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

[Michael Mozina]

Translation: You and I have precisely the same amount of proper education in physics.

None.

Actually the translation goes something like:

"I'm too damn lazy to bother to even read the Nobel Prize winning Physicist's work on MHD theory and it's proper application to events in space. I'm therefore going to accuse anyone who did bother to read and agree with Alfven's work on MHD theory of being just as uneducated as I am, in fact MORE uneducated somehow since my beliefs are different from his. I'm going to do all this simply because I'm too damn lazy to do a proper job educating myself. I'll falsely attack them and accuse them publicly too because I hate to admit that someone might actually learn something I missed by being a couch potato physicist. "

Sound familiar?

 

[dasmiller]

Did Wu, Chen and Li show quantitative evidence for pinch discharges in solar flares, yes or no?

If you consider the sentence "Alfven & Carlqvist (1967) suggested exploding discharges of electric double layers to be responsible for solar flares" to be quantitative evidence, then yes. Otherwise, no, I didn't find any quantitative evidence in my quick read of the paper.

 

[GeeMack]

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0501334

Only the poster child of pure denial would deny the fact that quantitative evidence for electrical discharges processes in solar flares has been presented. Did or did not Dungey suggest that electrical discharges occur in solar flares?

Did Wu, Chen and Li show quantitative evidence for pinch discharges in solar flares, yes or no?

I'm not interested in red herrings or some unqualified interpretation that someone suggested something. Exactly as asked...

The question remains, is there any objective quantitative evidence that would support the crackpot notion that the Sun is powered by electricity and that solar flares and CMEs are some kind of gigantic bolts of lighting? By objective I mean when reviewed by those qualified in the field of solar physics, they also reach the conclusion that the Sun is indeed powered by electricity as claimed in this thread. Objective.​

 

[D'rok]

Did Wu, Chen and Li show quantitative evidence for pinch discharges in solar flares, yes or no?

Let's pit my solar physics ignorance against yours and see who comes out on top. I'm going to go out on a limb and answer this question:

No.

I'm basing my reasoning on this:

1. The focus of the paper is GRB 021206 as captured by RHESSI
2. The RHESSI fact page says gamma-ray bursts detected by the instrument are non-solar (here)
3. Wikipedia says gamma-ray bursts are observed in distant galaxies (here)
4. The calculations in that paper seem to refer to "Polarization in GRBs Produced by Pinch Discharge"

And, of course, even if I'm wrong, this could simply be a bad paper making improper conclusions based on poor assumptions. I have no way of knowing. The paper seems to want to take Alfven's ideas about solar flares and apply them to non-solar GRB events, which sounds fishy to me however you slice it.

How'd I do?

 

[tusenfem]

All that tells me t is that you didn't actually read his book yet. If you had, you would have noted that whole series of comments (and further experiments) with the "soot" on the glass anode walls. You'd have noted all the (now called sputtering) experiments and you wouldn't be so damn naive as to believe that sputtering doesn't happen in discharge processes.

I have never claimed that "what you now call sputtering" does not happen, again another piece of bad reading from your part. The soot is well explainable through the device that Birkeland used. Have you read what his assistants had to do to prepare the terrella experiment? It was one of the worse jobs, recoating the seems of the glass box with a tar like substance. (read Lucy Jago - Northern Lights). Some of that stuff is bound to end up everywhere in the box, as the re-application necessaty shows that it was hardly a good solution, but it was the best at the time, the early 20th century.

This, however, has NOTHING to do with what space physics calls sputtering.

I already provided D'rok with the appropriate link and page numbers today. Go back and at least read that section again. You should read his whole series of sputtering/"soot" experiments too. He physically *CONFIRMED* that positively charged particles are released from the cathode and they can stick to the anode.

No, you gave a link to part of the book (in a terrible format I must say), so we are supposed to do all the work again, just like you weasel out of any direct request to actually show the location of something Birkeland (or Alfven, or whoever) said, or where a specific equation is located. Your answer is always "it's in the book," well mr. expert, where in the book, give the page and the line numbers etc. etc. etc.

I doubt that you will find that positively charged particles are released from the negative cathode and that they would stick to the positive anode. It can well be that the soot from the coating can get onto the terrella and that it will evaporate (not get charged, just get loose) and then get stuck to all surfaces, including the anode. However, it is physically impossible for positive charges to move to a positive anode. Maxwell is turning in his grave.

The only difference between his experiments and our physical solar system is that he underestimated the densities of plasma in space, probably because everyone at the time called it a "vacuum". He didn't want to "overestimate" the density, so he ended up overestimating the velocity instead. In every other respect he got it exactly right.

No, once more you are denying the laws of electrodynamics. If the solar wind were driven by an electrostatic field, then the electrons and ions would be moving in opposite directions, which is something that is not observed by any satellite that we have in space.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Let's pit my solar physics ignorance against yours and see who comes out on top. I'm going to go out on a limb and answer this question:

No.

I'm basing my reasoning on this:

1. The focus of the paper is GRB 021206 as captured by RHESSI
2. The RHESSI fact page says gamma-ray bursts detected by the instrument are non-solar (here)
3. Wikipedia says gamma-ray bursts are observed in distant galaxies (here)
4. The calculations in that paper seem to refer to "Polarization in GRBs Produced by Pinch Discharge"

And, of course, even if I'm wrong, this could simply be a bad paper making improper conclusions based on poor assumptions. I have no way of knowing. The paper seems to want to take Alfven's ideas about solar flares and apply them to non-solar GRB events, which sounds fishy to me however you slice it.

How'd I do?

http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510588

I think you did everything in your power to NOT apply the pinch discharge concept and maths to solar flares, even though the authors mentioned that is EXACTLY what Alfven did. I suppose it's also just a "pure coincidence" that solar flares just so happen to produce these same types of polarized gamma ray bursts that are indicative of discharge pinch processes in plasma? It's also just a pure coincidence that electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere produce gamma rays too I suppose?

 

[GeeMack]

It's also just a pure coincidence that electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere produce gamma rays too I suppose?

Electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere, lightning, cannot occur in the atmosphere of the Sun because lightning requires the breakdown of a dielectric medium, an insulator, and the Sun's atmosphere is plasma, a conductor.

And this is still outstanding...

The question remains, is there any objective quantitative evidence that would support the crackpot notion that the Sun is powered by electricity and that solar flares and CMEs are some kind of gigantic bolts of lighting? By objective I mean when reviewed by those qualified in the field of solar physics, they also reach the conclusion that the Sun is indeed powered by electricity as claimed in this thread. Objective.​

 

[Michael Mozina]

Electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere, lightning, cannot occur in the atmosphere of the Sun

You are in pure denial of the *SCIENTIFIC FACT* that electrical discharges can and do occur in plasmas and in solar flares particularly and have been associated with the solar flare process since the days of Dungey! You're clueless!

The question remains, is there any objective quantitative evidence

I handed you that paper from Mann and Onel MONTHS if not over a year ago now. If you didn't read it, that's your fault. It's literally full of objective quantitative evidence to support Alfven's coronal loops as "circuits" theories. If you continue to deny scientific fact, and paper after scientific paper, from Dungey though Mann (almost 60 years of material), do you think anyone will ever believe anything you say?

 

[Michael Mozina]

I have never claimed that "what you now call sputtering" does not happen, again another piece of bad reading from your part. The soot is well explainable through the device that Birkeland used.

Well, now I'm absolutely certain that you never read anything past a few pages at best. How about those other experiments he did on this topic later on in the book t? He never did them?

 

[dasmiller]

I think you did everything in your power to NOT apply the pinch discharge concept and maths to solar flares, even though the authors mentioned that is EXACTLY what Alfven did.

Your question was whether the Wu, Chen, and Li paper showed any quantitative evidence for pinch discharges in solar flares. Mentioning that Alfven did some math is not quantitative support by Wu, Chen, and Li.

I suppose it's also just a "pure coincidence" that solar flares just so happen to produce these same types of polarized gamma ray bursts that are indicative of discharge pinch processes in plasma?

The paper by Wu, Chen, and Li included the line "Another kind of high-energy transients similar to GRBs is the solar hard X-ray
flare." They didn't directly tie solar flares to discharge pinch processes, and they didn't provide any quantitative support for their assertion. Their assertion may well be true, of course (I really have no idea), but the paper did not provide any quantitative support for your position.

It's also just a pure coincidence that electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere produce gamma rays too I suppose?

AFAIK, nobody's disputed that Earth's lightning is a largely electrical phenomenon, or that it's possible for electrical phenomena to create gamma rays.

 

[ben m]

This has the flavor of an "Ask The World's Worst Talmudic Scholar" advice column.

Q: Does the 2011 Camry really have a lower carbon footprint than the Prius?
A: Of course! You fool! Does not Rav Nachman bar Yitzchak interpret the Torah as saying, um, that lead or gold or something is evil? And that camels have large footprints?
Q: That's a bit vague. What exactly does the Rabbi say?
A: Go look it up. He obviously says something about Numbers 6 being the most important source. Or maybe Genesis 6. I've been citing this for years, obviously I know what I'm talking about.
Q: Well, can you tell me what text he's commenting on?
A: He's obviously commenting on some text that says the 2011 Prius is a bad deal. That's what he says.
Q: The text might admit different interpretations. It happens all the time with Nachman in particular.
A: No it doesn't. I've already answered your question with references. You're wrong.
Q: You know what? I have an EPA report on embodied energy, I'll read that instead of Talmud.
A: Your EPA report probably doesn't cite Rav Nachman at all. You're really going out of your way to avoid the truth about the camels.

 

[R.A.F.]

You are in pure denial of the *SCIENTIFIC FACT*...

Put a sock in it "Mr. Wizard". The only one in denial here is you...which is expected since that's the way you behaved with your "Iron Sun" crap.

Still embarrassed by that, huh?

 

[GeeMack]

I handed you that paper from Mann and Onel MONTHS if not over a year ago now. If you didn't read it, that's your fault. It's literally full of objective quantitative evidence to support Alfven's coronal loops as "circuits" theories. If you continue to deny scientific fact, and paper after scientific paper, from Dungey though Mann (almost 60 years of material), do you think anyone will ever believe anything you say?

As I said, I'm not interested in red herrings or any other sort of diversion. The topic of this thread is: Electric Sun Theory. My concern is exactly this...

The question remains, is there any objective quantitative evidence that would support the crackpot notion that the Sun is powered by electricity and that solar flares and CMEs are some kind of gigantic bolts of lighting? By objective I mean when reviewed by those qualified in the field of solar physics, they also reach the conclusion that the Sun is indeed powered by electricity as claimed in this thread. Objective.​

If it goes unanswered it will be fair to accept that as an acknowledgement that no such quantitative objective evidence will be forthcoming.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Your question was whether the Wu, Chen, and Li paper showed any quantitative evidence for pinch discharges in solar flares. Mentioning that Alfven did some math is not quantitative support by Wu, Chen, and Li.



The paper by Wu, Chen, and Li included the line "Another kind of high-energy transients similar to GRBs is the solar hard X-ray
flare." They didn't directly tie solar flares to discharge pinch processes, and they didn't provide any quantitative support for their assertion. Their assertion may well be true, of course (I really have no idea), but the paper did not provide any quantitative support for your position.



AFAIK, nobody's disputed that Earth's lightning is a largely electrical phenomenon, or that it's possible for electrical phenomena to create gamma rays.

While I will be the first to admit it was a bit of a sloppy question, it didn't include the later link to observations of polarization found in solar flares, and the authors didn't SPECIFICALLY study solar flares per se, they based their *entire* presentation on *ALFVEN's CORONAL LOOP DISCHARGE THEORIES*!!!!!!! More importantly they used scaling factor maths and numbers that were pulled *DIRECTLY FROM ALFVEN's WORK* when they started cross checking their numbers.

They even noted the fact that there are other similarities (including measured polarization as you'll see in the 2nd paper) to solar flare activities.

THE SINGLE MOST LIKELY CAUSE of gamma ray emissions in ANY atmosphere in the solar system is an electrical discharge and a plasma pinch. Period. They are KNOWN to produce gamma rays. They are known to produce polarized gamma rays too. These discharge process produce gamma rays in our atmosphere and they produce high them on Jupiter, Saturn, Venus, etc. The certainly are the CAUSE of gamma ray emission from the sun too.

I can't recall the list again off the top of my head but discharges have been associated with the following in real lab tests/and or observed in atmospheric discharges here on Earth:

Million degree plasmas
Gamma rays.
X-rays
Neutron Capture Signatures
Highly ionized iron and wavelengths associated with these high ionization states.

Your side can't get "magnetic reconnection" to do squat on that list in a lab or in the Earth's atmosphere. The little bit of energy release that you can get from your experiments on "magnetic reconnection" is purely and totally reliant upon.......drum roll..................CURRENT. Turn off the current, and the party is over.

I'm sorry, but all this foot dragging, and wrangling like lawyers on exactly where the authors used which phrases is just sad from my perspective. They used Alfven's work on solar flare activity to demonstrate that GRB's be produced through...........ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES!

The obvious cause of all of these high energy emission is the one thing GM claims is physically impossible, even though Dungey claimed it was not impossible over 60 years ago. Not one of you has yet busted GM and RC over that issue, not one of you. Why not?

 

[Michael Mozina]

Put a sock in it "Mr. Wizard". The only one in denial here is you...

Oh bull. GM and RC are still in pure, hard core, unadulterated denial of the fact that electrical discharges can and do occur in plasmas. That's the hard core denial trip that keeps going and going and going around here.

Still embarrassed by that, huh?

Not in the least. I haven't even made any changes to the verbiage of the pages of my solar website other than the blog page in quite awhile. I'm quite happy with it now. In fact I just paid to renew my website hosting on thesurfaceofthesun.com a few months ago. I'm not embarrassed in the least. IMO it's still the "best" solar theory in terms of matching solar satellite observations. I'm very pleased with the SDO images, their cadence improvements and the resolution improvements.

 

[Michael Mozina]

As I said, I'm not interested in red herrings or any other sort of diversion. The topic of this thread is: Electric Sun Theory. My concern is exactly this...

Your concern should be that you never once acknowledged that work from MANN AND ONEL just so happens to support Alfven's coronal loop theories VIA SATELLITE IMAGERY!

Hard core denial of scientific fact isn't going to change the fact that electrical discharges can and do occur in plasmas and have been associated with solar flare activity since the days of DUNGEY!!!!!!!!!!!!

NOTHING ELSE KNOWN TO MAN actually produces anything in the lab, or in Earth's atmosphere, on that list of key flare observations, let alone EVERYTHING on that list. Deny it all you like, but your denial routine just makes you look even more ridiculous, assuming that's actually even possible at this point. "Electrical Discharge in Plasma? What discharges?". Ya, your some expert on plasma physics alright.

If it goes unanswered it will be fair to accept that as an acknowledgement that no such quantitative objective evidence will be forthcoming.

If you don't acknowledge Mann and Onel's object quantitative evidence of circuit disruption in solar flare activity, it will be fair to accept that behavior as another example of pure denial on your part.

 

[dasmiller]

I'm sorry, but all this foot dragging, and wrangling like lawyers on exactly where the authors used which phrases is just sad from my perspective.

We were responding to your question, in which you asked a very specific question about the evidence shown in a particular paper that you linked. To act like I'm avoiding the subject by quoting the relevant portions of the paper is . . .

(probably best if I don't finish that thought)

They used Alfven's work on solar flare activity to demonstrate that GRB's be produced through...........ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES!

They claimed some similarities between pinch discharges and GRBs. They certainly did not demonstrate that GRBs are primarily electrical phenomena. And since modern science does not believe that GRBs are basically the same as normal starlight, an electrical GRB wouldn't have a lot of bearing on whether the sun is a giant cathode.

The obvious cause of all of these high energy emission is the one thing GM claims is physically impossible, even though Dungey claimed it was not impossible over 60 years ago. Not one of you has yet busted GM and RC over that issue, not one of you. Why not?

Lordy, Michael, how many (*#&$)(*& pages of argument did we go through over the definition of the word "discharge" when applied to a plasma? You and GM are using different meanings for the word, and I suspect that nobody else here wants to go through another 20 pages of arguing past each other. This thread has *way* too much repetition already.

 

[Michael Mozina]

We were responding to your question, in which you asked a very specific question about the evidence shown in a particular paper that you linked.

Yes, a paper that STARTED WITH ALFVEN's coronal loop and plasma pinch theories and numbers! They proceeded to use Alfven's pinch techniques to demonstrate that discharges and double layer breakdowns can and do produce gamma ray burst that are polarized. We also have direct evidence (granted it's in a second paper) that solar flares produce the same types of polarized gamma rays. Would you be happier if I asked if the TWO papers combined provided evidence that solar flares are caused by electrical discharge processes?

 

[GeeMack]

The obvious cause of all of these high energy emission is the one thing GM claims is physically impossible, even though Dungey claimed it was not impossible over 60 years ago. Not one of you has yet busted GM and RC over that issue, not one of you. Why not?

Electrical discharges like lightning on Earth and the sparks in a toy plasma ball require the breakdown of a dielectric medium. It is a ludicrous argument to claim such a thing can happen on the Sun because the solar atmosphere is plasma, a conductor, and therefore no breakdown of an insulator is occurring there.

To go beyond the persistent argument by complaint and the unproductive taunting, it is unreasonable to make an analogy between solar flares, coronal loops, and CMEs, and lightning in the Earth's atmosphere. Nobody else in this discussion, regardless of any dishonest inference otherwise, accepts a lightning-like electrical discharge as a reasonable or even plausible description for what is happening on the Sun's surface. Again, as far as any sorts of "discharges" that may be involved in solar physics, solar flares and coronal loops certainly aren't some kind of electrical phenomenon comparable to lightning.

This has been avoided and dodged, but hasn't really been addressed directly: Is there any quantitative objective evidence that would support the crackpot notion that the Sun is like a massive cathode/anode getting its electrical power from space, and that solar flares and CMEs are some kind of giant bolts of lighting? That's objective, meaning when reviewed by those qualified in the field of solar physics, they reach the conclusion that the Sun is indeed powered by electricity as claimed in this thread.

 

[dasmiller]

Yes, a paper that STARTED WITH ALFVEN's coronal loop and plasma pinch theories and numbers! They proceeded to use Alfven's pinch techniques to demonstrate that discharges and double layer breakdowns can and do produce gamma ray burst that are polarized.

You said "quantitative evidence." What quantitative evidence was there in that paper that supported your assertion? Was there a single example of, say, an analytically-derived number relating to solar flares that was then compared to an observationally-derived relating to solar flares, and shown to be within a reasonable error band? If not, then there was no quantitative evidence to support your assertion.

The paper contained neither an analytically-derived nor an observationally-derived number related to solar flares.

We also have direct evidence (granted it's in a second paper) that solar flares produce the same types of polarized gamma rays. Would you be happier if I asked if the TWO papers combined provided evidence that solar flares are caused by electrical discharge processes?

That would have been a very different and much more involved question. I haven't even glanced at the second paper yet.

I spent a lot of time on that SERTS data that you linked and, IMO, it provided no support for your assertions (and actually contradicted them). And we went over it at length, and AFAIK you keep citing the SERTS data as if it supports you.

You went on at length about the power of RD images to show terrain through the photosphere, so I made & posted an RD image that appeared to show terrain by combining two pictures of clouds (so that there was no possibility of 'real' terrain in the image). You ignored it.

I spent a fair amount of time on that first Dungey paper, in which, again, I did not find any support for your position, though IIRC, you finally said that the paper was relevant only for terminology. I'm not sure if you're currently citing that paper by Dungey or a later one.

I spent a lot of time on that SDO picture. I made a computer model to show how there should be a gradient to the green 'atmosphere' if it was truly an atmosphere. I even duplicated the overall SDO image (well, the top left quarter of it) by combining single-color pictures from other sources with a disk-shaped filter to give my image the green disk, before we got confirmation from NASA that the disk was added for aesthetic reasons. AFAIK you're still claiming that the green disk supports your position.

So, no, diving into another paper isn't high on my priority list.