Moderated Iron sun with Aether batteries...

[tusenfem]

This is important because these are the raw materials for nucleosynthesis.
This happens on a continual basis on the surface in pinches(reconnections).

When, as the piece of text says, the neutrals are ionized, they are picked up by the magnetic field of the solar wind. This is a very important process in the heliosphere (which basically was the topic of the meeting I went to) and the ionized particles are transported away with the solar wind.

So NO, they are not the "raw material for nucleosynthesis" (I guess you mean fusion here) because they will not go into the sun.

And pinches are NOT reconnection. Pinches (I guess you mean the Bennett pinch) is in one current carrying flux tube, where the magnetic squeezing overcomes the counter plasma pressure. Then you bring field lines together that point in the same direction so there will be NO reconnection.

Once more, you probably mean something else and use the wrong physical terms to describe your nonsensical ideas.

 

[HansMustermann]

You know, sorry for the possible derail, but there is one aspect of this that gets me... puzzled and confused: why?

I mean, I can understand woo like variable light speed, because it's needed for YEC handwaving. Or some quality gravitational lensing woo to make the universe much smaller, to the same end. Etc.

But woo like this just makes no sense. Why replace perfectly good fusion energy with some mysterious and ill defined "aether batteries"? And why is an iron sun any better than a big ball of plasma anyway? It just raises a whole bunch of questions (starting with how it would work at all, once you get into even the most superficial details), answers none better than the existing model, and, really... to what end? Why?

And really, it's something the quality of... well, let's just say normally I'd take it as an attempt at absurdist humour. It's the kind of thing which you might find even in a pop-sci magazine only on April 1st. I mean, it's on par with an old April 1st article in an electronics magazine about "write only memory". It's stupidly absurd or absurdly stupid on so many levels, that it just has to be a joke.

And I just don't understand to what end. It doesn't fit any real observation. It doesn't seem to fit any obvious ulterior motive either. It isn't even just right for any level of ignorance or flawed knowledge. So why? Just knee-jerk anti-intellectualism? Or?

 

[sol invictus]

You know, sorry for the possible derail, but there is one aspect of this that gets me... puzzled and confused: why?

I mean, I can understand woo like variable light speed, because it's needed for YEC handwaving. Or some quality gravitational lensing woo to make the universe much smaller, to the same end. Etc.

But woo like this just makes no sense. Why replace perfectly good fusion energy with some mysterious and ill defined "aether batteries"? And why is an iron sun any better than a big ball of plasma anyway? It just raises a whole bunch of questions (starting with how it would work at all, once you get into even the most superficial details), answers none better than the existing model, and, really... to what end? Why?

And really, it's something the quality of... well, let's just say normally I'd take it as an attempt at absurdist humour. It's the kind of thing which you might find even in a pop-sci magazine only on April 1st. I mean, it's on par with an old April 1st article in an electronics magazine about "write only memory". It's stupidly absurd or absurdly stupid on so many levels, that it just has to be a joke.

And I just don't understand to what end. It doesn't fit any real observation. It doesn't seem to fit any obvious ulterior motive either. It isn't even just right for any level of ignorance or flawed knowledge. So why? Just knee-jerk anti-intellectualism? Or?

Yeah, that's a really good question - it's the thing I wonder the most about in these threads, or more broadly the threads on "plasma cosmology" or the "electric universe".

I mean, why? What is it about that particular set of discredited ideas that gets these people so excited? It's really bizarre, kind of like the physics version of furries.

 

[Ziggurat]

You know, sorry for the possible derail, but there is one aspect of this that gets me... puzzled and confused: why?

Because Michael Mozina saw some running difference images of iron emission lines that look superficially like topographical features.

And really, it's something the quality of... well, let's just say normally I'd take it as an attempt at absurdist humour.

It's possible that brantc is just playing the role. But Michael Mozina, the guy who came up with the idea, is completely serious. He's got a web page devoted to this nonsense if you're curious:
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/

 

[CaveDave]

The structure of the sun from the surface to the corona is this.
The iron surface.
Photosphere.
Chromosphere.
Corona.

The photosphere is ~1500 miles above the solid surface.

The functional mechanism for energy transfer that I'm talking about is the the flow of iron.

It happens like this. The surface has areas of positive and negative electrical charge(potential). Because of the potential difference between these areas a current arises, the strength depending on the activity beneath the surface(later post) which translates to electron flow.
Initially there is the Faraday Dark current that flows all the time, as long as there is potential between the 2 areas.
As the current gets stronger there is a transition to glow mode along field lines.

WTF is Faraday Dark Current?

This happens because the current at the loop footprints is strong enough to start to produce thermionic activity(melt iron) at the loop fotprints so we start to see an iron plasma traveling along the "field lines".
Then what are known as solar arcades begin to form. At this point iron is fully ionized FeXIV as it travels around the loops. As the loops grow the molten ionized iron is carried up the loops as "hypervelocity blobs". This we observe using light at various wavelengths. 192nm,171nm,1200nm, etc...

This is where it gets interesting.
Then something called coronal rain forms and the cooled iron falls back to the sun. You can see the piles of fallen coronal rain underneath the loops.

http://trace.lmsal.com/POD/images/arcade_9_nov_2000.gif

What does this have to do with anything???

2 things.

1. This falling coronal rain is a falling solid that is cooling back down to the temperature of solid iron, 1000C, from almost 10,000F at the top of the loops, which happens to be ...... 5,537.77778 degrees Celsius.

Solids emit blackbody radiation so thats where the blackbody spectrum comes from. The falling coronal rain provides most of the upper blackbody 1000C to 5,537C, in addition to whatever component there is from the thin plasma which I expect be lines of some sort.
I know of no experimental example of "optical depth".

However if you look carefully at a fully accurate spectrum of the sun, you would notice a UV hump at the end of UV to EUV.
This is an electric arc feature that has no explanation in the standard model of the sun.
So its not really a true black body spectrum, only statistically speaking.

2. This also acts in conjunction with the "solar wind" to cool the sun.

Dude, you should seriously consider a career as a SciFi writer, you can make up some really wild stuff.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[blobru]

You know, sorry for the possible derail, but there is one aspect of this that gets me... puzzled and confused: why?

I mean, I can understand woo like variable light speed, because it's needed for YEC handwaving. Or some quality gravitational lensing woo to make the universe much smaller, to the same end. Etc.

But woo like this just makes no sense. Why replace perfectly good fusion energy with some mysterious and ill defined "aether batteries"? And why is an iron sun any better than a big ball of plasma anyway? It just raises a whole bunch of questions (starting with how it would work at all, once you get into even the most superficial details), answers none better than the existing model, and, really... to what end? Why?

And really, it's something the quality of... well, let's just say normally I'd take it as an attempt at absurdist humour. It's the kind of thing which you might find even in a pop-sci magazine only on April 1st. I mean, it's on par with an old April 1st article in an electronics magazine about "write only memory". It's stupidly absurd or absurdly stupid on so many levels, that it just has to be a joke.

And I just don't understand to what end. It doesn't fit any real observation. It doesn't seem to fit any obvious ulterior motive either. It isn't even just right for any level of ignorance or flawed knowledge. So why? Just knee-jerk anti-intellectualism? Or?

I think the role of "misunderstood genius" has terrific appeal, and these defunct theories cinch it. Might go something like this:

Say you want to be a physicist. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, you don't really understand physics all that well. You feel rejected by physics.

Then, one fateful day, idly thumbing through a musty old text at a library book sale, you come across it: a physics theory from 1906 that's also been rejected. How can you possibly resist? It's love at first sight! Like you were made for each other.

You delve into its secrets. It starts whispering sweet nothings... about electric universes, talking dirty about aether batteries, looks at you with those plasma cosmological bedroom eyes... before you know it, you're watching the iron sunrise together.

Yes, you're a new man. With a newfound confidence. No longer some dummy who doesn't really understand physics all that well. You're a misunderstood genius, with a misunderstood theory. The periodic tables of the elements have finally turned your lead into gold. Because from now on: it's not that you don't understand physics; physics doesn't understand you!

Just a guess.

 

[CaveDave]

the earth is at 4 million volts negative potential all the time.[/COLOR] ...

Relative to what, precisely?

How is this measured?

Do you even know how clueless that sounds?

Cheers,

Dave

 

[CaveDave]

I think the role of "misunderstood genius" has terrific appeal, and these defunct theories cinch it. Might go something like this:

Say you want to be a physicist. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, you don't really understand physics all that well. You feel rejected by physics.

Then, one fateful day, idly thumbing through a musty old text at a library book sale, you come across it: a physics theory from 1906 that's also been rejected. How can you possibly resist? It's love at first sight! Like you were made for each other.

You delve into its secrets. It starts whispering sweet nothings... about electric universes, talking dirty about aether batteries, looks at you with those plasma cosmological bedroom eyes... before you know it, you're watching the iron sunrise together.

Yes, you're a new man. With a newfound confidence. No longer some dummy who doesn't really understand physics all that well. You're a misunderstood genius, with a misunderstood theory. The periodic tables of the elements have finally turned your lead into gold. Because from now on: it's not that you don't understand physics; physics doesn't understand you!

Just a guess.

Nominated!

Thanks, blobru!

Cheers,

Dave

 

[HansMustermann]

I think the role of "misunderstood genius" has terrific appeal, and these defunct theories cinch it. Might go something like this:

Say you want to be a physicist. Unfortunately, for whatever reasons, you don't really understand physics all that well. You feel rejected by physics.

Then, one fateful day, idly thumbing through a musty old text at a library book sale, you come across it: a physics theory from 1906 that's also been rejected. How can you possibly resist? It's love at first sight! Like you were made for each other.

You delve into its secrets. It starts whispering sweet nothings... about electric universes, talking dirty about aether batteries, looks at you with those plasma cosmological bedroom eyes... before you know it, you're watching the iron sunrise together.

Yes, you're a new man. With a newfound confidence. No longer some dummy who doesn't really understand physics all that well. You're a misunderstood genius, with a misunderstood theory. The periodic tables of the elements have finally turned your lead into gold. Because from now on: it's not that you don't understand physics; physics doesn't understand you!

Just a guess.

Well, it's probably my... very limited understanding of humanity at work, but I still don't get it.

I wanted to be a physicist. I pretty much just changed my mind at the 12'th hour because, well, a good physics university was far away and a computer university was right nearby, and there never were that many jobs for physicists anyway.

But, see, that meant really being interested in physics.

My parents, bless their nerdy souls, had given me a physics book to read when I could barely read. Which was before school actually. I guess I had asked why is the sky blue or some such. I can tell you it was a lot more fascinating than the explanations involving fairies and whatnot.

Soon I was reading Berkeley university books on quantum mechanics, and could talk to anyone for hours about how a radio works, starting from the antenna and ending up with the speaker. I thought they must be really interested too. Heh

I'm not saying that to brag or anything, it's just the kind of attitude I'd expect from anyone who's serious about physics. I'd expect them to be genuinely interested in how stuff works. I'd expect them to read a lot more than picking one woo book and sticking with it.

And that's where such woo models come apart. The questions about them start at pretty elementary levels. It's stuff like "why doesn't that iron melt", or "so where does all that hydrogen in the corona and solar wind come from", or more generally for an electric universe "so where is the massive magnetic field to go with the kind of current that would account for the Sun's energy." Even the most elementary actual knowledge of physics, even just not having slept in physics class in high school, should put a dent into that.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and using too many words, is: I have trouble imagining someone who really really wanted to be a physicist too, but slept in physics class in school :/

 

[CaveDave]

April Fools Jokes in science mags

...
And really, it's something the quality of... well, let's just say normally I'd take it as an attempt at absurdist humour. It's the kind of thing which you might find even in a pop-sci magazine only on April 1st. I mean, it's on par with an old April 1st article in an electronics magazine about "write only memory". It's stupidly absurd or absurdly stupid on so many levels, that it just has to be a joke.
...

Reminds me (unless I hallucinated it.) of the Scientific American article, purporting to be Anthropological, wherein an ancient tribe of Meso-Americans had developed digital technology - even computers - using grass ropes and logs to construct basic logic gates and combining them into complex machines covering square miles and all powered by humans or animals!

I think the tribe was called the "Apriphulians" or something like that. (I can't seem to find it on Google.)

ETA: ISTR it was in the mid-70s.

Of course, it was the April issue...

Cheers,

Dave

 

[CaveDave]

Well, it's probably my... very limited understanding of humanity at work, but I still don't get it.

I wanted to be a physicist. I pretty much just changed my mind at the 12'th hour because, well, a good physics university was far away and a computer university was right nearby, and there never were that many jobs for physicists anyway.

But, see, that meant really being interested in physics.

My parents, bless their nerdy souls, had given me a physics book to read when I could barely read. Which was before school actually. I guess I had asked why is the sky blue or some such. I can tell you it was a lot more fascinating than the explanations involving fairies and whatnot.

Soon I was reading Berkeley university books on quantum mechanics, and could talk to anyone for hours about how a radio works, starting from the antenna and ending up with the speaker. I thought they must be really interested too. Heh

I'm not saying that to brag or anything, it's just the kind of attitude I'd expect from anyone who's serious about physics. I'd expect them to be genuinely interested in how stuff works. I'd expect them to read a lot more than picking one woo book and sticking with it.

And that's where such woo models come apart. The questions about them start at pretty elementary levels. It's stuff like "why doesn't that iron melt", or "so where does all that hydrogen in the corona and solar wind come from", or more generally for an electric universe "so where is the massive magnetic field to go with the kind of current that would account for the Sun's energy." Even the most elementary actual knowledge of physics, even just not having slept in physics class in high school, should put a dent into that.

I guess what I'm trying to say, and using too many words, is: I have trouble imagining someone who really really wanted to be a physicist too, but slept in physics class in school :/

I sympathize, agree, and believe that most of us here feel the same way!

It is almost not surprising that your history parallels my own (and I'd bet many others here.)

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

What I wonder about in this 'theory' is how it's proposed to actually start.

I mean, Hydrogen collapsing to form a star is a process that not only explains the way the sun works extremely well, it also seems to be confirmed by our observations of the universe, especially stellar cradles.

If the sun really is as proposed in this theory:
1: Where did all that iron come from?
2: Why did it form in such a way as to seemingly defy physics as we understand it today?
3: Why aren't stellar cradles highly enriched in iron, unlike the diffuse clouds of mainly hydrogen as observed.
If the answer to three is that the sun is unique, why would this be so?

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

Reminds me (unless I hallucinated it.) of the Scientific American article, purporting to be Anthropological, wherein an ancient tribe of Meso-Americans had developed digital technology - even computers - using grass ropes and logs to construct basic logic gates and combining them into complex machines covering square miles and all powered by humans or animals!

I think the tribe was called the "Apriphulians" or something like that. (I can't seem to find it on Google.)

ETA: ISTR it was in the mid-70s.

Of course, it was the April issue...

Cheers,

Dave

You weren't hallucinating, though you are off by a couple of years. I remember that one too. The logic elements described don't work as well in actuality, by the way. I tried...

The article was by A.K. Dewdney, and published in the April 1988 edition. It's reprinted in a book called 'Humor the computer' which is partially visible here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=0Rb5jBg6sJwC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=apraphulians&source=bl&ots=UGWCZu_ede&sig=uB-JF95pNH6ltCF5pcqqGzbEE50&hl=en&ei=VmS0S9-oH4bUMuDVyPYJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=apraphulians&f=false

A

 

[Andrew Wiggin]

I think the idea of 'iron sun with aether batteries' needs to be appropriated as a steampunk version of the death star. Iron Sun is an obvious reference to a big metal battle station shaped like a star, and translated through steampunkish, Aether Battery makes a lot more sense. Either it's some tesla-invented overunity gizmo that taps into the flow of the luminiferous aether to power the weapons of the fully functional battle station, or it more mundanely taps the chemical energy of diethyl ether.

A

By the way, editing to add that I would buy a book or watch a movie titled 'The adventures of Luke Skywalker and the Empire of the Iron Sun'. It is full of steampunkety win.

 

[Jack by the hedge]

If the sun really is as proposed in this theory:
1: Where did all that iron come from?
2: Why did it form in such a way as to seemingly defy physics as we understand it today?
3: Why aren't stellar cradles highly enriched in iron, unlike the diffuse clouds of mainly hydrogen as observed.

What we see as stars are in reality enormous cannonballs - spent shots from a large galactic battle between vast fleets of alien blimps (plainly belonging to creatures who were a very great deal larger than ourselves). Battle damage to the blimps explains the presence of large volumes of escaped hydrogen.

Simple, really.

 

[CaveDave]

You weren't hallucinating, though you are off by a couple of years. I remember that one too. The logic elements described don't work as well in actuality, by the way. I tried...

The article was by A.K. Dewdney, and published in the April 1988 edition. It's reprinted in a book called 'Humor the computer' which is partially visible here:

http://books.google.com/books?id=0Rb5jBg6sJwC&pg=PA118&lpg=PA118&dq=apraphulians&source=bl&ots=UGWCZu_ede&sig=uB-JF95pNH6ltCF5pcqqGzbEE50&hl=en&ei=VmS0S9-oH4bUMuDVyPYJ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAYQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=apraphulians&f=false

A

Thanks for the confirmation and link.

As to the "off by a couple of years" part, I'm not surprised: so much of that part of my life is lost in the fog, nowadays.

Cheers,

Dave

 

[Lukraak_Sisser]

What we see as stars are in reality enormous cannonballs - spent shots from a large galactic battle between vast fleets of alien blimps (plainly belonging to creatures who were a very great deal larger than ourselves). Battle damage to the blimps explains the presence of large volumes of escaped hydrogen.

Simple, really.

Ahh... So we are kinda like the ship's vermin living on the floating wrecks.
Suddenly everything makes so much sense.

Cool roleplaying concept... what if you noticed two opposing ships slowly moving into position to fire at each other with your world in the middle

 

[tusenfem]

WTF is Faraday Dark Current?

Usually, dark current is defined as:
The current that flows in a photodetector when it is not receiving any light. It may increase as the temperature rises.


I the same, I think, can hold in a electron gun, the current that is already flowing before a discharge is visible and can be measured by a Faraday Cup. I guess thence cometh Faraday dark current.

Basically, it's brantc having found a new scientific term (though google does not give any hits on Faraday dark current).

 

[Jack by the hedge]

...what if you noticed two opposing ships slowly moving into position to fire at each other with your world in the middle

Well, I guess we'd have to launch bruce Willis into space with a gigantic dart, to try to puncture one of the blimps, and send it shooting off around teh galaxy, Tex Avery style.

 

[dafydd]

I think the idea of 'iron sun with aether batteries' needs to be appropriated as a steampunk version of the death star. Iron Sun is an obvious reference to a big metal battle station shaped like a star, and translated through steampunkish, Aether Battery makes a lot more sense. Either it's some tesla-invented overunity gizmo that taps into the flow of the luminiferous aether to power the weapons of the fully functional battle station, or it more mundanely taps the chemical energy of diethyl ether.

A

By the way, editing to add that I would buy a book or watch a movie titled 'The adventures of Luke Skywalker and the Empire of the Iron Sun'. It is full of steampunkety win.

Iron Sun With Aether Batteries,that would have been a great title for a Beefheart song. I love the idea of Steampunk physics,great to look at but bugger all to do with reality.