Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[robinson]

... can I count on you, robinson, to do your usual thing?

I don't know. But I come across this sort of belief system that the red shift and Hubble's Law are bogus. I really haven't spent enough time delving into it, but for some reason some people (steady state crowd) really are against the whole expanding Universe thing, or explain it some other way, or challenge the entire red shift thing.

While I can imagine the really distant objects, the super energetic ones, that have these huge redshifts, I can imagine there is something going on, with relativity and the photons being created by electrons moving so fast they have a gravitational redshift, I just don't understand enough about it to have much of a say on that.

I'm much more fascinated by the more local Plasma events, the unknowns, and the more practical theories to explain these strange readings we get.

For example, the recent discoveries of huge plasma flows between young stars, as well as the energetic jets and shock waves and bubbles of plasma and all the cool looking stuff nearby.

I haven't found any papers or theory about it yet, but I suspect the answer to both dark matter and dark energy is going to be much simpler than an entirely new form of matter, that defies current laws of physics.

The simplistic belief that because we can't see it, it can't be there, is fast fading, based on the advanced platforms we have. The next generation of sensors, as well as vast supercomputers to process the data, is going to open up entire new worlds of knowledge.

I really don't care if current theory is wrong or right, I just want to know what is real. Reality is always more interesting than anything we imagine. Like the shift that occurred with quantum physics, our understanding of vast Cosmological events, and our Universe and it's history, is without a doubt, the coolest thing ever.




Well, except for falling in love, raising a child, and that sex stuff, but you know what I mean, Intellectually speaking, I find Cosmology way cool.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Catching up on a loose end ...

... snip ...

Also, It has been found that the broadening of spectral lines in an electric field, which is known as the "Stark effect," increases for hotter stars. This strongly supports an electrical interpretation of the H–R diagram, in which as the current density on the stars surface increases, the discharge becomes hotter, changes color (from red, toward blue), and gets brighter. The more significant is this relationship, the more closely will the plot approach a straight line, stars do not all fall precisely on a line, but have some dispersion above and below the line due to their variation in size. Its probably also worth noting that Eddington himself also acknowledged, "If there is no other way out we may have to suppose that bright line spectra in the stars are produced by electric discharges similar to those producing bright line spectra in a vacuum tube..."

... snip ...

Zeuzzz has quoted and re-quoted this, in support of his assertions about "the electric star interpretaion"*.

Let's tackle this in more detail, while we wait for references to the actual papers that contain the full quantitative treatment ...

From any version of electric star interpretation/electrical interpretation/electrical model/Alfvén's model/whatever you choose Zeuzzz, what is current density of the Sun's surface?

What is the actual, observed current density?

In which paper(s) may we read analyses of high-resolution spectra of bright, blue stars, specifically the lines, based on detailed quantitative models incorporating the Stark effect, thermal broadening, gravitational broadening, and rotation (and any other relevant effects)? More specifically, in which papers are clear conclusions drawn concerning the strength of the Stark effect?

Oh, and by the way Zeuzzz, you haven't yet answered my question about whether this paragraph is plagiarised too ... (google is such a wonderful tool).

* note the dancing; in the same section of this post, Zeuzzz uses "the electric star interpretaion", "Alfvens star model and his supernova model", "the electrical model", as well as "an electrical interpretation". I bet if he were pressed, Zeuzzz would dance even more merrily.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Rather than make an assumption, I'll ask Zeuzzz, BAC, robinson, and any other member who feels it is relevant: can we accept that a 'star', in this restricted sense, is an object which is in hydrostatic equilibrium (suitably defined to include pulsating stars), over periods of at least tens of years? If not, why not? If you don't know what 'hydrostatic equilibrium' means, just ask.

Why does ten years come into it? I'm not sure why you said that

It's a timeframe issue, and as such is pretty arbitrary ... as long as it's greater than ~twice the period of the longest period pulsating variable, AND not so long that we can't call upon the historical records to test anything we may come up with (so, for example, 10,000 years is too long).

assuming the energy and pressure is being generated in the core only, then yes, hydrostatic equilibrium would be unavoidable.

Thanks for the caveat.

However, it's just this kind of getting-ahead-of-ourselves that I'm trying to avoid ... 'hydrostatic equilibrium' treats the object in question blindly, it knows nothing of what forces are operating, only that they are in balance (radially), throughout.

Would you like someone (doesn't have to be me) to walk you through this, in detail?

And how about you BAC? robinson?

Can you accept that a 'star', in this restricted sense*, is an object which is in hydrostatic equilibrium (suitably defined to include pulsating stars), over periods of at least tens of years?

If not, why not? If you don't know what 'hydrostatic equilibrium' means, just ask.

* see my earlier post for important clarifications.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Back on topic, looking at "Plasma Cosmology" and some other "debunked" theories, the worst offense, in the eyes of the BigBangers, seems to be "steady state", or any sort of theory that doesn't include a beginning to the Universe.

... snip ...

DRD a 'BigBanger'? You are free to give me any label you wish, robinson ...

However, in my eyes, the worst 'PC offense' has nothing to do with any beginnings, or universes, gnomes, or electricity.

As I have said, quite a few times now, PC is woo because it fits 'the very definition of woo'; specifically, there is pretty clear evidence that it uses a paradigm quite different than that used by contemporary physics, astronomy, astrophysics (and, no doubt, biology, chemistry, economics, ...), it is an 'alternative science', if you will.

In a science forum, surely that is sufficient to show PC is woo, isn't it?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

... snip ...

This is yet another of the inconsistencies which PC proponents are quite happy to live with (an inconsistency between textbook statistical methods and observational analysis is small beer compared with full-scale acceptance of a mechanism not demonstrated in any lab).

There is no inconsistency. They have not said that any particular one is the mechansim, they have considered many of the possible alternatives than can explain the observed anomalies. Thats how science works. You dont just come up with your theory of what redshifts represent, and then say that this is it, no alternative should be investigated. And the mechansisms they have investigated have been investigated for the very reason they have been tested in a lab.

Sigh.

Zeuzzz, that's a nice piece of fiction, a good bedtime story.

However, with the notable exception of Peratt (and, maybe, Alfvén), every 'plasma cosmologist' you've mentioned, to date, has been overjoyed (it seems) with Arpian 'intrinsic redshifts' ... despite the fact that

a) no mechanisms for any such were in any textbooks (or observable in any plasma physics labs) before Arp started with these publications, and

b) PC proponents are nothing if not vehement in their insistence on 'lab proof first!'

I mean, for goodness sake, despite the quite staggering amount of really, really, really solid experimental and observational support for General Relativity (GR), many (most? all??) PC proponent balk at interpreting the Hubble relationship within a model based on GR!

Which suggests to me another of the many inconsistencies in PC: simultaneous acceptance of the experimental and observational confirmation of GR and its rejection (when it is applied to cosmology) ... despite the billions of observations consistent with such application (i.e. the Hubble relationship).

So, Zeuzzz, do you mind if I ask you to stop being disingenuous?

But you missed a very large part of the point .... the rather extreme inconsistency of trashing CDM (say) because no CDM particles have been observed in the lab while at the same time embracing without the slightest murmur of concern an idea that was not (at the time) backed by even the faintest hint of anything in the lab (and, subsequently, interesting ideas as you mention continue to fail ... no lab mechanism).

In everyday human interaction terms, this smacks of hypocrisy of the most egregious kind; in scientific terms, it is as blatant a declaration as I can imagine possible to make that serious inconsistency is quite acceptable as a core principle in PC.

CREIL is a directly testable phenomena, so is the wolf effect, and the others. Thats why they have been investigated by PC proponents.

Indeed ...

but I doubt that's why they have been so tested (or not the whole story anyway) ... if it were, we'd see PC proponents falling all over themselves to present proposals for funding of observations to test various 'intrinsic redshift' ideas in astronomy, or ...

Kinda odd though that we don't read much about the widespread failure of either idea, when it comes to serious astronomical scrutiny, isn't it?

Heres a few relevant to quasars and redshifts. I'm surprised you had not heard of CREIL, or the Wolf effect,

You'd be surprised at what I have heard of ... and what I haven't (though I'm pretty sure robinson wouldn't)

so i'll provide a few links. And commenting on the above papers I quoted from Lerners website would be nice, or the heliospheric current circuit, or


Optical redshifts due to correlations in quasar plasmas http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/Xplore/login.jsp?url=/iel5/27/28301/01265342.pdf?arnumber=1265342

The Wolf effect and the Redshift of Quasars http://aps.arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/9807/9807205v1.pdf

Redshifts of cosmological neutrinos as definitive experimental test of Doppler versus non-Doppler redshifts http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=1265343

Theory of the quantification of the redshifts http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0307/0307140v1.pdf

Propagation of electromagnetic waves in space plasma.
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0401/0401529v1.pdf

No-Blueshift Condition in Wolf Mechanism
http://www.springerlink.com/content/p3146040w6376854/

Multiple Scattering Theory in Wolf’s Mechanism and Implications in QSO Redshift
http://www.springerlink.com/content/k7q491t932816v10/

How the BAL quasars are quiet
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0208405

International Workshop on Redshift Mechanisms in Astrophysics
and Cosmology, 2007
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/astro-ph/pdf/0701/0701061v1.pdf

Evidence for Intrinsic Redshifts in Normal Spiral Galaxies
http://www.springerlink.com/content/u52qh80262484j07/

Explaining the pearl necklace of SNR 1987A by coherent optics
http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0702075

All great stuff, no doubt (except the last, perhaps).

However, here are a few things the authors of the above seem to have missed*

1) are quasars/QSOs/BLacs/etc a homogeneous class of object? If so, then these mechanisms (for explaining 'intrinsic redshift') must apply to them all ... and if so, then a clear demonstration that even one such object is at a distance consistent with its redshift knocks out all these 'alternative' explanations.

2) there are now ~100 'lensed quasars' reported in the literature, and the numbers are growing almost daily; a consistent 'quasars have a large 'intrinsic redshift'' story needs to address these too (none of the 'intrinsic redshift' papers do, as far as I know).

3) in the last few years, galaxies with the same redshift as some of the 'lyman forest' lines in quasar spectra have been observed in close (on the sky) proximity to the quasars ... suggesting that the quasars are, in fact, more distant than the (high-z) galaxies whose halos give rise to the absorption lines in the quasar spectra (none of the 'intrinsic redshift' papers address these observations, as far as I know).

4) quite a few papers report observations of the 'host galaxy' of quasars, covering a wide range of redshifts and luminosities. As far as I know, all such papers report that the host galaxies are consistent with the 'unified AGN' model (and none of the 'intrinsic redshift' papers address these observations, as far as I know).

5) if quasars/QSOs/etc are a heterogenous class - some are at distances implied by their redshifts, others have a large 'intrinsic redshift' component (and are much closer than the distances implied by their redshifts) - you'd expect some discussion of how the two (or more) classes could be distinguished, by proponents of the 'intrinsic redshift' idea; there is no such discussion (as far as I know).

6) and so on (I think there are at least another three points I could make).

The more you look into it, the more examples of inconsistencies, of different kinds, you can find.

I guess it depends on who's doing the looking, doesn't it?

My own reading of the literature suggests that most of the 'inconsistencies' you have cited are nothing of the kind ... nearly all the 'Arp et al.' work, for example, is simply bad statistics.

But at another level, I fully agree with you ... the stunning silence from all PC proponents on the implications of 'intrinsic redshift', to their very own theories and models, is an astonishing inconsistency ...

And I've just noticed another engenius tactic you continually use DRD. Scientific publications dont have to be consistent, people form hypothesis and test their hypothesis, most separate scientific hypothesis are inconsistant. I could go through all the twenty completely different explanations that have been provided for the heating of the corona, and the acceleration of the solar wind, and keep claiming, like you do, "The fact that all the theories are not consistant with each other is as blatant a declaration as I can imagine that serious inconsistency is quite acceptable as a core principle in Solar physics" And I could do this in any other area of science too. So please refrain from perpetuating this argument, as it demonstrates a severe lack of understanding of how science works.

I'll deal with this later ...

... for now I'll simply note that we are talking about Plasma Cosmology in this thread .... (and ask you who it was who refused to give a concise statement of what this actually is ...)


* I'm sure you'll quickly tell me if any do, to the contrary, actually deal with these ...

 

[Tubbythin]

But seriously, how can anyone accept the "dark energy" crap that somebody made up to explain a huge problem with a theory?

Care to offer an alternative theory for the apparent acceleration of the Universe's expansion?

 

[sol invictus]

Which is pretty strange. Considering energy is neither created nor destroyed, that whole laws of physics thing, it seems the Universe has to be eternal. Otherwise some basic law of physics is being violated somehow.

I see. So since you, robinson, have difficulty understanding how energy can be conserved in an expanding universe, we should throw away the last century of data and trust some kind of hunch that it must somehow all be wrong?

Energy is conserved in general relativity. GR is the correct theory of gravity. GR DOES NOT ALLOW a steady state universe (with one exception which does not describe ours). GR REQUIRES a big bang if the universe is expanding. The observations show that the universe is expanding.

The laws of physics are satisfied in big bang models. Any theory that attempts to explain redshifts without expansion necessarily violates conservation of energy (not to mention logic). So you couldn't possibly be more wrong.

Nice.

 

[Tubbythin]

I haven't found any papers or theory about it yet, but I suspect the answer to both dark matter and dark energy is going to be much simpler than an entirely new form of matter, that defies current laws of physics.

Which laws do you think DM defies?

 

[Tubbythin]

Do there? How could science progress at all if people could only work on already existing theories?

Huh? How can anyone write a paper dismissing an alternative model for fusion in the Sun when there isn't an alternative model?

And all the well known energy sources on earth provide the "model" so to speak, your just applying it in a different place than usually considered.

Huh again! Fusion with magnetic confinement on Earth requires a Tokamak. Are you suggesting the Sun might already contain a fully functioning Tokamak?

 

[Tubbythin]

The exact reasons I listed in this post, of being able to explain many stars that are a complete enigma to the nuclear model.

Observations of stars that seemingly disprove current nuclear theories seem interesting. And these events are better explained with the electric star interpretaion of the hertzsprung russell diagram, which has the distinct advantage in that it can explain many stars apparent sudden evolution, as electric stars may move suddenly anywhere on the main sequence if their electrical environment is disturbed. The nuclear model of stars says that it should take millions of years for stars to evolve through their various stages. Observationally, there are many examples of sudden changes in stellar spectral type and luminosity, which contradicts the standard model and supports the electrical model. Like star FG Sagittae which has changed from blue to yellow since 1955, the time of a human lifetime! Another is V838 Mon "It is a unique object in the sense that for this star we have direct evidence of stellar evolution but in a time scale comparable with the human lifetime."

This is nonesense. Many of the nuclear processes in stars vary with temperature at an astonishing rate. The triple-alpha rate, for example, varies as absolute temperature to the power of 30! Its thus hardly surprising that once stars start to contract and the temperature goes up, the spectral type changes is in a short time.

 

[Wangler]

Energy is conserved in general relativity.

There was a small thread about the conservation of energy here:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113328

But I am still not sure if there was a final resolution.

Or, at least one that I understand.

It seems to me that the conservation of energy is not a well defined term in expanding universes.

 

[sol invictus]

It seems to me that the conservation of energy is not a well defined term in expanding universes.

I tried to explain it there. The confusion comes from infinite volume more than from the expansion. In GR energy is always conserved locally - the change in energy of some region equals the amount of energy flowing in (or out). But it's not obvious how to extend that to the entire universe, because no matter how big the volume you consider is, there is always energy flowing out.

In a finite expanding universe there is no problem - the energy of the universe is constant.

 

[The Man]

Back on topic, looking at "Plasma Cosmology" and some other "debunked" theories, the worst offense, in the eyes of the BigBangers, seems to be "steady state", or any sort of theory that doesn't include a beginning to the Universe.

Which is pretty strange. Considering energy is neither created nor destroyed, that whole laws of physics thing, it seems the Universe has to be eternal. Otherwise some basic law of physics is being violated somehow.

How can that happen? .

I tried to explain it there. The confusion comes from infinite volume more than from the expansion. In GR energy is always conserved locally - the change in energy of some region equals the amount of energy flowing in (or out). But it's not obvious how to extend that to the entire universe, because no matter how big the volume you consider is, there is always energy flowing out.

In a finite expanding universe there is no problem - the energy of the universe is constant.

Also relevant to robison’s question.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME
Stephen W. Hawking

There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle parts. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero.

 

[robinson]

"Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together."

To say "matter has energy" or "matter has less energy" is sort of silly. Matter = energy.

Of course saying matter = energy, as in E=mc², goes against common sense, but there we are, describing the Universe with equations and formulas.

If matter can turn into energy, and energy creates matter, the whole thing just sounds all woo woo, yet quantum theory describes and predicts what we measure happening, which brings us back to trying to say "matter has more energy" is absurd as saying "energy has more matter". Or something like that.

But we have to say something. So we speak of "particles", which we know really are waves, because things interact in quanta, and we can't explain interactions with just waves, and at some point you either get all smug, depending on the maths to bolster your belief that you know what is going on, or maybe just shake your head and say, "How can that even be?", and turn on the TV, maybe watch some sports.

 

[Reality Check]

"Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together."

To say "matter has energy" or "matter has less energy" is sort of silly. Matter = energy.

Of course saying matter = energy, as in E=mc², goes against common sense, but there we are, describing the Universe with equations and formulas.

If matter can turn into energy, and energy creates matter, the whole thing just sounds all woo woo, yet quantum theory describes and predicts what we measure happening, which brings us back to trying to say "matter has more energy" is absurd as saying "energy has more matter". Or something like that.

But we have to say something. So we speak of "particles", which we know really are waves, because things interact in quanta, and we can't explain interactions with just waves, and at some point you either get all smug, depending on the maths to bolster your belief that you know what is going on, or maybe just shake your head and say, "How can that even be?", and turn on the TV, maybe watch some sports.

The quote is talking about potential energy. That is not the energy of the matter. It is the energy it gets from a movement in the gravitational field.

 

[sol invictus]

Of course saying matter = energy, as in E=mc², goes against common sense, but there we are, describing the Universe with equations and formulas.

Yeah - that's called "physics".

If matter can turn into energy, and energy creates matter, the whole thing just sounds all woo woo, yet quantum theory describes and predicts what we measure happening, which brings us back to trying to say "matter has more energy" is absurd as saying "energy has more matter". Or something like that.

So you don't believe in nuclear power, radioactivity, or nuclear weapons?

Hawking is correct that the energy is exactly zero, although as I said there is a subtlety in the case of infinite universes. One interesting equation that describes that is called the Wheeler-de Witt equation.

 

[robinson]

I'm sure you meant the Wheeler-deWitt equation, that hypothetical vector of the Hilbert space, a functional of the metric tensor, describing a dimensional compact surface, which in our mathematical Universe, is the spacetime dimension, or more precisely, the path integral over all dimensional geometries, that have the required induced metric on their boundary.

See? Unlike that woo woo Plasma Cosmology, Physics is easy to understand, and doesn't rely on made up stuff. It is hard to understand why anyone would question it.

 

[Belz...]

But seriously, how can anyone accept the "dark energy" crap that somebody made up to explain a huge problem with a theory?

Because that's what science does: correct the theory when it doesn't quite fit.

 

[robinson]

Inventing a new form of energy is not the same as correcting a theory.

Well, in the real world that is. In the theoretical world where people just make stuff up, I guess some people think inventing an entire new form of energy, that has no relation to existing concepts of reality, some people imagine that is "correcting a theory".

Like when people imagined there was an invisible planet to explain the orbit of Mercury.

 

[The Man]

"Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together."

To say "matter has energy" or "matter has less energy" is sort of silly. Matter = energy.

So it would be silly to say one ice cube has less water then a smaller ice cube, since frozen water equals ice and saying water has less water is just silly. It only sounds silly if deliberately ignore the quantitative nature of the comparison.

Of course saying matter = energy, as in E=mc2, goes against common sense, but there we are, describing the Universe with equations and formulas.

What is common about “common sense”? So how would you prefer to describe the universe?

If matter can turn into energy, and energy creates matter, the whole thing just sounds all woo woo, yet quantum theory describes and predicts what we measure happening, which brings us back to trying to say "matter has more energy" is absurd as saying "energy has more matter". Or something like that.

No, actually it just sounds self–consistent and as you remark it “predicts what we measure happening” so it is also consistent with our observations.

But we have to say something. So we speak of "particles", which we know really are waves, because things interact in quanta, and we can't explain interactions with just waves, and at some point you either get all smug, depending on the maths to bolster your belief that you know what is going on, or maybe just shake your head and say, "How can that even be?", and turn on the TV, maybe watch some sports.

Or you could just apply some “common sense”, water is comprised of particles and interacts as particles yet those particles also move in waves. So interacting as particles and moving as waves is not uncommon and makes sense. Thankfuly some people had the common sense to work out “How that can be” so you can watch sports on your TV.