Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[Dancing David]

Well,

With the EM forces on stars being negligible, what do we mean. Isn't my reference saying what you are saying? That the EM interaction could only account for 10% of the seen discrepancy?

something more like .00000000000000001%

 

[Dancing David]

Of course! Did you search on "wangler" and "rotation curve" and "10%" or something?

Thanks!

In the search box at the top of the page there is the Google search on forums.randi

 

[Wangler]

Wangler, what does the stuff in your posts have to do with whether PC is woo or not?

DRD, this is a reply to you, and also to Sol, who in a way is asking the same question (what does all of this have to do with the PC is woo topic?).

I guess what I am trying to point out is that when refuting PC, it sometimes appears as if a very dogmatic approach is taken.

I have been trying to present that EM could account for a fraction of the galactic rotation curve discrepancy that is seen. Can it account for a sizable fraction? No!

I would say that EM forces can affect things on a galactic scale, but I don't see concrete evidence for the effects that PC proponents claim.

My point is, I think PC is woo, but standard EM interactions are not woo, and in fact may be plausible.

Basically, trying to say, Zeuusss, I agree that EM plays a role, but the role you presume it to play is just not feasible.

 

[Wangler]

In the search box at the top of the page there is the Google search on forums.randi

Thanks! I always did my searches in the top (forum engine only?) box.

That bottom box returned a whole bunch of links to various thread points.

Thanks, DD!

 

[sol invictus]

I guess what I am trying to point out is that when refuting PC, it sometimes appears as if a very dogmatic approach is taken.

Wangler, it's not dogma. It's just that professionals have been studying and thinking about these issues for over a century, and by now many things are very well understood - EM in particular.

EM forces are the strongest in many systems, including everything at human scales, they are extremely important in essentially all processes, all physicists and astros study them thoroughly from the very beginning of their education, they form the basis of much of applied physics and electrical and computer engineering, and they were the first of the four forces to be quantized and account for the most precisely experimental tests of theory in the history of science. They are more or less the benchmark from which we draw intuition and to which we compare everything else. EM is by far the best understood of all the forces.

That's what makes this whole discussion so bizarre...

 

[Ziggurat]

I dunno, everyone says that stars are electrically neutral (true, as far as I know),

They're relatively neutral (net charges on the order of 100 C).

and that therefore they cannot be accelerated by galactic EM fields in a way that would explain galaxy rotation curves.

Indeed. The gap is about 20 orders of magnitude (a factor of 10²⁰).

So, I say what about interactions with the vast magnetic field/solar wind/plasma that most stars undoubtedly have?

There are two forces that the galactic magnetic field can produce on a star due to the star's own magnetic field. The primary one is a torque: the external field will try to align the dipole moment of the star along the direction of that external field. But a torque would have no effect on a star's orbit. The second effect it can have is a net force, but the net force on the star is not proportional to the strength of the galactic magnetic field, but to its gradient. And the gradient for a galactic magnetic field will be fantastically small. Remember, we're talking microgauss here for total field strengths, extended over HUGE distances, which means gradients of much less than a microgauss per lightyear. The net forces are ridiculously small.

 

[Wangler]

something more like .00000000000000001%

Well, for a sun-like star at 35,000 parsecs from the center of mass of M31, we are talking about ~200 km/sec speed.

This amounts to a centripetal force of 8e19 Newtons to provide that orbital velocity!

So, and we are being very approximate here, that percentage you state would be about 8-80 Newtons. So EM forces only provide 8-80 Newtons of force to a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma (the heliosphere)?

The dang Newton's Law stuff is easy, but I have no way of calculating the forces to be expected by a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma moving through a global EM field.

8-80 Newtons somehow seems low.

 

[Wangler]

They're relatively neutral (net charges on the order of 100 C).



Indeed. The gap is about 20 orders of magnitude (a factor of 10²⁰).



There are two forces that the galactic magnetic field can produce on a star due to the star's own magnetic field. The primary one is a torque: the external field will try to align the dipole moment of the star along the direction of that external field. But a torque would have no effect on a star's orbit. The second effect it can have is a net force, but the net force on the star is not proportional to the strength of the galactic magnetic field, but to its gradient. And the gradient for a galactic magnetic field will be fantastically small. Remember, we're talking microgauss here for total field strengths, extended over HUGE distances, which means gradients of much less than a microgauss per lightyear. The net forces are ridiculously small.

Ziggurat, I should have known that.

So, the gradient would provide an acceleration, not the field itself?

Don't forget, I am speaking not of the star itself, but of it's extended plasma/solar wind component (heliopause?) that extends to ~100 AU or more for a star like our sun.

 

[Reality Check]

Well, for a sun-like star at 35,000 parsecs from the center of mass of M31, we are talking about ~200 km/sec speed.

This amounts to a centripetal force of 8e19 Newtons to provide that orbital velocity!

So, and we are being very approximate here, that percentage you state would be about 8-80 Newtons. So EM forces only provide 8-80 Newtons of force to a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma (the heliosphere)?

The dang Newton's Law stuff is easy, but I have no way of calculating the forces to be expected by a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma moving through a global EM field.

8-80 Newtons somehow seems low.

That is correct and the reason why astronomers ignore EM when considering the orbital mechanics of stars.

 

[Reality Check]

Ziggurat, I should have known that.

So, the gradient would provide an acceleration, not the field itself?

Don't forget, I am speaking not of the star itself, but of it's extended plasma/solar wind component (heliopause?) that extends to ~100 AU or more for a star like our sun.

This is different from what everyone else is discussing. - the effect of the galactic magnetic field on a star.

There will be an effect of the galactic magnetic field on a star's extended plasma/solar wind component. This will have no influence on the star's motion in the galaxy, has no relevance to cosmology and it is definitely off topic.

 

[Ziggurat]

So, the gradient would provide an acceleration, not the field itself?

Yes.

Don't forget, I am speaking not of the star itself, but of it's extended plasma/solar wind component (heliopause?) that extends to ~100 AU or more for a star like our sun.

Doesn't matter. To lowest order, only the dipole moment of the sun is relevant for that calculation.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Wangler: DRD, this is a reply to you, and also to Sol, who in a way is asking the same question (what does all of this have to do with the PC is woo topic?).

I guess what I am trying to point out is that when refuting PC, it sometimes appears as if a very dogmatic approach is taken.

I have been trying to present that EM could account for a fraction of the galactic rotation curve discrepancy that is seen. Can it account for a sizable fraction? No!

I would say that EM forces can affect things on a galactic scale, but I don't see concrete evidence for the effects that PC proponents claim.

My point is, I think PC is woo, but standard EM interactions are not woo, and in fact may be plausible.

Basically, trying to say, Zeuusss, I agree that EM plays a role, but the role you presume it to play is just not feasible.

Independent of what's already been posted in reply to this comment ...

One of the most difficult things, for me, in this thread, has been getting a handle on just what "PC" is.

After ~1000 posts, Z finally presented something relatively succinct on that, and later repeated a key aspect at least once.

So far as I can see, unless and until that key aspect is unambiguously disclaimed/disowned/removed/etc, the question (Is PC woo, or not?) has been answered ... PC is the very (scientific) definition of woo ... what say you?

Now in addition to a succinct characterisation of PC, Z has presented a very large number of ideas, papers, models, theories, etc, etc, etc, all of which he claimed were "PC" in some way or other/to some extent or other.

Perhaps it is a small subset of these - such as Peratt's ideas on spiral galaxies - that you refer to ("refuting PC")?

 

[Wangler]

Wangler: DRD, this is a reply to you, and also to Sol, who in a way is asking the same question (what does all of this have to do with the PC is woo topic?).

I guess what I am trying to point out is that when refuting PC, it sometimes appears as if a very dogmatic approach is taken.

I have been trying to present that EM could account for a fraction of the galactic rotation curve discrepancy that is seen. Can it account for a sizable fraction? No!

I would say that EM forces can affect things on a galactic scale, but I don't see concrete evidence for the effects that PC proponents claim.

My point is, I think PC is woo, but standard EM interactions are not woo, and in fact may be plausible.

Basically, trying to say, Zeuusss, I agree that EM plays a role, but the role you presume it to play is just not feasible.

Independent of what's already been posted in reply to this comment ...

One of the most difficult things, for me, in this thread, has been getting a handle on just what "PC" is.

After ~1000 posts, Z finally presented something relatively succinct on that, and later repeated a key aspect at least once.

So far as I can see, unless and until that key aspect is unambiguously disclaimed/disowned/removed/etc, the question (Is PC woo, or not?) has been answered ... PC is the very (scientific) definition of woo ... what say you?

Now in addition to a succinct characterisation of PC, Z has presented a very large number of ideas, papers, models, theories, etc, etc, etc, all of which he claimed were "PC" in some way or other/to some extent or other.

Perhaps it is a small subset of these - such as Peratt's ideas on spiral galaxies - that you refer to ("refuting PC")?

What say I:

1. The sun is not powered by electricity
2. There may exist large plasma filiaments in the universe, but they are likely not of critical cosmological import.
3. Spiral galaxies probably did not form from plasma filaments interacting electromagnetically.
4. This list is not a complete set of PC ideas.

In conclusion:

• I think "PC", as I understand it, is woo.
• I think that any astrophysicist or cosmologist, who dismisses EM effects forthwith¹, is not practicing woo; but neither are they practicing good science.

¹ Dismisses forthwith: doesn't at least run the numbers on the back of an napkin, to see if EM can be disregarded.

 

[tusenfem]

Okay, being away for a couple of days, makes for a lot of posts, and nothing from the PC is anywhere near quantitative. We hear only about EM forces will do this or do that, but how this is supposed to happen remains unclear. Interestingly, it should all come out of well established plasma physics, and thus Alfvén should have been able to calculate this, if he felt that is was necessary. I don't remember him doing this but that is beside the point.

What can we expect for EM forces on stars. There is a lot of discussion going on about start having a net charge. But what is that going to do, just having a charge does not do anything, unless there is another start with a charge and they can attract or repulse each other. Adding a magnetic field does not do a lot, because the start already consist of ionized matter (although being quasi-neutral) and would connect to the magnetic field. No extra charge needed. However, it should be noted that in collisionally dominate plasmas the frozen-in field condition is naturally broken, because, before a particle can rotate around the field line it will have collided with another particle and thus changes its orbit. No frozen in condition here, even though there is high conductivity. In the not so dense region, the frozen in condition may hold. It is a rather complicated topic, but not really of concern at the moment.

What can "accelerate" a star, using a magnetic field? What you need is a current such that the j×B force can act. Therefore, you need a field aligned current from the centre of the galaxy to the star that is "connected" to the field line. Then the current will flow into the star at one side, and out of the star at the other side. Howerver, this demands that the star is moving at a different velocity than the magnetic field, to get an motional electric field v×B in the frame of the star. The current will then flow through the star, similar to the current flowing in the Io plasma torus, perpendicular to the magnetic field, which creates then the j×B force. Secondly, this procedure demands that the star is moving more slowly than the magnetic field, because then the force will be in the direction of the motion of the star, whereas, if the situation is the other way around, the star will be slowed down.

I already explained this a few pages ago (not in so much detail), but it was nicely ignored by the PC people. As far as I can see, this would be the most viable way of "accelerating" stars through EM forces. I would love to know what mechanisms Zuezzz or Wrangler or any other PC/EU proponent can come up with.

Note, that I did not make an estimation of the current needed, but with an assumed magnetic field of 0.25 nT I am sure one of the PC people will show me what currents are needed.

 

[Dancing David]

Well, for a sun-like star at 35,000 parsecs from the center of mass of M31, we are talking about ~200 km/sec speed.

This amounts to a centripetal force of 8e19 Newtons to provide that orbital velocity!

So, and we are being very approximate here, that percentage you state would be about 8-80 Newtons. So EM forces only provide 8-80 Newtons of force to a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma (the heliosphere)?

The dang Newton's Law stuff is easy, but I have no way of calculating the forces to be expected by a 100 AU sized sphere of plasma moving through a global EM field.

8-80 Newtons somehow seems low.

The force is much smaller than what i said, but I can't tell you by what factor. 8-80 Newtons on a star, not much is it?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Wanger: In conclusion:

* I think "PC", as I understand it, is woo.

It would seem there are only three participants in this thread who would disagree, Zeuzzz, BAC, and (maybe) robinson.

robinson is banned, for what offense I do not know, but nothing to do with his posts in this thread I expect.

BAC has not, as far as I know, presented any reasons why, in terms of science, he thinks PC is not woo.

And Z has chosen to not answer most of the questions about material he presented, in respect to 'PC is not (scientific) woo'^*.

Do you mind if I ask why you consider PC (as you understand it) to be woo? Starting with what you understand PC to be ...

^* He has, of course, answered lots of questions, just not many directly concerning the topic of this thread.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Actually, it might be interesting to hear from others who have participated in this thread too, on the question of why they think PC is woo (or not) ... and what they understand PC to be.

I've given my answer, several times, but here it is again:

PC, as I understand it, for the purposes of this thread, is Z's definition, first posted in post #684 (and subsequently repeated, in essentially the same form, at least once).

Per this definition, PC is (scientific) woo because a core aspect cannot be tested, cannot be falsified - even in principle - ever. I have gone over this at least four times; perhaps the post which has the best presentation of it is #940.

 

[Tubbythin]

Actually, it might be interesting to hear from others who have participated in this thread too, on the question of why they think PC is woo (or not) ... and what they understand PC to be.

Hmm... Its hard to say how much PC is woo and how much its just its proponents on this forum that are talking woo. The latter is very obvious:

The blatant misrepresentation of history to make a point (not even a scientific point). Most prominently the rubbish Zeuzzz keeps repeating about BBC coming along to keep the religious happy.

The complete misunderstanding of logical principles (false dichotomy anyone).

The complete lack of understanding of the theories they criticize.

The woo contained in their links (eg the one the other week that Zeuzzz linked to defend his electric star model in the face of neutrino observations which told us ES proponents don't believe in anti-particles).

Repetition of the same debunked arguments (as if the laws of physics had changed in the previous two weeks). How many times have we been through electric stars and galactic rotation curves?

The lack of understanding of how ridiculous their alternative hypothesise really are (eg magnetic confinement fusion in the Sun based on the fact that we have it on Earth).

Refusal to answer a number of direct questions

Refusal to provide any maths to back up their arguments.

And, as you said, the admission that PC holds certain principles so dear to it that the mainstream alternatives are outright rejected irrespective of the evidence in favour of them.

 

[iantresman]

One of the most difficult things, for me, in this thread, has been getting a handle on just what "PC" is.

There is no definitive one-line descriptions of Plasma Cosmology, as it is a combination of theories developed by more than one person. This seems to be no different from Standard Cosmology which includes theories and hypotheses that are continuous under development/refinement and change.

But you can discover more about Plasma Cosmology and the Plasma Universe, from reliable peer-reviewed or academic sources, which includes the quantitative details that are often omitted in these informal discussions.

Suggested reading (not necessarily the best, but available):

• Plasma Universe at Los Alamos National Laboratory
  See the site's Published Papers section for numerous peer-reviewed papers
• Falthammar, C. G., The Plasma Universe (1990)
• "Second IEEE International Workshop on Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology, held from 10 to 12 May 1993 in Princeton, New Jersey

Others (not readily available, but detailed)

• Physics of the Plasma Universe, Publ. 1992 Springer-Verlag, Anthony L. Peratt
• Cosmic Plasma, Publ. 1981. Astrophysics and Space Science Library, Vol. 82 (1981) Springer Verlag, Hannes Alfvén
• Model of the plasma universe, Alfven, Hannes, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 629-638.
• Cosmology in the plasma universe, Alfven, Hannes, Laser and Particle Beams (ISSN 0263-0346), vol. 6, Aug. 1988, p. 389-398.

 

[Reality Check]

There is no definitive one-line descriptions of Plasma Cosmology, as it is a combination of theories developed by more than one person. This seems to be no different from Standard Cosmology which includes theories and hypotheses that are continuous under development/refinement and change.

Hi iantresman, thanks for the links.
Like Zeuzzz you have confirmed plasma cosmology as what it is: a collection of a dozen or more, arbitary, often mutually inconsistent theories many of which have been debunked.

Standard Cosmology happens to be a a collection of 3 consistant theories supported by overwhelming evidence (plus inflation which is more theoretical). They use the normal scientific method and so develop and change. Your last sentence implies that all of the many plasma cosmology theories are set in stone and so are definitely not scientific theories.

A previous post says exactly what pc is:

Just to remind everyone that the question that this thread was started with has been answered:
The "plasma cosmology" supported by Zeuzzz, BeAChooser and others is definitely a nonscientific, crackpot theory (not woo).

The scientific theory of Plasma Cosmology is that of Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén. This was expanded upon by Anthony Peratt, especially in the area of galaxy formation.

But the "plasma cosmology" that has emerged in this thread is not Plasma Cosmology and is not a scientific theory. Since it's proponents claim that it is a scientific theory that makes it crackpottery.

The definition of "plasma cosmology"is that it is a collection of scientific theories (not one consistent scientific theory) with a common thread. This thread seems to be that the theory either emphasizes the contribution of plasma in the universe or is a steady state cosmological theory.



This collection allows the addition of any new theory that matches the criteria regardless of consistency with existing theories in the collection. Thus the collection allows:

• Multiple inconsistent theories on cosmological redshift.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on the cosmic microwave background.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on the structure of the universe.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on stellar formation.
• Multiple inconsistent theories on anything else that is contained in "plasma cosmology"

The PC collection includes:

• Peratt's plasma model of galaxy formation (His 1986 papers I and II).
• Lerner's model of element formation in galaxies.
• Gallo et al. calculations of Galactic Rotation Described with Bulge+Disk Gravitational Models.
• Tired-light explanation of cosmological redshifts.
• Wolf Effect (non-cosmological redshifts).
• Coherent Raman Effect on incoherent light.
• Intrinsic redshifts from the ejection of quasars from bright galaxies. E.g. Halton Arp's The Origin of Companion Galaxies.
• Other theories which may include the Electric Universe ().
• Lerner's explanation of the CMB.
• Peratt's explanation of the CMB, but it hasn't been introduced yet.
• Peratt's ideas on quasars/QSOs/radio galaxies/AGNs (only tangentially referenced).
• Various ideas on fractal scaling, up to ~tens of Mpc
• Something about 'force free filaments' (unclear whether this is a separate idea or an essential part of one or more of the above). Lerner's paper.
• Baryonic Cold Skeleton of the Universe (Kukushkin, Alexander B. and Rantsev-Kartinov, Valentin A.)
• All standard plasma theories.
• Electric Universe e.g. electrically powered stars (see the earlier posts).
• The Van Allen Hypothesis—The Origin of the Magnetic Fields of the Planets and Stars
• etc. (I will add to this list as this thread progresses since no one really knows what theories are included)

There seems to be an emphasis on the extension of laboratory experiments in theory to large sizes via plasma scaling (ignoring the problems with this - see the Astrophysical application section). The observational evidence for this scaling has some gaps in it.

pc completely forgets about the laboratory experiments on gravity that can be scaled in theory without any problems to cosmic scales. The observational evidence for this scaling has some gaps in it.