Plasma Cosmology - Woo or not

[sol invictus]

sol invictus:

I have been on the sidelines following this debate for some time now. Sometimes when debating one can take extreme positions that may not otherwise be intended. Do you feel that PC is virtually all unscientific or do you see any aspects that may have some shred of genuine scientific value or speculative interest?

As far as I know there is no such thing as PC, so it's hard to answer that. Astrophysicists study plasmas all the time - it's a major part of the field - because they play central roles in lots of astrophysical processes and phenomena. But cosmology is not one of them.

Most of the ideas expressed in this thread - and just about all the ones that apply to cosmology - are obvious nonsense. Of those that were not, all or almost all are part of standard physics.

 

[Reality Check]

Your list is silly Reality Check. Not all those publications are core areas of PC. Many of them merely act as supporting evidence of one aspect of plasma cosmology. Many of them merely demonstrate that plasma scaling exists, and thus is a valid aspect of plasma cosmology which many of the models are based on. Many of them merely demonstrate the importance of plasma in the the universe, which is often overlooked by BB exclusively gravitationally based theories, but central to plasma cosmology. They are no more core aspects of plasma cosmology than the orbit of Neptune is to the Big Bang.

So, lets have another go. You say we need to give comparisons between PC and BBT to see what they predict differently.

Maybe listening to Lerner and Peratts breif overview here would be a good idea to start with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-4jPllBldM

BBT: The universe is assumed to have a beginning and an end in time.
PC: The universe is assumed infinite in time and constantly evolving.

BBT: The universe originated from a highly homogeneous state and will remain largely so in the future.
PC: The universe is filamentary and clumpy. The large scale structure of the cosmos will not be homogeneous but highly filamentary.

BBT: CMB radiation will be isotropic.
PC: The CMB will not be entirely isotropic, certianly not the extent the Big Bang originally predicted.

BBT: The anisotropy of the CBR will be random, due mainly to the properties of the gravitational field.
PC: The anisotropy of the CBR will show a strong preferred orientation in the sky. Mainly due to magnetic anisotropy which occurs in a plasma, so that its magnetic field is oriented in a preferred direction.

BBT: The universe is nearly entirely electrically neutral and so EM and plasma considerations do not effect any gravitationally based models at all. The large charge separation we notice on Earth and in our local environment is just magic and a special unique event.
PC: Charge separation occurs in outer space due to various complex non linear plasma characteristics.

BBT: Energy can be created instantaneously out of nothing.
PC: Energy can not be created out of nothing, in accordance with conservation of energy.

BBT: The dark energy field can create energy out of nothing.
PC: Bollocks.

BBT: We can abandon common sense and known physics to explain contradictory observations.
PC: We must stick to well known, testable, provable, laboratory based verifiable physics, without adding ptolemaic epicycles to explain observations and conflicting observations.

There probably a few more about primordial elements too, etc. I'll get back to this list in a bit.

Zeuzzz: You have known about this list for how many months?
Previously you agreed with it and even contributed items. Now you do not. What has changed?

I will compare PC to BBT - when you tell me what it is. Give us a cosmology that is a consistent set of theories.
To start off - what is the one and only PC theory that explains the cosmological redshift?

 

[Zeuzzz]

I hate to burst anyone's bubble here, but since Bruce and Alfven used a "standard" solar model, with relatively "minor' modifications (charge separation between the photosphere and heliosphere), PC/EU theory is not actually predicated upon the validity of Birkeland's solar model. Keep that in mind during this conversation. Most of the same physics applies to standard theory, not just Birkeland's solar model. Each of them presumes the sun is the primary energy source and there is charge attraction between the 'surface' and the heliosphere. The validity of PC/EU theory is not predicated upon any particular solar model. As long as we are simply combining GR and MHD theory, it still falls under the umbrella of PC/EU theory, and PC/EU theory can be applied to either solar model.

Thanks for all your contributions Mike. I do find all your iron sun theories fascinating, and I think that its originial thinkers like you that astronomy could do with more of. Thinking outside of the box is a trait often ridiculed at first, but all great ideas start off as 'outside the box'.

Brilliant website by the way. http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/ You still working with professor O. Manuel? I also like his material a lot.

I'm not sure that a lot of this material belongs in this thread. Maybe a new one should be started to discuss some of these various theories? this thread has meandered far and wide in its contents, so, maybe, we should just keep it all here afterall. But, I dont think that any of this material could be considered relevant to cosmology, maybe not even plasma cosmology. Depends on your definition of both really. To me, its more electric universe and plasma physics. But maybe I am missing some points here that tie it in, I'm not exactly an expert in your material, though do have a brief understanding.

Also, what do you think of Scotts recent publication in Pulsed Plasma Science about the possible solar surface double layer idea? http://members.cox.net/dascott3/SDLIEEE.pdf

 

[Reality Check]

BBT: The universe is assumed to have a beginning and an end in time.
PC: The universe is assumed infinite in time and constantly evolving.

You are wrong.
BBT: The physical evidence (redshift, CMB, Lyman-Alpha forest, etc.) is that the universe had a beginning. There is no assumption of an end in time.
PC: Do not address the redshift, CMB, Lyman-Alpha forest, etc. evidence and assume that the universe iinfinite in time and constantly evolving.

BBT: The universe originated from a highly homogeneous state and will remain largely so in the future.
PC: The universe is filamentary and clumpy. The large scale structure of the cosmos will not be homogeneous but highly filamentary.

BBT: The universe originated from a highly homogeneous state and evolved to a "filamentary and clumpy" state. This is demonstrated by the Lambda-CDM model.
PC: The universe looks as it looks and we have no explanation.

BBT: CMB radiation will be isotropic.
PC: The CMB will not be entirely isotropic, certianly not the extent the Big Bang originally predicted.

BBT: The anisotropy of the CBR will be random, due mainly to the properties of the gravitational field.
PC: The anisotropy of the CBR will show a strong preferred orientation in the sky. Mainly due to magnetic anisotropy which occurs in a plasma, so that its magnetic field is oriented in a preferred direction.

BBT: The CMB will have a certain temperature and a black body thermal spectrum. The Lamda-CMD model matches its anisotropy.
PC: The CMB does not exist/does not have a black body spectrum/show a strong preferred orientation in the sky (pick your theory).

BBT: The universe is nearly entirely electrically neutral and so EM and plasma considerations do not effect any gravitationally based models at all. The large charge separation we notice on Earth and in our local environment is just magic and a special unique event.
PC: Charge separation occurs in outer space due to various complex non linear plasma characteristics.

BBT: Almost right: Charge separarations need external forces to be separated, e.g. stars, black holes, etc. The large charge separation we notice on Earth and in our local environment is common and well understood.
PC: Correct.

BBT: Energy can be created instantaneously out of nothing.
PC: Energy can not be created out of nothing, in accordance with conservation of energy.

BBT: Says nothing about energy being created from nothing.

BBT: The dark energy field can create energy out of nothing.
PC: Bollocks.

BBT: The dark energy field is energy. It does not have to "create energy out of nothing".
PC: Has no prediction for the observation of dark energy.

BBT: We can abandon common sense and known physics to explain contradictory observations.
PC: We must stick to well known, testable, provable, laboratory based verifiable physics, without adding ptolemaic epicycles to explain observations and conflicting observations.

BBT: We must never abandon the scientific method.
PC: The scientific method is "Bollocks" (in Zeuzzz's words) and so can be abandoned.

My reply hopefully has fewer errors than your original BBT/PC list.

 

[Zeuzzz]

As far as I know there is no such thing as PC, so it's hard to answer that. Astrophysicists study plasmas all the time - it's a major part of the field - because they play central roles in lots of astrophysical processes and phenomena.

The vast majority of this will be modelling Pseudo-plasma. http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Pseudo-plasma

Pseudoplasma does certainly give a nice mathematically precise and easily modelled form of plasma, but they will often overlook the much more dynamic and non linear physics involved in real plasma behaviour.

For example, one of plasma many characteristics are instabilities. All of which have very unique and specific laws govening their behaviour. Take a look at just a few of the the many Instabilities here: http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Plasma_instability They list well over fourty separate plasma instabilities. These will not be accounted for by basic plasma modelling and will be overlooked.

There are also many different characteristics of plasma each with many subsets and interesting phenomenon. These may involve numerous distinct pinch mechanisms, various filamentation mechanisms, various types of plasma double layers, plasma scaling regimes, Types of electric glow discharges, and many more. For exmaple, Peratts galaxy formation idea was utilizing a Bennet Pinch condition retaining a columnar filametary structure. I expect that various different models could be created in the future by using other various plasma characteristics. There are too many to choose from.

Things like this will not pop up in standard models of plasma behaviour. There are too many erratic and unpredictable properties of plasma to factor in. Many of which are still poorly understood. You have to think outside the box first starting with plasma characteristics; not modelling plasma characteristics as a mere byproduct of already existing mechanical functions. You then test your models to see if they are tenable in all circumstances. Some are, some are not.

 

[Zeuzzz]

If by this you mean (1) inflation, (2) dark energy and (3) dark matter ("3 forms of metaphysics") then you are entirely wrong. All big bang cosmologies absolutely require a thermal shape regardless of the presence of inflation, dark matter or dark energy.

Hi Tim.

I am presuming your are the Tim Thompson I'm thinking of, I would really appreciate you to comment on Scotts responce to your various critisisms (Tim Thompson – A Rebuttal). I have not actually read your original cristisisms, but it seems that Scott does make some valid points, even though his overly confrontational (although quite polite) tone doesn't help matters.

I know he is mistaken about the solar neutrino issue (as pointed out here by Bridgman: The Electric Sky, Short-Circuited), I think they actually did make measurements on each side of the Earth to verify the flavor change that was thought to occur. Though I haven't really looked at this in detail admittedly.

If you have repsonded to Scotts above critisisms elsewhere, a link would be appreciated.

 

[Reality Check]

I know he is mistaken about the solar neutrino issue (as pointed out here by Bridgman: The Electric Sky, Short-Circuited), I think they actually did make measurements on each side of the Earth to verify the flavor change that was thought to occur. Though I haven't really looked at this in detail admittedly.

Thanks Zeuzzz for reminding my about Bridgeman's review (The Electric Sky, Short-Circuited).
Bridgman's Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy web page on the electric cosmos states:

The Electric Cosmos is a distortion of the more mainstream Plasma Cosmology of Alfven and others. Plasma cosmology enjoyed an upsurge of interest in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a simpler solution to some of the difficulites plaguing cosmology.
Interest dropped after the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission confirmed the blackbody nature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to high precision. COBE failed to detect any radio or microwave emission from the large-scale electric currents required in plasma cosmology.
A more radical version of this cosmology goes under the name of "Electric Cosmos". This "science" seems to be a variant of creationism based around a Greco-Roman mythology but many components are based on some of the claims of Immanuel Velikovsky.

As our resident expert on PC, could you comment on the sacale of the " large-scale electric currents required in plasma cosmology".

 

[tusenfem]

As big as your degree is, you did not really refute anything I said.
Especially the part where I got the "flux tubes and reconnection" from the ESA web site.

Flux tubes evolution after multipoint reconnections

Search on Google and go the ESA website since I dont have enough post to link yet.

Never mind the "greatness" of my degree. I showd in my message that you are confused and do not understand or cannot explain how flux tubes work. I am well aware of Philippe Louarn's work (being a close collegue of mine, we worked at the same institute in Paris). However, that is not what you described, heck you just threw in some terms in your description of "twisted flux tubes" not even mentioning in which direction the magnetic field was.

What is a CME???? Particles and all. A coronal loop that explodes. A exploding flux tube.

And from the RHESSI website.

"In the simplest picture, oppositely directed magnetic field lines that are roughly vertical relative to the solar surface pinch together, where they reconnect and form new field lines that snap both upward and downward, away from the reconnection region (see illustration below). The new, upward-moving field lines form a large coronal loop that may become a coronal mass ejection (CME). The new downward-moving field lines form a relatively compact coronal loop or arcade of loops. This compact loop continues to build up, somewhat like adding more and more layers to an onion, as long as the magnetic reconnection continues above it."

A coronal loop does not "explode" although it may be called that in popular language. The loop twists, or somehow the two sides of the loop come together and there where the to parts of the loop come together, where the magnetic field is oppositely directed, reconnection can happen and the top part of the loop gets "converted" to a "bagel" of magnetic field and plasma (and associated currents). However the description above that you copied from the RHESSI page has very little resemblance with the "ideas" that you presented in your first message. Now you are just propagating the mainstream view of reconection, for which I thank you. And here is the RHESSI page about solar loops.

And I'm not even going to argue about electric current causing magnetic fields.

Good! currents create magnetic fields and moving magnetic fields create currents.

From Wiki Birkeland currents. Since I cant link but notice how there are 2 components(vectors) to the magnetic field. One parallel and one perpendicular. And I bet it depends on the electron gyroradius as to which one dominates.
"The complex self-constricting magnetic field lines and current paths in a Birkeland current that may develop in a plasma[12]"
brant

Here is the Birkeland current wiki page which at several points you have to be critical off. Please look at the discussion page where I have put in several comments about errors and/or badly phrased stuff.

I am not sure which figure you are talking about, with the two components of the magnetic field, but I guess you meant the figure in the references section. That indeed is a very simple view of a magnetic flux tube with current flowing along the core magnetic field. The current will create a circulare magnetic field and thus it will create spiral magnetic field lines as seen in that figure.
But first and foremost you claim two times (once to me and once to sol) that there are two components of the magnetic field, but please, you first have to define these two directions.

I am not really sure what you want to claim with this. That a flux tube has a twisted magnetic field (like yarn in a rope)? Well that has been know for ages, thanks for once more supporting mainstream physics (I just discovered such a flux rope in Venus's magnetotail).

And I see all the comments on the merging current tubes in the experiment have been overseen. But never mind. Basically, you are supporting the mainstream view of reconnection, only you do not know how to express it in the right language.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Bridgman's Dealing with Creationism in Astronomy

Just to comment on this before I address your previous post and your question, Bridgman did actually say that the Electric Sky is not creationism. He spends his time debunking creationist ideas, and so this is what his webpage is called, but he did comment that Scotts book is not really creationism but an "odd mix" of unorthodox ideas. Or something like that. So dont let the context fool you. Scott is not a creationsist, he's a scientist, albeit a rather unorthodox one.

 

[tusenfem]

For example, one of plasma many characteristics are instabilities. All of which have very unique and specific laws govening their behaviour. Take a look at just a few of the the many Instabilities here: http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Plasma_instability They list well over fourty separate plasma instabilities. These will not be accounted for by basic plasma modelling and will be overlooked.

Whahahahahahahahahahah, ROTFLOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

This must be the craziest idea ever!

The modeling of the multitude of plasma instabilities is one of the most important things in space physics. Let's see, I myself have written papers on observations of the following instabilities, which cite papers on numerical modeling of the processes:

1. kink instability
2. firehose instability
3. ion cyclotron instability
4. sausage instability
5. mirror mode instability
6. kelvin-helmholtz instability

only 6 of the 40 (but some are the basically the same just slightly different parameters) and I have not done any others, because of a lack of time.

 

[Dancing David]

Fun to be here!!!

Well since I am from an electrical background I will pick flux tubes. They are most like a wire......

The question is do flux tubes transfer energy between 2 objects, and if so what type of energy...

The predictions are that the magnetic field is caused by a current flow.

The existence of a magnetic field is evidence of a current flow.


Electron gyromotion. These 2 pages describe why I think that both parallel and perpendicular magnetic fields exist, with one dominating depending on plasma conditions, for the case of any flux tube carrying an electrical current.
ttp://books.google.com/books?id=Vyoe88GEVz4C&pg=PA146&lpg=PA146&dq=Electron+gyroradius+in+a+plasma&source=web&ots=YvhndeyClQ&sig=aznZe66U85QHA3Pyfs_WB71BdjE#PPA146,M1

Um is this not rather standard plasma physics?

How does this relate to either PC of EU?

Now as far as understanding magentic topology it would be beyond me. Thanks, I will take a look.

here is the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Vy...l Q&sig=aznZe66U85QHA3Pyfs_WB71BdjE#PPA146,M1

I looked at it, and what is the deal? Why should this matter, I am a layman after all.

 

[Dancing David]

Maybe listening to Lerner and Peratt's brief overview here would be a good idea to start with: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-4jPllBldM

And maybe you should stop pretending that you have a coherent model Zeuzzz, do you remember back when you were posting outdated articles by Perrat that COBE disproved?

How does Lerner explain the gravitational effects at the center of galaxies?

BBT: The universe is assumed to have a beginning and an end in time.
PC: The universe is assumed infinite in time and constantly evolving.

Oh nice red herring, you really just like straw don't you?

The BBT does not say anything about the extent of the universe in time.

It says that it appears that the observable universe appears to have been much smaller and much denser.
the 'end' of the universe is speculation.

You have refused to acknowledge the problems with your infinite universe in any prior threads.

What about the element ratio and existence of black holes for starters.

I like you Zeuzzz but you are very disingenuine!

You have been unable to support most of your claims in the past, you ignore huge holes in your theories, and then you come back and just pretend that they don't exist.

the only person you are lying to is yourself.

I still like you, however.

BBT: The universe originated from a highly homogeneous state and will remain largely so in the future.

Right sure, and Oz never gave nothing to the straw man that he didn't already have.

We have been through this before as well.

Do you like lying to yourself?

PC: The universe is filamentary and clumpy. The large scale structure of the cosmos will not be homogeneous but highly filamentary.

BBT: CMB radiation will be isotropic.
PC: The CMB will not be entirely isotropic, certainly not the extent the Big Bang originally predicted.

BBT: The anisotropy of the CBR will be random, due mainly to the properties of the gravitational field.
PC: The anisotropy of the CBR will show a strong preferred orientation in the sky. Mainly due to magnetic anisotropy which occurs in a plasma, so that its magnetic field is oriented in a preferred direction.

BBT: The universe is nearly entirely electrically neutral and so EM and plasma considerations do not effect any gravitationally based models at all. The large charge separation we notice on Earth and in our local environment is just magic and a special unique event.
PC: Charge separation occurs in outer space due to various complex non linear plasma characteristics.

BBT: Energy can be created instantaneously out of nothing.
PC: Energy can not be created out of nothing, in accordance with conservation of energy.

BBT: The dark energy field can create energy out of nothing.
PC: Bollocks.

BBT: We can abandon common sense and known physics to explain contradictory observations.
PC: We must stick to well known, testable, provable, laboratory based verifiable physics, without adding ptolemaic epicycles to explain observations and conflicting observations.


There probably a few more about primordial elements too, etc. I'll get back to this list in a bit.

Zeus, I ask you this in all seriousness, why do you lie to yourself like this?

You have been discussing these issues for over a year now, you have been shown to be wrong, over and over.

You continue to lie to yourself and you continue this political spinning about your mistaken political agenda and you call it science. I am amazed.

So again I will challenge you and you will refuse the challenge as always, why? because you know you don't have a theory.

1. What model do you have of cosmology or electric star behavior?

2. What quantifiable predictions does this model make?

3. What observations meet these predictions?

that is what makes a model and a theory Zeuzzz, what you have is a fanatic religion of improvable speculation and wishful thinking.

What good is PC Zeuzzz? What can it do, so far you have failed in every attempt to answer my three simple questions?

You have not demonstrated semi-rigid EM fields that make the galaxy the shape it is, you have not demonstrated that the universe in infinite in time (which is NOT a BBE claim either way, the BBE says we don't know what was before the BBE), you have not shown that you can demonstrate a model of the Russel-herzbrung diagram, you have not shown that you can explain the Lerner model so it avoids gravitational collapse of galactic cores.

please what does you model show?

Nothing that I can tell, a god of the gaps argument all the way.

Now, I admire you for trying to make this thing work, I admire your patience in struggling to make it make sense. You really have tried, but maybe, just maybe, you don't have a model and your don't have a theory.

 

[sol invictus]

Things like this will not pop up in standard models of plasma behaviour. There are too many erratic and unpredictable properties of plasma to factor in. Many of which are still poorly understood. You have to think outside the box first starting with plasma characteristics; not modelling plasma characteristics as a mere byproduct of already existing mechanical functions. You then test your models to see if they are tenable in all circumstances. Some are, some are not.

Your uninformed and wrong opinion is really not very interesting.

Astro and space physicists do tons of work modeling and understanding plasma instabilities, including highly non-linear behaviors, magnetohydrodynamics, magnetic reconnection (which by the way is an example of something that would be ignored in the "pseudo-plasma" approximation your link defines), turbulence, shocks, relativistic and ultra-relativistic effects, etc. That work is partly analytical (pencil and paper), partly numerical (on a computer), and partly experimental (studying plasma characteristics in labs). Of those, numerical methods are probably the most useful for cutting-edge problems.

 

[tusenfem]

Um is this not rather standard plasma physics?

How does this relate to either PC of EU?

Now as far as understanding magentic topology it would be beyond me. Thanks, I will take a look.

here is the link:
http://books.google.com/books?id=Vy...l Q&sig=aznZe66U85QHA3Pyfs_WB71BdjE#PPA146,M1

I looked at it, and what is the deal? Why should this matter, I am a layman after all.

Actually, I forgot to look at that when I commented on brantc's message. I have actually no idea what brantc has in mind here. I keep on having the feeling that he thinks that magnetic fields are in the direction of the current or something. The gyro radius of the electrons is rather small compared to the sytems that are looked at.

Parallel and perpendiculare magnetic fields only make sense when you define parallel and perpedicular to what.

In the Earth's magnetotail the electron scale is about 10 km at say 20 nT field. But you will have to be explicit about what kind of system you are looking at. As brantc is talking about Birkeland currents we can assume that he is thinking about the aurora, and thus the field much stronger than mentioned above, say 10.000 nT, reducing the gyro radius by a factor of 500 at same energy of the electrons.

It is just babbling what is being done here, writing down stuff that sounds profound, but if you look a little closer at it, you find out that there is absolutely no substance.

A comment like "flux tubes transport energy" the first question has to be why?? A fluxt tube is just a mathematical entity describing a bunch of magnetic field lines. This flux tube in and by itself does not transport anything.

Now often it is the case that along such a flux tube currents flow. A well known example (also in the EU community) is the Io flux tube, where Io's ionosphere acts as a "circuit maker" and the co-moving electric field generated by the Jovian magnetic field moving by Io will drive a current along the Io flux tube. Then and only then will the flux tube "transport energy".

In this case there is already a magnetic field (the one produced by Jupiter) and the flux tube is defined by the size of the moon Io. The currents that are flowing along this flux tube, and only on a small layer at the outside of the tube, will have an alteration of the magnetic field, naturally. The place where this is clearest is in my paper on the Alfven wings of Europa (which you can find here).

So, I would advise brantc to make himself more clear about what exactly he wants with flux tubes and their being wires, etc.

Predictions that "magnetic fields are generated by currents flows" and that "the presence of magnetic fields is evidence for currents" are preposterous. Why you may ask? Not, because I disagree, on the contrary, but one need not make any of such predictions since the 1870s when Maxwell came up with his famous equations (the basics for plasma physics and apparently also the EU (although from its proponents you would not think so)). However, there needs to be a refinement, like sol invictus wrote, where are the currents in my refrigerator magnet? The second "prediction" or whatever it is, is not absolute.

 

[Tim Thompson]

The One And Only World Famous Tim Thompson

I am presuming your are the Tim Thompson I'm thinking of, ...

Indeed I am The One & Only World Famous Tim Thompson (or something like that). No, I do not as yet have a response of my own to Scott's rebuttal of me. Scott seems to have nothing to do except his electric universe stuff, but I remain quite distracted despite having retired in November (I am at the moment competing in the U.S. Amateur Team Chess Championship (west) so I can't do much posting for a few days). Once Bridgman had contacted me about his own Electric Sky Short Circuited page, already cited here by others, I put my own efforts lower on the list than several other things I am trying to do.

In any case the "electric universe" is just plain stupid, really, and there is not much more to say than that. It violates just about every law of physics you can think of; it is especially ironic, I think, that people who claim to be such experts on plasma physics & electromagnetism, clearly do not understand either much beyond the level of a good AP high school student.

Just consider the worn out claim that you can only generate magnetic fields with electric currents. That is in fact not true, and it has been known to be not true for 100 years, so you would think somebody in the EU crowd would have figured that out by now. You need moving charged particles to generate a magnetic field, and that is not necessarily a classical electric current, which is a flow of charged particles all of which have the same charge (i.e., a stream of electrons or protons, typically electrons in our daily lives). The bulk motion of a charge neutral plasma will generate a magnetic field, and that's where the magnetic fields in cosmology & astrophysics come from, not from streams of classical electric currents. This has been proven in both theory & practice and is a simple fact of nature. It is just one of many simple facts of nature ignored by EU enthusiasts.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have some chess to play.

 

[Tubbythin]

We seem to be talking past one another on this point. Let me try to explain it this way....

At worst case PC/EU theory has no legitimate solution to explain this spectrum. So? The mainstream "explanation" of this background involves at least three forms of metaphysics to work "properly", and it failed to "predict" those "dark flows" or those "holes" they found in the universe.

Nope. How many times...?

It's not like I find the mainstream "explanation" of that background to be in any way convincing, anymore than you might be swayed by an argument based on magic. It's not like I find this particular observation to be of such great importance that it becomes the "be-all=end=all" of reasons to select a specific cosmology theory.

The fact is, the BB model predicts that the Universe should be bathed in microwaves with a perfect black body spectrum. Experiment shows that the Universe is bathed in microwaves with a perfect black body spectrum. To me this is pretty good evidence in favour of the BB. However, to say that is the "be-all=end=all" of the theory is either:
a) utterly ignorant
or
b) a blatant lie.

Now I might feel quite differently if the mainstream explanation did not use inflation and dark energy and things they can't demonstrate to exist here and now. Since mainstream theory seems to be resorting to nothing less that "magic" from my perspective, I certainly don't find their explanation of this observation to be "impressive" in any way. I most certainly would therefore put little or no weight on that particular issue when deciding which cosmology theory is most "useful" at making key predictions, specifically key predictions inside our solar system.

You seem to have a strange definition of "cosmology". Please define it.

EU/PC theory "predicts" solar wind. It 'predicts" aurora and solar storms. It "predicts" coronal loops. It "predicts" the existence of "jets' in the solar atmosphere. These have all been "observed" in solar satellite images. The mainstream still finds these things to be "enigmas" and they have no legitimate "explanation" for any of these things, let alone a working model.

This is ironic since you've made it clear you have no working model for your explanations of solar energy generation.
Since we're talking cosmology and not astronomy (or I thought we were), please could you tell us the PC explanations for the Hubble redshift, the temporal distribution of quasars and the Lymann-alpha forest.
Also, do you believe the Universe is infinitely old? If so could you tell us why stars still form?

 

[Perpetual Student]

As far as I know there is no such thing as PC, so it's hard to answer that. Astrophysicists study plasmas all the time - it's a major part of the field - because they play central roles in lots of astrophysical processes and phenomena. But cosmology is not one of them.

Most of the ideas expressed in this thread - and just about all the ones that apply to cosmology - are obvious nonsense. Of those that were not, all or almost all are part of standard physics.

OK, thanks. Let me be more specific. A major claim of PC "is the assertion that electromagnetic forces are equal in importance with gravitation on the largest scales." __from Wikipedia.
Taking this one aspect on its own for the moment, do you think that notion might have any merit? Perhaps, for example, electromagnetic forces may be more important than prevailing models currently hold, even if the PC claim may be significantly exaggerated. Might mainstream cosmology benefit from considering the effects of electromagnetic forces to a greater extent?
Sometimes when "camps" form, extreme positions are taken that do not allow for consideration of opposing views, even to the detriment of good science (There are abundant examples of this in the history of science). Now don't accuse me of harboring PC views -- I do not have the background to do any such thing. This is merely a line of inquiry, that has occurred to me while reading this ongoing debate.
I am well aware of the tenacious nature of science crackpots like Terence Witt, whose elaborate "physics" can scam careless thinkers. However, in this case, there is a respectable Nobel Prize recipient in the mix and there appears to be a logical progression of ideas for those of us with limited physics education. This is quite different than Witt, whose mathematics is patent nonsense and whose physics is wrong even for someone like me with a few courses of undergratuate physics.

 

[Dancing David]

PS. Perhaps these forces are considered in cosmology, but scale is everything is cosmology. And the magnetic field of the galaxy is what it is.

 

[sol invictus]

OK, thanks. Let me be more specific. A major claim of PC "is the assertion that electromagnetic forces are equal in importance with gravitation on the largest scales." __from Wikipedia.
Taking this one aspect on its own for the moment, do you think that notion might have any merit?

Well, we have an extremely well-developed theoretically and experimentally unchallenged theory of gravity and electrodynamics (Einstein's general relativity coupled to Maxwell electrodynamics). So the basic laws are not in question, and the issue of the relative strength of gravity versus EM forces for a body in motion (say a star or galaxy) is purely a question of the conditions: the force of gravity is given by the mass of the body times the local gravitational field, and the Lorentz force by its charge times the electric field plus charge times velocity times the magnetic field.

To compare these two, one needs to know the mass and charge of the body and the gravitational and electromagnetic fields in its vicinity. We can compute the gravitational field simply by "adding up" all the mass nearby. Similarly, we can compute the electric and magnetic fields by adding up the charges and currents nearby. It is true that there is considerable uncertainty in both of these calculations. In the gravitational case that's because much of the matter in the universe is dark and uncharged, and so one greatly underestimates the strength of gravity if one counts only visible matter. However charged matter is extremely easy to detect, because it radiates and interacts strongly with light and other forms of EM radiation. The charge of the body itself cannot be very large without having many dramatic and obvious effects (for example if there were a significant net charge on the sun, its surface would explode).

So one can easily get an upper bound on how large the electromagnetic forces could possibly be on (say) a star orbiting a galaxy. Similarly, one can get a lower bound on the gravitational force. Gravity is stronger by something like a factor of a trillion (I forget the exact figure - it might be larger). Anyway, the upshot is it's completely impossible for EM forces to have any effect on the motion of stars - no matter how far off these estimates might be, there is no way they could be so completely and utterly wrong, particularly given how well they work for predicting all sorts of different behaviors observed every day.

A star orbiting a galaxy is not cosmology - one doesn't even need general relativity for that. When you scale up towards the lengths relevant for cosmology - the motions of clusters of galaxies, for example - the discrepancy becomes even more extreme. Basically that's because matter is neutral on average (if it weren't, it would be totally opaque to EM radiation and we would see it easily - not to mention many other independent lines of evidence). So considering larger objects barely increases the total charge. On the other hand gravity is sourced by total mass, which of course grows for larger objects. So on large scales gravity is vastly more powerful.

You can see the opposite effect easily - a magnet can lift a paper clip, even though it's opposed to the entire gravitational mass of the earth. So on small scales, EM is often much stronger than gravity. And in some cases in astrophysics - the motion of diffuse clouds of ionized gas in magnetic fields, for example, or the behavior of supernovae, charged matter accreting on a black hole, or cosmic rays (which are mostly charged particles like protons) passing through magnetic fields - that's true too. But as I said, we understand exactly why and how that is, and it's very easy to calculate what happens in particular cases.

As for spending more time considering EM forces, as I've said before, they are a basic and fundamental part of everyday astrophysics, something that every physicist thinks about all the time. It's hard to see how they could spend more time thinking about them - they're central to just about everything, and nothing would make sense without them. It's just that for some specific aspects of some phenomena they aren't relevant.

So while I agree with you that sometimes debates get heated and people overstate their case, this one is really impossible to overstate - and in any case there is no debate. The Nobel laureate you refer to is dead (and his contributions to science were all made long before his death), and the relevant data has become vastly more precise and varied. There was never a coherent set of ideas which could actually be tested - just a mishmash of intuition and vague similarities to patterns in lab data. There are at most a very few scientists that take these ideas at all seriously - probably fewer than there are biologists that don't believe in evolution - and of those, I'm not sure there are any that are actually astrophysicists.

The whole thing is a fiction in the heads of a few weird physics cranks.

 

[brantc]

If those are the predictions, the theory is wrong. Where's the current flow in a beam of light? In a magnet?

I'm sorry. Let me go back to basics.

We are not talking about bar magnets in the sky. We are talking about plasma and flux tubes. Electromagnetism.....