Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[Dancing David]

Mr. Mozina,

i see that you have ebcome so lost in your histrionics and conspiracy theories that you have forgotten to explain anything:

There fore you seem to meet the criteria for most Plasma Cosmology, you wave you hands , you scream conspiracy, but you have got a leg to stand on.

So how does your electric star shine?
What keeps the charges seprate?
What keep the charges in place that create the current, which you claim light the photosphere?
What is the source of the currents that light the photosphere?

Please by all means bust a blood vessel with your apoleptic fits, and continue the same sad stroty:
1. You do not have a model.
2. You can not explain data.
3. You have not observations to support your model.

I think you are the poser and liar that DenreiDopa thought Zeuzz was.

Are you the iron star nut?

 

[Perpetual Student]

Yes, the solar wind accelerates away from the Sun. Most of the acceleration occurs in the transition zone, a layer in the solar atmosphere above the chromosphere, and below the corona. The mechanisms of acceleration are unknown. However, the problem is not a lack of available explanations, but rather an abundance thereof. The ultimate source of the energy involved is probably the rapid reconfiguration of the magnetic field in the photosphere.

I can't post links yet, since I don't sit around posting all day. But if you look in the arXiv preprint server, or the NASA Astrophysics Data System (I prefer the latter since it tracks citations & references), you can look up "On Competing Models of Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration: The Debate in '08", a preprint by Steven Cranmer for a review of the current thinking on that topic. Another recent entry worth a look is "Self-consistent Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration from Anisotropic Magnetohydrodynamic Turbulence", Cranmer, van Ballegooijen & Edgar; Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series 171(2): 520-551, August 2007.

Of course, as we know from Maxwell's Equations, any time variable magnetic field induces an electric field (Faraday's law), which in turn accelerates charged particles. Likewise, magnetic field waves (Alfven waves) will also work. Even acoustic waves may be involved, although I don't think they are considered important anymore. Tusenfem probably knows more about this than I do. But it's likely some mixture of these effects.

So does it continue to accelerate beyond the solar system or does it attain a steady velocity within our vicinity? Have our deep space probes provided an answer to this question?

 

[Michael Mozina]

So you do not understand what the magnetic field lines represent and that those field vectors move charges creating currents that can sustain that magnetic field.

No, it's you that fail to comprehend the *physics* at the point of "reconnection'. The ions and electrons do the "reconnecting", not magnetic lines. The magnetic line "topology" is directly related to the "river of current" running through the filament. The "charge attraction" between points on the surface drives the process, just as it did in Birkeland's empirical experiments. The magnetic lines are a function of the current flow, but it's an *ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE PROCESS*.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes, the solar wind accelerates away from the Sun. Most of the acceleration occurs in the transition zone, a layer in the solar atmosphere above the chromosphere, and below the corona. The mechanisms of acceleration are unknown.

Oh for crying out loud, they've been "known" and in fact "predicted" by Birkeland for over 100 years now Tim. Get real.

However, the problem is not a lack of available explanations, but rather an abundance thereof.

Ya, but only one that has actually been "lab tested" and works as "predicted", right down to the coronal loops and CME's.

The ultimate source of the energy involved is probably the rapid reconfiguration of the magnetic field in the photosphere.

AKA "Electrical Discharge" like you find in Earth's atmosphere and Saturn's atmosphere, etc.

I can't post links yet, since I don't sit around posting all day. But if you look in the arXiv preprint server, or the NASA Astrophysics Data System (I prefer the latter since it tracks citations & references), you can look up "On Competing Models of Coronal Heating and Solar Wind Acceleration:

I remind you that only Birkeland's model has been shown to work in a lab Tim.

Of course, as we know from Maxwell's Equations, any time variable magnetic field induces an electric field (Faraday's law),

But then in an electrical discharge scenario, it's electrical charge attraction that drives the magnetic field changes. You have the cart before the horse.

There is nothing mysterious about these observations. They were all "predicted' and in fact 'simulated in a lab' over one hundred years ago by Kristian Birkeland. He certainly could "explain" these phenomenon.

 

[sol invictus]

No, it's you that fail to comprehend the *physics* at the point of "reconnection'.

Oh, so now you've flipflopped back from it being semantics to it being physics. It must be dizzying, squirming and flopping so fast from one position to another.

The ions and electrons do the "reconnecting", not magnetic lines.

Oh really? So if we show you solutions where the mag field lines reconnect, you'll admit you have no clue what you're talking about?

The magnetic line "topology" is directly related to the "river of current" running through the filament.

Oops - zigzag! Now in this sentence the lines reconnect again?

The "charge attraction" between points on the surface drives the process, just as it did in Birkeland's empirical experiments. The magnetic lines are a function of the current flow, but it's an *ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE PROCESS*.

I see, now it's all clear - they do reconnect, but you can't call it what it is - you have to call it a "*ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE PROCESS*". Got it.

It's really weird the way physics woos are obsessed with this particular thing... kind of creepy, actually.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Oh, so now you've flipflopped back from it being semantics to it being physics. It must be dizzying, squirming and flopping so fast from one position to another.

Huh? There's no "flip flop" here in any way. The magnetic lines are physically incapable of "disconnecting"" or ""reconnecting". It is therefore *illogical* to call this process "magnetic reconnection". The term "particle reconnection" would be "physically correct". The term "circuit reconnection" would be even better because it conveys the importance of the *entire circuit energy* to determine what happens inside the current sheet. The term magnetic reconnection is stupid because magnetic fields lack material substance and form as a full and completely *continuum* (not just line) without beginning, and without ending. There is no way that a magnetic line can "reconnect". At the point of "reconnection" the ions and electrons exchange kinetic energy.

I see, now it's all clear - they do reconnect, but you can't call it what it is - you have to call it a "*ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE PROCESS*". Got it.

Each individual "line" is in fact a "discharge process" which is why individual coronal loops reach millions of degrees. When they "short circuit" all hell breaks looks and CME's occur.

It's really weird the way physics woos are obsessed with this particular thing... kind of creepy, actually.

What I find "creepy" is the fact that Birkeland not only "explained" all this 100 years ago, but he simulated it too, and yet the mainstream still seems to think these answers are "unknown". Talk about creepy.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Because of the change of magnetic topology

That isn't "magnetic reconnection", that's a change of magnetic topology. There is no unique form of energy release called "magnetic reconnection". At most you have induction forces and circuit/particle kinetic energy exchanges at the point of reconnection. Not a single magnetic line disconnects or reconnects, just the plasma flows.

He did not like the idea, and he did not understand the mechanism.

He understood the physical mechanisms better than you do. It's the "particles" that "reconnect" in the current sheet, not the magnetic lines. The total circuit energy determines the rate of "reconnection".

Whatever, with me having written 6 paper on double layers, I know I am really hiding the electrical aspects of the universe.

Why in the world would you moderate on a website that forbids the discussion of Alfven's cosmology theories beyond 30 days? For crying out loud. Talk about a cult.

I have to understand the physics or else I cannot write down the math that I need to make calculations.

So what exactly do you believe is "reconnecting" inside the plasma in that double layer. I'll get to the rest of your post after I've heard your answer.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Mr. Mozina,

i see that you have ebcome so lost in your histrionics and conspiracy theories that you have forgotten to explain anything:

Actually I did that years ago:
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com

There fore you seem to meet the criteria for most Plasma Cosmology, you wave you hands , you scream conspiracy, but you have got a leg to stand on.

I've got all those observations of solar wind acceleration, high speed jets, coronal loop discharges to stand on. Mainstream theory doesn't have a clue how to explain something Birkeland predicted over 100 years ago.

So how does your electric star shine?

The surface has a negative charge and discharges through the photosphere, and to the heliosphere. The discharge process lights up the photosphere.

What keeps the charges seprate?

A constant release of energy from the sun.

What keep the charges in place that create the current, which you claim light the photosphere?

The charged particles are created by the sun itself as it "burns through" it's energy source. The surface ends up with the most negative charges.

What is the source of the currents that light the photosphere?

The sun. I'll stop being coy however and admit I believe that the energy source is primarily fission, not fusion, but both occur IMO, and there is no single energy source.

Please by all means bust a blood vessel with your apoleptic fits, and continue the same sad stroty:
1. You do not have a model.

Birkeland did have a model. It's not mine.

2. You can not explain data.

Sure I can. Birkeland even simulated a lot of these same feature all by himself over 100 years ago.

3. You have not observations to support your model.

My website is full of observations to support my model, mostly in the form of satellite observations and heliosiesmology data. Care to explain Kosovichev's Doppler image, or that LMSAL running difference image for me in terms of the standard solar model? Will you address these images or be true to your name and turn into a dancing david that never gets serious about anything?

I think you are the poser and liar that DenreiDopa thought Zeuzz was.

Gee, already calling me a "liar" and we just met. Is that how you greet everyone?

Are you the iron star nut?

No, I am a Birkeland solar model enthusiast.

 

[Tubbythin]

The sun. I'll stop being coy however and admit I believe that the energy source is primarily fission, not fusion, but both occur IMO, and there is no single energy source.

Fission of what in to what and what?

 

[Tubbythin]

Btw MM, I'm still waiting to here about all this "metaphysics" that is stuffed into the CMBR.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Fission of what in to what and what?

Let's start with the fusion part first.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512633

As for fission, I'm sure it contains all the fissionable elements we find here on Earth.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Btw MM, I'm still waiting to here about all this "metaphysics" that is stuffed into the CMBR.

You mean besides inflation and dark energy? Nothing is technically stuffed into the CMBR, just the mainstream "explanation" of the CMBR.

 

[Tubbythin]

You mean besides inflation and dark energy? Nothing is technically stuffed into the CMBR, just the mainstream "explanation" of the CMBR.

As I said before, the shape of a blackbody spectrum is utterly independent of whether or not inflation occurred or dark energy is "real". In fact, I derived it in a statistical mechanics course a few years. No reference to cosmology whatsoever.

 

[Tubbythin]

As for fission, I'm sure it contains all the fissionable elements we find here on Earth.

Got any maths to back it up though?

 

[Tubbythin]

Let's start with the fusion part first.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512633

Maybe you'd like to talk us through this neutron-neutron repulsion business?

 

[Ziggurat]

Actually I did that years ago:
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com

So you wrote that nonsense? Wow, you're far more confused than I thought. The sun is mostly iron? Wow. An iron sun would necessarily be far heavier than our current estimates of its mass, so it should (according to Newton's law) provide far more gravitational attraction than it does. So Newton must be wrong too.

I'll stop being coy however and admit I believe that the energy source is primarily fission, not fusion

Fission of what? Surely not of iron. What's the rate of fission you need in order to match the observed power output? How old do you think the sun is, and how much fission material does your model require has been burned during that time?

My website is full of observations to support my model, mostly in the form of satellite observations and heliosiesmology data.

Yeah, I was thinking about that. You say that these subsurface structures are solid, and that they only change because of erosion. What do you think the vertical length scales are? What's the rate of erosion, and can your model realistically produce such erosion rates? Because given the absolutely enormous horizontal length scales involved (larger than the earth), I think we've GOT to be talking at least kilometers in height, and I just don't see how you can conclude that kilometers of solid iron (or silicon, or whatever) are going to get blasted off within hours. Got any evidence that such phenomenal rates of erosion can be produced by plasmas? Birkeland certainly never showed such a thing.

Basically, I don't think you've got a model at all. You haven't put up a single calculation on your page. If your model is correct, the mass of the sun should be much greater than the commonly accepted mass. That should be something that can be probed experimentally (by, you guessed it, observing the sun's gravitational field). But you haven't put a number on such a fundamental and easily testable parameter. Hell, not even a lower limit.

 

[Dancing David]

Actually I did that years ago:
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com

Not really, you haven't explained a toy model of why the sun shines, and you are still being coy.

I've got all those observations of solar wind acceleration, high speed jets, coronal loop discharges to stand on. Mainstream theory doesn't have a clue how to explain something Birkeland predicted over 100 years ago.

Nope you are justa sserting that, take us through Birkelands model then and explain how is models works, what values it predicts, what numbers and forces it gives, and then compare it to the data.

I have to say in the past we were shown pictures of a big iron ball and told that it was a model of the sun.

Now why don't you explain it to a dummy like me.

What is Birkeland's model, what math and predictions does it use and make and how does the model and predictions match the theory.

The surface has a negative charge and discharges through the photosphere, and to the heliosphere. The discharge process lights up the photosphere.

in other words you are being obtuse and deliberately opaque or you don't know. What gives the surface a continuing negative charge to produce the current, or what is the source of the electrons for the current?
What gives the heliosphere an opposite polarity thus causing the current to flow.

You really just kinds of glossed over the details and didn't explain it.

This is where the Electric Sun model falls down.

So put it in terms a smart layman might be able to follow.

Your explanation is lacking in details.

A constant release of energy from the sun.

Sure, what is the source and mechanism that produces such a steady stream of electrons (unless it is positive to negative surface to heliosphere)?

The charged particles are created by the sun itself as it "burns through" it's energy source. The surface ends up with the most negative charges.

Sure , okay, what mechanism produces the surplus of electrons?

The sun. I'll stop being coy however and admit I believe that the energy source is primarily fission, not fusion, but both occur IMO, and there is no single energy source.

So you still haven't siad what mechanism creates the current, Scott does and he can't show that it exists.

I will with hold judgment on yours since you have not presented it.

What mechanism makes the current?

Birkeland did have a model. It's not mine.

So explain it, so far you are hiding and avoiding the issue.

So either you are supporting the model or you aren't.

You have said that a current creates the photons that are the sun shining.

What makes the current? Specific train of mechanisms.

Sure I can. Birkeland even simulated a lot of these same feature all by himself over 100 years ago.

Nope you can't, you haven't even presented a model of the mechanism. Start there, saying that the discharge from a large steel ball looks like the sun, well that is a bunny picture. Scale the forces and provide the mechanism.

My website is full of observations to support my model, mostly in the form of satellite observations and heliosiesmology data.

Oh, so you you have a model.

What is the toy version of it?

Care to explain Kosovichev's Doppler image, or that LMSAL running difference image for me in terms of the standard solar model? Will you address these images or be true to your name and turn into a dancing david that never gets serious about anything?

Oh, so you admit you haven't answered my questions, that would be why you change the topic.

try to explain your model, then what predictions it makes.

You haven't done that so far.

Gee, already calling me a "liar" and we just met. Is that how you greet everyone?

Well there were reasons that DRD called this person that, which may not be you. But the name is similar.

So far you still have yet to answer the questions:
1. What is the models? (Which includes mechanisms not angels)
2. What predictions?
3. What observations?

So show me wrong, that you are not your typical spin meister out to just look good without any model, predictions or data.

No, I am a Birkeland solar model enthusiast.

Okay, so put it to the test, stop hiding and pretending.

How does it work?

other than you blaming people for suppressing the models, mechanism, predictions and data you haven't presented yet.

This is where Zeuzzz, BAC have failed, will you actually succede?

 

[Tim Thompson]

History Lesson

So does it continue to accelerate beyond the solar system or does it attain a steady velocity within our vicinity? Have our deep space probes provided an answer to this question?

As far as I know, most of the acceleration takes place in the Transition region, and the base of the corona. By the time the solar wind reaches Mercury, it has long since stopped accelerating.

Yes, the solar wind accelerates away from the Sun. Most of the acceleration occurs in the transition zone, a layer in the solar atmosphere above the chromosphere, and below the corona. The mechanisms of acceleration are unknown.

Oh for crying out loud, they've been "known" and in fact "predicted" by Birkeland for over 100 years now Tim. Get real.

Factually false statement. Birkeland never modeled the solar wind, either in a laboratory or in a publication, so far as I know. Feel free to cite specific references if you think otherwise.

Birkeland (about 1903) postulated that the sun emitted a wind of charged particles and that this wind was responsible for auroral phenomena. He used a plasma gun to generate the plasma that encountered his terella, but never said anything about how the solar wind was accelerated, nor did he describe the solar wind beyond the general observation that it was a plasma of both positive & negative charge carriers (Birkeland came to reject the idea of current streams by 1916, realizing that such a stream would be unstable against electrostatic repulsion and dispersion).

It was in fact R.C. Carrington & R. Hodgson who first suggested the idea that a solar emission of some kind was responsible for magnetic storms at the Earth ("Description of a Singular Appearance seen in the Sun on September 1, 1859", R.C. Carrington, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (20):13-15 (1859); On a curious Appearance seen in the Sun", R. Hodgson, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (20):15-16 (1859)). They had both independently observed a bright white light solar flare, and noted that it was followed by an exceptional magnetic storm. Neither Carrington nor Hodgson was willing to connect the flare and the storm, but they made careful note of the possibility.

Sir Oliver Lodge asserted that "a torrent or flying cloud of charged atoms or ions" connected the Sun to Earth ("Sunspots, Magnetic Storms, Comet Tails, Atmospheric Electricity and Aurorae", Oliver Lodge, The Electrician (46):249, 1900). But Lodge was aware of G.F. FitzGerald, who had already come to the same conclusion, and in fact estimated the speed of such clouds at about 300 km/sec, which we now know to be quite a reasonable estimate (The Electrician (30):481, 1892).

But none of these people talked about how the solar wind was actually accelerated away from the sun. It was Eugene Parker who seems too have been the first to suggest that the Sun's variable magnetic field was the ultimate source of energy to drive the solar wind ("The Hydrodynamic Theory of Solar Corpuscular Radiation and Stellar Winds", E.N. Parker, Astrophysical Journal, 132: 821, November 1960). Even the legendary Alfven knew quite well that the electric field that accelerates the solar wind must come from the variable magnetic field of the sun, and that is exactly what he shows in figure III.20 in his book Cosmic Plasma (D. Reidel publishing, 1981, page 76), as well as equation 39 on the prior page.

Birkeland deserves credit for what he actually did, not for what you imagine that he did.

 

[tusenfem]

That isn't "magnetic reconnection", that's a change of magnetic topology. There is no unique form of energy release called "magnetic reconnection". At most you have induction forces and circuit/particle kinetic energy exchanges at the point of reconnection. Not a single magnetic line disconnects or reconnects, just the plasma flows.

The magnetic field topology changes and thus if draw field lines (accepted by Alfvén) you will see that they have changed completely. If you take small time steps you will see that that means some have to "break" and "reconnect" in order to get that new topology. However, the places where the "breaking" takes place coincide with very low magnetic field strengths (going to zero) where the definition of a field line breaks down.

He understood the physical mechanisms better than you do. It's the "particles" that "reconnect" in the current sheet, not the magnetic lines. The total circuit energy determines the rate of "reconnection".

Please show us a model of this "particle reconnection".
Naturally, science has stood still ever since Alfvén invented MHD.

Why in the world would you moderate on a website that forbids the discussion of Alfven's cosmology theories beyond 30 days? For crying out loud. Talk about a cult.

This has noting to do with my comment about double layers.
Have you read through this whole thread? I don't think so, otherwise you would not have started from scratch asking questions again about things that have been discussed and chewed from months. THAT is why a time limit is good, it makes that the proponent of the ATM idea does some homework first and does not make up things on the go (which unfortunately is often the case). But this is JREF, no limits, yoohooo, and so let's stop discuss BAUT.

So what exactly do you believe is "reconnecting" inside the plasma in that double layer. I'll get to the rest of your post after I've heard your answer.

I am sorry but I do not have a model for reconnection in a double layer, whatever gave you that idea. YOU are the one who is supposed to come up with a model for that (I have only asked you three times already).

But to give you a bit of help, your model has to have the following aspects of what "reconnectionists" observe:

1. A change of topology:
--- from a straight magnetic field separated by a current sheet of thickness L (in what direction is the current flowing by the way?)
--- to a field in which there is bend field, separated by an X-shaped separatrix, on the top and at the bottom the field is slightly "dented" or "pinched", and in the two middle regions the field on the left moves in tuns around and moves out and on the right the same but in opposite direction.
--- To make it simpler for you, look at the first picture on this wiki page (you may forget about the text on that page)

2. At both sides where the field turns around there is magnetic tension, which will pull plasma with it as the field "does not like tension". This means that plasma is accelerated away from the center of the figure, and both electrons and ions are moving away at basically the same speed. Now how do you do that with a double layer, accelerating ions and electrons in the same direction and get them to have the same velocity?

So, please, take that figure from the wiki page (unfortunately it already spoils my question about in which direction the current in the current is flowing, but there are still some currents that are now shown, which you can add.

Looking forward to see your model.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Yay! This is gonna be fun. Glad this had been revived.

This thread I started a while a go about Mag reconnection and (the seemingly non existant) physical processes that accompany it may be a good reference, if we're going down this road again: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=120782&referrerid=6535

I'll be back.

And try and keep it civilized people, Ad Homs and accusations are not needed.

* "When presented with two possibilities, scientists tend to choose the wrong one."
* The stronger the evidence, the more attitudes harden.
* "The game here is to lump all the previous observations into one 'hypothesis' and then claim there is no second, confirming observation."
* "No matter how many times something has been observed, it cannot be believed until it has been observed again."
* "If you take a highly intelligent person and give them the best possible, elite education, then you will most likely wind up with an academic who is completely impervious to reality.
* "When looking at this picture no amount of advanced academic education can substitute for good judgment; in fact it would undoubtedly be an impediment."
* Local organizing committees give in to imperialistic pressures to keep rival research off programs
* "It is the primary responsibility of a scientist to face, and resolve, discrepant observations."
* Science is failing to self-correct. We must understand why in order to fix it.

Halton Arp

Birkeland deserves credit for what he actually did, not for what you imagine that he did.

He did a lot more than he himself realised, I think the issue here is. In terms of plasma scaling and laboratory simulations of space.

I'll get back to this when I've the time.