Magnetic reconnection and physical processes

[Zeuzzz]

Let’s consider a radio transmitter sending out a signal propagating at the speed of light. If we destroy or simply turn off that transmitter after one second are you claiming that signal (an electromagnetic field) no longer exists and can not be detected by a receiver one and a half light seconds away?

No.

What is the relevance of that question?

 

[Zeuzzz]

Actually, I think what Z says makes a lot of sense ... he's just declared that one cannot do science, period.

Not only has he declared that the principle of induction - on which all of science rests - is invalid, but he has also declared all categorisations and abstractions to be invalid.

Apples, for instance, are not physical (only this particular apple, and that one).

Further, this thing (a specific apple, to the rest of us) has no relationship whatsoever to that thing (a different, specific, apple, to the rest of us); all there is is this thing and that thing (you can't even count them, since numbers are not valid).

It gets better (or worse).

We can't even have a discussion, because we have no way of associating anything either of us writes with anything the other writes.

Unless, of course, you'd like to explain to all readers just what you mean by "physical", Z?

It is one of the ploys of pseudoskepticism to assert offhandedly that the proposed explanation violates some law of physics. To assert "all of known physics must be wrong" and not keep on topic to the example at hand is a symptom of not having an adequate answer to the specifics.

 

[The Man]

No.

What is the relevance of that question?

That the field exits and can be measured and apparently you agree. So it must be something physical even if its source no longer physically exists. Also it goes to velocity being something physical since the field propagates at some physical velocity we can determine where (by triangulation) and when it originated.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

It is one of the ploys of pseudoskepticism to assert offhandedly that the proposed explanation violates some law of physics. To assert "all of known physics must be wrong" and not keep on topic to the example at hand is a symptom of not having an adequate answer to the specifics.

Let's not lose sight of what you actually wrote, Z.

Here it is again:

"Thats not what I said. No velocity is not physical.

You can measure the velocity of something physical.

A velocity with nothing physical to prove said velocity 'exists' is just a made up number."

Central to what you wrote is "something physical".

Since it is central, would you care to put fingers to keyboard and tell us all what you mean?

I, for one, do not know what you mean.

While I'm at it, I'd like to ask you what you mean by "No velocity is not physical"; do you, perhaps mean "velocity is not a physical thing"? or do you mean "something with no velocity [i.e. is stationary] is physical, but something with a velocity is not"?

Then in the last sentence you use "prove", and " 'exists' "; how can one "prove", using "something physical", that a velocity " 'exists' "? More importantly, how can one do so objectively, and in an independently verifiable way?

Z, we've been here before ... all I am doing is trying to get you to explain what you wrote, and am basing my questions (and criticisms) on what exactly what you wrote (nothing more, nothing less).

 

[Zeuzzz]

That the field exits and can be measured and apparently you agree. So it must be something physical even if its source no longer physically exists. Also it goes to velocity being something physical since the field propagates at some physical velocity we can determine where (by triangulation) and when it originated.

No the field does not exist its metaphysical, but it can be measured by its effects on other things. So your example is great, tremendously irrellivant, but great. Yes.

We're still lacking a way that magnetic reconnection physically effects anything in reality. Not even the velocity of one particle yet!

Even the type of energy conversion would be a start, but no. There's a gonna be more flippy flopping a comin I reckon.

 

[Zeuzzz]

While I'm at it, I'd like to ask you what you mean by "No velocity is not physical"; do you, perhaps mean "velocity is not a physical thing"? or do you mean "something with no velocity [i.e. is stationary] is physical, but something with a velocity is not"?

Former.

Then in the last sentence you use "prove", and " 'exists' "; how can one "prove", using "something physical", that a velocity " 'exists' "? More importantly, how can one do so objectively, and in an independently verifiable way?

You cant prove that velocity is physical but you can easily prove the velocity of something (physical or not)

 

[DeiRenDopa]

No the field does not exist its metaphysical, but it can be measured by its effects on other things.

So I can say "No. The apple does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The energy does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The charge does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The current does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or ...

[...]

We're still lacking a way that magnetic reconnection physically effects anything in reality. Not even the velocity of one particle yet!

You still have not told us what you mean by "physical", and "in reality". You seem to have a strange, personal view of this.

I might add that your idiosyncratic spelling and grammar certainly don't make communication easy; for example, I think you mean "We're still lacking a way that magnetic reconnection physically affects anything in reality" [has an effect on], but you could actually mean "We're still lacking a way that magnetic reconnection physically effects anything in reality" [causes to come into existence].

Even the type of energy conversion would be a start, but no. There's a gonna be more flippy flopping a comin I reckon.

You betcha!

Energy conversion does not exist, its metaphysical cousin said so. But it can be measured by its effects on other things.

 

[The Man]

No the field does not exist its metaphysical, but it can be measured by its effects on other things. So your example is great, tremendously irrellivant, but great. Yes.

Well I guess you never listen to the radio as well as stay in one place. How do you distinguish what is physical and “can be measured by its effects on other things” from what is “metaphysical” and “can be measured by its effects on other things? Or do you just make this crap up as you go?

We're still lacking a way that magnetic reconnection physically effects anything in reality. Not even the velocity of one particle yet!

It physically effects the magnets in my examples given before. Which specifically includes the velocity of the magnets (particularly for the compass example).

Even the type of energy conversion would be a start, but no. There's a gonna be more flippy flopping a comin I reckon.

Nope, Yous’a reckons wrong. As you slide the refrigerator magnets the fields store some energy you put into that sliding as they deform and resist that sliding, Once the reconnection occurs some of that energy is gained back (as the field lines reconnect to a more direct configuration) by the magnetic stripes attracting in the direction of the sliding. In case you missed it that’s “energy conversion”. Much like a spring the magnetic fields of those refrigerator magnets store and return some of the energy you put into them in that sliding.

 

[Zeuzzz]

So I can say "No. The apple does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The energy does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The charge does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or "No. The current does not exist, it is metaphysical. But it can be measured by its effects on other things"?

Or ...

They are a series of random assertions, point?

None of them talk about the subject in question, field lines, so I dont have a clue what your on about.

I might add that your idiosyncratic spelling and grammar certainly don't make communication easy

I might add that your pedantry and continual emphasis on the minutiae dont make for thrilling reading. Sometimes infact so boring I just fall asleep half way through reading.

You betcha!

Energy conversion does not exist, its metaphysical cousin said so. But it can be measured by its effects on other things.

Completely dodged the question [even though its only a minor preliminary question that should preclude whichever physical process someone may eventually elucidate]

Good work!

[editted out humourous comment for a severely humourless environment]

 

[Reality Check]

Bzzzzt. Irony factor alert.

Bzzzzt. My dumb response to a your dumb post alert.
You posted

Magnetic fields = Metaphysical (as a secondary effect they can interact with material things)
Magnetic field lines = Metaphysical

I respond with an equally dumb post

Magnetic fields = physical
Magnetic field lines = physical

If I wanted to be less dumb it would have been

• Magnetic fields = physical thing via which a magnetic interacts with the universe.
• Magnetic field lines = visulaization of a physical thing (the magnetic field).

So, in magnetic reonnection, what are they exactly, if you'd like to clarify?

So, in magnetic reconnection, magnetic field lines are exactly what they are everywhere else in physics: magnetic field lines.

 

[Zeuzzz]

So a magnetic field is now a physical thing then?

Got a picture of one?

If so this moment will go down in history as the first ever picture of a magnetic field, revealed by an annonymous poster on an educational foundation.

No one has ever seen a magnetic field.

 

[The Man]

So a magnetic field is now a physical thing then?

Got a picture of one?

If so this moment will go down in history as the first ever picture of a magnetic field, revealed by an annonymous poster on an educational foundation.

No one has ever seen a magnetic field.

Have you got a picture of a photon Zeuzz or even a bunch of photons?

 

[Zeuzzz]

Have you got a picture of a photon Zeuzz or even a bunch of photons?

Daft question. Which you know.

Magnetic reconnection has never been observed. What has been observed by many people is large amounts of energy released from magnetic fields in which it was stored previously. Simple electrical and kinetic energy explanations have been ignored in place of hypostatized theories not based in reality.

All it takes to understand this argument is to recognize the clear difference between 1) conceptual constructs that are convenient tools for thinking about and visualizing a process, and 2) the physical process itself. The former (the concept) exists only in one‘s mind (or as a draftsman‘s artifice). It does not exist in three-dimensional space. The latter (the process) concerns the movement or interaction of things that really do exist in our world. Once this difference is fully grasped, it is easy to see that magnetic field lines do not (cannot) do anything in the real world – because they do not exist in the real world. I remember well the undergrad who once asked me if electric fields were really red (because I always used red colored chalk when I sketched them on the blackboard). I hope I convinced him that E-fields didn‘t have any given color. Similarly I wish I could convince Thompson that magnetic field lines do not have any substance. And they do not move. They are instantaneous descriptors of (the magnitude and direction of) a vector field – and nothing more.

 

[Reality Check]

Magnetic reconnection has never been observed. What has been observed by many people is large amounts of energy released from magnetic fields in which it was stored previously. Simple electrical and kinetic energy explanations have been ignored in place of hypostatized theories not based in reality.

Magnetic reconnection has observed. What has been observed by many people is large amounts of energy released from magnetic fields in which it was stored previously. Simple electrical and kinetic energy explanations have been shown to not explain what happens. Complex magnetic reconnection explanations been shown to explain what happens.

Try reading some of the posts in this thread

• Magnetic reconnection (without plasma or electrical fields or currents!)
• Magnetic Reconnection Redux VII along with in other threads
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux VI
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux V
  • Reconnection is not induction
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux IV

 

[Reality Check]

No one has ever seen a magnetic field.

That is right.
Magnetic fields are only measured, not seen with the naked eye.
Likewise no one has seen an electric field - only measured them.
Likewise no one has seen a photon - only measured them.
Likewise no one has seen a quark- only measured them.
(etc)

What do we call a thing we can measure, Zeuzzz?

Personally I call it physical as a short term for "an object with a physical property".

 

[Zeuzzz]

Magnetic reconnection has observed. What has been observed by many people is large amounts of energy released from magnetic fields in which it was stored previously. Simple electrical and kinetic energy explanations have been shown to not explain what happens. Complex magnetic reconnection explanations been shown to explain what happens.

Try reading some of the posts in this thread

• Magnetic reconnection (without plasma or electrical fields or currents!)
• Magnetic Reconnection Redux VII along with in other threads
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux VI
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux V
  • Reconnection is not induction
  • Magnetic Reconnection Redux IV

Odd skimmed them all and still no real explanations past the good old theoretical geometric theory based on our chosen visualization.

Numerous astronomical events that were explained by magnetic reconnection in the past are now being better explained by completely separate electrical processes.

Heres one as a minor example:

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ITPS...35..751A

II. SIMPLEST SOLAR FLARES

We were taught in the past, and still teach, that solar flares are manifestations of a complex interaction process, which iscalled magnetic reconnection, of intense magnetic flux tubes that emerge from below the photosphere. Complex flare observations are reported in almost every issue of solar physics and astrophysics journals. It is very puzzling to know why we do not try to learn basic physical processes from the simplest possible solar flare cases.

In one of the simplest cases, solar flares appear as two parallel“ribbons” in an arcadelike magnetic configuration across the line of magnetic polarity divide. In this case, no sunspot is present, so that no magnetic flux tube is involved in the flare processes (Fig. 4). Solar flares are a variety of manifestations of electromagnetic-energy-dissipation processes. Therefore, there must be a dynamo that can supply the necessary power. This basic concept is not explicit in the present studies of solar flares. Starting from the hypothetical magnetic flux tubes, this fundamental issue has been bypassed.

Choe and Lee [16], [17] simulated a magnetic arcade case by assuming an antiparallel flow of photospheric gas along the line of magnetic polarity change (Fig. 4). The antiparallel flow along the centerline of the magnetic arcade can provide the necessary power through the dynamo process (V × B); the kinetic energy of the photospheric flow is converted into the necessary electrical energy. It is not possible to fully understand the magnetic-energy-dissipation processes without understanding the power supply process and its circuit, even if a fixed wire circuit does not exist in the solar atmosphere.

The ultimate source of energy for solar flares is the kinetic energy of neutral gas particles. Note that the ionization rate in the photosphere is about 10⁻5−10⁻6; it is similar to that of the ionosphere. The power generated by the dynamo is expected to be similar to the one given in Section V.

Choe and Lee showed that the field-aligned currents J flow along the arcade field lines (Fig. 4). In magnetospheric physics, we learned that field-aligned currents are essential in accelerating auroral electrons down to the upper atmosphere, where the magnetic field intensity is high.

More to come. I can copy and paste the figures if people are really interested.

 

[Reality Check]

Numerous astronomical events that were explained by magnetic reconnection in the past are now being better explained by completely separate electrical processes.

Heres one as a minor example:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007ITPS...35..751A

I do not have access to the full paper but what you have quoted is clear.
It has nothing to do with the invalidity of magnetic reconnection. The authors state that the simplest solar flares have a configuration that does not have flux tubes.

In this case, no sunspot is present, so that no magnetic flux tube is involved in the flare processes (Fig. 4). Solar flares are a variety of manifestations of electromagnetic-energy-dissipation processes.

The absence of the magnetic flux tube means that there has to be a dynamo present at the flare to provide the energy.

Can you understand that when the magnetic flux tubes that are required for the magnetic connection model for solar flares are not present then magnetic reconnection does not happen?

P.S.
I hope that the authors do not mention electric field lines or electric fields or use any equation involving them. After all according to you, magnetic fields are metaphysical and non-physical and thus electric fields and lines must also be metaphysical and non-physical !
But wait ... they mention the magnetic field (B) - they must be wrong !

 

[Reality Check]

Numerous astronomical events that are explained by magnetic reconnection in the past are still being explained by magnetic reconnection.

Heres one as a minor example:
A loop-top hard X-ray source in a compact solar flare as evidence for magnetic reconnection (1994)

SOLAR flares are thought to be the result of magnetic reconnection — the merging of antiparallel magnetic fields and the consequent release of magnetic energy. Flares are classified into two types1: compact and two-ribbon. The two-ribbon flares, which appear as slowly-developing, long-lived large loops, are understood theoretically2-6 as arising from an eruption of a solar prominence that pulls magnetic field lines upward into the corona. As the field lines form an inverted Y-shaped structure and relax, the reconnection of the field lines takes place. This view has been supported by recent observations^7-10. A different mechanism seemed to be required, however, to produce the short-lived, impulsive compact flares. Here we report observations made with the Yohkoh¹¹ Hard X-ray Telescope¹² and Soft X-ray Telescope¹³, which show a compact flare with a geometry similar to that of a two-ribbon flare. We identify the reconnection region as the site of particle acceleration, suggesting that the basic physics of the reconnection process (which remains uncertain) may be common to both types of flare.

And something more local:
Evidence for magnetic field reconnection at the earth's magnetopause

Eleven Northern Hemisphere crossings of the dayside magnetopause by the ISEE spacecraft are examined to test the hypothesis that the large plasma flow speeds observed in the magnetopause and boundary layer are the result of the plasma acceleration intrinsic to the magnetic field reconnection process. In several cases energetic magnetospheric particles with the proper flow anisotropy, and in one case, reflected magnetosheath particles, were observed outside the magnetopause but adjacent to it. All results support the reconnection hypothesis. The energetic particles were also used to identify the outer separatrix surface, in one case of which is was possible to conclude from its location relative to the magnetopause that the reconnection site was in the vicinity of the equatorial plane rather than in the cusp. The electric field tangential to the magnetopause is inferred to be in the 0.4-2.8 mV/m range.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Can you understand that when the magnetic flux tubes that are required for the magnetic connection model for solar flares are not present then magnetic reconnection does not happen?

No. Pwease can you explain this odd logic to me, I am only human.*

magnetic fields are metaphysical and non-physical and thus electric fields and lines must also be metaphysical and non-physical

Yes. Your getting closer!

But wait ... they mention the magnetic field (B) - they must be wrong !

Merely mentioning the magnetic field does not make it wrong, assigning it (still unspecified!) energy releasing properties based on a geometric visualization is another matter completely, especially when viable electric explanations using hall currents, current disruption, ohmic dissipation and various other processes, that have definitive [falsifiable and provable] physical effects on particles and EM exist.

*Sarcasm?

 

[tusenfem]

Current flow? How is that not "circuit" reconnection again if you have "current flow" lines changing their topology?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland_current

We were talking here about flux tubes, and all the field lines have the same direction here, so nothing whatsoever about reconnection. The current flowing along the flux tube will make the field lines twist.

I see you refrained from helping your pupil brantc to calculate how much plasma is needed to create a flux tube with the ions only gyrating (if that is at all possible, which it is not, but who cares).

Your word play on "circuit reconnection" is just childish and does not explain anything at all, as you cannot even draw the correct circuits and the correct currents that are flowing in a reconnection region. The easiest would be the Earth's magnetotail, as you have there usually simple oppositely directed field. Why not show us how your circuits are reconnecting.

And don't come with wiki for a definition of "Birkeland currents." I know that many peeps want to call any magnetic field aligned current a Birkeland current. I prefer to keep the original definition, the field magnetic field aligned currents in a magnetosphere, driven by changes in the tail, that produce the aurora. The rest are just field aligned currents or FACs as most space physicists use.

That whole wiki quote, though not completely wrong, shows the utter lack of insight and of sensationalism that is prone to self-educated physicist. Don't you think you can generate field aligned currents in the lab by just normal generators? Does it need to be "multi terawatt"? A hollow beam of electrons? What is that supposed to be? In the form of a circle of vortices? How do they come up with these kind of descriptions? Or "a formation called the diocotron instability", no it is a "formation" created by the diocotron instability.

Or further down, that "birkeland currents" are "a z-pinch", no, they can create a z-pinch when the current is strong enough for the magnetic force to overcome the plasma pressure.

Etc. etc. That page is just riddled with mistakes. I rewrote once the first two paragraphs, but there are still some major changes needed in the first part.