such lines (like lines of latitude and longitude) are artificial constructs, making their motion meaningless. Indeed, "field line motion" is meaningful only if we identify the field line by means of the particles which share it. Otherwise it should be viewed merely as a visualization aid, providing an intuitive meaning to the interplay of bulk motion and magnetic field, while avoiding the need of deriving the electric field which makes that motion possible.

Magnetic reconnection, merging, and viscous interaction in the magnetosphere - Heikkila, W. J. Space Science Reviews (ISSN 0038-6308), vol. 53

However, there are some serious questions, questions that are still outstanding after nearly three decades of research. In 1975 I published a paper pointing out a consequence of dayside reconnection that had apparently been overlooked, that of the implied energy dissipation; the observational evidence did not show this dissipation. I did not question the magnetic field topology, and indeed that seemed to be correct, including the existence of X-lines. What I did question was the nature of the electric field, its topology, and whether it was electrostatic (with curl = 0), or inductive (with a finite curl); it seemed to me that a drastic revision to the simplistic reconnection model (Figure l(a)) was needed.

Are all of these highly competant scientists also wrong when they state that the controversy of the energy release mechanism from the reconnection of field lines is still not adequately answered?

If they are all wrong, I expect an explanation why they are all wrong. Sound reasonable?

 

[sol invictus]

Science is not a democracy, by the way. We do not vote on ideas based upon who is saying them, contrary to the increasing belief that this is how it works. Instead, we should attempt to understand the arguments that are being made and discuss the logic behind both sides in the argument. Alfven received the Noble Physics Prize for his creation of magnetohydrodynamics, which is the mathematics used to model space plasmas. You may be surprised to learn that in his acceptance speech, he disagreed with the idea of modeling space plasmas with frozen-in-place magnetic fields -- a technique which he originated and that persists to this day.

If a theory appears to be logically coherent and supported by observational evidence, then it stands a chance of being true regardless of how many adherents it possesses (nature does not care what people prefer to believe), and it deserves investigation and even attempts to quantify it. Evaluating theories purely on the basis of who looks or sounds the smartest is a downward spiral.

Rarely have I seen total hypocrisy expressed as clearly as it is in these two paragraphs. After making fallacious arguments from authority while ignoring both mathematics and experimental results for the last 20 pages of this thread, you all of a sudden declare that "science is not a democracy" and therefore we should trust the evidence and not the statements of some authorities. Then you contradict yourself by quoting the opinion of one authority in a public lecture, and then you flipflop yet again back to the position that we should trust the evidence - which is overwhelmingly in favor of reconnection.

I will try to lay this out as simply and clearly as I can.

1) Magnetic reconnection is a phenomenon which exists independently of plasma. The term refers to a case where two points in space which were not connected by a mag. field line suddenly become so, or equivalently to a field configuration which changes with time in such a way that the lines splice in the way illustrated countless times in this thread, on the web, and in the animation I posted.

This process in general DOES result in a change in the energy of the configuration, as I have shown by computing the energy density in the reconnecting field configuration as a function of time.

2) When magnetic reconnection occurs in the presence of a highly conductive plasma, it is difficult for reconnection to occur because of Lenz' law. Any local change in the B field is opposed by a current. The result of this is that the solutions to Maxwell's equations in the presence of plasma are such that the field lines are almost frozen locally, and the topology of the lines cannot change. If you plot such a solution, you will see that there is a tube of plasma surrounding each line which does not move much with respect to the line. If this held exactly true reconnection could not occur, and flows in the plasma would result in regions where the field lines become very dense and tangled. The density of the field lines, squared, is proportional to the energy density in the field. Hence such a configuration has a very high energy density.

When the field strengths and gradients get sufficiently large, the gain in energy resulting from reconnection becomes so large that it overwhelms the not-quite-infinite conductivity of the plasma, allowing the lines to slice and the configuration to relax. When this happens the energy in the field is released suddenly into the surrounding plasma.

Those words approximately describe the behavior of solutions to Maxwell's equations in plasma, and are validated by exactly solving those equations and studying the results, and by experimentally creating reconnection in plasma and measuring the fields and the energy release. For a while there was a mystery why reconnection happened as fast as it is known to from experiment, as the original theory indicated the rate should be lower; that mystery has now been resolved (but that's another long story).

 

[iantresman]

Can't we just agree on the following:

• Magnetic reconnection is the name of a phenomenon that is both observed and, described mathematically in manner that is consistent with Maxwell's Laws.
• Open-ended field lines violate Gauss's Law
• During reconnection, field lines can not break in a manner that violates Gauss's Law.
• The actual physical mechanism during the process of reconnection, is unknown, but remains consistent with Maxwell's Laws.

 

[ben m]

So you still cant explain how the energy is released from the lines in magnetic reconnection? over ten pages of posts on magnetic reconnection, and still no model of how the shape of the field lines releases this energy.

Sol just explained it for the Nth time. The energy is stored in magnetic fields, proportionally to the volume integral of B^2, as every undergraduate learns. The B field is coupled to its source currents in the plasma. When B changes, induction exerts forces on these currents. That's pretty much the definition of energy release. You have absolutely no grounds, and no argument, for disputing any of this. The only question might be: how do you know that reconnection takes energy out of the B field and puts it into kinetic energies, rather than vice-versa? Well, if you're not sure, look at the numerical solutions (which Sol posted, repeatedly) which show that it's the former. There you go.

I'll just post (again) some of the material you keep continually ignoring;
http://www.irf.se/Publications/IRFreport280.pdf
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/4287017/04287018.pdf?temp=x
http://www.answers.com/topic/magnetospheric-convection-and-magnetic-storms?cat=technology
Magnetic reconnection, merging, and viscous interaction in the magnetosphere - Heikkila, W. J. Space Science Reviews (ISSN 0038-6308), vol. 53

Are all of these highly competant scientists also wrong when they state that the controversy of the energy release mechanism from the reconnection of field lines is still not adequately answered?

The third link is to a mirror of Wikipedia. <sarcasm>Can't imagine those "competant scientists" ever getting something wrong. </sarcasm> Keikkila does not make your argument---the paper you've posted surveys a variety of reconnection models and suggests only that the standard field geometry is oversimplified in the Earth's magnetotail. Again, Keikkila never gives a hint of a scintilla of a suggestion that reconnection cannot release energy.

Seriously, do you read this stuff before you post it? This is why no one reads your links, Zeuzzz---because you don't seem to have read them yourself. You're grabbing anything you can lay hands on, throwing it at a dartboard, and hoping it will turn out to have been a dart.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Can't we just agree on the following:

• Magnetic reconnection is the name of a phenomenon that is both observed and, described mathematically in manner that is consistent with Maxwell's Laws.
• Open-ended field lines violate Gauss's Law
• During reconnection, field lines can not break in a manner that violates Gauss's Law.
• The actual physical mechanism during the process of reconnection, is unknown, but remains consistent with Maxwell's Laws.

I would absolutely agree with that.

I think that the confusion in this post comes from people thinking that;

The reconnection of magnetic field lines around a neutral point is somehow an explanation for the energy release.

The former certainly does occur, which I never disputed, and many simple configurations of magnetic field lines can show, but the energy release does not arrise from this in itself. So I can not see how people like Sol or others can call this the same magnetic reconnection that is used in astrophysics to explain various energetic phenomenon, what occurs in this process is obviously fundamentally different and involves energy release from the connection of the lines.

The issue is the method by which the energy is released. Alfven and others have come up with electrical explanations based on plasma physics and currents, whereas most astronomers prefer to use explain the energy release only in terms of the magnetic field lines. I personally think that the electrical interpretation is far more likely than the field line interpretation.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Sol just explained it for the Nth time. The energy is stored in magnetic fields, proportionally to the volume integral of B^2, as every undergraduate learns. The B field is coupled to its source currents in the plasma. When B changes, induction exerts forces on these currents. That's pretty much the definition of energy release. You have absolutely no grounds, and no argument, for disputing any of this.

And i'm not disputing any of that. That is a general relationship for the magnetic energy contained by a field.

The paper you've posted surveys a variety of reconnection models and suggests only that the standard field geometry is oversimplified in the Earth's magnetotail. Again, Keikkila never gives a hint of a scintilla of a suggestion that reconnection cannot release energy.

Do you understand my position yet? This post would imply not. My position is the same one as many other scientists (that you would realise if you had read a few of my above posts).

If I was denying that there is energy being released from the field configuration associated with magnetic reconnection, then that really would be a totally ludicrous position to take, as we have various experiments that produce this energy release (which I knew right from the beginning when I first quoted the experiments myself). But I do dispute the current model used to explain this energy release, and so do many other scientists.

Here you have to separate the actual data about what is known from the interpretation of it. I am not saying that the phenomenon of 'magnetic reconnection' does not occur, there obviously is a process that releases this observed energy that we can detect from this field configuration, but I dispute that we have to explain the energy release only in terms of the field lines (or whatever material is assumed to be somehow 'attatched to the field lines'). The data is the key, however people interpret it in different ways.

Seriously, do you read this stuff before you post it? This is why no one reads your links, Zeuzzz---because you don't seem to have read them yourself. You're grabbing anything you can lay hands on, throwing it at a dartboard, and hoping it will turn out to have been a dart.

Seriously, Do you ever think you are going to stop posting ignorant comments on this thread before fully understanding what i'm saying?

 

[ben m]

Here you have to separate the actual data about what is known from the interpretation of it. I am not saying that the phenomenon of 'magnetic reconnection' does not occur, there obviously is a process that releases this energy that we can detect from this field configuration, but I dispute that we have to invoke new charteristics of magnetic field lines to explain this. The data is the key, however people interpret it in different ways.

So we agree on all possible points associated with Maxwell's Equations and actual magnetic fields. The magnetic fields do X, Y, and Z. In response, following standard force laws, the charged particles do A, B, and C. We call this "reconnection" and the upshot is the transfer of magnetic field energy into particle/plasma kinetic energy.

Your dispute seems to be whether, or when, and why we would draw field lines on a picture of these fields that we agree on. We're not imputing properties to the "field lines"---the property that "plasma is stuck to the line" is a property of the B field.

The Lorentz force is always transverse to the local B field direction; a charged particle is confined to move in a circle in the plane transverse to the local B field. The Lorentz force does not act parallel to the local B field direction, so a charged particle is free to move parallel to the local B field, while Lorentz forces prevent it from moving transverse to the field. Hey, you know what we call the vector parallel to the local B field? It's called a "field line". It doesn't do anything, it's just something we draw. But you have just seen that a charged particle is free to move along this line we drew, and is prevented from moving transverse to the line we drew. Did I just impute any "properties" to the field lines? No, I just drew them, and I drew them in a direction where I know particles will be guided by Lorentz forces.

Pop quiz, question 1: did I just assume that the field lines have any properties? Did I assume that field lines exert forces?

The reasoning works both ways. If the field line is (correctly) drawn in direction X, then the actual B field must be pointing in direction X. (If it isn't, someone drew the lines wrong. Fix them and try again.) If you know that the field is pointing in direction X, you know that charged particles feel no Lorentz force along direction X, and thus are free to move in this direction, and confined by Lorentz forces against motion in the YZ plane.

Pop quiz, question 2: did I just assume that field lines have any active properties? Did I assume that field lines exert forces?

Pop quiz, question 3: What particle motion would you get wrong by (a) looking at the field lines, drawing the B fields, and then inferring the motion, versus (b) looking at the B fields and then inferring the motion?

Just trying to clarify.

 

[Reality Check]

Zeuzzz: To summarize:

• Everyone agrees that magnetic reconnection occurs.
• Everyone agrees that the changes in the magnetic field in magnetic reconnection can release energy.
• There are several models to explain the energy release for magnetic reconnections in plasma.
• There is no consensus about which model is correct.
• The experiments that are ongoing may disprove some models.

Perhaps you now have time to look at my previous questions about Peratt's plasma model of galaxy formation.

 

[Dancing David]

Zeuzzz,

Or suggest which phenomena on Birkeland's sphere is scalable to which process on the sun?

Or point to something that is being moved at a rate faster tha gravity minus dark matter can explain, we can find a mass, negotiate a charge and then calculate the field strength?

 

[sol invictus]

Can't we just agree on the following:

• Magnetic reconnection is the name of a phenomenon that is both observed and, described mathematically in manner that is consistent with Maxwell's Laws.
• Open-ended field lines violate Gauss's Law
• During reconnection, field lines can not break in a manner that violates Gauss's Law.
• The actual physical mechanism during the process of reconnection, is unknown, but remains consistent with Maxwell's Laws.

All but the last point. We understand perfectly what happens during reconnection itself, and there is no doubt about the mechanism (which is simply Maxwell's equations in plasma). The only uncertainty was concerned the speed at which reconnection occurs, and that arose in an approximation used to find a rough solution in the days before computers were powerful enough to simulate it. It's now been settled, at least to most people's satisfaction.

Of course there are still significant gaps in our understanding of the physical phenomena (like solar flares) we might want to apply this to, but that's another story.

 

[sol invictus]

If I was denying that there is energy being released from the field configuration associated with magnetic reconnection, then that really would be a totally ludicrous position to take, as we have various experiments that produce this energy release (which I knew right from the beginning when I first quoted the experiments myself). But I do dispute the current model used to explain this energy release, and so do many other scientists.

This post is nonsensical. You (now) agree reconnection occurs. You (now) agree it's a solution to the equations of motion of the system (Maxwell's equations in plasma). You (now) agree energy is released. But you do not agree with the "model" used to explain this?

What "model" would that be, Zeuzzz? The only model in play here is Maxwell's equations in plasma - have you changed your mind yet again, and now you don't believe in that either?

 

[Zeuzzz]

This post is nonsensical. You (now) agree reconnection occurs.

Depends on whether you consider the term magnetic reconnection to be referring to the connection of field lines around a standard neutral point (which i never disputed), or the astrophysical process used to explain various energy releasing events in space.

You (now) agree it's a solution to the equations of motion of the system (Maxwell's equations in plasma).

I never said that it violated any of maxwells laws. You can check if you really want.

You (now) agree energy is released.

I never denied that, that would denying a well established fact. I do dispute the current method that produces this energy.

But you do not agree with the "model" used to explain this?

Yes. I believe Alfvens model holds more merit than the current models that exclude the electrical component and fall back on exclusively magnetism to explain the reconnection phenomenon. I much prefer the current disruption model (or the double layer model), utilizing the "Ej approach" which considers the electric field and current density as primary quantities. The other description, magnetic reconnection, utilizes the "Bu approach" which treats the magnetic field and plasma bulk flow as primary quantities.

What "model" would that be, Zeuzzz? The only model in play here is Maxwell's equations in plasma - have you changed your mind yet again, and now you don't believe in that either?

Alfvens model of reconnection, the one addressed in Scotts paper, and the one I have been talking about for the past ten or so pages (or at least trying to whilst having about nine different arguments with separate people all on different subjects )

 

[MattusMaximus]

Who's being insulted?

Anyway, it's totally impossible for me to care any less about your assessment of my credibility.

Robinson defines "insulting" as anyone or anything that questions his particular brand of half-baked "skepticism" which is usually contrary to mainstream science. He bases his "skepticism" of science on what, I have no idea.

You should get Robinson talking about vaccines - then you'll really see him spinning his little woo-wheels

 

[MattusMaximus]

I just cannot believe you folks are still feeding these EU-PU trolls...