Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[Tubbythin]

Nobody said it had to be a "perfect sphere", or that the inside surface had to be homogeneously charged.

Erm, the whole conversation was discussing a spherically symmetric sphere of charge.

 

[GeeMack]

[Birkeland's] terrella was never intended to have anything to do with the solar wind, magnetic reconnection, and/or cosmology. (And so what if it had been so intended? That doesn't mean it was an accurate model.) At some point IIRC we asked Mozina to cite Birkeland's work on solar winds, and all he could find was a NY Times article where a journalist recounts a speech.

I think this is important to note, because every time Michael claims Birkeland's experiments support his cockamamie conjectures, he is flat out lying. Now it may be that he doesn't know he's lying, like a compulsive liar, but he is lying nonetheless. Obviously the sane intelligent people in these discussions know that lying to support one's position is the antithesis of legitimate science. And of course if Michael had a defensible position he wouldn't have to construct his arguments on a framework of lies. In fact as far as Michael's arguments are concerned, aside from incredulity and ignorance, lies seem to be just about all he has.

 

[GeeMack]

I see a couple of issues with that, though. How did he decide the voltage? Was the sphere in a vacuum? How did he correct for the differences in size and materials? Wouldn't the box, being cubical or rectangular, change the results? Did he try to keep the experment true to nature, or did he change things to test a specific mechanic?

If you want the long version, and you have bandwidth to burn, you'll find a complete compilation of his work here: [...]

In other words, Michael doesn't have the slightest idea how to answer your questions. In over half a decade of his arguments by lying, ignorance, and incredulity he has pointed dozens of people to that document, and not once has he actually ever answered anyone's questions about it, nor has anyone ever read that material and come away with the same irrational beliefs as Michael has. Not once. When it comes to the lie about Birkeland, Michael's argument has been, thousands upon thousands of times, a complete failure.

 

[GeeMack]

It's like a creationist troll in an evolution discussion---if there's some argument they can derail by denying that DNA is inherited, off they go. It's not that DNA-non-inheritance is actually part of Creationist theory, and there's no point convincing them that DNA is inherited. They won't add DNA-inheritance to a list of true facts to consider on the road to understanding evolution-vs-creationism. It's just trolling.

It's not just trolling. It's the most despicable kind of dishonest manipulation. It's mentally ill. It's lie after lie to feed a narcissistic psychosis. Time after time the creationists do it. And time after time they get their victims to fall for the distraction. Michael has managed to get dozens of people to read hundreds of documents, most of which have nothing to do with his inane ideas, much less actually support it. And not once has anyone come away agreeing with Michael about his crackpot conjecture.

Fact is, Michael's arguments are constructed for the purpose of dragging people around by the nose, not for the purpose of convincing anyone of anything. It's likely that he knows as well as most of us do that that won't happen unless he stumbles across another one comparably mentally ill, stupid, or irrational. But as long as people are willing to indulge his ridiculous claims, validate them at some level by engaging him in yet another volley of sciency sounding talk, he's successful. After all, that's what trolls live for.

 

[GeeMack]

A lot of features we see in modern satellite images are described and *predicted* by Birkeland over 100 years ago, including coronal loops and constantly accelerated solar wind of *BOTH* positive and negative particles. Those were really "out there" predictions at the time, but many of this theories have since been verified by satellites in space. To the left are "loops" Birkeland created in the atmosphere of his terrela and to the right is an image of coronal loop activity from the Yohkoh satellite (x-ray).

To put it as simply as possible, this argument is another lie.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Empirical physics and cosmological expansion

Nobody said it had to be a "perfect sphere", or that the inside surface had to be homogeneously charged. All of these things are your attempt to ignore the obvious.

The only person ignoring the obvious around here is you. The accelerated expansion of the universe is both symmetrical and homogeneous. Obviously, no known force acting from outside the physical universe (and I note that we have yet to establish that the concept of "force acting from outside the physical universe" makes any sense), if it is both asymmetric and inhomogeneous, is physically capable of generating the observed accelerated expansion of the universe. The simplification you complain about is of your own invention, since it is an obvious prerequisite for any force causing the observed accelerated expansion of the universe.

I prefer empirical physics over math.

As noted before, this is not true. You prefer mozperical physics, as opposed to empirical physics, a condition that is the necessary consequence to your own deliberate choice to redefine the concept (and the word) "empirical" into a new context not used by anyone but yourself. To refer to this newly defined concept as "empirical" is an attempt at deceit, trying to trick the unwary into thinking you believe something that in fact you know you do not believe. However, since everybody knows what you have done, the attempt at deceit does not actually amount to much, except of course for its deleterious effect on what one might laughingly refer to as your "reputation".

I suggest you all take a deep breath, reread Birkeland's work in the lab, and notice that his solar wind particles are being constantly accelerated.

And I suggest you demonstrate where in Birkeland's work he explicitly describes how he measured the acceleration of his charged particles anywhere along their trajectories. Indeed, you might want to also point out where he actually measured the velocity of those charged particles, anywhere along their trajectories. I assert that he in fact never did either in any laboratory experiment and does not talk about it anywhere in his published works. If you are not able to demonstrate the error of my ways, you know Reality Check might use the L-word again.

And while we are on the topic of laboratories and cosmological expansion, you seem to have overlooked yet another of my cogent comments ...

... Now if we look again at the Hubble constant, 1 Mpc is about 3.09x10¹⁹ km. So just do (70 km/sec)/3.09x10¹⁹ km (and don't rationalize the units so you can see what's happening more clearly), you get 2.27x10^-18 km/sec of velocity per km of distance. That's 2.27x10^-15 meters, and that's a nuclear diameter distance scale. I have heard that one might be able to measure such an effect using quantum non-demolition techniques, but I don't know if that can really be done. In any case, it is obviously either just plain impossible to do, or just can't be done with current technology. ... So for Mozina to constantly complain that it can't be empirical because you can't see it in a lab is both monumentally ignorant, because he has never even bothered to think about what really needs to be measured, and monumentally stupid because he re-defined the concept of empiricism so he could feel like he has an excuse not to think about anything.

The fact remains a fact, despite your senseless pontifications to the contrary: Classical electromagnetism has been ruled out as a possible cause for the accelerated expansion of the universe.

 

[Reality Check]

...
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/images/birkelandyohkohmini.jpg
...
To the left are "loops" Birkeland created in the atmosphere of his terrela and to the right is an image of coronal loop activity from the Yohkoh satellite (x-ray).

Well, this idiotic image from Michael Mozina once again !
Is Saturn the Sun?

1. The first image is Birkeland's attempt for an analogy of Saturn (fig. 247a). It is in visible light.
2. The second image is a soft X-ray (not visible light) image of the Sun.

P.S.
From yesterday:
Citation for *BOTH* positive and negative particles from Birkelands brass spheres?

 

[Reality Check]

And I suggest you demonstrate where in Birkeland's work he explicitly describes how he measured the acceleration of his charged particles anywhere along their trajectories. Indeed, you might want to also point out where he actually measured the velocity of those charged particles, anywhere along their trajectories. I assert that he in fact never did either in any laboratory experiment and does not talk about it anywhere in his published works. If you are not able to demonstrate the error of my ways, you know Reality Check might use the L-word again.

Speaking as someone who has read Birkeland's book, I also assert that Birkeland did not actually measure the acceleration or velocity of the electrons along any trajactory in his apparatus. If you are not able to demonstrate the error of my ways, you know GeeMack might use the L-word again.
I wonder how many other people think of the L-word when they see your name?

Instead Birkeland used mathematics to get the wrong velocity for electrons emitted from the Sun.
From:

MM - Just what are Birkeland's cathode-ray pencils in modern terms
First asked 28 December 2009
​

Page 596
We thus find that the velocity of the corpuscular rays should be mu = beta.c = c - c/x , i. e. only 45 metres less than the velocity of light.

 

[Michael Mozina]

That's a good point. For Birkland's model to be halfway relevant, there'd have to be a central point to the universe with a massive charge. That could be a problem.

Not really, and it's not as simple as you might imagine, particularly somewhere in the "middle" of the expansion process, rather than say somewhere close to the cathode.

FYI, you can go here to find a few papers by Birkeland on various topics.

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/Birkeland

By the time of the NYT article I cited from 1913, Birkeland had developed an entire theory related to cosmic rays, solar system formation theory, all sorts of topics that can be directly related to cosmology theory.

In Birkeland's experiments he noticed that the sphere (any metallic cathode surface) gives off "positively charged" ions, not simply electrons, particularly as you crank up the voltage. Today that is known as "sputtering". He was able to use this technique to create mirrored surfaces and he wrote all about the process over the years.

In Birkeland's electric universe, all suns are "cathodes in space', a space that is filled with massive amounts (more mass than found in stars) of charged particles. When the sphere gives off positively charged particles, they can go one of three directions. They can fly off to never again return to the sphere. They can fly off and return to the sphere. The can also go into orbit around the solar sphere and form into planets. The particles that fly off and away become part of the "positive aether" if you will, a flying mass of ionize (and non ionized) material that moves at very high velocity, potentially the speed of light. Ultimately what Birkeland talks about in that NYTimes article is his whole solar system and cosmology theories. Keep in mind that this was all written almost 100 years ago, and not a lot was really understood about the 'transmutation of elements'. Birkeland envisioned a sun that had an internal power source, either fission or potentially fusion power source, although fusion wasn't even really understood at that time. He was more thinking in terms of a fission powered sun that produced electrical energy and acted as a cathode compared to the ISM that he envisions as a sort of EM aether composed of highly moving charged particles that make up more mass than all the mass found in the stars.

Birkeland had no idea about the concept of multiple galaxies at that moment on time, but all his theories would apply to any sized groups of spinning matter. They can be directly applied to this topic in fact.

For instance, in Birkeland's electric universe, the "dark matter" and "dark energy" are simply 'moving high speed particles". They aren't "dark" in the conventional sense, but they would in fact operate exactly (well somewhat) like the 'dark matter" and "dark energy" components of current theory.

For example, in Birkeland's universe, any high speed particles coming out of a galaxy would go one of three directions, out, back into, and into orbit around the galaxy. The orbiting high speed particles would tend to collect in the outer regions of the galaxy and for all functional purposes act a lot like "dark matter". where massive amounts of high speed matter form in "rings around the galaxy". In functional terms, it would act like "dark matter" from our perspective. We wouldn't necessarily directly observe it, but would would experience it's effects as it acted to speed up the rotation of the galaxy round the outsides of the galaxy. For all practical purposes it could replace 'dark matter".

Likewise the particles that "fly away" from the galaxy to never return are simply 'cosmic rays" that are moving at very close to the speed of light. That "aether" of cosmic rays is again "more massive" than any other form of slow moving matter in the universe. That fast moving mass acts to "speed up" anything in the universe that moves slower than the "light speed EM aether". In other words it acts a lot like "dark energy".

Keep in mind that Birkeland's sphere gives off *BOTH* positive and negative particles, not just a single type of particle. What he envisions is an electric universe filled with fast moving charged (and uncharged) particles. Those high speed particles are "more massive" than anything that 'moves slowly" through the universe.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Gah, duplicate

 

[Tubbythin]

By the time of the NYT article I cited from 1913, Birkeland had developed an entire theory related to cosmic rays, solar system formation theory, all sorts of topics that can be directly related to cosmology theory.

Solar system formation has nothing to do with cosmology.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Solar system formation has nothing to do with cosmology.

Only according to you. In Birkeland's universe, it's all just 'more of the same' and it applies to any scale, and it certainly has implications at the scale of cosmology. Your "dark matter" in Birkeland's world is simply "fast moving orbiting material" in rings around the galaxy. Your 'dark energy" is imply the light speed cosmic ray 'aether' accelerating the slower moving materials of the universe. You may not see them as being related the implications of the theory are very clear as it relates to cosmology.

Not only did he correctly predict the existence of a solar corona, he explained how it worked. You guys still don't "understand it", so how in the world could you "understand' how any of his theories apply to cosmology? Just because YOU PERSONALLY cannot figure out how to apply his theories to a larger scale does not mean *NOBODY* can do so.

 

[nvidiot]

How pray tell is it possible to state that Birkeland had some kind of dark matter model when the existence of missing mass in the galaxies we observe wasn't known about until much later?

I don't believe for a second that Birkeland had any kind of solar model that explained the physics of stars. And even if he did, this model is demonstrably wrong by simple facts of observation in the century odd since. How is it possible to ignore all the solid and converging evidence that there is no electric universe as you seem to imply?

It would be nice if you answered my previous question regarding publishing your "hypothesis" in this thread, or is it too close to the bone?

 

[Reality Check]

In Birkeland's experiments he noticed that the sphere (any metallic cathode surface) gives off "positively charged" ions, not simply electrons, particularly as you crank up the voltage. Today that is known as "sputtering". He was able to use this technique to create mirrored surfaces and he wrote all about the process over the years.

Citation for *BOTH* positive and negative particles from Birkelands brass spheres?
First asked 11 September 2010

Keep in mind that Birkeland's sphere gives off *BOTH* positive and negative particles....

Citation for *BOTH* positive and negative particles from Birkelands brass spheres?
First asked 11 September 2010

Or are you just lying?

 

[Tim Thompson]

Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Birkeland

Your "dark matter" in Birkeland's world is simply "fast moving orbiting material" in rings around the galaxy.

Curiously, "dark matter" picked up that peculiar monicker by virtue of being, well, dark. If all this material orbiting the galaxies is charged (i.e., a plasma), as you seem to imply, then it will be quit bright. Charged particles emit electromagnetic waves whenever they are accelerated, one of those annoying aspects of electromagnetism that we all have to get used to. They will emit radio waves, and the power of the emitted radio waves will tell you a lot about the matter emitting them, including how much matter there is. We do see radio emission from extragalactic environments, but we don't see all of this "dark matter" you are talking about. Therefore we know, by virtue of the scientifically time honored practice of observation that such matter is not there. If, on the other hand, it is not ionized, not a plasma, and just plain neutral matter, then it will emit thermal radio waves, which we also do not see. And finally, it can't be organized in a "ring" around the galaxy, because galaxy and galaxy cluster dynamics requires the dark matter to be distributed in a more or less spherically symmetric halo. So this one won't fly.

Your 'dark energy" is imply the light speed cosmic ray 'aether' accelerating the slower moving materials of the universe.

Curiously, "dark energy" picked up that peculiar monicker by virtue of being, well, dark. Cosmic rays, all of which are charged particles, are not dark. You said that, according to Birkeland, their mass inside the galaxies, was greater than the mass of the stars, a claim trivially ruled out by orders of magnitude, by virtue of the scientifically time honored practice of observation. Likewise, observation limits the cosmic ray sea to a sub-observable threshold. However, in the scenario you describe, entire galaxies (10⁹ to 10¹² solar masses) are pulled along and even accelerated by all these cosmic rays. The electromagnetic emission from those cosmic rays cannot avoid being "blinding", so to speak, and yet we see nothing. Furthermore, they have to produce an amazingly spherically symmetric acceleration, so that opposite ends of the universe are accelerated exactly the same. How does your dark sea of cosmic rays mange to pull that off? And finally, if the cosmic rays are pulling all of these galaxies along, then they must be losing copious amounts if energy (accelerating 10¹⁰ solar masses to a substantial fraction of the speed of light requires a great deal of energy, in case you hadn't noticed). So either they will run out of cosmic poop really fast, or they are being all pooped up by something to regain all that lost energy. What is that something?

In short, neither of these ideas stands up to even modest scrutiny. They are ruled out strongly both by observation and by well known basic physics. It's "back to the drawing board" for thee & they dark ideas.

 

[Tubbythin]

Only according to you.

No. Not only according to me. According essentially all definitions of cosmology.

In Birkeland's universe, it's all just 'more of the same' and it applies to any scale, and it certainly has implications at the scale of cosmology.

I suppose you think atoms really do look like little solar systems too then

Your "dark matter" in Birkeland's world is simply "fast moving orbiting material" in rings around the galaxy.

Clearly not since Birkeland did not know about dark matter. Why do you make stuff up that is so trivially obviously false?

Your 'dark energy" is imply the light speed cosmic ray 'aether' accelerating the slower moving materials of the universe.

Well the words are all English, but the sentence isn't.

You may not see them as being related the implications of the theory are very clear as it relates to cosmology.

I have no idea what you are talking about. It would perhaps be easier to follow your arguments if you constructed sentences that made sense rather than throwing together random words.

Not only did he correctly predict the existence of a solar corona, he explained how it worked. You guys still don't "understand it", so how in the world could you "understand' how any of his theories apply to cosmology? Just because YOU PERSONALLY cannot figure out how to apply his theories to a larger scale does not mean *NOBODY* can do so.

Well you certainly haven't. All you've given us is a load of incoherent babble like "Your 'dark energy" is imply the light speed cosmic ray 'aether' accelerating the slower moving materials of the universe" and trivially obviously made-up stuff about how a scientist explained observations which weren't made till decades after his death. Not very impressive really is it?

 

[GeeMack]

Ultimately what Birkeland talks about in that NYTimes article is his whole solar system and cosmology theories. Keep in mind that this was all written almost 100 years ago, and not a lot was really understood about the 'transmutation of elements'. Birkeland envisioned a sun that had an internal power source, either fission or potentially fusion power source, although fusion wasn't even really understood at that time. He was more thinking in terms of a fission powered sun that produced electrical energy and acted as a cathode compared to the ISM that he envisions as a sort of EM aether composed of highly moving charged particles that make up more mass than all the mass found in the stars.

Birkeland didn't talk about anything in that article. A reporter wrote it. It's a journalism piece, and therefore barely relevant to any legitimate science that was going on back then, just as journalism pieces are today, from a scientific point of view, pretty close to irrelevant. And that article from 1913 is completely irrelevant to contemporary cosmology. But that won't keep you from dragging it in to try to deceive Mister Earl, will it? It seems all crackpots are liars, but to treat everyone like crap on top of it is a pretty despicable way to be. Was Birkeland a liar, too, Michael?

 

[Mister Earl]

I clicked on your link, MM, and did a bit of reading.

I am sure now more than ever that this is some kind of bizarre roleplay. There isn't a sentient creature on this planet that could halfway believe the sun somehow had a solid iron surface.

 

[GeeMack]

Only according to you. In Birkeland's universe, it's all just 'more of the same' and it applies to any scale, and it certainly has implications at the scale of cosmology. Your "dark matter" in Birkeland's world is simply "fast moving orbiting material" in rings around the galaxy. Your 'dark energy" is imply the light speed cosmic ray 'aether' accelerating the slower moving materials of the universe. You may not see them as being related the implications of the theory are very clear as it relates to cosmology.

Not only did he correctly predict the existence of a solar corona, he explained how it worked. You guys still don't "understand it", so how in the world could you "understand' how any of his theories apply to cosmology? Just because YOU PERSONALLY cannot figure out how to apply his theories to a larger scale does not mean *NOBODY* can do so.

You're lying about Birkeland again, Michael. Your qualifications to understand anything about Kristian Birkeland's work have been challenged, and you have been unable to demonstrate that you have any such qualifications. So add that fact to your lack of qualifications to communicate in a sane and intelligent manner on the subject of science, your lack of qualification to understand math or science at the level of a ten year old child, and your lack of qualification to discuss anything honestly, and you fall right in line with all the other lazy, stupid, and lying crackpots who have come before you.

 

[Tubbythin]

And that article from 1913 is completely irrelevant to contemporary cosmology.

Not least because it predates GR.