Lambda-CDM theory - Woo or not?

[ben m]

May I also suggest that Michael (and me and RC) pause commenting here until he's actually reread the relevant thread on Peratt.

Let me also ask him to reread his own discussion of how Peratt gets force-directions wrong here: http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=164073&page=20 (remember any of this, Michael?)

 

[Michael Mozina]

Inflation is (a) compatible with the known laws of physics,

Guth made it up in his head and a "religion" was born. By your definition God is compatible with the known laws of physics too. So what?

hypothesizing the addition of a heretofore-unobserved scalar field.

The (now dead) inflation god did it.

(I know you don't believe this statement; that's your problem, not inflation's.) Inflation is (b) in agreement with observations.

It's a postdicted fit, nothing more.

Giving stars a 10^20 coulomb charge (as Peratt does) requires the basic laws of E&M to be wrong.

Well, perhaps, but then again Birkeland also assumed that stars have a charge. All EU orientations tends to assume the sun has a charge with respect to "space".

Really, really wrong, in domains where we strongly think it's right. Entraining the stars a flat-rotation velocity field disagrees with the actual data on rotation curves, which show stars having independent orbits in arbitrary orientations.

You know, two things occur to me while reading that thread on Peratt ,and rereading some of your earlier complaints. *Some* parts of your arguments are valid. Other parts are not as valid. I'd be the first to admit that Peratt's work is a "work in progress" to say the least. Lerner and Peratt have "started" a process of quantification, but it's going to take time to fully develop the concepts over time. The reason for that is because PC proponents can't simply "make up" EM properties on the fly. The ideas have to be developed within a physical frame of reference.

Your ideas however have no such constraints. Whatever you don't actually 'understand' you label as "dark' something, and/or just "make it up' (like inflation) so you can quantify things some more. Any time that something doesn't actually "fit" right (like rotation patterns), you simply "stuff liberally) with some "dark/exotic" something-or-other to make it work out. You then try to compare that sort of "make-believe" physics with empirical physics from a "mathematical fit only" perspective. What baloney! You folks can't explain galaxy layouts either. You therefore simply stuff the gaps with "dark matter" until it 'fits'. That's not any "better" than simply saying "I don't know" IMO. I'd rather simply admit that Peratt's models need work, but they share many of the same "features" of modern galaxy layouts. They are *AT LEAST* as good as your models if we strip out all the metaphysical gap fillers.

I will say one thing however from what I've read so far, I did miss some of your criticisms of Peratt's work, and some of them were valid. As much as I hate to admit it, RC and you both seem to have spent some time reading and commenting on his work, some of which I had simply never read.

The merger of the two is already there. It's called "astrophysics". Astrophysics already includes the gravity fields that are actually there, and the magnetic fields that are actually there, and the electric fields that are actually there.

No, not really. The magnetic fields are there alright, but even you personally refuse to entertain the idea that a sun has a charge with respect to space, and I know for a fact that you're an intelligent person. Even still there does seem to be an aversion to even conceptually entertaining the concept of a cathode/anode sun. Birkland's experiments and predictions physically REQUIRE the sun to have a charge with respect to space.

(The electric fields that are actually there, unfortunately for you, are very small and small-scale.

IMO that's where you all miss the boat. They aren't small or small scale or we wouldn't see million mile an hour solar wind processes.

No. The error in Peratt's original simulations was the fact that he made his "stars" behave like (say) electrons

Birkeland did that too! Virtually EVERY EU orientation requires that the sun have a charge.

---he gave them nonsensical charge-to-mass ratios so that they get accelerated easily in magnetic fields. That's wrong (not just "unjustified" or "speculative", just wrong).

I will grant you that whatever number we come up with does have to be "measured" in space. In terms of the whether or not a sun has a charge, I vehemently disagree with you. I don't even know of an EU/PC solar model that does not have charge with respect to space.

If you take out that charge-to-mass error, and plug in (correct) gravity, then what you end up with is an ordinary gravitational model of the galaxy.

We already know that doesn't work, hence the need for all your dark matter gap filler. Maybe you're right though, maybe his charge ratio is too high, maybe it's way too high. Maybe however there is a combination of black hole charges, solar charges, spin rates, EM field configurations, etc that DOES come much closer. Nobody will really know unless some effort is made. Why are you so fixated on "dark matter" than you refuse to consider some other "more reasonable" options?

We already have gravitational models of the galaxy.

It doesn't work! You have to stuff the whole thing full of dark matter gap filler or the whole thing falls apart!

Does Peratt's model have a one-part-in-ten-to-the-power-of-who-cares perturbation due to his (corrected) treatment of magnetic fields? Wake me up when we have an observation with enough significant figures that tells me that I should care.

The fact you have such a great need for dark matter gap filler in your OWN theory is why you should ultimately "care", not because someone manages to get it to fit "better" than it does now. Your own theory isn't "superior" just because the math looks cool on paper. You have a gaping physical hole in your theory that may or may not be related to your aversion to the concept of cathode suns, and charged 'black holes'. How will you know if you never try it "the right way"?

 

[Michael Mozina]

FYI, I'm still reading, but I have to admit I have a new found respect for RC. He may not have read or commented much on Alfven's work, but it's clear to me (now at least) that he's spent some time reading Peratt's papers.

 

[ben m]

Guth made it up in his head and a "religion" was born. By your definition God is compatible with the known laws of physics too. So what?

You've said that a million times, and I heard it the first 99. Let's just contrast this with the super-highly-charged sun hypothesis.

Guth can "make up" the inflation hypothesis by saying "Suppose there is a scalar field with thus-and-such properties. Other than that let's stick with GR and the Standard Model. What follows?" OK, that scalar field is speculative, but that's what hypothesizing is for.

In order for Peratt to "make up" the highly-charged-sun hypothesis, he has to say "Suppose the Sun has a charge of 10^30 Coulombs. Oh, wait, let's also suppose that Coulomb's Law is broken so this can't just neutralize. Oh, wait, let's also suppose that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is broken so that this can self-recharge. And let's suppose that the work-energy theorem is broken. What follows?" The giant charge would be speculative by itself, but in this case it's not by itself---it's attached to flat contradiction of currently-known laws of physics.

It's a postdicted fit, nothing more.

Most of science is "postdicted", Michael. Get used to it.

Well, perhaps, but then again Birkeland also assumed that stars have a charge. All EU orientations tends to assume the sun has a charge with respect to "space".

A recurring problem, then.

Lerner and Peratt have "started" a process of quantification, but it's going to take time to fully develop the concepts over time.

Peratt's paper was written in 1986. That was 25 years ago.

In 25 years, we got from the discovery of fission to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. In 25 years we got from the discovery of Maxwell's Equations to wireless telegraphy. In 25 years we got from the discovery of CMB fluctuations, to an all-sky 10-arcminute map measuring their polarization at a few parts per billion.

The reason for that is because PC proponents can't simply "make up" EM properties on the fly. The ideas have to be developed within a physical frame of reference.

That's a nice thing about it, Michael: that's falsifiability. Falsifiability is a good property for a hypothesis, and PC is falsifiable. I agree that it's a difficulty (although not as bad as you want it to be) with inflation.

Falsifiability means that when the evidence goes against your theory, you don't have parameters you can adjust to "fix" it.

The evidence went against EU/PC, Michael. EU/PC doesn't have any appropriate parameters to adjust. EU/PC is therefore wrong.

Another 25 years of thinking about it is not going to find "a way" to get a large magnetic acceleration of a big net neutral object. There are no free parameters in the Lorentz Force Law. The verdict is in and it's wrong. Another 25 years of thinking is not going to find a way to "drag" stars along with a flat-rotation curve "fluid" while leaving their velocities isotropic. There's nothing to adjust in the theory or the data---they simply disagree.

Falsifiability is a good thing, Michael. You should be happy that EU/PC makes such clear, physics-based predictions that allowed it to be tested. Good for it. Let it die the dignified, scientific death that it earned.

 

[ben m]

Your ideas however have no such constraints. Whatever you don't actually 'understand' you label as "dark' something, and/or just "make it up' (like inflation) so you can quantify things some more. Any time that something doesn't actually "fit" right (like rotation patterns), you simply "stuff liberally) with some "dark/exotic" something-or-other to make it work out.

We have exactly two, and only two, exotic things. One is a new particle added to the Standard Model. The other is a cosmological constant added to GR. That's it. I don't know what the "liberal" list you are thinking of might be.

You folks can't explain galaxy layouts either. You therefore simply stuff the gaps with "dark matter" until it 'fits'.

Nope. We postulate that the new particle exists at a mean density of 0.2/omega_c. Everything else---where is it, how concentrated is it at what times what's the rotation curve, what's the lensing, what's the BAO angle, what's the CMB angle, etc.---is gravity moving it around with no free parameters.

That's not any "better" than simply saying "I don't know" IMO.

"I don't know" doesn't mean "I refuse to think about it at all". The normal response to not knowing how something works is to hypothesize how it might work. Then you try to test the hypothesis.

Dark matter is also a hypothesis. So far it has passed the tests. It's a good hypothesis.

MOND is a hypothesis. Some versions have passed some tests, others are dead. Others are still under investigation.

MACHO-dark-matter was a hypothesis. It failed the tests. It's dead.

PC was a hypothesis. It failed the tests. It's dead.

But we don't know for sure whether DM, or MOND, or something else, is true.

I'd rather simply admit that Peratt's models need work, but they share many of the same "features" of modern galaxy layouts. They are *AT LEAST* as good as your models if we strip out all the metaphysical gap fillers.

Ah, so Peratt's model is not[/] falsifiable. It made explicit, apparently unshakeable predictions; they failed. That doesn't mean anything to you? No, apparently you hope that there's something to tweak so that it passes them in the future.

No, not really. The magnetic fields are there alright

Yep, at a microgauss.

but even you personally refuse to entertain the idea that a sun has a charge with respect to space, and I know for a fact that you're an intelligent person.

I am willing to entertain the idea that the Sun has a charge. (In fact, I'm fairly certain that it does, due to the differential mobility of e- and p+ in the solar wind.) The evidence tells me that this charge is much less than one coulomb.

Birkland's experiments and predictions physically REQUIRE the sun to have a charge with respect to space.

No they don't. Birkeland's experiments showed that magnetized cathode, plugged into a high voltage, can serve as a source for (visually) ropy-looking plasmas.

It does not follow that magnetized cathodes are the only ways to generate ropy-looking plasmas.

IMO that's where you all miss the boat. They aren't small or small scale or we wouldn't see million mile an hour solar wind processes.

Your opinion is noted. You have illegitimately discarded other, better hypotheses for the solar wind.

We already know that doesn't work, hence the need for all your dark matter gap filler. Maybe you're right though, maybe his charge ratio is too high, maybe it's way too high. Maybe however there is a combination of black hole charges, solar charges, spin rates, EM field configurations, etc that DOES come much closer. Nobody will really know unless some effort is made. Why are you so fixated on "dark matter" than you refuse to consider some other "more reasonable" options?

As I said: go ahead and try to add them up. I'll wait.

 

[Ziggurat]

All EU orientations tends to assume the sun has a charge with respect to "space".

This reveals a deep ignorance of electrodynamics. Charge is absolute. Whatever the charge on the sun (or any other object) is, that charge is not "with respect to" anything. No reference is required, and it makes no sense to try to establish any such reference. You seem to have confused charge with voltage.

You know, two things occur to me while reading that thread on Peratt ,and rereading some of your earlier complaints. *Some* parts of your arguments are valid. Other parts are not as valid. I'd be the first to admit that Peratt's work is a "work in progress" to say the least.

No, Michael. You're late to the party on that, it had to be dragged out of you, and you're STILL trying to hang onto the idea that it's salvageable even though there is nothing there worth salvaging.

Lerner and Peratt have "started" a process of quantification, but it's going to take time to fully develop the concepts over time. The reason for that is because PC proponents can't simply "make up" EM properties on the fly.

But evidently they can make up the properties of galaxies on the fly. Properties which aren't only invented, but actually contradict observations.

I'd rather simply admit that Peratt's models need work

Because it's too much to ask you to admit that it's flat-out wrong.

but they share many of the same "features" of modern galaxy layouts.

The only properties they share with actual galaxies is a superficial visual similarity in the pictures. Which is the extent the the analysis you're capable of.

No, not really. The magnetic fields are there alright, but even you personally refuse to entertain the idea that a sun has a charge with respect to space

Again, charges aren't "with respect" to anything. Charge is absolute. And the sun is charged. That's standard astrophysics. The problem is that the magnitude of the charge is far too small to accomplish any of what you need it to accomplish in order to support your "model".

Even still there does seem to be an aversion to even conceptually entertaining the concept of a cathode/anode sun.

You have that backwards. It's precisely because I have considered it that I can dismiss it as completely wrong. You, on the other hand, can continue to insist that it's a possibility, but you have NOT actually considered it. You have not examined what it would require, quantitatively, in order to make any sense. It is precisely because you have not actually considered it that you still view it as possible.

IMO that's where you all miss the boat. They aren't small or small scale or we wouldn't see million mile an hour solar wind processes.

If the solar wind were driven by electric fields, the flow of positive and negative particles would be in opposite directions. But it isn't. So the solar wind is rather obviously NOT driven by electric fields. This is SUCH a basic fact, and it's consequences are so obvious, that it's amazing that you still haven't grasped it. Hell, it doesn't even require any calculations, so it shouldn't be beyond even you.

In terms of the whether or not a sun has a charge, I vehemently disagree with you.

I don't think ben ever claimed the sun had no charge. Standard astrophysics says it does. The problem isn't a charged sun versus an uncharged sun. The problem is a sun with a realistic charge versus a sun with an impossibly large charge.

I don't even know of an EU/PC solar model that does not have charge with respect to space.

Yet again: charge is ABSOLUTE!

Maybe you're right though, maybe his charge ratio is too high, maybe it's way too high.

Indeed it is way too high. I've gone through the numbers. Something you have never done, on any topic.

Why are you so fixated on "dark matter" than you refuse to consider some other "more reasonable" options?

Cranking up electromagnetic effects by 20 orders of magnitude is not more reasonable. Hell, it's not even "more reasonable".

You have a gaping physical hole in your theory that may or may not be related to your aversion to the concept of cathode suns, and charged 'black holes'.

"may not be related"? Try "is definitely not related".

Look, there are only two possibilities: there's extra mass that we can't yet account for, or our model of gravity is wrong. That's it. Those are the only two possibilities.

It is true that we cannot conclusively decide between those scenarios. But first, people ARE working on the second possibility. And second, your objections to the first possibility are ultimately just aesthetic. The possibility offends your sensibilities. But neither the scientific community nor reality itself cares if your sensibilities are offended. Since we can't YET prove the first possibility conclusively, you essentially want to abandon efforts to investigate it. And for what? To investigate theories which we know conclusively are NOT correct. Even by your own standards, that simply makes no sense. You are entirely hypocritical.

 

[Michael Mozina]

You've said that a million times, and I heard it the first 99. Let's just contrast this with the super-highly-charged sun hypothesis.

Fine, let's do that.

Guth can "make up" the inflation hypothesis by saying "Suppose there is a scalar field with thus-and-such properties.

Magical "godlike" properties no less. You expect me to HAVE FAITH that it "inflated' at faster than the speed of LIGHT no less! Come on. Sure that's 'compatible with physics' as long as you ignore the speed limits of matter and make extraordinary and unsupported claims about 'expanding space'.

Other than that let's stick with GR and the Standard Model. What follows?" OK, that scalar field is speculative, but that's what hypothesizing is for.

"Inflation god did it" isn't a "hypothesis", it's quite literally a wing, a prayer and a "religion" in a dead god.

In order for Peratt to "make up" the highly-charged-sun hypothesis, he has to say "Suppose the Sun has a charge of 10^30 Coulombs. Oh, wait, let's also suppose that Coulomb's Law is broken so this can't just neutralize.

It's more like "suppose the sun has a charge and an internal energy source". Birkland entertained a lot of ideas about what might power a cathode sun, but the assumption was that it had an internal power source.

Oh, wait, let's also suppose that the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is broken so that this can self-recharge.

Is fusion a "self recharging" event? Breeder fission reactions?

And let's suppose that the work-energy theorem is broken. What follows?" The giant charge would be speculative by itself, but in this case it's not by itself---it's attached to flat contradiction of currently-known laws of physics.

It seems to me that nothing violates any real laws of physics as long as the sun has an internal energy source. If it didn't have any sort of energy source, you're right, it couldn't produce a regular charge. On the other hand, as long as it's internally powered, electrons will always more easily escape a gravity well compared to say a proton with a much higher mass. You're simply *ASSUMING* that the sun isn't capable of producing consistent releases of electrons and protons, yet even the standard solar model *PREDICTS* that it must do exactly that. In fact, even your own 'magnetic field lines" are supposedly created by the persistence of CONTINUOUS electric fields inside of the sun.

Most of science is "postdicted", Michael. Get used to it.

If your industry would stop calling it a PREDICTION, I would get used to it. Since you folks now consistently try to pass off a postdiction as a "prediction", I can't get used to it.

A recurring problem, then.

No, it's a consistent *ASSUMPTION* in an electric universe that the sun is also an electrical generator. I've yet to see one that didn't work that way with the possible exception of Jergen's model.

Peratt's paper was written in 1986. That was 25 years ago.

In 25 years, we got from the discovery of fission to the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier. In 25 years we got from the discovery of Maxwell's Equations to wireless telegraphy. In 25 years we got from the discovery of CMB fluctuations, to an all-sky 10-arcminute map measuring their polarization at a few parts per billion.

Ya, but it took the mainstream more than 60 YEARS to accept Birkeland's work with aurora, and at the rate you're going it will take another 60 years before you'll figure out that stars are electrical generators and act as a cathode just as Birkeland predicted over 100 years ago!

That's a nice thing about it, Michael: that's falsifiability. Falsifiability is a good property for a hypothesis, and PC is falsifiable.

And that is the problem with Lamdba-magic theory. It cannot ever be falsified because you are free to continue to add magical properties and parameters as you see fit.

The problem is that you're now trying to compare an OVERSIMPLIFIED PC model (even by most PC proponents standards) to what amounts to "math with magic", and expecting to meet your rigorous magic math standards.

Falsifiability means that when the evidence goes against your theory, you don't have parameters you can adjust to "fix" it.

But you folks just liberally tossed in some magical dark energy to fix your metaphysical monstrosity Ben. Since you can just "make up" new forces of nature on a whim, a wing and a prayer, there is no way to mathematically compete with something like that.

The evidence went against EU/PC, Michael. EU/PC doesn't have any appropriate parameters to adjust. EU/PC is therefore wrong.

Evidently, as best as I can tell there's nothing particularly wrong with Peratt's basic premise, there just something wrong with your basic assumption about electric sun theories in general. As far back as Birkeland, EVERY EU/PC oriented solar theory begins with charge separation between the solar surface and "space". You'll have to get over your aversion to the concept, but there's nothing inherently wrong with it.

Another 25 years of thinking about it is not going to find "a way" to get a large magnetic acceleration of a big net neutral object.

Based on the fact that the solar wind is continuous, and flows from the whole sphere, I see no evidence it's "net neutral" with respect to the heliosphere in the first place! That's not a problem in terms of actual physics, that's just YOUR misconception.

Falsifiability is a good thing, Michael. You should be happy that EU/PC makes such clear, physics-based predictions that allowed it to be tested.

I agree that falsifiablity is a great thing and it's one of the attractive things about EU/PC theory from my perspective and it's also why Lambda-magic theory is repugnant from my perspective. Like any good religion that can "create dark gods" on the fly, it cannot ever die a natural empirical death.

Let it die the dignified, scientific death that it earned.

It's "earned" nothing of the sort. You folks must spend man YEARS writing papers about Lambda-stuff. When I see you folks put a little sweat equity into the E orientation of astronomy, and it still hasn't worked out, then I might believe it's "died a natural death". At the moment I see no evidence that you folks have even given the idea a "fair shake" in the first place. You keep trying to compare metaphysical apples to empirical oranges and claiming to "win" something with your 'dark' friends. I'm afraid I don't buy it.

 

[Michael Mozina]

Look, there are only two possibilities: there's extra mass that we can't yet account for, or our model of gravity is wrong. That's it. Those are the only two possibilities.

I need to eat before I go through your whole post, but this point is worth responding to in a post by itself IMO, because it's really the crux of the problem IMO. You have *MYOPICALLY* decided that there are two and only two possible choices to choose from in the whole universe. Baloney. Your argument comes down to a false dichotomy fallacy. There are MANY options that might explain why the universe works as it does, not just two! For crying out loud....

 

[Ziggurat]

Magical "godlike" properties no less. You expect me to HAVE FAITH that it "inflated' at faster than the speed of LIGHT no less! Come on. Sure that's 'compatible with physics' as long as you ignore the speed limits of matter and make extraordinary and unsupported claims about 'expanding space'.

You keep revealing your ignorance. Inflation doesn't move "faster than the speed of light". In fact, it's not even meaningful to compare a rate of expansion of space itself with motion through space. They're completely different things. You don't even measure them in the same units! That's like saying that a pound is longer than a minute.

Is fusion a "self recharging" event?

No. That's why suns burn out. And the approximate timescale for such a burnout can be calculated simply from energy conservation, and those time scales make sense and match the other available evidence we have. But the electric models don't make sense. They can't produce enough power and they burn out far too fast. The fact that fusion isn't self-recharging is a feature of the standard models. The fact that electricity isn't self-recharging is a fundamental and insurmountable obstacle of electric models.

It seems to me that nothing violates any real laws of physics as long as the sun has an internal energy source.

In other words, if the sun is really powered by core fusion.

Glad you've finally clued in.

On the other hand, as long as it's internally powered, electrons will always more easily escape a gravity well compared to say a proton with a much higher mass. You're simply *ASSUMING* that the sun isn't capable of producing consistent releases of electrons and protons, yet even the standard solar model *PREDICTS* that it must do exactly that.

Quite so.

Now, do you understand how large that charge actually is? And do you realize what will happen to the sun once that charge is reached?

Evidently, as best as I can tell there's nothing particularly wrong with Peratt's basic premise

That is why you fail. Its fatal flaws are quite evident.

 

[Ziggurat]

I need to eat before I go through your whole post, but this point is worth responding to in a post by itself IMO, because it's really the crux of the problem IMO. You have *MYOPICALLY* decided that there are two and only two possible choices to choose from in the whole universe. Baloney. Your argument comes down to a false dichotomy fallacy. There are MANY options that might explain why the universe works as it does, not just two! For crying out loud....

Those two possibilities are really categories of possibilities. But there are not any other options. This is not speculation. This is observation. We can measure that the acceleration of mass is the same for ALL matter. It's independent of mass, it's independent of composition, it's independent of mass-to-charge ratio. That constant acceleration is pretty much the DEFINITION of gravity. That is the fundamental characteristic of gravity which separates it from every other force. From that alone, we can tell that galactic rotations are determined by gravity. Not by electromagnetism and not by the nuclear force. Since it's caused by gravity (because that's what DEFINES gravity: a force which produces an acceleration independent of the object it acts on), those really are the only two possibilities for why our calculations using the observable mass don't match observations: we have our model of gravity wrong, or we have the inputs for the model (ie, the mass) wrong. That's it. Nothing else is possible, because EVERYTHING ELSE would produce different accelerations for different kinds of matter, and that's not what we observe. And nothing you have offered can counter this argument.

 

[ben m]

Magical "godlike" properties no less. You expect me to HAVE FAITH that it "inflated' at faster than the speed of LIGHT no less! Come on. Sure that's 'compatible with physics' as long as you ignore the speed limits of matter and make extraordinary and unsupported claims about 'expanding space'.

No, not at all. You write down a perfectly normal looking field in a quantum field theory. You ask GR and QM, "what would this field do" and its answer is "inflation". You do not need to break GR, QM, the speed of light, etc..

You don't believe me? That's your problem. You want to be ignorant about it, go ahead.

"Inflation god did it" isn't a "hypothesis", it's quite literally a wing, a prayer and a "religion" in a dead god.

Once again, you misunderstand "hypothesis." I don't care to explain it again.

It's more like "suppose the sun has a charge and an internal energy source". Birkland entertained a lot of ideas about what might power a cathode sun, but the assumption was that it had an internal power source.

"The Sun has a (large) charge" is experimentally false if basic E&M is true. Write down the hypothesis that the Sun has (say) +1000 Coulombs of charge. Ask GR/QM/E&M "what would happen next". E&M tells you "the solar wind would consist of electrons moving inwards at no less than 1 MeV and protons moving outwards at no less than 1 MeV". This is not the case; the solar wind consists of both electrons and protons moving both outward at ~ 1 keV. The prediction is false, so the hypothesis is disproven.

I was giving you the benefit out the doubt by saying: the hypothesis is that both "The sun has 1000C" and "something is wrong with E&M such that the 1-MeV prediction can be avoided". And so on.

It seems to me that nothing violates any real laws of physics as long as the sun has an internal energy source. If it didn't have any sort of energy source, you're right, it couldn't produce a regular charge. On the other hand, as long as it's internally powered, electrons will always more easily escape a gravity well compared to say a proton with a much higher mass.

Except that electrons are not "escaping the gravity well ... more easily ... compared to a proton". We've probed the Solar Wind more ways than you can imagine; the self-charging system that you're imagining is simply not there.

Nor do we expect them to be there. The "electrons leave more easily" effect is ordinary physics, with no free parameters, and it does not allow the Sun to have a large charge.


End of story.

(Unless you want to throw out normal E&M. You keep claiming not to throw out E&M ... and then you blithely ignore the actual laws of E&M in order to make crazy EU/PC claims. Make up your mind.)

 

[edd]

Guth made it up in his head and a "religion" was born. By your definition God is compatible with the known laws of physics too. So what?

Religions are not in the habit of testing themselves. Darwinian principles discourage it, rather.

Cosmologists try to test inflation - it's not always easy but it's definitely a major aim.

 

[edd]

When I see you folks put a little sweat equity into the E orientation of astronomy, and it still hasn't worked out, then I might believe it's "died a natural death". At the moment I see no evidence that you folks have even given the idea a "fair shake" in the first place.

Really, it's been given a fair shake. Cosmologists do think about electrical and magnetic fields, and plasma physics, but they consider gravity as the major force in cosmology for very good reasons. I don't think you'll ever be convinced though - I really only engage in this for the sake of passing readers.

 

[sol invictus]

You folks must spend man YEARS writing papers about Lambda-stuff.

That's because as far as anyone can tell, current data is fit by Lambda-CDM cosmology. As a result, it's a huge fat target with a bullseye painted on it, and everyone is working really hard to falsify it (and therefore get famous). So far, they've all failed.

When I see you folks put a little sweat equity into the E orientation of astronomy, and it still hasn't worked out, then I might believe it's "died a natural death".

If you mean the idea that the motion of stars is significantly affected by EM fields, that's completely impossible. It's inconsistent with the laws of physics, full stop.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

When I see you folks put a little sweat equity into the E orientation of astronomy, and it still hasn't worked out, then I might believe it's "died a natural death". At the moment I see no evidence that you folks have even given the idea a "fair shake" in the first place.

Really, it's been given a fair shake. Cosmologists do think about electrical and magnetic fields, and plasma physics, but they consider gravity as the major force in cosmology for very good reasons. I don't think you'll ever be convinced though - I really only engage in this for the sake of passing readers.

Odd, isn't it.

If, instead of writing tens of thousands of posts, in multiple internet fora, over several years, MM had spent the time and effort developing his ideas - giving the idea a "fair shake" - how much more satisfying would this conversation, today, be?

Why is it that the world's scientists should take orders from MM, concerning what they should spend their time and effort researching? Especially when MM himself seems to have done nothing ...

 

[ben m]

I need to eat before I go through your whole post, but this point is worth responding to in a post by itself IMO, because it's really the crux of the problem IMO. You have *MYOPICALLY* decided that there are two and only two possible choices to choose from in the whole universe. Baloney. Your argument comes down to a false dichotomy fallacy. There are MANY options that might explain why the universe works as it does, not just two! For crying out loud....

LET'S GO AHEAD AND LIST THEM.

Things that are known to cause accelerations:

• Photon pressure differentials.
• Gas kinetic pressure differentials. (Including drag.)
• The Lorentz force law.
• Coulomb's Law.
• Gradient-dipole forces.
• Non-pressure momentum transfer; getting hit with a projectile.
• Ropes, springs, levers.
• Directed emission of: photons, neutrinos, particle beams, gravity waves.
• Gravitational attraction.

Am I forgetting anything? Feel free to add more. Let's go down the list. What is the force on the Sun due to each of these things? The Sun is moving around the Galaxy under a Sagittariuswards 10^-11 m/s/s acceleration.

• Photon pressure differentials. The photons responsible are observed, the force adds up to practically zero. Let's not even talk about it.
• Gas kinetic pressure differentials. (Including drag.) The gas responsible (the IMP) is observed, the force adds up to practically zero. You would need to break Newton's Laws, AND invent an invisible gas, AND fine-tune the gas properties and gradients at every star, to change that conclusion.
• The Lorentz force law. The charge on the Sun is observed to be small; the local magnetic field is observed to be small; the force is therefore small. You would need to discard Maxwell's equations entirely, AND fine-tune the field direction at every star, to change that conclusion.
• Coulomb's Law. The charge on the Sun is observed to be small; the local electric field is observed to be small; the force is therefore small. You would need to discard Maxwell's equations entirely, AND fine-tune the field direction at every star, to change that conclusion.
• Gradient-dipole forces. Same general problem as Lorentz and Coulomb, but EVEN WORSE.
• Non-pressure momentum transfer; getting hit with a projectile. No substantial projectile beams have been observed to hit the Sun; to explain the observed acceleration, you'd need something like a lunar mass per year, approaching and crashing into the Sun in a Sagittariuswards direction at 50km/s. A lunar mass per year over 4 Gy is two entire solar masses. You would need to break Newton's Laws AND hypothesize new particle physics to change that conclusion.
• Ropes, springs, levers. No actual ropes, springs, or levers are observed to be connected to the Sun.
• Directed emission of: photons, neutrinos, particle beams, gravity waves. The Sun is not observed to emit any unbalanced Gemini-wards particle beam with enough momentum to accelerate it substantially. You would need to break Newton's Laws AND hypothesize new particle physics to change that conclusion.
• Gravitational attraction. Gravitational attraction has exactly the right properties---equivalence principle, in the right direction, and in principle a large-enough magnitude---to be the force accelerating the Sun (and everything around it) towards Sagittarius at ~10^-11 m/s/s. To get the magnitude right, the existing law of gravity is fine, but you may need new particle physics to explain the mass of the attractor.

This isn't rocket science, Michael. Not all forces are important all the time. Cars accelerate due to friction and drag forces, not E&M. Railgun bullets accelerate due to E&M, not the weak nuclear force. Stars accelerate due to gravity (or something very gravitylike, like MOND) not E&M. We come to this conclusion because the alternatives are explicitly ruled out by the evidence.

 

[temporalillusion]

I vote gravity waves.

 

[ben m]

Let me just add another comment regarding non-gravitational forces "pushing" the Sun around. I claimed that there isn't enough gas/plasma pressure, photon pressure, etc. to push the sun hard enough for a 10^-11 m/s/s acceleration. Let's add some numbers to that.

The Sun's acceleration requires a force of about 2x10^19 Newtons. If this force were due to some sort of wind, beam, pressure gradient, particle flux, etc.---or more generally any force subject to shielding---it'd have to act on the Sun's surface or thereabouts. A proton-beam-bulldozer can't shove the solar core directly, it'd hit the photosphere first and just shove that.

The Sun's cross section is 1.5x10^18 square meters.

The force required would be about 10 Newtons/m^2, or 10 Pascals.

Do you really think there's something that interacts with atoms blowing through the Solar System with 10 pascals of pressure? Let me give you some intuition about 10 Pascals of pressure:

4 Moderate breeze 5.5--7.9m/s Small waves with breaking crests. Fairly frequent whitecaps. Dust and loose paper raised. Small branches begin to move.
5 Fresh breeze 7.9--10.7m/s Moderate waves of some length. Many whitecaps. Small amounts of spray. Branches of a moderate size move. Small trees in leaf begin to sway.

10 Pascals is approximately the amount of pressure you feel on your face (or building, or sails, etc.) in an 8 m/s breeze on Earth. That's a fresh breeze on the Beaufort scale.

It's not a small force, Michael. It's not "there's an invisible EM effect we just never looked for". It's a whopping huge thing that would, if it were there, make the Solar System look utterly, utterly different than it does. Any force that can push that hard on the Sun is going to push at least that hard on spacecraft---yet sending a spacecraft to Mars, or Mercury, or Jupiter, or the heliopause, manifestly does not involve sailing through a Sagittarius-pointing "mystery force" equivalent to a Beaufort 5 breeze. (And these craft are not immune to radiation and plasma pressure; they feel, and accelerate a tiny amount due to, the solar wind and solar radiation. That will make it hard to argue that your "mystery force" is a heretofore-ignored plasma, won't it?)

Comet tails---obviously lightweight enough to feel and respond to radiation pressure, plasma winds, etc.---are not pointing Sagittariuswards under a pressure-force as large as Earth's Beaufort 5 breezes.

(Let me add: Gravity doesn't have this problem because of the equivalence principle. The force of gravity, unlike any sort of external push, does not act per-unit-cross-section-area but rather per-unit-mass)

Does that encourage you to prune your "open minded" list of possible forces?

 

[temporalillusion]

A fresh breeze of gravity waves.

 

[Tim Thompson]

Solar Net Charge & What Pushes the Sun?

On the other hand, as long as it's internally powered, electrons will always more easily escape a gravity well compared to say a proton with a much higher mass. You're simply *ASSUMING* that the sun isn't capable of producing consistent releases of electrons and protons, yet even the standard solar model *PREDICTS* that it must do exactly that.

I do not understand what you are trying to say. What is "consistent releases of electrons and protons" supposed to mean in the context of this discussion? And what exactly is it that you think the standard solar model predicts (I can't tell from your post). In fact the standard solar model does account for the enhanced escape of electrons from the Sun, and therefore a net electric charge on the Sun, as compared to protons, as I pointed out two years ago (10 March 2009).

So, electric fields & electric currents in & around the sun are very mainstream concepts, well represented in the literature. Amazingly, even in the mainstream models, we expect the sun & stars to carry relatively small, net positive charges (i.e., Neslusan, 2001), because protons are heavier than electrons and so electrons escape the sun more easily. It's all about which field is the primary driver. Is it the electric field or is it the magnetic field? There is no physical justification for the electric star model with electric fields being primary, whereas the standard model with magnetic fields being primary is very well supported by extensive physics.

And on 19 January, 2010

90% of the baryonic mass of a spiral galaxy is stars. While stars are electrical neutral for all practical purposes, we expect a star of solar mass to carry a net electrical charge of about +77 Coulombs because lighter electrons are more easily expelled from the sun. So the sun builds a net charge until it is in equilibrium (Neslusan, 2001)

So, let us consider F = ma = QE where m is mass, a is acceleration, Q is electric charge and E is electric field. We know the mass of the sun, 1.9891x10³⁰ kg. We also know that any systematic cosmological electric field as large as 1 v/m would make itself obvious (induced electric fields in the solar wind are milli-Volts per meter), so I will use that as an upper limit on any cosmological electric field. So the acceleration is just QE/m which is 77/1.9891x10³⁰ = 3.87x10^-29 m/sec². Not much of an acceleration. Let's give it 14 billion years (4.4x10¹⁷ sec) and see what happens. 3.87x10^-29 m/sec² x 4.4x10¹⁷ sec = 1.7x10^-11 m/sec. That's far short of the thousands of kilometers per second that are typical cosmological redshift equivalent relative velocities.

So, let us ask what kind of field strength is required to accelerate a star like the sun to a speed of 1000 km/sec, given 4.4x10¹⁷ sec to pull it off. That's v = at or v/t = a or 10⁶ m/sec / 4.4x10¹⁷ sec = 2.27x10^-12 m/sec². OK, now E = ma/Q or E = (1.9891x10³⁰ kg x 2.27x10^-12 m/sec²) / 77 C = 5.86x10¹⁶ V/m. I think we can all agree that a cosmological electric field on the order of 10¹⁶ Volts per meter would be rather more than simply "obvious".

Something has to push the stars of a galaxy up to a few thousand km/sec recession velocity, at least. The numbers we see above certainly appear to me to rule out classical electromagnetic fields as the physical basis for dark energy.

In fact, even your own 'magnetic field lines" are supposedly created by the persistence of CONTINUOUS electric fields inside of the sun.

I also do not know what you are trying to get across with the words "CONTINUOUS electric fields". As I read it, the statement cannot be true, though I don't know that how I read it is what you are trying to say. In any case, the correct statement is that the magnetic fields that permeate most, if not all stars, are generated by the motions of charged particles. The fact that they are not necessarily distributed inside the star as pure currents of electrons and protons, but are mostly essentially fluid flows of mixed electrons and protons, is not important. Internal motions of the charged particles in the plasma will generate magnetic fields. Maybe that's what you meant, but one can hardly tell that from the words you used.