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

[W.D.Clinger]

I have asked you on NUMEROUS occasions to supply a PUBLISHED PAPER that supports ANY of your handwavy claims. When can I expect you to provide a published paper by Alfven that supports "magnetic reconnection" theory? When did you intend to provide a PUBLISHED PAPER to support your claim about your so called "experiment"? (Those are rhetorical questions. I already know their answers.)

You want a published paper on the ordinary behaviour of fridge magnets and compass needles?

Although Michael Mozina's questions were rhetorical, I can cite books that describe and illustrate the magnetic field of a conducting rod, and also describe the superposition principle that makes it trivial to calculate the magnetic field of four such rods. For example:

Edward M Purcell. Electricity and Magnetism. Berkeley Physics Course, Volume 2. McGraw-Hill.​

(That's a freshman-level textbook, so it uses only freshman-level mathematics, so it won't do Michael Mozina any good. Sorry.)

I want one that claims that such behavior is an example of "magnetic reconnection". It seems you folks can not even differentiate between 'solid magnet reconnection' and "magnetic reconnection", not to mention "current reconnection" from magnetic reconnection. You certainly can't differentiate between ordinary induction and "magnetic reconnection" at the level of actual particle physics. It seems you'll slap that term on just about anything you see.

Although most of that is the kind of nonsense we've come to expect from Michael Mozina, I think there may be a legitimate point buried within it. Magnetic reconnection refers to changes in the topology of a magnetic field over time, but what do we mean by changes in the topology of a field? In my very limited reading of the research literature on magnetic reconnection, I've already encountered at least two related meanings:

• The magnetic field line that runs through some fixed point in space starts off as a loop and ends up going off to infinity (or vice versa, or something else whose description would assume more knowledge of topology than I want to assume here).
• For some smooth curve that starts out perpendicular to the magnetic field lines, the magnetic field line of some fixed intensity (ETA: where it intersects the curve) appears to migrate along the curve over time until it merges with the separator between two quasi-static domains.

(In addition to those meanings, papers on plasma physics often appear to talk about magnetic reconnection in terms of its effects on plasma, as though magnetic reconnection were a plasma-specific concept. Alfvén seems to do that, which may explain a tiny piece of Michael Mozina's confusion.)

Fortunately, the experiment I've been suggesting to Michael Mozina for almost a year demonstrates magnetic reconnection in both plasma-free senses listed above.

In the following quotation, I have emphasized the pertinent points by eliding extraneous prose:

....ordinary "double layer transactions"...Alfven....Alfven....Every single one of them requires "electricity'...ordinary plasma interactions...your so called "magnetic reconnection".

IMO this is about a blatant of an example of "false advertising" as I've ever seen in the field of astronomy....dark energy rainbows in the sky...OVER THE TOP! ...pathetically incapable...ANYTHING Alfven wrote...your beliefs....consumer...double layer transactions....Alfven....wasting tax payer money..."bait and switch"....you've CLEARLY spent time "dumbing down" the mathematics to REMOVE ALL EVIDENCE of the E field that powers the actual experiment. How blatant can you be?

In the experiment I described (and describe again below), the E field starts out at zero and remains negligible throughout the course of the experiment. When Michael Mozina says the E field "powers the actual experiment", he is demonstrating substantial incompetence and/or dishonesty.

I have edited the following description of my experiment by striking through an incorrect/misleading phrase:

On 28 December 2010, I suggested a simple experiment that would have helped you to understand that Dungey's paper is about magnetic reconnection. Everyone who's taken a freshman-level course in electromagnetism knows what the magnetic field around a current-carrying rod looks like. If you have two such rods in parallel, carrying equal currents, and measure the magnetic field in a plane perpendicular to the rods, you get Dungey's figure 2. If you take another pair of parallel rods and run the current in the opposite direction, you get Dungey's figure 2 with the arrows reversed. If you take those two pairs of parallel conducting rods and place them so the null points of their magnetic fields coincide, with the planes running through the two pairs positioned at almost but not quite a right angle, then you get Dungey's figure 1.

Those two figures are the only figures in Dungey's paper.

With steady currents running through all four rods, the E field is zero outside the rods. Increasing the current through one pair of rods yields Wikipedia's animation of magnetic reconnection. If the current is increased slowly, then the E field outside the wires remains nearly zero, but the magnetic reconnection still occurs (more slowly).

I suggested that experiment to you because it would have helped you to understand that

• Dungey is describing magnetic reconnection.
• There is no "circuit reconnection" in Dungey's paper.
• There is no "current reconnection" in Dungey's paper.
• The magnetic reconnection described in Dungey's paper can be reproduced without plasma.
• The magnetic reconnection described in Dungey's paper can occur with a near-zero electric (E) field.

I will now supply the answers to my own rhetorical questions.

Why should you expect me to "systematically eliminate ordinary attraction/repulsion from consideration?"

Answer: Because he's guessing.

Are you unaware that the magnetic field is defined in terms of the forces you describe as "ordinary attraction/repulsion"?

Answer: Well, that's a trick question. The magnetic field is actually defined in terms of the forces it would exert on charged bodies moving through it. Michael Mozina's "ordinary attraction/repulsion" is a consequence of that definition, but I suspect that the forces he's talking about are the forces he feels when manipulating magnets. To calculate those forces, we'd compute the energy of the magnetic field that results from the various positions of the magnets and differentiate with respect to position.

In other words: When faced with a problem whose freshman-level math is too difficult for him to understand, Michael Mozina tried to convert it into a problem whose mathematical formulation would be even more difficult for him to understand. If anyone who's reading this wishes to avoid learning anything about physics, I suggest you emulate Michael Mozina's behavior.

Are you unaware that the dynamics of the "ordinary attraction/repulsion" you experience when pulling two magnets apart probably involves some kind of magnetic reconnection?

Answer: Yes.

Are you really that ignorant of the everyday phenomenon you believe Alfvén was dismissing as pseudoscience?

Answer: Yes.

 

[Michael Mozina]

The point's been made - multiple times, by many people, over several years - that you, MM:

a) do not understand what you read
b) mis-represent what you read
c) do not grok that physics (etc) for the last several hundred years is founded on math
d) do not 'get' math
e) have failed - spectacularly - to convince anyone of the validity of your ideas.

Ah, another hater comes out of the woodwork. Whats wrong Nereid, you haven't had any good heretic burnings over at BAUT recently?

Have you even personally read Cosmic Plasma yet? When did I first recommend you read that book? Let me guess? You're a clairvoyant physicist too?

Keep up the good work Mikey, one of the certainties of my day is that I will, again, be highly amused by your posts when I take a look at them in a coffee break.

Well, at least I'm entertaining which is more than I can say for you.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Although Michael Mozina's questions were rhetorical, I can cite books that describe and illustrate the magnetic field of a conducting rod,

That isn't what I asked you for. I asked you for a published paper that claims this process demonstrates "magnetic reconnection". Did you intend to dodge my question again by attacking the messenger again? Don't you think everyone is going to see through your evasive and manipulative ploy, and see it for what it really is, sooner or later? Where's the published paper?

 

[Reality Check]

...rant snipped....

You do not seem to understand a simple point so lets make it simpler.
Magnetic reconnection theory is a theory of magnetic reconnection.
Double layers are not magnetic reconnection.
Thus MR theory does not describe double layers.

 

[Reality Check]

You certainly can't differentiate between ordinary induction and "magnetic reconnection" at the level of actual particle physics.

You really like demonstrating that you cannot learn, MM.
It is easy to differentiate between ordinary induction and magnetic reconnection at the level of actual physics. They have different characteristic timescales.
As you have been told before - induction would take millions of years to release the energy seen in solar flares.

Tim Thompson pointed out this year ago:
31st December 2009 Magnetic Reconnection Redux V
and repeated it in this thread:
2nd February 2011 Electric Sun & Real Plasma Physics II

 

[Michael Mozina]

Thus MR theory does not describe double layers.

Let me make it REALLY simple for you too. "I don't believe you". Your own MR experiments:

A) begin in LIGHT plasma, and Alfven already ruled out MR theory in light plasma.
B) begin in CURRENT CARRYING PLASMA, and Alfven already explained such events WITHOUT MR theory. It's therefore redundant and unnecessary just like he said!

 

[Reality Check]

MM: Why do MR experiments show reconnection and then current disruption (and DL) II

When you folks get to the lab, you fail to provide any control mechanism to differentiate between ordinary "double layer transactions" as Alfven described them WITHOUT magnetic reconnection, and what you're calling 'magnetic reconnection'.

That is gibberish.
None of us folks (as far as I know) does magnetic reconnection experiments.
Scientists who do magnetic reconnection experiments explicitly test magnetic reconnection !

They explicitly differentiate between ordinary "double layer transactions" by noting that they are not detected!

They explicitly differentiate between ordinary "double layer transactions" by noting that the conditions for them to happen hapen after the reconnection:
Michael Mozina: Why do MR experiments show reconnection and then current disruption (and double layers)?

Magnetic Field Line Reconnection Experiments, 5. Current Disruptions and Double Layers (1983)

In a large laboratory plasma a current sheet is generated in the process of magnetic field line reconnection. The stability of the sheet with respect to local current increases is investigated. When the current density in the center of the sheet exceeds a critical value, spontaneous local current disruptions are observed. The current from the center of the sheet moves out to the sides. Magnetic flux variations in regions remote from the current sheet generate an inductive voltage in the current loop that drops off inside the plasma in the form of a potential double layer.

Double layer formation during current sheet disruptions in a reconnection experiment (1982) PDF
DLs forming after magnetic reconnection causes current disruptions as described in the introduction and throughout the paper.

 

[Michael Mozina]

As you have been told before - induction would take millions of years to release the energy seen in solar flares.

I already handed you the paper by Mann and Onel that demonstrates that this claim is false. The circuit energy, or any part of that circuit energy, can be released all at once, including the magnetic field energy of that part of the circuit. You *ASSUME* the circuit energy has to be released at a single point instead of OVER THE WHOLE CIRCUIT. That's your fallacy in a nutshell.

 

[Reality Check]

I already handed you the paper by Mann and Onel that demonstrates that this claim is false. ...

Wrong again .
The paper by Mann and Onel is about the energetic electrons generated by solar flares. It states that they carry a substantial part of the released flare energy.

• There is no time scale mentioned.
• They do not have any inductance in their circuit model.
• They do not even have any DL's - does this disprove Alfven's paper ?

As you have been told before - induction would take millions of years to release the energy seen in solar flares.
Tim Thompson pointed out this years ago:
31st December 2009 Magnetic Reconnection Redux V
and repeated it in this thread:
2nd February 2011 Electric Sun & Real Plasma Physics II

 

[Reality Check]

Let me make it REALLY simple for you too. "I don't believe you". Your own MR experiments:

A) begin in LIGHT plasma, and Alfven already ruled out MR theory in light plasma.
B) begin in CURRENT CARRYING PLASMA, and Alfven already explained such events WITHOUT MR theory. It's therefore redundant and unnecessary just like he said!

Let me make it even simpler for you MM:
A) I have done no MR experiments.
B) MR is observed to happen in "LIGHT plasma".
C) MR is observed to happen in "CURRENT CARRYING PLASMA".
D) Your personal beliefs are irrelevant. What matters is the science. The science is that magnetic fields are observed to change topology (reconnect) in magnetic reconnection experiments.

The reason that MR experiments are called magnetic reconnection experiments is because scientists are studying magnetic reconnection.

I would cite the thousands of paper on magnetic reconnection experiments but many have already been cited already.
You just ignore them and continue with your obsession with Alfven's opinion.
Here is another one for you to ignore in any case:
Magnetic Field Line Reconnection Experiments, 1. Field Topologies by Stenzel and Gekelman in 1981.

 

[Reality Check]

That isn't what I asked you for. I asked you for a published paper that claims this process demonstrates "magnetic reconnection".

MM, that is either a strawman argument or a stupid question (you choose).
No one writes scientific papers on freshman electromagnetism. Scientific papers are primarily to present original research.
People write textbooks on freshman electromagnetism. Applying that to W.D.Clinger's example demonstrates magnetic reconnection.

You can see this even with high school science:
The Man 26th January 2010

Originally Posted by The Man
MM, take a couple of refrigerator magnets (the flat rectangular business card or credit card company types), they have alternating north south stripes (generally running vertically). If you place two back to back and slide them across each other you will feel those magnetic stripes alternately repelling and attracting each other. When you feel it switching from resisting the sliding to that sliding being easier (and being pulled in that direction) that is magnetic reconnection as field lines from the stripes on one refrigerator magnet reconnect to the next stripes on the other refrigerator magnet. No “magic magnets”, just what magnets do and reconnection that you can experience in your own kitchen or home. You could do the same thing with a compass and a magnet, the compass needle being itself a small magnet. When the magnet is far from the compass the needle is connected to the earths magnetic field as you bring the magnet closer to the compass at some point the felid of the needle reconnects to that of the magnet and the compass points at the magnet. Move the magnet away from the compass and the field of the needle will reconnect to the magnetic field of the earth. Repeat as many times as you feel necessary until you stop believing in "magic magnets".

 

[Reality Check]

Did a quick serach on MR experiments and measuremenst of topology and found this interesting paper:
Observation of Megagauss-Field Topology Changes due to Magnetic Reconnection in Laser-Produced Plasmas 2 August 2007

The spatial structure and temporal evolution of megagauss magnetic fields generated by interactions of up to 4 laser beams with matter were studied with an innovative, time-gated proton radiography method that produces images of unprecedented clarity because it uses an isotropic, truly monoenergetic backlighter (14.7-MeV protons from D3He nuclear fusion reactions). Quantitative field maps reveal precisely and directly, for the first time, changes in the magnetic topology due to reconnection in a high-energy-density plasma (ne∼1020–1022  cm-3, Te∼1  keV).

Also
Fast Magnetic Reconnection in Laser-Produced Plasma Bubbles 27 May 2011

Recent experiments have observed magnetic reconnection in high-energy-density, laser-produced plasma bubbles, with reconnection rates observed to be much higher than can be explained by classical theory. Based on fully kinetic particle simulations we find that fast reconnection in these strongly driven systems can be explained by magnetic flux pileup at the shoulder of the current sheet and subsequent fast reconnection via two-fluid, collisionless mechanisms. In the strong drive regime with two-fluid effects, we find that the ultimate reconnection time is insensitive to the nominal system Alfvén time.

ETA
Wow lots of interesting papers!
Laboratory Observation of Localized Onset of Magnetic Reconnection 25 June 2010

Magnetic reconnection is a fundamental process in plasmas that results in the often explosive release of stored magnetic energy, but the trigger for its onset is not well understood. We explore this trigger for fast reconnection in toroidal experiments using a magnetic x-type geometry in the strong guide-field regime. We find that the onset occurs asymmetrically: the reconnection begins on one side of the torus and propagates around approximately at the Alfvén speed. The fast reconnection occurs only in the presence of a global plasma mode, which breaks the axisymmetry and enables the current at the x line to decrease sharply. A simple semiempirical model is used to describe the onset’s growth rate.

ETA
Experimental investigation of the trigger problem in magnetic reconnection

Magnetic reconnection releases magnetic energy not only in steady state, but also in time-dependent and often explosive events. Here, we investigate the trigger mechanism for this explosive release by using a toroidal experiment in the strong guide-field regime. We observe spontaneous reconnection events with exponentially growing reconnection rates, and we characterize the full 3D dynamics of these events using multiple internal probes. The reconnection is asymmetric: it begins at one toroidal location and propagates around in both directions. ...

 

[Michael Mozina]

Double layer formation during current sheet disruptions in a reconnection experiment (1982) PDF
DLs forming after magnetic reconnection causes current disruptions as described in the introduction and throughout the paper.

You really should read your own links once in awhile RC. This particular one pretty much blows your entire "induction is too slow" argument out of the water by the way, not to mention the fact that you're outright ignoring the actual sequence of events.

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI, I don't recall ever reading that particular paper on current sheet disruptions, but it's one of the best written papers I've read on this topic to date. It's a pity you don't understand it, or how it blows your "induction is too slow" argument out of the water. It's an EXTREMELY well written, and clearly explained paper. I doubt I'll get to your laser papers until after work or maybe tomorrow, but unlike you, I will actually read them (if I can access them), and I'll comment on them. We've already been down laser avenue in the past. All they are typically doing is creating directed streams of current in the path of the laser. In other words, you're starting in light plasma and with current again.

 

[Reality Check]

You really should read your own links once in awhile RC. This particular one pretty much blows your entire "induction is too slow" argument out of the water by the way, not to mention the fact that you're outright ignoring the actual sequence of events.

I read it and understood it.
You may have read it (or not - that remark looks like your typical ignorant knee-jerk reaction to actual empirical experiments) but I suspect that you did not understand it.

The paper does not mention induction on the scale of solar flares (induction would take millions of years to release the energy seen in solar flares. 31st December 2009 Magnetic Reconnection Redux V).
There is no calculation of the time that induction would take in solar flares.

I hope that you are not making that idoitic assumption that induction on the scale of the lab plasma (cubic centimeters) will take place in the same time on the scale of solar flares (cubic kilometers).

Double layer formation during current sheet disruptions in a reconnection experiment (1982) PDF
DLs forming after magnetic reconnection causes current disruptions as described in the introduction and throughout the paper.
The sequence of events is

1. Current disruption.
2. Formation of a double layer (see Fig 4).

The experiment uses magnetic reconnection to cause the current disruption.

An experiment that actually measures the time that current disruption happens after magnetic reconection is:
Lessons from Labatory Experiments on Reconnection, R.L. Stenzel, W. Gekelman and J. M. Urrutia 1986

And you ignored:
Magnetic Field Line Reconnection Experiments, 5. Current Disruptions and Double Layers (1983)

In a large laboratory plasma a current sheet is generated in the process of magnetic field line reconnection. The stability of the sheet with respect to local current increases is investigated. When the current density in the center of the sheet exceeds a critical value, spontaneous local current disruptions are observed. The current from the center of the sheet moves out to the sides. Magnetic flux variations in regions remote from the current sheet generate an inductive voltage in the current loop that drops off inside the plasma in the form of a potential double layer.

Where the sequence of events is

1. magnetic field line reconnection
2. spontaneous local current disruptions
3. potential double layer

 

[Michael Mozina]

I already love how several of the abstracts of those laser experiments talk about "explosive releases of energy", AKA "electrical discharges" in plasma. That's a riot!

 

[Michael Mozina]

I read it and understood it.

If you read it and understood it, you wouldn't be claiming that induction is too slow since that is the MECHANISM they used to describe the energy transfer process. Oi Vey.

 

[Reality Check]

FYI, I don't recall ever reading that particular paper on current sheet disruptions, but it's one of the best written papers I've read on this topic to date. It's a pity you don't understand it, or how it blows your "induction is too slow" argument out of the water.

Thanks for fixing the suspicion I had in my previous post - you did read it.

But you are still using your ignorance of physics to make an basic mistake.

Induction on the scale of the lab plasma (centimeters) will not take place in the same time scale on the scale of solar flares (100,00's of kilometers).
The times mentioned in the paper have to be scaled up to the length scales of solar flares.

31st December 2009 Magnetic Reconnection Redux V

Reference the book Magnetic Reconnection: MHD Theory and Applications by Eric Priest & Terry Forbes, Cambridge University Press, 2000. Magnetic reconnection is not induction. ..
. Here we find the real deal once again in Priest & Forbes:

"In space physics the distinction between ideal and non-ideal processes is important because simple estimates imply that magnetic dissipation acts on a time-scale which is many orders of magnitude slower than the observed time-scale of dynamic phenomena. 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."
Priest & Forbes, page 6
​

All of this occurs in the first few pages of the book, but evidently Mozina has not even bothered to look at it.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Thanks for fixing the suspicion I had in my previous post - you did read it.

But you are still using your ignorance of physics to make an basic mistake.

Induction on the scale of the lab plasma (centimeters) will not take place in the same time scale on the scale of solar flares (100,00's of kilometers).
The times mentioned in the paper have to be scaled up to the length scales of solar flares.

No, the double layer just needs to be scaled to size. You're still IGNORING the fact they USED INDUCTION to explain the energy exchange process, demonstrating that INDUCTION DID IT, not MAGNETIC RECONNECTION. You shot your theory dead, not that the conditions of the experiment didn't violate every single one of Alfven's prime directives anyway.

Essentially RC, those three particular authors wrote an absolutely EXCELLENT paper that VERIFIED Alfven's earlier papers on double layer behaviors. You just demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that MR theory is redundant and unnecessary, IN THE LAB no less. Good job making your own theory unnecessary.

 

[Reality Check]

If you read it and understood it, you wouldn't be claiming that induction is too slow since that is the MECHANISM they used to describe the energy transfer process. Oi Vey.

If you read it and understood basic physics, you wouldn't be claiming that induction is fast enough for solar flares just because the EXPERIMENTAL time scales are small.

So the experiment has time scales of microseconds. What is the characteristic speed that you think that induction happens in solar flares?
Hint: 10,000 km/1 microsecond
What is the speed of light, MM?
Ever heard of Special Relativity, MM?

Induction on the scale of the lab plasma (centimeters) will not take place in the same time scale on the scale of solar flares (100,00's of kilometers).
The times mentioned in the paper have to be scaled up to the length scales of solar flares.

Energy release via induction is restricted to the magnetic diffusion timescale of the plasma.As explained in Magnetic Reconnection Redux V on 31st December 2009 and still not understood by you !

FYI the larger the plasma, the longer the energy release takes!
Oi Vey