The promise of this thread is even greater. For example, if, some time in the future, a new ardent proponent of PC appears on the scene, the (then) old-hands can simply revive this thread, or start another in a similar vein.
I think I'll take the last option. This thread has already descended into the same pointless tit for tat argument that the discussion on magnetic reconnection ended in, with one side just ignoring what the other was saying, and both claiming they were right. The posts end up being a reaction to what has been said previously, as opposed to resolving the dispute. And my last post wasn't the most helpful, I've sobered up now
not the best post to leave my position up in the air about....
And (not surprisingly) no-one seems to have noticed the paper that robinson quoted, which is very interesting and worth a read to anyone trying to assess the merits of alternative cosmologies beyond the Big Bang notion, and the possible future role of EM forces and plasma dynamics in large scale structures in the cosmos. It gives a good overview of the how philosophy enters the realm of cosmology, the role of metaphysics in modern cosmology, the role of process philosophy and heirarchical cosmology, and what the benefits of the different approaches can hope to achieve in cosmology ,
http://www.ctr4process.org/programs/LSI/2006-Cosmology/EastmanT - Cosmic Agnosticism.pdf
The New Physics and the Process View of Nature.
With continuing progress in new observation and experiments, a really “new” physics is steadily emerging that is less dependent on the unstated substance metaphysics that infects the “standard view of nature,” which has been dominant throughout most of the 20th century [Eastman, 2006b].
For example, it is ironic that the rigor of controlled laboratory experiments and constant, evolving interplay between theory and experiment has led particle physics to seeing the world not just as “particles,” but as a plenum of events; thus, both “particles” and events.
The process-oriented scholarly community and many scientists as well have shown the explanatory power of a process view of nature in Process Studies and other journals and books that highlight the interface of process thought and modern science [see compilation in Eastman and Keeton, 2004a,b].
Ours is a multiply-interconnected, processual universe in which any finite actuality is necessarily constituted by some unifying response to the plenum of events constituting its local world. [.....]
And I figured that plasma cosmology can probably be best summed up by this statement, for all the people that seem unable to grasp the main idea behind PC;
"The phenomena that the Big Bang seeks to explain with a mysterious ancient catacylsm, plasma theories attribute to electrical and magnetic processes occurring in the universe today."
And this uncensored version of the wikipedia page on plasma cosmology gives a brief overview;
Overview
Plasma cosmology posits that the most important feature of the universe is that the matter it contains is composed almost entirely of astrophysical plasma. The state of matter known as plasma is an electrically-conductive collection of charged particles, possibly together with neutral particles or dust, that exhibits collective behavior and that responds as a whole to electromagnetic forces. The charged particles are usually ions and electrons resulting from heating a gas. Stars and the interstellar medium are composed of plasma of different densities. Plasma physics is uncontroversially accepted to play an important role in many astrophysical phenomena.
The basic assumptions of plasma cosmology which differ from standard cosmology are:
1. Since the universe is nearly all plasma, electromagnetic forces are equal in importance with gravitation on all scales.[10].
2. An origin in time for the universe is rejected,[11] due to causality arguments and rejection of ex nihilo models as a stealth form of creationism.[12]
3. Since every part of the universe we observe is evolving, it assumes that the universe itself is evolving as well, though a scalar expansion as predicted from the FRW metric is not accepted as part of this evolution (see static universe).
Plasma cosmology advocates emphasize the links between physical processes observable in laboratories on Earth and those that govern the cosmos; as many cosmological processes as possible are explained by the behavior of a plasma in the laboratory.
[13] Proponents contrast this with the big bang theory which has over the course of its existence required the introduction of such features as inflation, dark matter and dark energy that have not been detectable yet in laboratory experiments.
[14]
And some of these publications may add some good further reading on the plasma scale invariants in the universe, from laboratory to cosmos (list from various links at
http://plasmas.org/space-astrophys.htm#research);
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Similarity of structuring in the range 10-5 cm to 10^23 cm hints at a baryonic cold dark skeleton of the Universe - American Physical Society, 44th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma, 2002
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Magnetic vortex filaments, universal scale invariants, and the fundamental constants Lerner, Eric J. IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 690-702.
The observed scale invariances in the universe are shown to support the idea that force-free magnetic vortex filaments have been central to the evolution of the universe and in the formation of superclusters, clusters, galaxies, and stars. The existence of a maximal size for vortex filaments that is comparable with that of the observable universe is demonstrated, eliminating the theoretical need for missing mass, and providing an alternative cosmology to that of the Big Bang. Invariants between microscopic and cosmological scales are proposed, leading to the derivation of a simple analytical expression for the fundamental constants, and suggesting the existence of vortex phenomena on the particle level.[...]
Astronomical bodies, ranging from clusters of galaxies down to stars, share an approximately constant parameter: J/M2, where J is the angular momentum, and M is mass. Many researchers have debated the significance of this relationship, with some claiming it to be of fundamental importance, and others denying any significance at all.
To date, no one has put forward a concrete hypothesis to explain why this parameter is roughly constant, or why this value is observed. This question can be reformulated by noting that for an object in gravitational equ[....]
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Evidences for and the models of self-similar skeletal structures in fusion devices, severe weather phenomena and space
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Force-free magnetic filaments and the cosmic background radiation
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Fractal Structures and the Large Scale Distribution of Galaxies
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Finite size effects on the galaxy number counts: evidence for fractal behavior up to the deepest scale - Physica A226 195–242 (1996).
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On the Fractal Nature of the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe
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Fractal universe. - Physica A, Vol. 280, No. 1 - 2, p. 125 - 130, 2000.
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Skeletal Structures in the Images of Cosmic Dust Clouds and Solar SystemPlanets - Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on Volume 35, Issue 4, Aug. 2007
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Self-Similarity of Electric Currents Networking in a Broad Range of Length Scales: from Laboratory to Cosmic Plasmas - A. B. Kukushkin and V. A. Rantsev-Kartinov, Rev. Scientific Instr., 70, n.2, pp.1387-1391, 1999.
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Electrodynamic Aggregation of Nanodust as a Source of Long-Lived Filaments in Laboratory Electric Discharges and Space - Kukushkin, A.B. Plasma Science, IEEE Transactions on Volume 35, Issue 4, Aug. 2007.
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Observation of Skeletal Filamentary Structures in Plasma of a Fast Z-Pinch - American Physical Society, 44th Annual Meeting of the Division of Plasma, 2002
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Skeletal Structures in High-Current Electric Discharges: Observations, Hypotheses and Proof-of-Concept Studies - 29th EPS Conference on Plasma Phys. and Contr. Fusion Montreux, 17-21 June 2002
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Conceptual Problems of Fractal Cosmology - Astronomical and Astrophysical Transactions, vol. 19, Issue 3, pp.417-435, 2000.
The results of a high-resolution processing, based on techniques of fractal dimension analysis and called a method of multilevel dynamical contrasting [1], of numerous data from laboratory electric discharges (Z-pinch, plasma focus) and observations of cosmic plasmas (including available Hubble Space Telescope data) reveal high degree of self-similarity of plasma structuring in a very broad range of length scales. This covers about thirty orders of magnitude: from micrometer thickness of individual filaments in laboratory discharges to the structures in the universe which resemble networking of electric currents in laboratory plasmas.[.....]
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Principles of Magnetohydrodynamics: With Applications to Laboratory and Astrophysical Plasmas, Goedbloed and S. Poedts, Cambridge, 2004. [
lecture notes]
So theres no need for the continual comments from Sol and people that "The trouble is that there is no such thing as plasma cosmology", when the exact definition of plasma cosmology has been put forward so many times now (see the bolded statement in this post [incase you missed it {again}]). I at least thought that you could accept that this type of approach exists, but I suppose that denying that it even exists in the first place makes it easier for you to deal with
. I'm sure that the pioneers of plasma cosmology and other contributors to this field such as Alfven, Peratt, Lerner, Birkeland, Verschuur, Fälthammar, Bruce, Langmuir, Dirac, Jansky, Arp, Burbidge, Grote Reber, Appleton, et al, would be amazed to find out that they have been working in a field that doesn't even exist for their entire lifetimes
This page sums up some ideas behind PC quite well;
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Plasma_cosmology&oldid=88919194
And this peer reviewed publication directly compares the two cosmologies:
http://bigbangneverhappened.org/p27.htm
If your going to read and critique any PC material, read both of them.
And, finally, i return to my end point;
I'm done from this forum for now. I can see that no matter what i post it will either be directly ignored, or just recieve a host of indirect angry responses. Theres no point me just adding the occasional daily comment I planned to if I dont have the time to defend my position from all the personal attacks that follow. Over And Out.
I could have said that more carefully noble Knight of the Onion. Love that avatar.