Merged Electric Sun Theory (Split from: CME's, active regions and high energy flares)

[cev08241971]

I wonder who said that?

And how is that quote a "rejection" of "neutrino"? I was explaining to you your misunderstanding, not rejecting the idea of "neutrino" in itself. Clearly this is a straw man.

 

[Ziggurat]

I don't recall you posting anything of this kind. Perhaps I missed it.

Evidently.

All I remember is telling you that fluorescent light tubes are rated in "temperature" in degrees kelvin, and that "temperature" does in no way correlate to an actual physical temperature of the tube, it's a number produced by black body formulas.

I explained what's lacking in your explanation, and why it's irrelevant in this context.

That the sun is not a black body radiator is evidenced by, once again, the "temperature" minimum in the corona.

That demonstrates nothing of the sort. And that answer is independent of whatever solar model you want to pick. In other words, you're wrong about this even if you're right about everything else.

There are two tests if an object acts as a blackbody, which thermodynamics tells us must be equivalent.
1) the body radiates like a blackbody
2) the body absorbs like a blackbody
The sun radiates like a blackbody. We know this, because we can observe this. See the link in my previous post. Therefore, the sun is a blackbody. We can conclude this regardless of what the corona does in terms of temperature.

While this "temperature minimum" is readily explained in terms of electric discharge in plasma, it has no explanation if the sun is a black body radiator shining from internal heat radiated from inside.

And yet, you can't explain why it can't, and I've already explained why it can.

This is just a fact, deal with it, it's not a consequence of anyone's hypothesis, it's a consequence of the definitions of these words and observable reality.

Obviously not, since the sun is observed to be a blackbody.

Your implication that a "temperature" minimum in the sun's corona is an expected consequence of the laws of thermodynamics, or that the "standard model" (stellar fusion) is verified by any evidence is laughable in the extreme.

You've just demonstrated that you didn't understand anything I said. It's not a consequence of the laws of thermodynamics, it's in agreement with the laws of thermodynamics. Just like the operation of my car is in agreement with the laws of thermodynamics. But thermodynamics didn't predict the existence of my car.

The temperature minimum is the result of 2 factors:
1) The corona is almost completely transparent
2) A secondary mechanism heats the corona

That's it, that's all you need. And none of it contradicts the standard model.

Yet more evidence suggesting the model is wrong. If your model suggests "impossible" conditions, it is not falsifiable.

I can't run a lab experiment demonstrating what would happen if a human body were dropped into the sun, but does that mean that the prediction that it would evaporate is false? Well, no.

The standard model is falsifiable. We don't need it to be reproduced here on earth in order for it to be falsifiable. And the conditions aren't impossible, they're just impossible for us. But you can't seriously be so ignorant as to assume that if we can't reproduce something, it can't exist. Can you?

In the fifties it was pretty firmly established that if a hypothesis is not falsifiable, it is not science. Ergo, stellar fusion is not science. QED

Except that falsifiable and reproducible are not the same thing. Plenty of things could falsify it. For example, if the energy released from fusion events was too small, that would falsify it. If the rate of fusion under stellar conditions was too large, that could falsify it. If fusion produced too many or too few neutrinos, that could falsify it (and for a while it looked like it might have, until we measured neutrino oscillation). Plenty of things could falsify it, even without reproducing those conditions on earth.

And let's be honest, you haven't exactly been able to produce a self-powered plasma ball using electromagnetism either. So this is really just another example of the double standard you're trying to establish.

As I explained already, the amount of current bears a direct correlation with the sun's total energy output.

No ****, Sherlock.

I also explained that the "voltage" of the (note: VARIABLE) electric field powering the sun is not known.

Of course it's not known, because you don't have anything even resembling a model. And the variability is irrelevant, there's still an average. In fact, given the relative constancy of solar output, that average had better be pretty stable. It's certainly not going to be varying by more than an order of magnitude, and as I already said, that's good enough for me. That's far more wiggle room than the standard model has.

That said, there are estimates of the energy density near the surface, based on firmly-established and well-understood principles of electrical engineering. Dr. Donald Scott produced just such an estimate of the energy density in the corona, illustrating the "water slide" effect (again, firmly established principles of electrical engineering) that completely account for the observed "temperature" minimum in the corona. Go research Dr. Scott's work, it's very illuminating, particularly to people who deny there is electricity in space.

You're the expert here, why don't you just tell us? Surely you're not placing faith in a model you hardly know anything about, are you?

 

[Tubbythin]

And how is that quote a "rejection" of "neutrino"? I was explaining to you your misunderstanding, not rejecting the idea of "neutrino" in itself. Clearly this is a straw man.

Its a clear and unequivocal rejection of the significance and depth of understanding of our knowledge of neutrinos.

 

[cev08241971]

Now, feel free to retract them or shift it to another thread or hope the mods do it for you.

I'll do neither. Instead, I'll let my claims stand on their merits, and on the firm foundation of over a century of experimental verification and direct observations.

 

[LashL]

This thread is rife with breaches of the Membership Agreement and it will require a considerable amount of work to clean it up. Accordingly, it is being temporarily closed until a member of the Moderating Team has the opportunity to undertake that work, and it will re-open when the process is completed.

Posted By: LashL

 

[Cuddles]

I've cleaned out over 100 posts containing bickering, insults and derails. Continuing to breach your Membership Agreement will result in further moderator action, up to and including suspension or banning.

Replying to this modbox in thread will be off topic  Posted By: Cuddles

 

[tusenfem]

Plasma None-Oh-One

I'll say it again, plasmas are negligibly affected by gravity, they are dominated utterly by electromagnetic forces, which affect plasmas FORTY ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more strongly than does "gravity". This is plasma 101 here.

Ah, here we come again with the famous forty orders of magnitude difference between the attraction (or repulsion) of what exactly?

Let's see:

The gravitational force: F_G = G M₁ M₂ / r²
The electrical force: F_E = q₁ q₂ / (4πε₀ r²)

So the ratio of the two is fortunately independent of r and is given by:

F_G / F_E = G M₁ M₂ 4πε₀ / q₁ q₂

Now what does this mean for two singly charged particles?

F_G / F_E ≈ 3×10¹⁷ M₁ M₂

So, for two electrons we find a ratio: 2.5 ×10^-43And for two protons we find a ratio: 8 ×10^-37
Okay, that kind of averages out to 10^-40 BUT the interesting thing is for plasmas that charge gets screened, which was discovered by Debye in the first half of the last century. This so-called Debye screening shows that the electrical effect of a charge in a plasma has a limited range not larger than the Debye radius, which is a function of the temperature and the density of the plasma. Therefore, it is very hard to get electrical charge effects over large distances, although, of course, there are some exceptions to the rule, like double layers, which are charge separations of some tens of Debye lengths, but they have to be powered to be maintaind (e.g. by an electric current).

Thus, it makes no sense at all, to discuss stars, which are dense plasmas and then come with this story about F_E being so much greater than F_G. But two protons at either side of the Sun will not feel their mutual electrial repulsion, but will feel their mutual gravitational attraction, as there is no way of screening out gravity, like one can screen out the electrical force.

Ah, well, I have only written this like ten or twenty times here on the board, I do not expect any of the EU/ES/EC clan to even remotely grasp this rather simple concept.

 

[Michael Mozina]

What the ??!@!?

I only took a single day off to put up Christmas lights and spend the day with my family, and a melee ensues. Holy Cow.

I'm beginning to wonder if it's even worth trying to discuss this topic here anymore with half my posts disappearing on a regular basis. The continuity of the conversations is being completely lost at this point.

Did Mr. Spock pick a MR paper he was happy with while I was gone?

 

[W.D.Clinger]

mathematics is not just a contrivance

This is a shorter version of a post I prepared yesterday. When I tried to post it yesterday, I discovered that the thread had been locked. Today I find that over half of the posts I had quoted yesterday have disappeared.

The concept of "magnetic field lines" is a contrivance. These "field lines" are not real, but an imaginary construct.

Magnetic field lines are a contrivance, not something physical that can be manipulated or "broke" or "reconnected". People who believe in such things demonstrate just how severely detached from reality they.

Again, such experiments lie outside the realm of the possible. Magnetic field lines are utterly hypothetical, a contrivance used for visualization purposes. They are not real "lines" that can be severed and reconnected.

You might as well say that magnetic fields are a contrivance. Magnetic field lines are just another way to describe magnetic fields. In fact, magnetic field lines are equivalent to magnetic fields; you can derive either description from the other.

Repeating your claim that magnetic field lines are a contrivance is therefore equivalent to repeating a claim that magnetic fields are a contrivance.

One thing you should always be keenly aware of is that equations are not reality. Math is just a language used to describe reality. I can use language to say "this chair is red" when the chair is in fact blue.

Yes, you can tell lies with mathematics. That doesn't mean that Maxwell's equations are a lie, or that magnetic field lines are a lie. If Maxwell's equations describe reality at all, then the magnetic fields and magnetic field lines that are described by Maxwell's equations also describe reality.

The "field lines" don't really "look like" anything, they are a mathematical contrivance. Your misunderstanding of this goes a long way toward explaining your apparent detachment from reality.

We can simplify this for you. Lines themselves are already an abstract mathematical concept, but they are useful abstractions when talking about reality, and it is also useful to speak of what various configurations of lines look like.

Yes, field lines are mathematical concepts, just like magnetic fields and vector fields in general, but we find it useful to speak of what field lines look like. Their ease of visualization is one of the reasons we often talk about magnetic field lines instead of talking about an equivalent magnetic field. There's nothing at all wrong with that.

The equivalence between magnetic fields and magnetic field lines becomes more complicated when we start to talk about how things change over time. It's easy to say what we mean by a smoothly time-varying magnetic field. It's harder to say what we mean by a time-varying set of magnetic field lines, because that requires us to state correspondences between magnetic field lines at different times. There are legitimate ways to define those correspondences, but (in general) there is no such correspondence that is smoothly varying everywhere. In general, there may be discontinuities in the correspondence. Mathematically speaking, those discontinuities are what we mean by magnetic reconnection.

Continuing to speak mathematically, magnetic reconnection is just as real/unreal as magnetic field lines, which are in turn just as real/unreal as magnetic fields.

We all know that we can construct examples of vector fields that violate Maxwell's equations. We have excellent empirical reasons to believe that a magnetic field that violates Maxwell's equations does not describe a physical situation. It is also possible that not every solution to Maxwell's equations describes a physical situation, so the existence of solutions to Maxwell's equations that exhibit magnetic reconnection (in the mathematical sense) does not necessarily imply physical situations that involve magnetic reconnection.

As several scientists have explained in previous posts, there is ample empirical evidence for physical situations whose mathematical description in terms of magnetic fields and/or magnetic field lines involves the mathematical concept of magnetic reconnection. That is what I mean when I say that magnetic reconnection has been demonstrated.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Why should it matter who answers?

Well, you seem to be supporting the idea and you have familiarized yourself now with the limitations that Alfven imposed on any sort of "magnetic reconnection" theory. Unfortunately a number of my important posts to you got lost in the melee. Suffice to say, the limitation Alfven imposed is that "MR" could not and and did not apply in "current carrying" plasmas. In these situations, he specifically treats the plasma in terms of "circuits" and exploding double layers. In fact, he suggests that the presence of any double layers, and/or any current flow through the plasma was an automatic nail in the coffin of MR "pseudoscience". I never did count how many times he used that term in his speech, but he certainly wasn't fond of the concept.

No paper ever written has driven a nail in the coffin of reconnection theory.

What exactly do you figure that double layer paper he presented at the conference was supposed to be? He did use the terms "nail" and "coffin" in respect to double layers and their effect on MR theory. He was very explicit.

Magnetic reconnection obviously means different things to different people,

You're absolutely right about that, but then that should be our first clue that something isn't right about it.

and some of those notions may not make sense.

Alfven outlined the specific conditions where they do not make sense, specifically inside double layers, and current carrying plasmas.

My own understanding of magnetic reconnection is essentially mathematical,

I'm afraid that's one of the 'problems' IMO. There's a physical disconnect between the particles in the plasma and your understanding of those math theories, at least that is how I see it. At the level of "particles" and "circuits", it's the particles inside the double layer doing the energy transfer. The E orientation is equally valid, in fact at the level of "physics" (physical particles like electrons, protons, photons, etc) the E orientation is superior, and that is why Alfven used it.

Essentially what the debates as space.com taught me is that "magnetic reconnection" math is "fine". The problems occur at the fundamental level of "physics' and energy transfer happens at the fundamental level of physical particles. That is why Alfven used an E orientation, and rejected MR theory in any sort of current carrying plasma scenario.

Before turning all your attention to cev, let me see if I can round up the relevant links and quotes again from Alfven.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Yes, field lines are mathematical concepts, just like magnetic fields and vector fields in general, but we find it useful to speak of what field lines look like. Their ease of visualization is one of the reasons we often talk about magnetic field lines instead of talking about an equivalent magnetic field. There's nothing at all wrong with that.

There nothing "wrong" with that so long as you recognize that "particles" do the kinetic energy transfer. There are only three particles to choose from in an ordinary solar atmospheric plasma, electrons, protons (highly ionized ions) and photons. The transfer for photon kinetic energy to charged particles from the magnetic field to charge particles is called "induction". The collision of particles inside the double layer has nothing to do with the "magnetic lines" disconnecting or reconnecting.

The equivalence between magnetic fields and magnetic field lines becomes more complicated when we start to talk about how things change over time.

It also becomes important to look at WHY things change over time. As the current flow increases inside the pinch, the magnetic field also increases, increasing the pressure of the "pinch". At sufficient velocities that pinch can kick out all sorts of high energy photons, neutrons and all the things we see in high energy flares.

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI, my day is going to be busy and I won't be able to catch up with everyone until after work.

 

[Michael Mozina]

This is a semantic objection. Semantic debates are the most boring of all, and semantic objections are the least substantive of all.

Here's an equation for a magnetic field:
[latex]$\vec{B}=by\hat{i}+ax\hat{j}$[/latex]
Now, does this field satisfy Maxwell's equations? Why, yes it does, for all values of a and b. Test it if you don't believe me. In fact, a and b can vary, and the field will remain a valid solution to Maxwell's equations. It is, therefore, a physically acceptable magnetic field, even with varying a and b.

Now, what do the magnetic field lines look like for this field? Well, here are some of them:
[qimg]http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/imagehosting/thum_1192499b6711ad5d6.gif[/qimg]
Note that for all a < b, a magnetic field line connects the upper left point to the upper right point. For all a > b, a magnetic field line connects the upper left point to the lower left point. So if we change our magnetic field by varying a and b, we can change the magnetic field line connection of that upper left point. We have just performed magnetic reconnection by varying our field.

Now, you can object to the terminology all you want to, but that really doesn't matter. The actual field configuration experienced a change, we have given this change a name, and nothing about your distaste for the name has any bearing on whether or not the change happened. It did. And it happened in full compliance with Maxwell's equations.

And yet if this 'reconnection' is taking place inside of a current carrying plasma, it's not simply magnetic lines doing the connecting, and Alfven's "particle" (actually not Alfven's orientation, he cited the relevant first authors) or circuit orientation of double layer energy transfers apply. In fact he claimed that the existence of a double layer inside that reconnection region put another nail in the reconnection coffin.

This all comes right back to kinetic energy and kinetic energy transfer between *PARTICLES*. The transfer of photon kinetic energy transfer of the stored magnetic field energy into charged particles is called "induction". The kinetic energy transfer between particles inside the double layer has nothing to do with magnetic lines "disconnecting' or "reconnecting'. If those "lines" are merely current carrying filaments, it's just as valid to treat it as a "circuit", and look at it in terms of "circuit energy".

 

[DeiRenDopa]

In light of the recent editing of this thread, I think it's worth trying to examine the 'giant galactic Birkeland currents power the Sun' claim again ('ES' for short).

I am aware that there are, apparently, several different versions of this claim, per posts made by EU proponents in various threads in this JREF section, but none that I know of provide anything on how any of these ideas are consistent with the observed power output of the Sun (as electromagnetic radiation, mostly in the near-UV, visual, and near-IR parts of the spectrum).

Tom Bridgman has attempted to work out what at least two different possible ES models predict, using at least two different approaches (see his blog for details, click on the "Electric Universe" tag); here I'd like to examine a third.

First a question: if an electron strikes a surface, is the maximum energy it can impart to that surface its kinetic energy, just prior to it coming to a standstill? If not, what other form of energy can it transfer (or create)?

If we then repeat such an impact, with electron following electron, is the maximum total 'impartable' energy just the sum of what each individual electron contributes? If not, what else is there?

And if we have a full-blown stream of electrons - a current - is the answer the same? If not, what else is there?

(I have some ideas on this, but would like to see what others' think first; I'm especially interested in reading what Haig, Siggy_G, Zeuzzz, BeAChooser, and cev08241971 think).

 

[W.D.Clinger]

What exactly do you figure that double layer paper he presented at the conference was supposed to be?

It was a keynote address that opened a workshop. It was clearly identified as such. It was not a research paper.

He did use the terms "nail" and "coffin" in respect to double layers and their effect on MR theory. He was very explicit.

The purpose of an invited keynote address is to provide an entertaining survey at the beginning of a conference or workshop. Personal anecdotes, outrageous opinions, and subtle jokes are entirely appropriate for a keynote address. You are quoting Alfvén's jokes and deliberately provocative remarks while ignoring their context. That keynote address, which you and your fellow travellers have been quote-mining, does not have the technical authority of a sober, peer-reviewed research paper.

 

[GeeMack]

FYI, my day is going to be busy and I won't be able to catch up with everyone until after work.

To get the thread back on track it would be good to see some quantitative objective support, none of which has been provided yet, for the claim that electrical discharges are or cause CMEs and solar flares.

 

[Michael Mozina]

It was a keynote address that opened a workshop. It was clearly identified as such. It was not a research paper.

It certainly conveyed his feelings on this subject however. Many other papers and books are available from Alfven on this topic.

The purpose of an invited keynote address is to provide an entertaining survey at the beginning of a conference or workshop. Personal anecdotes, outrageous opinions, and subtle jokes are entirely appropriate for a keynote address. You are quoting Alfvén's jokes and deliberately provocative remarks while ignoring their context. That keynote address, which you and your fellow travellers have been quote-mining, does not have the technical authority of a sober, peer-reviewed research paper.

B. Magnetic Merging — A Pseudo-Science

Since then I have stressed in a large number of papers the danger of using the frozen-in concept. For example, in a paper "Electric Current Structure of the Magnetosphere" (Alfvén, 1975), I made a table showing the difference between the real plasma and "a fictitious medium" called "the pseudo-plasma," the latter having frozen in magnetic field lines moving with the plasma. The most important criticism of the "merging" mechanism of energy transfer is due to Heikkila (1973) who with increasing strength has demonstrated that it is wrong. In spite of all this, we have witnessed at the same time an enormously voluminous formalism building up based on this obviously erroneous concept. Indeed, we have been burdened with a gigantic pseudo-science which penetrates large parts of cosmic plasma physics. The monograph CP treats the field-line reconnection (merging) concept in 1.3, 11.3, and 11.5. We may conclude that anyone who uses the merging concepts states by implication that no double layers exist.
A new epoch in magnetospheric physics was inaugurated by L. Lyons and D. Williams' monograph (1985). They treat magnetospheric phenomena systematically by the particle approach and demonstrate that the fluid dynamic approach gives erroneous results. The error of the latter approach is of a basic character. Of course there can be no magnetic merging energy transfer.

I was naive enough to believe that such a pseudo-science would die by itself in the scientific community, and I concentrated my work on more pleasant problems. To my great surprise the opposite has occurred; the "merging" pseudo-science seems to be increasingly powerful. Magnetospheric physics and solar wind physics today are no doubt in a chaotic state, and a major reason for this is that some of the published papers are science and part pseudoscience, perhaps even with a majority for the latter group.

In those parts of solar physics which do not deal with the interior of the Sun and the dense photospheric region (fields where the frozen-in concept may be valid), the state is even worse. It is difficult to find theoretical papers on the low density regions which are correct. The present state of plasma astrophysics seems to be almost completely isolated from the new concepts of plasma which the in situ measurements on space plasma have made necessary (see Section VIII).

I sincerely hope that the increased interest in the study of double layers — which is fatal to this pseudoscience — will change the situation. Whenever we find a double layer (or any other E ll # 0) we hammer a nail into the coffin of the "merging" pseudo-science.

Somewhere along the process a couple of "decent" posts got lost, but I highlighted the relevant parts again.

According to Alfven, we could pretty much rule out "magnetic reconnection" in any sort of current carrying plasma scenario, particularly inside double layers. I'll quote the relevant points for Cosmic Plasma, but he makes it very clear that current flow makes "reconnection' unnecessary.

 

[GeeMack]

It was a keynote address that opened a workshop. It was clearly identified as such. It was not a research paper.


The purpose of an invited keynote address is to provide an entertaining survey at the beginning of a conference or workshop. Personal anecdotes, outrageous opinions, and subtle jokes are entirely appropriate for a keynote address. You are quoting Alfvén's jokes and deliberately provocative remarks while ignoring their context. That keynote address, which you and your fellow travellers have been quote-mining, does not have the technical authority of a sober, peer-reviewed research paper.

Since virtually everything claimed as evidence to support the electric Sun conjecture seems to be quote mined, misinterpreted (often intentionally), and/or have little relationship to honest, objective scientific support, it probably doesn't matter much to the proponents the context of the source. I've noticed that if the words "electrical", "discharge", and "solar" are all used in a reference, somebody seems to mistakenly believe it means CMEs are electrical discharges. I'm awaiting the legitimate, quantitative, objective, and honest support that the proponents keep suggesting exists but never seems to arrive.

 

[Michael Mozina]

To get the thread back on track it would be good to see some quantitative objective support, none of which has been provided yet, for the claim that electrical discharges are or cause CMEs and solar flares.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1974ApJ...190..467L/0000467.000.html

Why? You refuse to acknowledge or deal with anything that has already been presented. Your handwaves will not make the material go away.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Since virtually everything claimed as evidence to support the electric Sun conjecture seems to be quote mined, misinterpreted (often intentionally), and/or have little relationship to honest, objective scientific support, it probably doesn't matter much to the proponents the context of the source. I've noticed that if the words "electrical", "discharge", and "solar" are all used in a reference, somebody seems to mistakenly believe it means CMEs are electrical discharges. I'm awaiting the legitimate, quantitative, objective, and honest support that the proponents keep suggesting exists but never seems to arrive.

http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu//full/1974ApJ...190..467L/0000467.000.html

It arrives just fine. I never seems to "register".