Death Star Galaxy

[Ziggurat]

Let's face it ... the solution to the dark matter problem still (after more than 30 years of looking) depends on bizarre, unproven, particles. Gnomes.

Despite your repeated attempts to smear the idea of postulating the existence of anything we haven't directly observed, there is in fact a long history of such successful predictions. Is dark matter really any more exotic than antimatter once was? No, I think not. Antimatter is like something out of a superman bizzaro comic, it's only considered normal because its existence has become so irrefutable. Yet the prediction of antimatter's existence (via the Dirac equation) preceeded its experimental discovery. Would it have been right to say that since it was only a mathematical prediction, we shouldn't take it seriously, like the thunderbolt folks say about black holes? No, that would have been a mistake. Likewise, the existence of neutrinos was postulated more than a decade before its existence was first experimentally observed. Both antimatter and neutrinos were needed to solve problems with the existing theory, but lo and behold, they turned out to be the correct explanation. That dark matter is both likely exotic and hard to detect does not indicate that theories which require it are wrong in any way, shape, or form.

This is how science progresses. We develop theories to describe what we see, test those theories out, find out where the theory breaks down, and refine them accordingly. Newtonian mechanics is, strictly speaking, wrong, and has been replaced by relativity. But it remains an excellent approximation for most cases, and captures much of the essentials which remain valid under relativity. There was never a chance that we'd find something so contrary to Newtonian physics that we'd have to throw it out completely. Likewise, our current theories about stellar mechanics, gallactic evolution, and cosmology are likely incorrect as well. But the places where they're likely wrong are on the margins. And however we correct them, it's pretty much a given that we won't have to throw out everything we know right now. An incomplete understanding of comets doesn't mean that the sun isn't powered by fusion. Dark matter doesn't mean general relativity is wrong. And cosmological anisotropies don't disprove the big bang.

 

[BeAChooser]

Cite? You know of comets with no water/ice? And which produce X-rays?

I appear to have misinterpreted what I read and then overstated the case. In searching the web (in particular, this: http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/faculties/science/2007/d.bodewits/ ) , all the comets that have been examined for x-rays had water (or at least OH) emissions. But I also don't find an instance where they had looked for x-rays in a comet where no water (or OH) was detected on or above the surface ... like Borrelly or Wild 2. It would be interesting to see the result in such a case. Do you know of any?

It is important to note that the theory you espoused at your website ... that the emitted x-rays are due to "collisions" at high velocity between solar wind and ice on the comet (thermal bremsstrahlung) ... has been discarded. Apparently, hydrocode simulations showed the expected x-ray luminosity from that would be orders of magnitude less than that actually observed. Many other explanations have been discarded too.

The mainstream accepted explanation is now *charge exchange* with the Solar wind. The material in the Solar wind is highly ionized (like O6+), while the material out-gassing from the comet is presumed to be largely neutral. The highly ionized ions interact with the neutral atoms, stealing electrons. The electrons emit x-rays as they fall from a high-energy to low-energy states. This theory is bolstered by Chandra observations ... particularly of Comet LINEAR ... showing x-ray emissions from specific highly charged ions in the solar wind.

Now Electric Comet theorists would argue that the electrons are being "stolen" not from neutral atoms but from a negatively charged plasma surrounding the comet nucleus ... i.e., the coma. And they claim that an excess of electrons in a comet's coma was seen when the Giotto spacecraft visited Comet Halley in 1986. I don't know if this is true or not. If it is ...

The cool thing about science versus antiscience is that we learn and make corrections.

IF science works right. But in the case of astrophysics, I'm not convinced it is working right. There are too many observations that stand in direct contradiction with the mainstream theory. There are too many "surprises" and still unexplained observations. There are too many unproven ... and perhaps untestable ... gnomes in the edifice holding the mainstream theory up. There are too many models not working even with all those gnomes. There is an almost blanket refusal to acknowledge possible electrical phenomena that have been known and studied on earth for a century. Mainstream astrophysicists can't even bring themselves to including double layers, Birkeland currents, z-pinches and electric currents in their models. They'd rather believe in gnomes like frozen in magnetic fields, open field lines, magnetic reconnection and energy storage in magnetic fields.

Sigh. What happens when a comet heats up? It gives off gas.

Ah ... you're an expert, Phil? Well then perhaps you can explain how heat from the sun penetrates the surface of a highly insulated comet like Tempel 1 to warm up deeply buried ice and vent enough gas to account for the quantity of gas observed in the coma and tail of that comet? What's the mechanism?

So the comet gets surrounded by a giant cloud of gas. The solar wind hits that, and it emits X-rays. So there are no X-rays coming from the nucleus? OK then. My initial analysis was incomplete. But X-rays do come from accelerated particles interacting with matter (look up Brehmsstrahlung radiation), so this is still not an issue.

Please read the dissertation I linked above. It and many other internet sources indicate that Brehmsstrahlung radiation does NOT explain comet x-rays. Brehmsstrahlung is NOT the accepted mainstream theory for what causes those x-rays. So my point remains intact ... that perhaps your site and what you claim is no better a source of information than what McCanney claims.

The problem here is that you are working with a theory that is 100% wrong according to observations

100%? Well do you have any specific response to my other comments regarding claims made at your site?

For example, how about your claim that experiments have found the solar wind is "electrically neutral" as if that proves the electric comet theory must be wrong? As I pointed out, the solar wind does not have to have a net positive or negative "charge" to act in an electrical manner. In fact, the charge exchange explanation for comet x-rays is an electrical phenomena. And observation of charge exchange is not inconsistent with the electric comet theory (at least the one espoused by the Thunderbolt's group).

And as I pointed out in my comment on your comment, the inside of a discharge tube (like a fluorescent bulb) is electrically neutral too. Yet it can carry current like a wire. There is an electric field present in a wire and there is an electric field present in the solar system. And if there is enough of a voltage difference between a body and a surrounding plasma, a plasma sheath may form. The plasma may glow and there might even be an arc discharge. This is well known physics that has been studied in labs here on earth.

As I pointed out earlier, interplanetary space can be thought of as the 'positive column' region of a glow discharge tube. The positive column is a region of almost equal numbers of positive ions and electrons (it is quasi-neutral). It is also characterized by a very low voltage gradient. Similarly, the solar "wind" is quasi-neutral and it too is in a region with a low voltage gradient. As the Thunderbolts theorists state, the "wind" is just the conducting medium between the cathode at the edge of the solar system and the solar anode. "So looking for excess relativistic electrons rushing toward the Sun is no more sensible than looking at a current-carrying wire and asking where are all the excess electrons rushing from one end to the other."

If there is a voltage difference between the inner solar system and the outer solar system as electric comet theorists claim, then a comet coming in from the outer system would retain a different charge than that found in the inner solar system. And under those circumstances, a plasma sheath (coma?) might form around the intruding body as it neared the sun. And if the voltage difference between the comet and the surrounding environment became great enough, the comet might discharge, releasing gases ... as the electric comet proponents theorize is happening on the surface of comets. Sometimes the difference might be great enough to even break up the body, explosively.

So you are wrong. The electric comet theory is not 100% incompatible with observations.

And what about your claim that "if the Sun's wind were primarily positive particles, then the Sun would build up a vast negative charge on its surface. This would affect everything about the Sun, from its magnetic field to the way the surface features behave. We see no indications at all that the Sun has a huge negative charge."? Well as I pointed out, there have been no experiments to see whether current flows in the solar wind or whether the sun is negatively charged. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Furthermore, as I noted, the phenomena observed on the sun and above the sun actually do support the notion that the surface of the sun is acting as the anode in a discharge tube where the cathode is at the edge of the solar system. Numerous electrical engineers and plasma physicists say this is true and are now publishing their conclusions in peer reviewed journals. They have presented a clear and consistent explanation for various solar phenomena that are still giving mainstream theorists problems and forcing them to introduce bogus physics like magnetic reconnection and frozen in magnetic fields. I'm curious ... have you read Donald Scott's book, "The Electric Sky"?

Like I said, the electric sun model has no problem explaining solar granules and their chaotic behavior, sunspots and their interaction with each other, solar flares, solar prominences, the temperature variation of the chromosphere, the solar ring current, the appearance and extreme temperature of the corona, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), the production of various particles and radiation (heavy, neutrinos, x-rays, radio emission) by the sun and comets, the solar wind and changes in its intensity over time, the continued acceleration of the solar wind as it moves away from the sun, comet observations, heliospheric boundary observations, the behavior of the pioneer and voyager spacecraft, etc. All of these are phenomena that the mainstream model is STILL struggling to adequately explain, despite 30 years, billions of research dollars and the invention of bogus physics gnomes that clearly violate Maxwell's laws. Care to prove me wrong?

Moreover, the electric star model also more clearly explains the observed differences between the various types of stars as represented on the important Hertzsprung-Russel (HR) diagram and the exact shape of that diagram. In that regard, I recommend a visit to http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm, which fully explains this very positive attribute of the model. In contrast, mainstream astrophysicists have difficulty explaining X-ray flares observed from brown dwarfs (hey, maybe it's charge exchange ), a star (http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap000712.html ) where over 10% of the surface seems to be covered by a single sunspot, Wolf Rayet stars, the hourglass/axial shape of nebula, and jets from pulsars. Care to prove me wrong?

And in contrast to the mainstream's core fusion/evolution model, the electric star model offers an explanation why some stars have been observed moving over a matter of weeks or months from one location on the HR diagram to a quite different location on it. Some of these cases are discussed in the http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm link. For example, the case of V838 Monocertis is noted where NASA's Picture of the Day announced "Observations indicate that the erupting star transformed itself over a period of months from a small under-luminous star a little hotter than the Sun, to a highly-luminous, cool supergiant star undergoing rapid and complex brightness changes. The transformation defies the conventional understanding of stellar life cycles. A most notable feature of V838 Mon is the "expanding" nebula which now appears to surround it." Care to explain that observation? Because if you can't then you are 100% wrong when you claim that I'm advocating a theory that is "100% wrong". Because electric star proponents can explain that observation ... and with ease. Just read Scott's book or the above link.

And what about the observation of "giant magnetic ropes" that I pointed out in my comments on your comments. Do you think that electric theorists are "100% wrong" in suggesting structures that "twist and change dynamically", that connect the Earth to the Sun, and that carry energy from the sun to earth sound like Birkeland currents? Or do you think it's 100% about magnetic fields?

 

[Ziggurat]

As I pointed out earlier, interplanetary space can be thought of as the 'positive column' region of a glow discharge tube. The positive column is a region of almost equal numbers of positive ions and electrons (it is quasi-neutral). It is also characterized by a very low voltage gradient. Similarly, the solar "wind" is quasi-neutral and it too is in a region with a low voltage gradient. As the Thunderbolts theorists state, the "wind" is just the conducting medium between the cathode at the edge of the solar system and the solar anode.

Which, once again, brings us back to what the charge on the sun is. And the only relevant number you came up with shows that the sun should explode, discharging itself in a dramatic and rapid event. We went through the numbers already. So what do the Thunderbolts folks say is the charge (or, hell, even just the voltage - I can figure out the charge from that) on the sun? Because if they can't get that within even an order of magnitude, they don't have a model. Just hand waiving.

If there is a voltage difference between the inner solar system and the outer solar system as electric comet theorists claim, then a comet coming in from the outer system would retain a different charge than that found in the inner solar system.

That's not a given. Once again, you seem to be confusing charge and voltage. They are not the same thing. If a comic can exchange charge with its environment, it will move towards charge neutrality regardless of the voltage of its local environment. And if it cannot exchange charge, then the voltage of its environment will have no automatic connection to what the charge on it is.

Furthermore, as I noted, the phenomena observed on the sun and above the sun actually do support the notion that the surface of the sun is acting as the anode in a discharge tube where the cathode is at the edge of the solar system.

Except unlike an actual anode, there's no chemical binding of the positive charge carriers to the sun. We went through the numbers already. The sun cannot act as an anode, because the net positive charge required will not remain bound to the sun.

Numerous electrical engineers and plasma physicists say this is true and are now publishing their conclusions in peer reviewed journals. They have presented a clear and consistent explanation for various solar phenomena

No, they aren't. They can't propose a charge which wouldn't make the sun explode.

Like I said, the electric sun model has no problem explaining solar granules and their chaotic behavior, sunspots and their interaction with each other, solar flares, solar prominences, the temperature variation of the chromosphere, the solar ring current, the appearance and extreme temperature of the corona, coronal mass ejections (CMEs), the production of various particles and radiation (heavy, neutrinos, x-rays, radio emission) by the sun and comets, the solar wind and changes in its intensity over time, the continued acceleration of the solar wind as it moves away from the sun, comet observations, heliospheric boundary observations, the behavior of the pioneer and voyager spacecraft, etc.

It's easy to "explain" something when you don't ever plug in numbers, something the electric proponents (yourself included) have proven notoriously reluctant to do.

In that regard, I recommend a visit to http://www.electric-cosmos.org/hrdiagr.htm,

I'll just point out one amusing tidbit. They quote another website advocating an electric universe, saying "That elucidates why stars commonly have partners and why most of the giant planets so far detected closely orbit their parent star."
Uh, NO. The standard method for looking for extrasolar planets is to look for a wobble in the position of the star (which is visible) due to the orbit of a planet (which is almost invisible at these distances). If you see a wobble, there's a planet. And the easiest wobbles to detect (and therefore easiest planets to detect) are going to be large (meaning a big planet) and fast (meaning it's orbiting close to the sun). So the dominance of large, close-in giants among detected extrasolar planets is nothing more than the result of the fact that those are precisely the easiest ones to detect. It says nothing about their relative frequency compared to other planets.

Oh, and it looks like this was your source for the 10¹⁰ volts for the sun. But we've already shown how ridiculous that proposition is. The amount of charge that would require and the strength of the field it would create would cause a cataclysmic and essentially instant explosion of the sun. And they've shown no method to contain that explosion. Nor have you.

 

[BeAChooser]

The mainstream source I provided before clearly demonstrates, by your own assertions, that they are mentioned and considered in regards to those phenomena.

Except for the wikipedia article (and we all ... should ... know that wikipedia articles are dangerous to rely on), NONE of your sources was one that supported mainstream claims about quasars, dark matter and dark energy, magnetic reconnection, tangled magnetic fields, frozen-in magnetic fields, jets, solar flares, CMES, coronal temperatures, or comet behavior. Your challenge is to provide a peer reviewed source that does support mainstream claims and also discounts double layers, Birkeland currents and z-pinches rather than just ignoring those phenomena. Can you do it or not?

Again these papers you were referring to were from a mainstream source and made available to anyone, by taxpayer financing, who applied their research abilities (or at least the few minutes it took me to find them)

Those were NOT mainstream sources. They were articles written by people that oppose your (the mainstream's) view of quasars, dark matter, dark energy, magnetic reconnection, tangled magnetic fields, frozen-in magnetic fields, jets, solar flares, CMES, coronal temperatures and comet behavior. You only prove my point. Apparently no one in the mainstream bothered to read those article since not a single mainstream article cites them or attempts to refute them. The mainstream did exactly what I said ... ignored them. And ignored the phenomena they mention. And you are either obtuse or trying a debating tactic often employed by those who believe in 9/11 woo.

You seem to be confused again, trying to isolate electricity from magnetism. They can not be separated that is why it is called electromagnetism, because they are just different aspects of the same principle.

I'm not confused at all about this. And to prove it, I have a simple question for you. The mainstream continually claims that the energy released in their mythical reconnection events is stored in magnetic fields. So what happens if the current flowing in the plasmas at these locations stops flowing? Can you tell us? Are the magnetic fields "frozen in" the plasmas or do they just disappear? And if they just disappear, what happened to the energy you claimed was stored in them? Hmmmmm?

Field aligned currents or Birkeland currents are by their definition aligned to magnetic fields so any electrical reconnection of such currents must result from a reconnection of the magnetic fields they are aligned to.

Let me once again quote the Father Of MHD, Hannes Alfven, when he condemned the "merging" and "reconnecting" concepts. He said "we have witnessed at the same time an enormously voluminous formalism building up based on this obviously erroneous concept. Indeed, we have been burdened with a gigantic pseudoscience which penetrates large parts of cosmic plasma physics." He wrote "The concepts of 'frozen-in magnetic field lines' and 'field-line reconnection', which are frequently used in discussions of the theory of the magnetosphere, have been criticized by Alfven and Falthammar (1971), by Heikkila (1973), and by Alfven (1975). In the present paper, it is demonstrated that both concepts are unnecessary and often misleading. The frozen-in concept is shown to belong to the pseudo-plasma formalism which is useful only in special cases." He wrote ""If a double layer has been formed by a current I, energy at rate P=IV(sub)D is released in the double layer. This energy is mainly used for accelerating charged particles. A small fraction is usually dissipated as as noise. Of course, the accelerated particles interact with the plasma and produce a number of secondary effects so that the released energy finally is dissipated as heating and radiation. Again, it should be mentioned that there is no possibility of accounting for the energy of the particles as a result of magnetic merging or of magnetic field-line reconnection, or any other mechanism which implies changing magnetic fields in the region of acceleration (II3.3, II.5.3). In the region of the double layer, the magnetic field during the explosive transient phase is almost constant and cannot supply the required energy (of course, the secondary effects of the explosion also cause changes in the magnetic field."

What a shame that you and the rest of the mainstream proponents can't bring yourself to listen to the wisdom of a Nobel Prize winner in this very field. The only way to generate magnetic fields in light plasma of the strength claimed in reconnection events is to pass large currents through it. And Hannes Alfven was clear about the cause of high energy particle emissions in such events. He stated unequivocally that this was a phenomenon related to electrical activity, not "magnetic reconnection".

Several folks here (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=865&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 "Debunking Magnetic Reconnection") summed the situation up this way. Mainstream astrophysicists are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can't generate powerful magnetic fields in light plasma without electrical current and they can't "store" any magnetic energy in "frozen" magnetic fields. They can't describe the physics behind the energy release of magnetic reconnection at the atomic level. They don't know, and cannot know if there is a unique form of energy release called "magnetic reconnection" that is distinguishable from standard electrical interactions in plasma because they don't have a physical model to explain magnetic reconnection. They can't describe the process, so they can't test their theory in a lab, nor distinguish "magnetic reconnection" from typical discharge behaviors of current carrying plasma. They're now stuck trying to claim that Alfven was wrong about the validity of "magnetic reconnection" theory, but they have to use his work to attempt to validate the idea and they still can't demonstrate it in a lab. It's a house of cards just waiting to collapse. It may indeed be their Waterloo. One can hope.

Or do you now propose that there is no such thing as a field aligned or Birkeland currents?

Link us a mainstream article promoting reconnection that mentions Birkeland currents or what Alfven said about them.

Thank you, for conceding my point that magnetic reconnection is just a redefinition (but based on more generic physical principles) of your lost plasma orphans of Birkeland currents and double layers.

No, it's not a "redefinition" ... it's a relabeling (without understanding of the underlying physics). Again I ask ... what happens to the magnetic field and the energy your astrophysicists claim is in it if the current stops flowing?

 

[Ziggurat]

Again I ask ... what happens to the magnetic field and the energy your astrophysicists claim is in it if the current stops flowing?

Same thing that happens to the magnetic energy in a superconducting magnet when you warm it up above the superconducting transition temperature. You CAN'T just stop the current. You can only slow it down by providing resistance, and when you do that, Maxwell's equations (changing magnetic fields generate electric fields) will continue to drive those currents for some time. The magnetic energy gets dissipated as resistive heating, it does NOT vanish. If there is no resistance to the current flow (as in the case of a superconducting magnet with a persistence switch), then the field won't ever decrease. And if the resistance is low, then it can take an awfully long time for the field to decay.

 

[The Man]

Except for the wikipedia article (and we all ... should ... know that wikipedia articles are dangerous to rely on), NONE of your sources was one that supported mainstream claims about quasars, dark matter and dark energy, magnetic reconnection, tangled magnetic fields, frozen-in magnetic fields, jets, solar flares, CMES, coronal temperatures, or comet behavior.

You asked for a mainstream source that motioned double layers and Birkeland currents in relation to stellar phenomena which I easily provided. If you want papers by authors “that supported mainstream claims about quasars, dark matter and dark energy, magnetic reconnection, tangled magnetic fields, frozen-in magnetic fields, jets, solar flares, CMES, coronal temperatures, or comet behavior” I’m sure they are also available from this mainstream source.

Your challenge is to provide a peer reviewed source that does support mainstream claims and also discounts double layers, Birkeland currents and z-pinches rather than just ignoring those phenomena. Can you do it or not?

Once again your response is to challenge me to disprove my point that double layers and Birkeland currents are mentioned and not discounted or ignored. That magnetic reconnection can involve both these aspects, a double layer as a sepratrix and a Birkeland current as a field aligned current sheet, since you can not disprove these points, you again challenge me to do it for you.

Those were NOT mainstream sources. They were articles written by people that oppose your (the mainstream's) view of quasars, dark matter, dark energy, magnetic reconnection, tangled magnetic fields, frozen-in magnetic fields, jets, solar flares, CMES, coronal temperatures and comet behavior. You only prove my point. Apparently no one in the mainstream bothered to read those article since not a single mainstream article cites them or attempts to refute them. The mainstream did exactly what I said ... ignored them. And ignored the phenomena they mention. And you are either obtuse or trying a debating tactic often employed by those who believe in 9/11 woo.

A website hosted by The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and founded by a grant from NASA is a mainstream source. The fact that these articles presenting non-mainstream theories are readily available from a mainstream source shows that they were not and are not ignored by the mainstream.

Link us a mainstream article promoting reconnection that mentions Birkeland currents or what Alfven said about them.

I already did that, this paper mentions both double layers and Birkeland (or field aligned) currents and based on your own assertions “…was treating magnetic reconnection as if it were proven physics..”

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-bib_query?1994ApJS...90..837H

This is an article written in 1993 which notes double layers might be responsible for the emissions from pulsars. It was obviously ignored by the rest of mainstream physics community. Also, note that the source spends a lot of time on the bogus gnome of magnetic reconnection and assumes we know what neutron stars are (we don't really). It's hard to not laugh at a source that back in 1993 was treating magnetic reconnection as if it were proven physics when in 2007 they still haven't proven it or tend to describe phenomena that sound like exploding double layers in their "proofs".

Again it is not the mainstream ignoring those articles it is you ignoring the fact that those articles are available from a mainstream source. Also ignoring your own statements about an article I provided mentioning double layers and Birkeland (or field aligned) currents while promoting magnetic reconnection as “proven physics” (as you put it).

I'm not confused at all about this. And to prove it, I have a simple question for you. The mainstream continually claims that the energy released in their mythical reconnection events is stored in magnetic fields. So what happens if the current flowing in the plasmas at these locations stops flowing? Can you tell us? Are the magnetic fields "frozen in" the plasmas or do they just disappear? And if they just disappear, what happened to the energy you claimed was stored in them? Hmmmmm?

You obviously are confused; as Ziggurat has explained the current will not just stop and will be driven by the magnetic fields until their energy is dissipated.

Let me once again quote the Father Of MHD, Hannes Alfven, when he condemned the "merging" and "reconnecting" concepts. He said "we have witnessed at the same time an enormously voluminous formalism building up based on this obviously erroneous concept. Indeed, we have been burdened with a gigantic pseudoscience which penetrates large parts of cosmic plasma physics." He wrote "The concepts of 'frozen-in magnetic field lines' and 'field-line reconnection', which are frequently used in discussions of the theory of the magnetosphere, have been criticized by Alfven and Falthammar (1971), by Heikkila (1973), and by Alfven (1975). In the present paper, it is demonstrated that both concepts are unnecessary and often misleading. The frozen-in concept is shown to belong to the pseudo-plasma formalism which is useful only in special cases." He wrote ""If a double layer has been formed by a current I, energy at rate P=IV(sub)D is released in the double layer. This energy is mainly used for accelerating charged particles. A small fraction is usually dissipated as as noise. Of course, the accelerated particles interact with the plasma and produce a number of secondary effects so that the released energy finally is dissipated as heating and radiation. Again, it should be mentioned that there is no possibility of accounting for the energy of the particles as a result of magnetic merging or of magnetic field-line reconnection, or any other mechanism which implies changing magnetic fields in the region of acceleration (II3.3, II.5.3). In the region of the double layer, the magnetic field during the explosive transient phase is almost constant and cannot supply the required energy (of course, the secondary effects of the explosion also cause changes in the magnetic field."

What a shame that you and the rest of the mainstream proponents can't bring yourself to listen to the wisdom of a Nobel Prize winner in this very field. The only way to generate magnetic fields in light plasma of the strength claimed in reconnection events is to pass large currents through it. And Hannes Alfven was clear about the cause of high energy particle emissions in such events. He stated unequivocally that this was a phenomenon related to electrical activity, not "magnetic reconnection".

Pseudoscience? That is what you are presenting, if you want to see what real science is then look at these links. (They give the mathematical relationships).


http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/lectures/node74.html


http://farside.ph.utexas.edu/teaching/plasma/lectures/node60.html

Several folks here (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=865&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 "Debunking Magnetic Reconnection") summed the situation up this way. Mainstream astrophysicists are stuck between a rock and a hard place. They can't generate powerful magnetic fields in light plasma without electrical current and they can't "store" any magnetic energy in "frozen" magnetic fields. They can't describe the physics behind the energy release of magnetic reconnection at the atomic level.

Because, unlike you, they are not trying to fundamentally separate electrical aspects from magnetic aspects. You are wrong magnetic reconnection and the release of the energy results from conditions that specifically do not result in frozen magnetic fields.

The first term on the right-hand side of this equation describes the convection of the magnetic field with the plasma flow. The second term describes the resistive diffusion of the field through the plasma. If the first term dominates then magnetic flux is frozen into the plasma, and the topology of the magnetic field cannot change. On the other hand, if the second term dominates then there is little coupling between the field and the plasma flow, and the topology of the magnetic field is free to change.
The relative magnitude of the two terms on the right-hand side of Eq. (826) is conventionally measured in terms of magnetic Reynolds number, or Lundquist number:

(827)


where is the characteristic flow speed, and is the characteristic length-scale of the plasma. If is much larger than unity then convection dominates, and the frozen flux constraint prevails, whilst if is much less than unity then diffusion dominates, and the coupling between the plasma flow and the magnetic field is relatively weak.
It turns out that in the solar system very large -values are virtually guaranteed by the the extremely large scale-lengths of solar system plasmas. For instance, for solar flares, whilst is appropriate for the solar wind and the Earth's magnetosphere. Of course, in calculating these values we have identified the scale-length with the overall size of the plasma under investigation.

They are describing the physics far better then any model you have presented. Oh, wait you really haven’t presented one that won't blow apart from its own charge yet have you?

They don't know, and cannot know if there is a unique form of energy release called "magnetic reconnection" that is distinguishable from standard electrical interactions in plasma because they don't have a physical model to explain magnetic reconnection. They can't describe the process, so they can't test their theory in a lab, nor distinguish "magnetic reconnection" from typical discharge behaviors of current carrying plasma. They're now stuck trying to claim that Alfven was wrong about the validity of "magnetic reconnection" theory, but they have to use his work to attempt to validate the idea and they still can't demonstrate it in a lab. It's a house of cards just waiting to collapse. It may indeed be their Waterloo. One can hope.

They are not trying to distinguish magnetic reconnection from typical discharge behaviors of current carrying plasma. They are using magnetic reconnection to explain typical discharge behaviors of current carrying plasma in a mathematically consistent manor. The belief that they are trying to distinguish magnetic reconnection from typical discharge behaviors of current carrying plasma is a straw man based on your own futile desires to fundamentally separate electrical aspects from magnetic aspects.


They have physical models which describe the process and are experimentally verifying them in laboratories.

The Sweet-Parker reconnection ansatz is undoubtedly correct. It has been simulated numerically innumerable times, and was recently confirmed experimentally in the Magnetic Reconnection Experiment (MRX) operated by Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory.37 The problem is that Sweet-Parker reconnection takes place far too slowly to account for many reconnection processes which are thought to take place in the solar system.

One, admittedly rather controversial, resolution of this problem was suggested by Petschek.38 He pointed out that magnetic energy can be converted into plasma thermal energy as a result of shock waves being set up in the plasma, in addition to the conversion due to the action of resistive diffusion. The configuration envisaged by Petschek is sketched in Fig. 29. Two waves (slow mode shocks) stand in the flow on either side of the interface, where the direction of reverses, marking the boundaries of the plasma outflow regions. A small diffusion region still exists on the interface, but now constitutes a miniature (in length) Sweet-Parker system.

Here we have the difference between science and your pseudoscience. In science problems with theories are identified and an effort is made to correct or replace the theory. In your pseudoscience problems like your exploding charged sun are not calculated, dismissed when they are found and just simply ignored to maintain the fictitious validity of your pseudoscience.

No, it's not a "redefinition" ... it's a relabeling (without understanding of the underlying physics). Again I ask ... what happens to the magnetic field and the energy your astrophysicists claim is in it if the current stops flowing?

A “re-labeling” is a “redefinition” of the terms used to refer to the aspects being identified. Thanks again for conceding my point.

 

[The Man]

Several folks here (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=865&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0 "Debunking Magnetic Reconnection") summed the situation up this way.

You have got to be kidding; this is what they call a debunking of magnetic reconnection? The discussion forum thread you linked is nothing but bunk. It’s just some people speculating about magnetic reconnection. Some of that speculation is based only on what happens with the $20 dollar plasma ball they picked up from Spencer gifts or wherever. Other then that it is mostly based on believing there is some fundamental isolation between the electrical and magnetic aspects of electromagnetism, also considering everything written or said by Hannes Olof Gösta Alfvén as some immutable physical principle. Based on the number of times he is cited I suppose I could just start calling the whole group Alfvén and his chipmunks. The discussion is so replete with pseudoscience and woo that I would not even know where to begin to list them all. So I’ll just leave it for everyone else to see for themselves.


If you really want a good dose of bunk, pseudoscience and woo take a look at some of the other discussion threads on the “thunderbolts.info” forum topic “electric universe”. Truly the credulous leading the clueless.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB/phpBB2/viewforum.php?f=1

 

[Ziggurat]

Based on the number of times he is cited I suppose I could just start calling the whole group Alfvén and his chipmunks.

I've been digging a little myself, and it just gets more and more ridiculous. Another site linked to by the thunderdolts quotes Alfven as saying, "There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time." Apparently he never heard of thermodynamics. They also seem to have the standard bug up their rears about black holes. They can't stand them, but can't actually formulate a coherent reason why they shouldn't or can't exist. It's almost comical.

 

[BeAChooser]

I've been skimming their "Electric Universe" intro, and it's riddled with mistakes. http://www.thunderbolts.info/EU Intro And Chap1.pdf . For example, they state "The laws of physics were suspended to allow for ‘black holes.’" Uh, no. The laws of physics predicted black holes.

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=tyybhrr8 "Black holes tear logic apart"

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=qwk0u6cc "The Madness of Black Holes"

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12089&feedId=online-news_rss20 "Do black holes really exist?, 18 June 2007 ... snip ... Black holes might not exist – or at least not as scientists have imagined, cloaked by an impenetrable "event horizon". A controversial new calculation could abolish the horizon, and so solve a troubling paradox in physics."

http://blog.case.edu/case-news/2007/06/20/blackholes "June 20, 2007, Black holes don't exist, Case physicists report"

http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn9620-mysterious-quasar-casts-doubt-on-black-holes.html "Mysterious quasar casts doubt on black holes, 27 July 2006"

They're also dishonest in the extreme when characterizing the physics community. They state, "As a rule, astrophysicists will not attend conferences having anything to do with electric discharge in plasma." Uh, NO. The American Physical Society holds a number of conferences.

Are you aware that the American Physical Society just recently announced that it now acknowledges Electric Universe/Plasma Cosmology as a legitimate field of study? Maybe times are changing (despite your efforts). But it is the exception to the rule. Most other astrophysics, plasma or astronomy societies still appear intent on keeping EU/PC ideas out of their conferences and proceedings.

They also make the same mistake you did, which I pointed out earlier, in concluding that the temperature of the CMB was the critical finding and that big bang proponents were farther off than others in predicting it.

They are correct in stating that big bang proponents were farther off than others in predicting it.

The significant finding is NOT the temperature, but the fact that the spectrum is a perfect blackbody shape. And nobody outside the big bang proponents predicted that.

Perhaps that's the problem. It shouldn't be "perfect". There should have been small variations in it. And when astronomers went looking, they found them ... but then ran into the problem of explaining how they could have formed in the time available. And, by the way, you are still ASSUMING the CMB is coming from the edge of the universe. Well, where are the cluster shadows? Missing ... like your dark matter?

In fact, nobody has even come up with an alternative theory after the fact which can explain this lineshape.

That's false. Plasma cosmologists such as Eric Lerner have proposed that plasma filaments are the cause. These would scatter the radiation into a blackbody spectrum. And we know these filaments are out there. Eric Lerner predicted that if such filaments existed, we would see a significant drop in radio radiation but not infrared radiation (because one would be scattered and the other would not). And that's what the data shows. This is also a finding that Big Bang modelers have never explained. Radio radiation is being absorbed by "something" but not infrared radiation. If it's not plasma filaments, perhaps its iron whiskers. There is observational evidence to support their existence, too. Or perhaps it's both, working together.

Then they make the simply laughable statement, "Einstein then spent much of his later life searching for a way to reconcile gravity and electromagnetism — without success. That is not surprising. As a theoretical mathematician he had no knowledge of the plasma universe and took no account of the electrical nature of matter."

Uh, no. Einstein wasn't trying to reconcile the two forces, he was trying to unify them

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpa...93BA25753C1A961948260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=3 "THEORY OF EVERYTHING, By K.C. COLE ... snip ... October 18, 1987 ... snip ... "Newton's great discovery, for instance, was that the same force that pulled the apple to the ground also held the moon in its orbit around the earth and the earth in its orbit around the sun. Magnetism, electricity and light were long thought to be completely unconnected - until Maxwell and Faraday found that all were manifestations of electromagnetism. Einstein's theory of relativity grew out of his efforts to reconcile electromagnetism with classical mechanics. Most recently, physicists have been obsessed with trying to unify, or find connections among, the known fundamental forces of nature: gravity, electromagnetism, the ''strong'' force that holds particles together within the nucleus of an atom and the ''weak'' force that accounts for, among other things, radioactivity, the spontaneous disintegration of the nucleus that results in the emission of energy. "

http://www.logosjournal.com/issue_4.3/smolin.htm "The basic principle of the first is the relativity of uniform motion, that the speed of your own motion is impossible to detect. Einstein’s discovery of special relativity came from 10 years of meditation on how to reconcile the relativity of motion with James Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, which describes the propagation of light."

http://www.blazelabs.com/f-u-intro.asp "A unified field theory would reconcile seemingly incompatible aspects of various field theories, to create a single comprehensive set of equations. ... snip ... For example, in 1861-65 James Maxwell Clerk explained the interrelation of electric and magnetic fields in his unified theory of electromagnetism. Then, in 1881-84 Hertz demonstrated that radio waves and light were both electromagnetic waves, as predicted by Maxwell's theory. Early in the 20th century, Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity - dealing with gravitation - became the second field theory. The term unified field theory was coined by Einstein, who was attempting to prove that electromagnetism and gravity were different manifestations of a single fundamental field."

Then they make this laughable statement:

I guess both sides of this debate can make laughable statements. Like you claiming that the matter in jets isn't plasma and that most of the observed matter in the universe isn't plasma.

 

[Ziggurat]

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=tyybhrr8[/url] "Black holes tear logic apart"

Laughable. Black holes weren't invented to solve anything, as that page pretends, they are an inescapable result of Einstein's field equations for gravity. And EVERY test of those field equations, from the precession of Mercury's orbit to confirmed gravitational lensing around the sun to gravitational time dilation to the recent observation of frame dragging confirms those field equations. If you want to disprove black holes categorically, you need to disprove those field equations. Most of your links even attempt to do so. They merely resort to argument from incredulity.

http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn12089&feedId=online-news_rss20[/url] "Do black holes really exist?, 18 June 2007 ... snip ... Black holes might not exist – or at least not as scientists have imagined, cloaked by an impenetrable "event horizon". A controversial new calculation could abolish the horizon, and so solve a troubling paradox in physics."

http://blog.case.edu/case-news/2007/06/20/blackholes "June 20, 2007, Black holes don't exist, Case physicists report"

Funny thing, though, but from a practical perspective, this doesn't really change anything. Externally, these objects would behave pretty much the same way conventional black holes do. It's only near the event horizon, where we can't get to, where anything would change. So if black holes are somehow problematic for an electric universe model, these things would be too. If an electric universe model would prohibit conventional black holes, it would prohibit these too. These links don't give you an out.

Are you aware that the American Physical Society just recently announced that it now acknowledges Electric Universe/Plasma Cosmology as a legitimate field of study?

I seriously doubt it. The APS isn't in the habit of declaring what is and isn't a legitimate field of study. That's not really part of their job. And I note you don't have a link for that. My guess is that some electric universe guys gave a talk at one of the APS conferences, and interpreted that as some sort of seal of approval. If that's what happened, they're completely wrong. The APS doesn't filter submitted talks. If you pay your membership dues and conference registration, anyone can submit a talk at their conferences on basically any topic. And crackpots frequently do.

Perhaps that's the problem. It shouldn't be "perfect". There should have been small variations in it.

Wow, did you miss the entire point. The variations you refer to are spatial variations. They are NOT variations in the lineshape at any given point away from blackbody. There should be no variations in the lineshape, and none are observed. And no competing theory can explain that.

And, by the way, you are still ASSUMING the CMB is coming from the edge of the universe.

No, actually, I'm not assuming that at all. I'm comparing the observation to the prediction. The big bang prediction is that it should be a blackbody spectrum. And it is. No other theory predicts a blackbody spectrum. You keep on ignoring that point, but it will not go away.

That's false. Plasma cosmologists such as Eric Lerner have proposed that plasma filaments are the cause. These would scatter the radiation into a blackbody spectrum.

Why should they do that? Plasmas are not perfect blackbodies, so how can they possibly scatter radiation into a perfect blackbody spectrum?

Einstein's theory of relativity grew out of his efforts to reconcile electromagnetism with classical mechanics.

Indeed. Classical mechanics is incompatible with electromagnetism. Special relativity is not. General relativity (Einstein's theory of gravity) is not. There is, therefore, no need to reconcile gravity (in other words, general relativity) with electromagnetism, and Einstein never tried. This quote in no way contradicts that point. Rather, it only displays your ignorance on the topic.

Most recently, physicists have been obsessed with trying to unify, or find connections among, the known fundamental forces of nature

Which is what I said. It is a unification of gravity and electromagnetism, not a reconciliation, that Einstein was searching for. Your own source backs me up, but you couldn't figure it out because you don't understand relativity.

 

[BeAChooser]

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Because the only sources I can find seem to conclude that Holmes is "atypical".

Perhaps in terms of the outburst and its magnitude, or timing past perihelion. Not necessarily its composition.

Wrong. Sources even say it's composition is "atypical". Here:

http:arxiv.org/pdf/0712.3314.pdf "The unique nature of the recent outburst of 17P does indicate that its composition and other properties
must be atypical in some marked way."

I don't recall see anything requiring all comets to be wet.

http://www.nasa.gov/worldbook/comet_worldbook.html " A comet (KOM iht) is an icy body that releases gas or dust. ... snip ... The nucleus of a comet is a ball of ice and rocky dust particles that resembles a dirty snowball. The ice consists mainly of frozen water"

http://www.planetary.org/explore/topics/near_earth_objects/asteroids_and_comets/comet_facts.html "Comets are small, irregularly shaped objects composed of a mixture of rocks, dust, and what astronomers refer to as “ice” -- frozen water, methane, and ammonia."

http://www.noao.edu/education/igcomet/igcomet.html "Chemical composition of the nucleus by number, based on coma observations: • H2O ice is the main component (80-90%)"

http://www.yale.edu/ynhti/curriculum/units/1996/6/96.06.03.x.html "The nucleus consists primarily of water ice and solid carbon monoxide, with additional small quantities of carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, nitrogen, formaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide."

For that matter, name a comet that mainstream astrophysicists have concluded contained no water.

That only 5-6% of the surface consisted of water ice

You misstate the amount they found. http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/deepimpact/media/deepimpact_water_ice.html. "The ice covered less than 1% of Comet Tempel 1’s surface and of that area only 6% consisted of pure water ice."

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
How can one "firmly conclude" that is true for "comets" in general?

Because it's based upon direct observations?

The only comet they've penetrated with a lander was Tempel 1. They did watch Schumacher Levy break up and saw no evidence of water.

In 2000, the SWAN instrument on SOHO was used to observe the comet from 5/25 through 8/12 and it was determined the comet shed 3.3 million tons of water during that period.

Based on the ASSUMPTION that detected OH came from water. Electric comet theorists have suggested another possible source for OH.

But it's bogus to claim this confirms there is lots of water in all comets. And if there isn't, then explaining the jets in those cases becomes problematic for the mainstream model. Wouldn't you agree?

Nope.

Then how does a mainstream comet create a tail full of OH if there's not lots of water?

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
Furthermore, both your sources fail to explain how ice that is "deep" in a comet could vaporize due to heat from the sun to create the tails and jets that characterize comets.

They were neither provided nor written for that purpose, so that's a silly gripe to raise.

Then here's another challenge for you. Find a mainstream source that does lay out a believable mechanism by which the ice deep in a comet can be vaporized by heat from the sun to create those stunning jets and tails given the excellent insulating characteristics of the surface materials on comets.

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
So how does the heat get to the "deep" ice to vaporize it and create the jets and outbursts that were seen coming from the comet long before and long after the impact? Do you or NASA have any real explanation for this? Or are you just ignoring this?

The mechanism isn't known at present, but ongoing study continues.

That's a mighty important item ... too important to have no other answer than "study continues". I hope they don't invent another gnome to explain it.

Initially, according to this, the impact released 4500 metric tons of water, and that more dust was present. Further observations by SWIFT released the following year, however, revealed a noteworthy increase in output.

They based that claim of 4500 tons on OH measurements. But as I've noted, electric comet theorists suggest there is another explanation for that OH ... one that doesn't involve water.

And the SWIFT team concluded that 250,000 tons was released. That's quite a difference from the other estimate. And they based that on the ASSUMPTION that x-rays that were measured were the result of water being lifted into the solar wind. First of all, charge exchange doesn't require the neutral atoms be water. Second, electric theorists have suggested a different source of the electrons producing x-rays in comets ... one that doesn't require water or neutral atoms. Third, sources on these SWIFT results have noted that the long period of increased X-ray emission is puzzling because views of the comet at optical wavelengths suggest out-gassing died down relatively shortly after the impact. Fourth, have you done a calculation of how big 250,000 tons of ice would be? Even without considering the very low density that the mainstream astronomers claim the Tempel 1 comet has, that much ice would be bigger than the crater they claim has been carved out of the comet. Explain that, please.

Originally Posted by BeAChooser
And then there is this curious item, brought to our attention by McCanney. It illustrates the way mainstream astronomers think. In March 2006, they announced (see http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/X_...ep_Impact.html ) that "Over the duration of the outburst, the team calculated, the mass of water released by the impact totaled 250,000 tons." Now that's a lot of water. But it's important to note that they didn't directly measure that water. They detected x-rays ... x-rays that Electric Comet theorists say have an entirely different origin than the one that mainstream theorists think. And examine the mainstream train of thought. It is ASSUMED that a brightening of x-ray emissions 13 days after the impact means water is present in the tail. It is ASSUMED it must have come from the impact site. But did anyone bother to figure out how big 250,000 tons of water is? Well McCanney did. It's a cube over 200 feet on a side. About as big or even bigger than the crater the impact is believed to have carved out of the comet. Do you see the problem in that, Wolverine?

The problem I see is that you're relying on cranks as if they're reliable sources of information

Perhaps you missed the source for this report. It wasn't McCanney but www.spacedaily.com and NASA.

It's also not surprising that he didn't provide any calculations for how he arrived at his "200' cube" conclusion, but that hasn't stopped you from buying into it because it's what you'd like to hear.

Well let's do the math. 250,000 TONS of water. Water weighs 62.4 LBS/CF. So that's 250000 TONS * 2000 LBS/TON /62.4 = 8,012,820 CF . Which is 200 FT * 200 FT * 200 FT. McCanney was right.

 

[BeAChooser]

The important point was always the perfect blackbody lineshape.

And again, perhaps it shouldn't be "perfect".

That is the part which cannot be explained by any competing theory.

If material is in thermal equilibrium, it should give a blackbody spectrum. Space filled with filaments and whiskers could create such an equilibrium. Also, a longer time than that postulated by the Big Bang community for the age of the universe could help do that. You are wrong when you state that it cannot be explained by any competing theory. And at least the originators of the alternative theory managed to get the temperature of the black body spectrum right in their predictions. Gamow wasn't even close.

but the specific temperature was never the important point.

You are wrong. It is a very important point since that temperature relates to the energy content of the universe.

http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0310214 "Observational Cosmology: caveats and open questions in the standard model ... May 16, 2006 ... snip ... None of the predictions of the background temperature based on the Big Bang, which ranged between 5 K and 50 K, matched observations, the worst being Gamow’s upward-revised estimate of 50 K made in 1961. In 1965, the year of the discovery, a temperature of 30 K was calculated for the amount of helium production observed. ... snip ... As the energy is proportional to T⁴, the energy observed is several thousand times less than predicted energy"

The fact that Gamow got the temperature so wrong might suggest the mechanisms he postulated for creating that energy might be wrong too. Don't you think?

Those predictions cannot account for the perfect blackbody lineshape.

Wrong again. http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0310214 discusses this. First, it notes that "if the observed abundance of He was obtained by hydrogen burning in stars, there must have been a phase in the history of the Universe when the radiation density was much higher than the energy density of starlight today. ... snip ... If this energy is thermalized, the black body temperature turns out to be T = 2.76 K, very close to the observed temperature for the CMBR. Hence, there is a likely explanation of the energy of the microwave radiation in terms of straightforward astrophysics involving hydrogen burning in stars. Hoyle et al. also pointed out the suspect coincidence between the microwave background temperature and that of hydrogen in condensation on grains. They postulate that galaxy and star formation proceed very readily when hydrogen is condensed on grains but not when it is gaseous, and the universal microwave background temperature is that associated with galaxy formation. The solution for the black-body emission shape might be the special properties of the particles, which are not normal dust particles". This source notes that "the quasi-steady state model argues that there is a distribution of whiskers" but that leads to opaque universe at a redshift of about 4 which it is observationally not. However, it then notes that "a solution might be an infinite universe. Opaqueness is required only in a finite universe, an infinite universe can achieve thermodynamic equilibrium even if transparent out to very large distances".

The source then describes a second alternative ... Eric Lerner's proposed solution, which is that "electrons in intergalactic magnetic fields emit and absorb microwave radiation. There is no relation between the direction in which the radiation was moving when it was absorbed and its direction as a reemission, so the microwaves would be scattered. After a few scatterings, the radiation would be smoothed out. Magnetic fields much stronger than the average field between galaxies would be needed; perhaps the jets emitted from galactic nuclei would provide it. The background radiation would be distorted by this intergalactic absorption against isotropy observations, so the radiation must instead come from the intergalactic medium itself in equilibrium. This prediction agrees with the fact that the number of radio sources increases much more slowly than the number of optical sources with distance; presumably due to this absorption of radio waves in the intergalactic medium. Observational evidence was also presented that something in the intergalactic medium is absorbing radio and microwaves because farther radio sources with a given constant infrared emission are fainter in radio." The source then points out that there are some exceptions to the above observations and suggests Lerner's theory is wrong because it's "unlikely" those exceptions are all due to anomolous redshifts. But they don't really know.

http://www.earthtech.org/publications/ibison_ccci.pdf "Thermalization of Starlight in the Steady-State Cosmology, Michael Ibison ... snip ... Abstract. We investigate the fate of starlight in the Steady-State Cosmology. We discover that it is largely unaffected by the presence of ions in intergalactic space as it gets progressively red-shifted from the visible all the way down to the plasma frequency of the intergalactic matter. At that point, after about 450 Gyr - and contrary to previously published claims the radiation will be thermalized. Under the assumptions adopted by Gold, Bondi, Hoyle, Narlikar, Burbidge and others concerning the creation of matter in the Steady-State Cosmology, and using reasonable estimates for the baryonic massdensity and mass-fraction of 4He, the analysis predicts a universal radiation field matching the CMB, i.e. having a black-body spectrum and temperature of about 2.7 K. The Steady-state Cosmology predicts that this radiation field will appear to originate from the intergalactic plasma."

And here are more problems with Big Bang's interpretation of CMBR.

http://www.thisisby.us/index.php/content/the_cosmic_microwave_background__proof_of_the_big_bang "The Cosmic Microwave Background - Proof of the Big Bang? ... snip ... CMB also has a number of problems in living up to the expectations of the theory. ... snip ... This article will examine only a few of these inconsistencies. First, the echo of creation, by its nature, must originate from the farthest reaches of the universe. ... snip ... the energy now being received from the CMB must have traveled across the whole of the cosmos to reach this location at this time. Because of this, there should be evidence imprinted on the CMB showing a sort of record of its travels. Studies conducted by Prof. Richard Lieu at the University of Alabama used NASA's own Wilkonson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) to look for evidence of this passage. The First study, as recounted by Space Daily in 2005, looked for evidence of gravitational lensing in the CMB. ... snip ... This would leave a clear image on the CMB in the areas that have been so magnified. No evidence of the effect was found, so the CMB could not have originated from beyond the galaxy clusters; compliance with the requirements of the physical laws is not optional. Another study by Prof. Lieu's team, published in the Astrophysical Journal in 2006, looked for evidence of a shadow' effect, called the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, in the CMB. This is another requirement needed to prove that the CMB came from beyond nearby galaxy clusters. The effect manifests in a fashion similar to a silhouette. If a light source is behind an object, relative to an observer, then that object should cast a shadow forward onto the observer. This effect was not found in the CMB either."

Here's one of the above mentioned reports:

http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/429793 "On the Absence of Gravitational Lensing of the Cosmic Microwave Background, Richard*Lieu and Jonathan*P.*D.*Mittaz, 2004 ... snip ... When all the effects are accrued, it is difficult to understand how WMAP could reveal no evidence whatsoever of lensing by groups and clusters."

Here is Lerner's take on this: http://www.astrosciences.info/Cosmo2004.htm "Richard Lieu of the University of Alabama demonstrated mathematically that if the CMB originates at great distance, gravitational lensing will magnify its intensity for any observer by about 1.5% compared with a perfect blackbody spectrum with the same peak frequency (http://arxix.org/pdf/astro-ph/0409655). This is in gross contradiction with observations, which show an agreement at least a thousand times better with a perfect black body. This implies again than the surface of last scattering of the CMB is a few Mpc away, not a few thousand Mpcs as in the BB theory."


http://www.springerlink.com/content/w4073g72t0pj6180/ " Intergalactic radio absorption and the cobe data, Astrophysics and Space Science ... Eric J. Lerner ... snip ... Abstract**The COBE data on cosmic Background radiation (CBR) isotropy and spectrum are generally considered to be explicable only in the context of the Big Bang theory and to be confirmation of that theory. However, this data can also be explained by an alternative, non-Big Bang model which hypothesizes an intergalactic radio-absorbing and scattering medium. A simple, inhomogenous model of such an absorbing medium can reproduce both the isotropy and spectrum of the CBR within the limits observed by COBE, and in fact gives a better to fit to the spectrum observations than does a pure blackbody. Such a model does not contradict any other observations, such as the existence of distant radio sources."

It should also be mentioned that Hoyle, Burbidge and Narlikar, in their 2000 book "A Different Approach to Cosmology" (http://books.google.com/books?id=fL...ces&sig=tDI1EOQVNnN_qhekzMqpu8Psg4g#PPA162,M1 ), state "The view in the 1960s was that to get such a black-body curve from many discrete sources, as is required in a steady-state theory, was highly contrived and could in effect be ruled out. ... snip ... However, in Chapter 16 we shall consider what we believe is an excellent model that will explain the microwave background based on the quasi-steady-state model which gives rise to a near black-body curve fitting all of the COBE data." Now I don't have access to the complete book so I couldn't take a look but it appears your statement that alternative cosmologists have not offered an explanation for the shape of the CMB is false. By the way, this book also discusses Hoyle's iron whiskers theory in great detail.

Quote:
It fits the non-Big Bang theory just as well.

No it doesn't. Which is why none of those guys talk about the lineshape. They probably aren't even aware of its significance.

Well as the sources above prove, you are wrong ... again.

It only demonstrates (once again) that you can't do math. 1017 seconds is 3 billion years

You're right. My bad. Nothing's amiss. But you are still wrong in claiming as you did that his initial prediction was 50K and he revised it to 5K later based on a better age for the universe. As I clearly proved here (http://www.ias.ac.in/resonance/July2...004p32-43.html ), his initial prediction was 5K which didn't get changed to 50K until about 1961. And apparently in both calculations he assumed the age was only 3 billion years.

Oh, and if you want to get a superscript, use the tags. For example, 109 can be written as 10(sup)9(/sup), except use square brackets instead of parentheses. Makes exponents much more readable.

Thanks, that's good to know.

None of them predicted that the spectrum itself was blackbody.

Fine. And none of the Big Bangers predicted the filamentary nature of the universe ... which plasma cosmologists clearly did. And at least the alternative cosmology community can explain the black body curve now (as noted above). I'm still waiting to hear a convincing explanation from the Big Bang community for the filamentary character of the universe ... one that doesn't involve the gnomes of dark matter, dark energy and which adequately explain the size of voids and the curious axis alignment of galaxies around those voids.

 

[sol invictus]

And again, perhaps it shouldn't be "perfect".

Those error bars are 400 sigma!! Normally people make plots with 1 or 2 signma error bars. If they did that here they'd be far too small to see.

The CMB is the most perfect blackbody ever observed.

If material is in thermal equilibrium, it should give a blackbody spectrum.

You continue to display your utter and complete ignorance of basic physics. Evidently it extands beyond electromagnetism, gravity, and astrophysics to the fundamentals of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics.

 

[Ziggurat]

And again, perhaps it shouldn't be "perfect".

Wrong.

If material is in thermal equilibrium, it should give a blackbody spectrum.

Laughably wrong. Do objects turn black when they reach thermal equilibrium? Your own everyday experience should rather prove that they don't. Being in thermal equilibrium does not turn an object into a blackbody. How could you even make such a monumental mistake unless you don't even understand what the term means?

Space filled with filaments and whiskers could create such an equilibrium.

I thought you were opposed to the idea of deducing the existence of things we cannot directly observe. That's your entire objection to dark matter. And yet, here you do it yourself. Oh, the irony.

You are wrong when you state that it cannot be explained by any competing theory. And at least the originators of the alternative theory managed to get the temperature of the black body spectrum right in their predictions.

Once again: they did not predict that the background radiation would be a blackbody spectrum. They rather obviously did not. They modeled the temperature based upon heating from starlight, which is not blackbody.

You are wrong. It is a very important point since that temperature relates to the energy content of the universe.

It also relates to the age of the universe, and Gamow got that wrong. Newton also screwed up his first attempt to calculate the orbit of the moon with his law of universal gravity. Big whoop.

The fact that Gamow got the temperature so wrong might suggest the mechanisms he postulated for creating that energy might be wrong too. Don't you think?

Or it might not. People are fallible. The real question in that regard is not whether Gamow got it right, but whether someone can get it right with the theory.

They postulate that galaxy and star formation proceed very readily when hydrogen is condensed on grains but not when it is gaseous, and the universal microwave background temperature is that associated with galaxy formation. The solution for the black-body emission shape might be the special properties of the particles, which are not normal dust particles".

Once again, you're inventing properties of matter to fit the theory. I thought you were opposed to that. Well, they can propose whatever special properties they like, but nobody is going to believe them (well, nobody with a clue) unless they show how such grains can become perfect blackbodies. I'm not holding my breath for that one.

This source notes that "the quasi-steady state model argues that there is a distribution of whiskers"

Whiskers of what? Perfectly black material? No such thing.

Opaqueness is required only in a finite universe, an infinite universe can achieve thermodynamic equilibrium even if transparent out to very large distances".

What a joke. You can't reach thermodynamic equilibrium unless everything is the same temperature. But since the CMB is rather obviously not at the same temperature as stars are, we're clearly NOT in thermal equilibrium. Which is also why a steady-state model is laughably wrong.

The source then describes a second alternative ... Eric Lerner's proposed solution, which is that "electrons in intergalactic magnetic fields emit and absorb microwave radiation.

Not in a blackbody spectrum, they don't.

This prediction agrees with the fact that the number of radio sources increases much more slowly than the number of optical sources with distance;

But this statement requires that we accept redshift = distance, which leads inexorably to the big bang hypothesis. That's a little... odd of you.

http://www.earthtech.org/publications/ibison_ccci.pdf "Thermalization of Starlight in the Steady-State Cosmology, Michael Ibison ... snip ... Abstract. We investigate the fate of starlight in the Steady-State Cosmology. We discover that it is largely unaffected by the presence of ions in intergalactic space as it gets progressively red-shifted from the visible all the way down to the plasma frequency of the intergalactic matter. At that point, after about 450 Gyr - and contrary to previously published claims the radiation will be thermalized. Under the assumptions adopted by Gold, Bondi, Hoyle, Narlikar, Burbidge and others concerning the creation of matter in the Steady-State Cosmology, and using reasonable estimates for the baryonic massdensity and mass-fraction of 4He, the analysis predicts a universal radiation field matching the CMB, i.e. having a black-body spectrum and temperature of about 2.7 K. The Steady-state Cosmology predicts that this radiation field will appear to originate from the intergalactic plasma."

Steady-state models violate the 2nd law of thermodynamics. They can be dismissed out of hand for that alone. If the steady state universe was right, the intergallactic medium shouldn't thermalize to 2.7K, it should thermalize to the same temperature as stars. The night sky would be white, and earth would boil to a crisp. This problem was noted even before the big bang was proposed. Whatever the origins of the universe, thermodynamics rigorously precludes a steady-state solution.

 

[Molinaro]

It's almost comical.

There we have it. Ziggurat's first error of the thread.

Almost?!

Now that of course magically makes everything else you've said wrong and all that 'lectric stuff magically right.

That is the tactic BeAChooser, isn't it?

You seem to be ignoring points you make that are wrong and just jumping to something else. Are you simply looking to find one thing right that will make all the wrong stuff magically right?

Anyhow, not sure why I missed this thread before today, but it sure was interesting to read in one shot.

 

[The Man]

Ah yes, and here we have the limitations of scientists, we must examine all aspects, especially those we may not agree with. Likewise, we expect other professed scientists to do the same. Unfortunately, pseudo-scientists are not bound by such constraints, they are free to focus on some particular aspect and ascribe a similar singular opposing focus to those not conforming to their contrived point of view. We can only hope to expand that singular perception by demonstrating that those aspects they focus on may just be one part of the multiple aspects of the mainstream science they so detest. With speculation anything is possible, with calculation we limit what we speculate may be possible to what is actually probable. Pseudoscience is based on an acceptance of the former; science must confirm the former by enacting the latter.

 

[robinson]

Ah yes, and here we have the limitations of scientists, we must examine all aspects, especially those we may not agree with. Likewise, we expect other professed scientists to do the same.

Are you being sarcastic?

 

[Dancing David]

Are you being sarcastic?

I would not say that it is sarcastic, it is more about critical thought. Science changes and grows, it does not matter what number Gamow thought the temperature would be, what matters is that the theory makes predictions.
Just as the theory of dark matter does, if a theory makes accurate predictions it remains, if the theory makes inaccurate predictions it is revised of scrubbed.

Then there are the things that people find for new, by doing things like sending probes to comets or checking the chirality of weak particles.

 

[robinson]

Ah yes, and here we have the limitations of scientists, we must examine all aspects, especially those we may not agree with. Likewise, we expect other professed scientists to do the same.

I don't get what you are saying. "we must examine all aspects, especially those we may not agree with", what does that mean? We may not agree with? How can you not agree with an aspect of something?

 

[Dancing David]

Things like the fact that COBE did not show enough lumps in the CBR for the model to form galaxies and cluster. Then WMAP kind of dhowed some lumps but currently the lumps aren't big enough to be explained as the formative factors for the super clusters, clusters and galaxies.

So while the BBE has a set of good predictions that are matched, there are some predictions which aren't matched. So the theory will be refined or passed over. And new data may totally abrogate the whole thing at some point.