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

[Reality Check]

It's funny you should cite this book. Out of the hundreds of pages, and the dozens of times the authors use the term "magnetic energy", they never once define the term, just as you haven't defined it. They use this term dozens of times without ever putting forth a working definition of the term. What is "magnetic energy", Timmy-Thom?

Magnetic energy (the energy stored in a magnetic field)

 

[Arthur Mann]

The time scale of solar flares means that induction cannot be causing the energy release.

The passage you cited doesn't support your claim.

Solar flares last for 100 seconds.

When scaled up from laboratory plasmas simulating them, this is a good fit, the tiny laboratory plasmas last for fractions of a second, the solar flares are 1000's of times larger.

Their scale means that it would take 1,000,000 years for induction to release the same amount of energy.

I'm not sure what scale you're looking at that predicts a solar flare should last 1,000,000 years. It kind of seems like you pulled that out your behind. Where is the math that led you to that number? I just explained how by scaling laboratory plasmas up to the size of solar flares the time scale compares nicely. I'd call this another success for this model of solar flares. The fact that it can even be accurately modeled physically in the lab is astonishing in itself, so much of astronomy isn't practiced as a science the way plasma cosmology is.

No because Tim Thompson is presenting the science.

I'm not sure what Timmy is presenting, honestly. I suppose it has a veneer of science on it, but it seems like it's a little dusty and antiquated, probably cost $2.50 at a yard sale, if you find somebody who wants it they'll pay a lot more.

Micheal Mozina has been persistently ignoring the science.

It's okay for you to have this opinion, but I don't share it. How does that make you feel?

You need to research the observations of magnetic reconnection and experimental research into magnetic reconnection.

I understand the claims involved, I'm not convinced they have any merit, since they offer nothing in the way of predictability or really any coherent explanation of the phenomena.

Plasmas also form double layers spontaneously when 2 different plasmas are close.

That's not exactly what happens, but it's close, I suppose. Plasmas spontaneously self-organize in the presence of electric fields. They separate by species according to electrical properties. Between regions of different properties you have the entire voltage potential expressed across the double layer separating them. If the current density becomes too high that double layer breaks down and all the current from the circuit gets dumped into it. The results are typically explosive. We've seen this happen in some of our power grids in the past.

I seem to recall that double layers can account for the energy released in solar flares. The problem is that they cannot explain much much else. But Tim Thompson knows more about this than me.

The exploding double layer phenomenon is identical to the observed solar flare phenomenon. Except for scale they are utterly indistinguishable.

 

[Arthur Mann]

Magnetic energy (the energy stored in a magnetic field)

That definition doesn't come from the book Timmy-Thom cited, and it isn't referenced anywhere in that book, either. I take it this is the definition you personally subscribe to. Can you explain this phenomenon of storing energy in a magnetic field? Can we exploit this to power devices by storing energy in a magnetic field instead of in batteries? Or is that how batteries work, by storing energy in magnetic fields? Does a magnetic field have more magnetic energy when it's at a higher temperature or less? Can a magnetic field even have a temperature? I confess I was never taught the answers to these questions in school.

 

[Arthur Mann]

Sheesh, can you please go further back in prehistoric solar physics?
You don't really think things have evolved since 1948???????

Do you have some specific objections to the content in the cited paper or is it just the date on it that you object to?

 

[Arthur Mann]

Such rapid time-scales are easily achieved in ideal MHD processes, but not in non-ideal ones. Although ideal MHD processes can release energy quickly, they rarely release a significant amount because of the topological constraints which exist in the absence of dissipation. In contrast, magnetic reconnection is not topologically constrained, and therefore it can release much greater amounts of energy

You quoted this passage, originally posted by Timmy-Thom. To me it seems like the author is saying that since MHD doesn't produce the right time scale, due to topological constraints, that "magnetic reconnection" satisfactorily explains the discrepancy because it's not "topologically constrained". In other words they're saying "the physical model we have doesn't work, so let's switch to one not bound by any laws of physics so we can cheat".

 

[Tubbythin]

That definition doesn't come from the book Timmy-Thom cited, and it isn't referenced anywhere in that book, either. I take it this is the definition you personally subscribe to.

Its the definition I learned in my very first undergraduate electromagnetism course. It comes directly from Maxwell's equations although I'd have to do a bit of googling to actually find a derivation because I can't remember how to do it myself.

 

[gambling_cruiser]

If you think magnetic energy is made up by Reality Check, then you display your lack of education. Read some real physics book and catch up.

 

[nvidiot]

What's changed since 1948? Just nearly 6 decades of exponential growth in scientific observation and computing power.

 

[Reality Check]

So you're just skimming (word-searching) his sources and then announcing his failure to do what you have demanded? I'm not getting it.

You do not get it - by skimming I mean that I read the entire paper with the subject that MM brought up in mind.
To read the paper fully would include looking up the references and reading them.

You seem to have wasted a lot of time on it so far, and accomplished nothing, to my estimation.

I think that I am accomplishing exactly what I set out to do - to read the papers and see whether Micheal Mozina is correct about the contents, i.e. that they describe electrical discharges through plasma.
This takes about 10 minutes per paper is it is not a lot of time.

What can cause such a collapse of the "topology" of a magnetic field?

The changing of the magnetic field with time: Magenetic reconnection.

Is this a physical topology or just a mathematical topology?

It is physical in physical situations.
It is mathematical in mathematical situations.

Do magnetic fields have a physical topology?

When they are physical yes.

If it's a mathematical topology, how can an abstract topology "collapse" or have any effect on reality?

Matchmatics has no "effect" on reality.
Mathematics is used to model reality.

...
In other words you're saying the phenomenon is electrically driven.

I am not.

I'm arbitrarily choosing electricity as the driving force because we can generate it readily without resorting to fumbling around with magnets and wires.
...

If you want to be arbitary then that is your choice.
If you think that electricity (electrical current?) can generate the energy observed in observed instances of magnetic reconnection then I would be interested in your citations.
Or it may be just a terminology issue. So if you want to call magnetic reconnection "electrical reconnection" then do so. Do not expect people to understand what you are talking about because magnetic reconnection is the standard term.

 

[Tubbythin]

Are you suggesting that by virtue of being right it's possible to also be convincing to people who have radically different beliefs? Is this what history shows us is typical for new discoveries? Was Galileo showered with accolades and treasures for his contributions to the sum of human knowledge?

I think the world of science has moved on a bit since Galileo. Why not mention Einstein or Niels Bohr or Gell-Man or Weinberg? Could it be because it makes your claim look ridiculous?

Kristian Birkeland predicted in 1913 that plasma was ubiquitous in space, this has been confirmed by every probe launched with the capability to measure. None have ever left a plasma environment. Birkeland also correctly predicted that "solar wind" particles would be found to behave exactly like all charged particles do when subjected to an electric field. You asked for one, now you have two, I could have given you dozens if you'd asked.

Clearly you don't understand the meaning of the word quantitative.

 

[Reality Check]

That definition doesn't come from the book Timmy-Thom cited, and it isn't referenced anywhere in that book, either. I take it this is the definition you personally subscribe to.

No - it is the definition of magnetic energy used in physics, i.e. the energy stored in a magnetic field as in my link..

 

[Tubbythin]

Are you aware that electric discharge is the only known way to produce a magnetic field?

No, because it is completely false.

 

[Reality Check]

You quoted this passage, originally posted by Timmy-Thom. To me it seems like the author is saying that since MHD doesn't produce the right time scale, due to topological constraints, that "magnetic reconnection" satisfactorily explains the discrepancy because it's not "topologically constrained". In other words they're saying "the physical model we have doesn't work, so let's switch to one not bound by any laws of physics so we can cheat".

You are wrong. Here is the quote again:

Originally Posted by Tim Thompson
Why not induction?
Now, Mozina insists that what we are really seeing is induction. Is this a reasonable assertion? At the level of real physics it appears to be unrealistic. We know that induction is invariably constrained (or unconstrained) by the characteristic diffusion time for the magnetic field in a given environment. Remember that in the process of induction, the magnetic field move with respect to the charged particles, and it is that relative motion between field & particle that determines the transfer of energy from the magnetic field to the particles. Let me quote once again from Priest & Forbes, this time from section 1.1 ("The Origins of Reconnection Theory"), pages 6-7: "For example, solar flares release stored magnetic energy in the corona within a period of 100 s. By comparison, the time-scale for magnetic dissipation based on a global scale length of 105 km is of the order of 106 yrs. Typically, phenomena like the solar flare and the substorm require a significant fraction of the stored magnetic energy to be converted within a few Alfven time-scales. Such rapid time-scales are easily achieved in ideal MHD processes, but not in non-ideal ones. Although ideal MHD processes can release energy quickly, they rarely release a significant amount because of the topological constraints which exist in the absence of dissipation. In contrast, magnetic reconnection is not topologically constrained, and therefore it can release much greater amounts of energy (Kivelson and Russell, 1995)."

What Tim Thompson
What the authors of the book are saying is

• Magnetic dissipation totally fails (1 million years for a solar flare to produce the energy that it produces in 100 seconds).
• Ideal MDH processes can release energy on the time scales of solar flares but topological constraints restrict the amount of energy.
• Magnetic reconnection is not topological constrained and so can release greater amounts of energy.

In other words they are saying "the physical model we have doesn't work, so let's switch to one bound by the laws of physics so we can do science" rather than your statement about cheating.

 

[nvidiot]

I am almost certain now that electrical discharge means something completely different to EU proponents than it does to everyone else.

 

[tusenfem]

I only briefly looked at that paper, but how can you say it doesn't mention electric discharges if it mentions electric fields, electric currents, electric current densities and magnetic fields? Are you aware that electric discharge is the only known way to produce a magnetic field?

Nope, just a current will do nicely thank you, either in a plasma of in a wire and you get a nice magnetic field. A discharge is not necessary at all. You might want to look up your electrodynamics books once more.

Mentioning a magnetic field is implicitly mentioning the electric field driving it.

Huh? That might be true in some cases, don't over generalize. Seed magnetic fields (created by statistical fluctuations in a plasma) in a turbulent medium can be pulled and twisted and you get yourself a dynamo process.

A field isn't an infinite plane like the geometrical construct, it's electricity in motion, electricity discharging. There are several modes of electric discharge, not all of it produces visible light, but every electric discharge consists of a specific current, and a specific current density.

"electricity in motion"? First of all there is not such thing as a general accepted usage of "electricity" in solar or plasma physics, you might as well say poetry in motion.

Nobody is claiming here an "infinite plane electric field" why would we? There may be an EMF generated along a magnetic loop, that would be weird to claim that that is an "infinite plane" so I have no idea where you get that idea.

What exactly is "electricity discharging"??? another made up term

An electrical discharge in the general sense is (From Oxford Reference "concise science dictionary"):

1. The conversion of the chemical energy stored in s secondary cell into electrical energy.
2. The release of electric charge from a capacitor in an external circuit.
3. The passage of charge carriers through a gas at low pressure in a discharge tube. A potential difference applied between cathode and anode creates an electric field that accelerates any free electrons and ions to their appropriate electrodes. Collisions alo produce excited ions and molecules which decay with emission of light in certan parts of the tube.

Now I had to look hard to get any "discharges" in my plasma physics books, but Peratt had it in the index, basically with the extra: "associated with lightning" and "in aurora" and "breakdown of atmpsohere" and "in dielectrics". Now Peratt re-defines the term discharge as it is usually used (on page 22):

An electrical discharge is a sudden release of electric or magnetic stored energy . This generally occurs when the electromagnetic stress exceeds some threshold for breakdown that is usually determined by small scale properties of the energy transmission medium. As such, discharges are
local phenomena and are usually accompanied by violent prαesses such as rapid heating, ionization, the creation of pinched and filamentary conduction channels, particle acceleration, and the generation of prodigious amounts of electromagnetic radiatiοη.

So, he puts it in a broader sense, however there is still the "breakdown" of the medium that is needed. The last bit of the quote is just a description of e.g. lightning. But then he starts to go further, e.g. about the aurora, and calls them a "discharge":

The aurora is a discharge caused by the bombardment of atoms in the upper atmosphere by 1–20 keV electrons and 200 keV ions spiralling down the earth's magnetic field lines at high latitudes . Here, the electric field accelerating the charged particles d erιves from plasma moving across the earth's dipole magnetic field lines many earth radii into the magnetosphere.

the electric fields that accelerate the electrons and ions (and naturally that have to be different electric fields, and anyway the electrons do most of the job in creating aurorae) are created by motions of the magnetic field in the tail, which sets up currents. As the current gets too high that the thermal drift of the charge carriers can no longer uphold the total current density, then a electric field (double layer) if formed that accelerates the charge carriers and thus can keep up with the increasing current density. The aurora is below such acceleration regions where the energetic electrons enter a denser region and react with the local nitrogen and oxygen to create the aurora. To call the aurora a "discharge" makes no sense at all.

So, yeah, a discharge is related to a current (and thus a current density), nobody is rejecting that. However, the question is how to understand the word discharge, would any increase in current density be considered a discharge? I think not

You can't have this current and current density without the discharge. If you're finding yourself in conflict over this specific issue a lot, perhaps it's time to reexamine some of your basic assumptions.

One can easily have currents and current densities (you talk about the two as if they are separate entities, they are not) in a plasma, there is no necessity of having a discharge at all, unless you want to go to the very extended definition by Peratt, however, most of the time the currents in solar prominences just increases gradually up to a certain limit, when indeed dramatic processes can occur. But it never starts up with a discharge.

 

[tusenfem]

It's funny you should cite this book. Out of the hundreds of pages, and the dozens of times the authors use the term "magnetic energy", they never once define the term, just as you haven't defined it. They use this term dozens of times without ever putting forth a working definition of the term. What is "magnetic energy", Timmy-Thom?

Oh for goodness sake, this is just plain silly.
Alfvén, Cosmical Electrodynamics, chapter 4.4
Peratt, Physics of the plasma universe, chapter 3.7
And, in the quoted book by Tim Thompson it is e.g. explained on page 73.

guess you cannot read, Arthur? That would not be unusual, regarding your a MM pupil.

 

[tusenfem]

No because Tim Thompson is presenting the science.
Micheal Mozina has been persistently ignoring the science.

Indeed, MM never answers the door when a little deeper science knocks on it.

 

[Tubbythin]

When scaled up from laboratory plasmas simulating them, this is a good fit, the tiny laboratory plasmas last for fractions of a second, the solar flares are 1000's of times larger.

Quantitative evidence for this please.

I'm not sure what scale you're looking at that predicts a solar flare should last 1,000,000 years. It kind of seems like you pulled that out your behind. Where is the math that led you to that number? I just explained how by scaling laboratory plasmas up to the size of solar flares the time scale compares nicely.

No you didn't in the slightest. You claimed it should be so but you gave no evidence for why the scaling factor should be linear rather than say quadratic, cubic, exponential... In other words, "you pulled that out of your behind".

I'd call this another success for this model of solar flares. The fact that it can even be accurately modeled physically in the lab is astonishing in itself, so much of astronomy isn't practiced as a science the way plasma cosmology is.

This is incorrect. Real science is quantitative. PC seems to be, as most excellently illustrated here, a case of "if we see something that looks vaguely similar in a lab we can just claim it needs to be scaled up and give no justification for the scaling factor whatsoever".

The exploding double layer phenomenon is identical to the observed solar flare phenomenon. Except for scale they are utterly indistinguishable.

Ok. To back that up should be really easy. All you need to do is provide quantitative evidence. Basically, we need a list of the salient parameters in an exploding double layer and the corresponding parameters in the solar flare. Then, to show that all we need is scaling then you should provide us with a derivation of how each of these parameters should scale (linearly, quadratically, not change at all, etc etc). Then we can easily see for ourselves this clear scaling. If you cannot do this then, to put it really simply, you have not basis whatsoever for the claim that "Except for scale they are utterly indistinguishable".

 

[Tubbythin]

Kristian Birkeland predicted in 1913 that plasma was ubiquitous in space, this has been confirmed by every probe launched with the capability to measure. None have ever left a plasma environment. .

Actually this is wrong. The matter density of the Universe is somewhat less than the equivalent of 1 hydrogen atom per cubic metre. Therefore plasma is rather scarce actually. The only thing that is ubiquitous in space is empty space.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Indeed, MM never answers the door when a little deeper science knocks on it.

Excuse me? I have been *REQUIRED* to DRAG you folks into the details of these papers, paper by paper, item by item, observation by observation, statement by statement. Had I not done so, we would have made no progress at all.

Dungey allows us to 'bridge the gap' between "discharge" (as Peratt defined it) theory, and "reconnection" theory. I found the paper. I posted the paper. I intend to discuss that paper in some detail over the next few weeks, along with those other papers I rounded up last night.

I am leaving work early today to head down to Santa Cruz to pick up my daughter from college so today is likely to be "hectic" to say the least. I'll pick at it a bit, but it will take a wee bit of time to get into the nitty-gritty of those "current flows" you're running together, and calling "magnetic reconnection". Suffice to say for now, the *VERY MOST* that could hope for is that Alfven's objections aside, your MR theory is "mathematically valid". You will never be able to discount the "discharge/particle/circuit/exploding double layer" orientation of these same events. The most you could hope for in this discussion is a "draw". You're still converting stored magnetic field energy into particle kinetic energy just like induction, and the transfer of magnetic field energy into particle kinetic energy is explicitly included in Peratt's definition of an "electrical discharge". Suffice to say for the time being that Peratt's use of the term "electrical discharge" and Dungey's use of that term are 100 percent consistent.

The real "reconnection" is happening between two particle CURRENT STREAMS, not just (only) magnetic lines. You're essentially "dumbing down" the entire physical process to a "magnetic" event when in fact it is an *ELECTROmagnetic* event.

The *VERY* best you can hope for in these discussions is a draw. You might be correct that *CURRENT CARRYING* events can be expressed entirely in terms of the B orientation, but there is much to discuss from Alfven's books and writings about that topic. We haven't even scratched the surface yet. I can't even get you folks to discuss what Alfven meant by the use of "circuits" (not so much you personally by the way, but the rest of the anti-eu crew) in plasmas. I can't even get you folks to understand what an *ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE* in a plasma is. Once your crew learns to walk, then we can certainly run a bit. At the moment, it's a slow crawl because you personally seem to be the only one that has actually read the relevant materials and has some basic understanding of plasma physics. The rest of these folks are crawling toward "current flows".