Moderated Iron sun with Aether batteries...

[Ziggurat]

So what? The plasma is no different than a copper wire in that respect. Just because you have SOME current flowing through the wire does not mean it's incapable of conducting a lot more current.

Indeeed, it is like copper in that respect. But you seem to have overlooked the glaringly obvious: you won't get discharge in copper wire either.

Tell that to the last solar flare RC. In plasma those conductive paths form when the conductive plasma forms dense moving "threads" inside the plasma. These threads become the "conductive paths" inside the plasma and the plasma no long UNIFORMLY conducts current. The z=pinched threads become the primary conductors.

And yet, it isn't discharge. It's just a current. Discharge requires dielectric breakdown, and a discontinuous change from insulating to conducting states. You can't get that with a plasma, or copper wire, for the obvious reason that both are already conducting. Ignoring these basic facts won't help you, Michael.

 

[GeeMack]

So what? The plasma is no different than a copper wire in that respect. Just because you have SOME current flowing through the wire does not mean it's incapable of conducting a lot more current.



Tell that to the last solar flare RC. In plasma those conductive paths form when the conductive plasma forms dense moving "threads" inside the plasma. These threads become the "conductive paths" inside the plasma and the plasma no long UNIFORMLY conducts current. The z=pinched threads become the primary conductors.

There is no discharge involved. Anytime you have ever made that claim you have been wrong. And you will continue to be wrong anytime in the future that you claim there are discharges involved, too. Solar flares are not discharges and are not caused by discharges.

 

[Reality Check]

So what? The plasma is no different than a copper wire in that respect. Just because you have SOME current flowing through the wire does not mean it's incapable of conducting a lot more current.

So what? That is not what ben m was talking about.
And as I stated - plasma has different conductivitys (better thea many metals) in different conditions. That fact that plasma is so ductive rules out electrical discharges

Tell that to the last solar flare RC. In plasma those conductive paths form when the conductive plasma forms dense moving "threads" inside the plasma. These threads become the "conductive paths" inside the plasma and the plasma no long UNIFORMLY conducts current. The z=pinched threads become the primary conductors.

That is what every solar flare, coronal loop (andother solar activity) tells us MM !
An electrical discharge requires that a conducting path is created for the discharge to follow. If the medium is always conducting then you can never get an electrical discharge
You can get an electrical current as in solar flares and coronal loops. That is essentially what you have stated but backed up by actual science, e.g.

• The magnetic field of coronal loops creates different conditions for the plasma in them (tempertaure and density varies).
• This causes different conductivity in regions of the plasma.
• These regions allow currents to flow through them in preference to the less conductive regions.

FYI:

1. An electrical current is not an electrical discharge.
2. There are no such things as "z=pinched threads"" in solar plasma.
   My reading suggests that the currents tend to flow in sheets.

And I have no idea what you mean by a "primary conductor".

 

[Michael Mozina]

While I'm thinking about it, your whole argument about the solar wind being "neutral" plasma is false. It is a "current carrying" plasma by virtue of it's movement. Anything stationary inside the mass flow that can separate the charges (say with a magnetic field like the magnetosphere) can tap into and conduct that 'current flow' and in fact most planets do exactly that. Your whole claim about neutral plasma inside the interplanetary medium is a myth.

 

[tusenfem]

While I'm thinking about it, your whole argument about the solar wind being "neutral" plasma is false. It is a "current carrying" plasma by virtue of it's movement. Anything stationary inside the mass flow that can separate the charges (say with a magnetic field like the magnetosphere) can tap into and conduct that 'current flow' and in fact most planets do exactly that. Your whole claim about neutral plasma inside the interplanetary medium is a myth.

Are we going to have this tedious discussion again?

I have give you the equations for current and for charge several times now, but I think that we finally figured out that you don't understand the term "neutral" which in normal plasma physics is used to say that there are equal amounts of positive and negative charge within one Debye sphere. The current that is flowing in the solar wind, in the heliospheric current sheet is created out of necessity because of the dipolar structure of the solar magnetic field, which gets stretched out (just like the Earth's magnetotail) and thus there are oppositely directed magnetic fields which generate the current, well described through the curl of B.

How exactly is a magnetic field going to make a charge separation? Please enlighten us.

Why do you not adhere to Alfven's equations that describe a current in a plasma and that describe the charge (density) of a plasma? Why do you redefine the word neutral from the way it is always used in plasma physics? Do you think you are better than Alfven?

I really doubt that you ever read and/or understood the books by e.g. Hannes Alfven or Anthony Peratt.

 

[Reality Check]

While I'm thinking about it, your whole argument about the solar wind being "neutral" plasma is false. It is a "current carrying" plasma by virtue of it's movement. Anything stationary inside the mass flow that can separate the charges (say with a magnetic field like the magnetosphere) can tap into and conduct that 'current flow' and in fact most planets do exactly that. Your whole claim about neutral plasma inside the interplanetary medium is a myth.

No one is saying that the solar plasma is whatever you mean by the quoted "neutral" plasma.

The solar wind is not a ""current carrying" plasma by virtue of it's movement". The positive and negative charges are travelling together in this movement. That is not a current just like a hunk of metal floating through space does not have currents flowing through it.
But add an external magnetic field and that magnetic field can create currents (see heliospheric current sheet or below).

The physics of plasmas means that astrophysical plasmas are quasineutral. This means that there is a characteristic scale outside which the plasma looks neutral. Or as Wikipedia puts it:

In astrophysical plasmas, Debye screening prevents electric fields from directly affecting the plasma over large distances, i.e., greater than the Debye length. But the existence of charged particles causes the plasma to generate and can be affected by magnetic fields. This can and does cause extremely complex behavior, such as the generation of plasma double layers, an object which separates charge over a few tens of Debye lengths. The dynamics of plasmas interacting with external and self-generated magnetic fields are studied in the academic discipline of magnetohydrodynamics.

FYI: The Debye length of the solar wind is about 10 meters.

The fact that the solar wind is quasi-neutral has nothing to do with any currents within the solar wind. There is plenty of evidence of electrical currents within the solar wind, e.g. the heliospheric current sheet

The heliospheric current sheet (HCS) is the surface within the Solar System where the polarity of the Sun's magnetic field changes from north to south. This field extends throughout the Sun's equatorial plane in the heliosphere.[1][2] The shape of the current sheet results from the influence of the Sun's rotating magnetic field on the plasma in the interplanetary medium (Solar Wind).[3] A small electrical current flows within the sheet, about 10−10 A/m². The thickness of the current sheet is about 10,000 km.

Your whole claim about "neutral plasma" inside the interplanetary medium is a myth. The interplanetary medium is a quasineutral plasma.

 

[W.D.Clinger]

Are we going to have this tedious discussion again?

I have give you the equations for current and for charge several times now, but I think that we finally figured out that you don't understand the term "neutral" which in normal plasma physics is used to say that there are equal amounts of positive and negative charge within one Debye sphere.

More fundamentally, we found that Michael Mozina doesn't know the difference between charge and current. He doesn't even know the difference between charge and voltage:

http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6342734&postcount=4082
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6343247&postcount=4105
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6343278&postcount=4106
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6343527&postcount=4119
http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showpost.php?p=6343703&postcount=4120

 

[Michael Mozina]

How exactly is a magnetic field going to make a charge separation? Please enlighten us.

Well, here's one idea:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19497-outofthisworld-proposal-for-solar-wind-power.html

Here's how Alfven explained it:

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/Alfven/A Three Ring Circuit Model OfThe Magnetosphere.pdf

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI: The Debye length of the solar wind is about 10 meters.

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html

You mean except of course when the sun forms magnetic ropes that dump huge amounts of current into the Earth's atmosphere? I'd say the distance from the sun to the Earth is a tad greater than 10 meters.

 

[Michael Mozina]

What you are describing here is everything BUT a discharge.
Please read my answer to brantc.
And really Michael, did you ever read any books by Alfvén?

Yes. This is all in his book Cosmic Plasma. He switches from field (B) to particle (E) orientation for all light moving plasmas. You keep trying to use a "frozen in magnetic line" concept where it simply does not apply. One cannot help but wonder whether your collective industry has ready *ANY* of Alfven's work for themselves.

 

[tusenfem]

Well, here's one idea:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19497-outofthisworld-proposal-for-solar-wind-power.html

Here's how Alfven explained it:

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/Alfven/A Three Ring Circuit Model OfThe Magnetosphere.pdf

From the "newscientist" page, 2nd paragraph:

The concept for the so-called Dyson-Harrop satellite begins with a long metal wire loop pointed at the sun. This wire is charged to generate a cylindrical magnetic field that snags the electrons that make up half the solar wind.

Really! Now it is enough just to charge a wire and create a magnetic field????? And why would it only grab the electrons? Okay, maybe the kinetic energy.

I never was a great fan of NS, and this kind of popular science writing shows clearly why I don't like it with e.g.:

Back on the satellite, the current has been drained of its electrical energy by the laser – the electrons fall onto a ring-shaped sail, where incoming sunlight can re-energise them enough to keep the satellite in orbit around the sun.

Ah, the slowed down electrons fall into a sail,
Ah, the current is drained of its electrical energy by the laser,
no current is no magnetic field is no working "generator"

Maybe this may work in some way somehow, however it is not "charge separation" by a magnetic field.

And in the paper by Whipple et al. (three ring circuit model of the magnetosphere) the only charge separation that occurs is in possible double layers and those are created by currents and not by magnetic fields.

 

[tusenfem]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html

You mean except of course when the sun forms magnetic ropes that dump huge amounts of current into the Earth's atmosphere? I'd say the distance from the sun to the Earth is a tad greater than 10 meters.

And once more the silly impression by MM that electrical current and quasi-neutrality are not compatible, even though Alfven and Peratt do not seem to have this objection.

Michael, why do you think you are better than Alfven or Peratt? For goodness sake man the first one won a Nobel Prize!

 

[GeeMack]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html

You mean except of course when the sun forms magnetic ropes that dump huge amounts of current into the Earth's atmosphere? I'd say the distance from the sun to the Earth is a tad greater than 10 meters.

No, not except. Apparently you misunderstand what Reality Check means by, "The Debye length of the solar wind is about 10 meters."

 

[Reality Check]

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html

You mean except of course when the sun forms magnetic ropes that dump huge amounts of current into the Earth's atmosphere? I'd say the distance from the sun to the Earth is a tad greater than 10 meters.

What I said was

The physics of plasmas means that astrophysical plasmas are quasineutral. This means that there is a characteristic scale outside which the plasma looks neutral. Or as Wikipedia puts it:
...
FYI: The Debye length of the solar wind is about 10 meters.

Try looking up the definition of Debye length.

You also need to learn some astrophysics or learn to understand your references
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html

A magnetic rope is a twisted bundle of magnetic fields organized much like the twisted hemp of a mariner's rope. Spacecraft have detected hints of these ropes before, but a single spacecraft was insufficient to map their 3D structure. THEMIS' five identical micro-satellites were able to perform the feat