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

[nvidiot]

What is a "solar model" Michael?

 

[Ziggurat]

Um, just out of curiosity, why does any "electric sun" proponent "automatically" have to deviate from "standard solar theory" in terms of energy source and energy output?

Well, I know for certain that YOUR model deviates significantly. But if the model doesn't deviate significantly on the most important property of the sun, if it still uses pressure-catalyzed core fusion as the primary energy source, then it's not really an "Electric Sun" theory. It's a fusion sun theory with bits of electricity on the fringes. Perhaps you could call such a theory an "electric flare" theory, but the label "Electric Sun" doesn't make sense unless it's not powered the same way.

 

[Tubbythin]

We're talking past one another at this point because I'm focused on the electrical aspects of flares, whereas you're focused on whole solar "models".

Not really. Your proposing a different model for the Sun. You claim your model can explain some of the smaller phenomena associated with the thing being modeled. but ignoring the fact that it fails completely fails to describe the gross properties. I'm pointing out the fact that you are ignoring the gross properties. The usual process with modelling is to create a model that accounts well for the observed gross properties of the thing being modeled and then refine the model as necessary to reproduce the smaller details. You are, as the saying goes, putting the cart before the horse. Until you can put the horse before the cart then the likes of Occham's razor are irrelevant.

Not when it comes to flares and CME's. Electric theories work in the lab *AND* the EU orientation of a flare has been modeled to death mathematically starting with Birkeland, and it looks like again in the late 40 and early 50's, and a third time in the 70's. When you talk about "failures", you're definitely not talking about "lab failures".

I'm not talking about lab failures. I couldn't care less about the lab unless you can:
1) Give a list or relevant properties in the lab experiments.
2) Give a corresponding list of relevant properties for the Sun.
3) Derive the relevant scaling factor for these explicitly for each to show that there is in fact a correspondence.
If you can't do 1 and 2 then there is know way you can do any quantitative science, all you have is pretty pictures. If you can't do three then you're claiming a link that you have zero justification for.

In other words, you don't want to look at *any* SINGLE issue, until EVERY detail is hammered out? That would have been like me rejecting standard theory because you (originally) could not explain the low neutrino count. You can't expect someone to have *EVERYTHING* quantified instantly for you, and an EU solar theory is a MUCH more complicated model mathematically speaking.

Put it another way. Suppose I was going to build a human and I got two legs, two arms, a torso, a head etc. And it looked like a really good human with the right proportions, the right colour and texture of skin, the right number of digits etc. Everything good except the eyebrows were the too long. I'd say that was a pretty good model human. Now, suppose someone else made a human with perfect eyebrows that were exactly the right length. Do you think there model human would be better than mine if it had horses legs, a monkey torso and an ostrich head?

That is simply not a true statement. Look up the term "sputtering" sometime.

What am I meant to be looking at?

How can you know if they are relevant or not BEFORE trying it?

Because the machinery is constructed by humans and probably does not occur naturally.

I think most would beg to differ. HST changed astronomy forever IMO. Your tangible goods are the only thing I respect.

Then you have no clue what "science" is.

I certainly don't buy the dogma.

What dogma. The dogma that solar models should be self-consistent? The dogma that solar models should be quantitative? The dogma that claims of scalability require evidence not unsupported assertion?

That doesn't apply to plasma were SOME (certainly not all) elements are ionized.

Yes it does. If it is a plasma it is a good conductor. IF it is not a good conductor it cannot be a plasma. If it is a good conductor there can be no build up and then breakdown.

This is another false belief actually. A "discharge' can only occur THROUGH a "conductor". Without a conduction, no "current flow" can occur.

The breakdown leads to the dielectric becoming (briefly conductive). If the medium is conductive then there will be no build up and no breakdown.

The notion that conductor can't experience a "discharge' is absurd as that 'pinched" copper pipe demonstrates.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pinch_(plasma_physics)
[qimg]http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/7/77/Crushed_rod_pollock_barraclough.jpg/128px-Crushed_rod_pollock_barraclough.jpg[/qimg]

Huh? That is a copper pipe hit by lightning. The dielectric medium (air) broke down and thus the dielectric medium (the air) became conductive ie lightning. Lightning contains a lot of energy and can do all sorts of things.This is no way whatsoever evidence that the copper pipe broke down.

Any massive transfer of stored electric or magnetic field energy into plasma is an "electrical discharge" by *DEFINITION*.

An electrical discharge is by definition:
"the passage of electrical current through a material which normally does not conduct electricity."

 

[Ziggurat]

No.

OK, obsess about flares to your heart's content.

But if you want to actually convince me that alternative models have any merit, you're still going to have to explain total solar power output. Can you do that? I think you can't. Feel free to prove me wrong.

 

[Michael Mozina]

This is a straw man. Nobody suggested you could have electric discharges without a source of electricity. The real clown

FYI, dasmiller is one of the more "fair' individuals you're likely to meet in a conversation IMO. It's not useful to resort loaded language in his case, in fact I think it's unfair IMO. He's trying. Some aren't.

is the one who suggests all this electrical discharge energy is generated inside the sun, not the one who (quite reasonably) suggests the sun is powered externally.

FYI, the beauty of an electric sun theory IMO is that isn't limited to a *single* power source. That's a strength IMO, not a weakness. The sun may very well have both an internal and an external energy component. Alfven sort of suggested that momentum was ultimately being turned into current. Is that an "internal' (to the solar system) or 'external' sort of process? Of course the whole thing could be "wired together". I'll grab hop in the clown car with the rest of the clowns now and be on my way.

Yes, there are. Do a bit more research and you'll discover this is the case. Plasma phenomena offer a reasonable explanation for nearly everything we see in space, without ad hoc insertions of novel physics and new imaginary beasts like "black hole" or "dark energy".

By the way, I appreciate your input. I think you will find it more productive however and hold their feet to the fire over the flare issue. That seems to be where "discharge" theory meets "magnetic reconnection" theory.

 

[Michael Mozina]

OK, obsess about flares to your heart's content.

But if you want to actually convince me that alternative models have any merit, you're still going to have to explain total solar power output. Can you do that? I think you can't. Feel free to prove me wrong.

Again, I ask you:

Why is that a requirement to be a proponent of 'electric sun' theory? The SSM has a power source. I has an *ELECTRIC field* deep down there somewhere generating all those "magnetic" fields you keep referring to. It seems to me all the power sources and basic features exist in the SSM to explain the power of the sun and *STILL* believe in "electric sun" theory. Why can't "fusion" work for electric sun theory too?

 

[tusenfem]

Besides that fact that it's *DISCHARGING* charged particles at high velocity? It's the *DEFINITION* of an electrical discharge in a plasma.

It's not discharging, just accelerating charged particled does not a discharge make. You should quote Peratt completely:

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.

I have written extensively on this in post 535.

 

[Arthur Mann]

I know. The Standard model can quantitatively explain the energy output of the Sun, the neutrino output, helioseismology data and countless other bits of data.

The "standard model" in solar physics struggles to explain all of that, and can't do so without ad hoc trickery.

The Electric Sun handwaving cannot. I couldn't agree more when you say it isn't a horse race.

I think you're confused, you have this reversed. It's plasma cosmology that's supported by a century of experiments and observation. Where are the experiments reproducing the sustained nuclear fusion imagined inside stars?

I'm a scientist.

Then you should support ideas firmly rooted in scientific rigor, like plasma cosmology. The so-called "standard model" is a dismal failure, it can't reasonably account for any observations of even our own sun without resorting to imaginary process that they claim can never be verified or falsified. The concept of falsifiability is key to the progress of science.

In that respect the SSM is extremely good and electric sun models are abysmal failures.

You have the cause and effect wrong here. The observations led erroneously to the stellar fusion model, which was never verified by any experiment, and subsequently supplanted by the scientific approach offered by plasma cosmology.

Err... your "theory" can't produce the large scale properties of the Sun whatsoever.

I don't know where you get this idea that electricity doesn't adequately explain what we see on the sun. Many times the experiments simulating them with electric discharge in the lab has been presented in this thread. Nobody can force you to believe it, though.

No, its nothing like calling any old cathode magic or electricity magic.

There's nothing magic about electricity.

Lab experiments involving human constructed machinery that have little relation to natural occurring phenomena in astronomy are irrelevant.

That's not what's been happening in this case. In this case you and others have been presented many times the experimental verification for these ideas. No such verification exists for the "standard" model, the believers in that myth simply announce "the energies are too high", "the planets are not in line", "the entrails are not favorable", "we don't do tests".

The tangible products produced by astronomers are of no signifcance whatsoever to the scientific validity of the work.

There's much merit to simple observation, but without experiment, investigations are doomed to wander off into imaginary territories.

Err, no. Since an electrical discharge occurs when a dielectric medium breaks down and is thus impossible in good conductors (let alone excellent ones like plasmas) and since MR is most certainly possible it is 100% certain that MR is not an electrical discharge in a plasma.

I don't know who first put forth this notion that electrical discharges can only occur across a dielectric. It's not hard to imagine hundreds of examples of electric discharge every day that don't involve such a "breakdown". Does the idea that electricity is discharging through your computer right now upset you as much? What about the electricity discharging through your refrigerator? What about the ambient electric current of 300 volts per meter at sea level that is continually discharging? Where is the "break down" there? It's a steady, continual discharge. Not all electric discharges are transient like the spark from your finger to a doorknob.

 

[Arthur Mann]

It's not discharging, just accelerating charged particled does not a discharge make.

Actually yeah, that's particle physics 101, the only known way to accelerate charged particles is to apply an electric field. To put it another way, electric discharge is the only known method. This seizing on the term "electrical discharge" and trying to re-write the definition so it arbitrarily excludes what you don't believe to be true is intellectually dishonest. Semantic attacks on valid science will always fail. You can't accept the principles of electricity and magnetism always or accept them never. You can't say it works when it's convenient for you but is quackery and superstition the next moment.

 

[Ziggurat]

Again, I ask you:

Why is that a requirement to be a proponent of 'electric sun' theory? The SSM has a power source. I has an *ELECTRIC field* deep down there somewhere generating all those "magnetic" fields you keep referring to. It seems to me all the power sources and basic features exist in the SSM to explain the power of the sun and *STILL* believe in "electric sun" theory. Why can't "fusion" work for electric sun theory too?

Are you now claiming that the standard solar model is in fact correct about the most fundamental property of the sun? Please, do tell.

Because if you aren't, then your point is sufficiently hypothetical that I really don't care.

 

[Tubbythin]

I find your use of this peculiar definition to be the result of cherry-picking.

Funny bit of cherry-picking when it is the first page you find when you type "electrical discharge plasma" in to google.

Plasmas are routinely exploited in the study of electric discharge phenomena.

Electrical dsicharges are used to create plasmas.

The author of this definition quite obviously has no familiarity with the actual behavior and properties of plasmas.

Hmm, coming from somebody who very recently claimed "electric discharge is the only known way to produce a magnetic field" I hold no value yo your opinion on such matters.

Also, we routinely discharge electricity through normally conductive material, such as the wires leading into your house. Are you saying when you use electricity from your power outlets that the electricity is not "discharging" into your electrical devices? I find this position untenable.

Yes. What's so untenable about it?

To say the above definition is the "usual" definition is a bit of a stretch. Hell, it's an enormous stretch to suggest you can only have a discharge through a "normally" nonconductive medium.

No it isn't.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Michael Mozina has been denying the magnetic reconnection in Dungey's paper. Here is Dungey's Figure 1, rotated 90 degrees counterclockwise:

First of all, I want to set the record straight here. There was in fact a time where I pretty much believed that indeed "magnetic reconnection" theory was in fact 'pure pseudoscience". Conversations over at space.com however convinced me that while some of the papers violated laws of physics, other's (like Birn's) presentation were mathematically and physically correct presentations. Birn however clarified that his "magnetic line" included "moving charged particles/current streams". In other words he described what I then began to refer to as "circuit reconnection' from that point forward. I realized then, and I realize even more now that "filamentary current flows" are what actually 'reconnect'. Alfven explains a single coronal loop as a "circuit". If you bump two "circuits" into each other, rewire them in mid air, it's "circuit reconnection" IMO.

I'll spend more time when I get back from UCSC, but for now I want to you think about Alfven's previous comments and the speech he gave about MR theory. In the presence of a double layer or "current flows" through plasma, Alfven *EXPLICITLY* rejects the concept entirely. He *PREFERS* to think (and mathematically describe) events in terms of "circuit energy' and "exploding double layers" of "current carrying plasma.

IMO Dungey does a *WONDERFUL* job of 'bridging the gap" between discharge theory and "reconnection" theory. Something certainly "reconnects", but that something is composed of "particles" and "circuits", not *JUST* "magnetic lines".

I'll get to the rest as I get time, but I wanted to respond to you and to let you know we'll talk about it some more when when I get back. Suffice to say you picked *EXACTLY* the right two images to work with, but I would suggest you go back and reread about the "current density' Dungey expects to find at N.

 

[Ziggurat]

Actually yeah, that's particle physics 101, the only known way to accelerate charged particles is to apply an electric field. To put it another way, electric discharge is the only known method.

So any acceleration of a charge is a discharge?

What an odd definition.

This seizing on the term "electrical discharge" and trying to re-write the definition so it arbitrarily excludes what you don't believe to be true is intellectually dishonest.

And expanding its definition to include everything but the kitchen sink is also dishonest.

Semantic attacks on valid science will always fail.

You should tell that to Michael Mozina next time he complains about magnetic reconnection.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Are you now claiming that the standard solar model is in fact correct about the most fundamental property of the sun? Please, do tell.

I'm saying that many "possibilities" exist. What makes you "assume" an electric solar model *NECESSARILY* requires a different power supply?

Because if you aren't, then your point is sufficiently hypothetical that I really don't care.

Flare related activity isn't dependent upon the internal (or external) power supply.

 

[Arthur Mann]

Are you now claiming that the standard solar model is in fact correct about the most fundamental property of the sun?

Whether or not this is what happened, the ability of a model to (after the fact) make accurate predictions is not dependent on its external validity as a model. Were Ptolemy's epicycles the right pedagogical model? Certainly not! But it gave the right answer!

 

[tusenfem]

Actually yeah, that's particle physics 101, the only known way to accelerate charged particles is to apply an electric field. To put it another way, electric discharge is the only known method. This seizing on the term "electrical discharge" and trying to re-write the definition so it arbitrarily excludes what you don't believe to be true is intellectually dishonest. Semantic attacks on valid science will always fail. You can't accept the principles of electricity and magnetism always or accept them never. You can't say it works when it's convenient for you but is quackery and superstition the next moment.

Sheesh, so no any electric field is a discharge?????
I am not redifining anything, you might want to read post 535 about discharges. The EU/EC/ES folks are extending the the discharge definition ever further, like you now defining that basically any electric fields is a discharge.

 

[Arthur Mann]

Sheesh, so no any electric field is a discharge?????

This is really quite simple, any movement of electric current is an electric discharge. I don't know what other people (particularly some people in this thread) mean when they say electric discharge, but I know what I mean, and that's it. Any time you have electricity discharging, you have electric discharge. It couldn't be simpler, and I don't understand why it's confusing so many people.

 

[Ziggurat]

Whether or not this is what happened, the ability of a model to (after the fact) make accurate predictions is not dependent on its external validity as a model. Were Ptolemy's epicycles the right pedagogical model? Certainly not! But it gave the right answer!

Making accurate predictions doesn't prove a model a model is correct. But failure to make accurate predictions is pretty damned solid evidence that a model fails.

The standard model is accurate for the most important quantity, the total solar output. I have not seen any alternative model even address this most important quantity, and I see that you are making no effort to. While the standard model might be wrong (a statement which is necessarily true about any scientific theory), until an alternative arrives which can also produce an accurate description of the total power output, it's still the best thing we've got going.

 

[Arthur Mann]

Well, I know for certain that YOUR model deviates significantly.

Please explain as you understand it the inadequacies of the electric sun model. Go ahead and pick any arbitrary property of the sun and explain how the electric sun model conflicts with this observed property. That should be easy, if you and the other nonbelievers are right.

Perhaps you could call such a theory an "electric flare" theory, but the label "Electric Sun" doesn't make sense unless it's not powered the same way.

Your belief that the sun is powered internally (by fusion or any other means) is demonstrably false. Just look at the temperature minimum in the sun's corona, as has been mentioned already. That's clear evidence that the internally-powered model is wrong. There would be no temperature minimum in the corona if all the heat of the sun was coming from inside, instead you'd have a steady decline in temperature that varied with distance.

These observations do, however, fit the profile of an electric discharge across a plasma double layer. Coincidence theorists would say random chance produced the synchronicity.

 

[Arthur Mann]

But failure to make accurate predictions is pretty damned solid evidence that a model fails.

If you really believed this you'd abandon the stellar fusion model. Post facto "explanations" aren't predictions. When you pick the sun's total power output as the basis for your claim that the sun is powered internally by fusion, then develop a model based on that, you can't then say the model "predicts" the correct power output of the sun, then claim the model is therefor valid. That's a circular argument.