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Something new under the sun

It's on its face stupid, revealing a complete lack of understanding of the evidentiary underpinnings of our present understanding of physical laws and a pathetic contempt for those who are smart enough to comprehend that.


blah, blah, more word salad and generalizations. If you had any reason to dismiss the material being presented here we would have heard it already. Its obvious that you have none.

I posted a fair bit of information in my previous post for example, if all of this material is so amazingly wrong, how come you can't come up with any reason to dismiss it? you seem to use exclusively ad-antiquitam arguments.

If you can find a website that claims to debunnk plasma cosmology, then please post it here, it would make interesting reading. (but please dont post the small section of wikipedia that I addressed in my previous post)
 
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Mainstream studies also suggest that the universe is homogeneous on large scales without evidence of the very large scale structure required by plasma filamentation proposals.[20]

Well, i don’t know what universe the people who wrote this are living in, but it definitely is not this one. Are they seriously saying that there is not large scale filamentation observed in space?

I also found this a particularly clueless statement. The universe is unabashedly filamentary as far as our telescopes can see. And since MattusMaximus seems to put great store in a theory's predictions, it should be noted that the very earliest plasma cosmologists predicted this filamentary nature ... and the mainstream did not. In fact, the mainstream predicted just the opposite and has only been able to partially explain the observed filaments by invoking huge quantities of unobservable, ghost-like dark matter that can assume any property they happen to need, and by filling the universe we can see with "winds" that can blow this way and that in whatever manner is required at that moment. :D
 
From the referenced article just above:

physicist Robert Sanders of the University of Groningen in The Netherlands said:
It suggests that we may know less about gravity than we think we do," he says. "I think people should take it seriously.


Now, I don't want to be thought of as narcissistic or self-promoting, no sir, but I ask you to compare that with the opening sentence of my OP. Was that prophecy, or was that prophecy? *shoots cuffs, forgetting I'm sitting here in a t-shirt*


In other news, that article is very, very interesting. An attractive force that is proportional to the angle of approach to the equatorial plane? What kind of thing could that be? A great day to be a planetary astronomer. If its not a twisted gravity field, what....????
 
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Why should the field remain constant? By Gauss's law, that requires not only a charge on the sun, but a volume charge throughout the entire solar system as well. And not just any volume charge, but a particular volume charge. How can such a volume charge in space be confined, and why should it take on that specific distribution? Such basic questions are not asked, let alone answered. This is not a model, it's hand-waving. Again.


Yeah, I pointed this very flaw out back in post #9 of this thread and I never got any response to the criticism, just more posts to EU-PU woo sites.


The only motivation for the claim that the electric field is constant as a function of distance appears to be that graph showing the field in a discharge tube. But the geometry is fundamentally different: unlike the surface of a sphere at different radii, the cross-sectional area along a cylinder doesn't vary with distance, so applying Gauss's law gives you something different in that case than would exist for our sun. So it looks like the initial assertion actually comes from a fundamental misunderstanding of electricity. Not surprising, really, nor is it surprising that you didn't catch it.


Yup, if there is a net charge on the sun, as Zeuzzz and others claim, then by Gauss' Law of electrostatics the electric field should follow an inverse-square law. I've never seen anyone on this thread actually explain the causes behind the claimed electrical fields (static, btw) they keep harping upon.


Oh, and the electric force on a satellite in an electric field can come from more than just the charge on the satellite. If the field itself has a gradient (which it would for anything other than one particular volume charge distribution), then electric polarization of the satellite (which will happen because large parts of it are metal) will create a net force as well.


Not to mention other localized EM-effects, say from interactions with the magnetic fields of planets. In addition, depending upon a host of factors, these effects could cause either a positive or negative acceleration on the space probe. There are many unknowns in this kind of speculation.
 
Now, I don't want to be thought of as narcissistic or self-promoting, no sir, but I ask you to compare that with the opening sentence of my OP. Was that prophecy, or was that prophecy? *shoots cuffs, forgetting I'm sitting here in a t-shirt*
And cheers sir! *raises brew*

In other news, that article is very, very interesting. An attractive force that is proportional to the angle of approach to the equatorial plane? What kind of thing could that be? A great day to be a planetary astronomer. If its not a twisted gravity field, what....????

Yeah, this is really bizarre...
There's something strange going on here.
I'm downloading the full paper to read, this definitely has my attention.
 
I also found this a particularly clueless statement. The universe is unabashedly filamentary as far as our telescopes can see. And since MattusMaximus seems to put great store in a theory's predictions, it should be noted that the very earliest plasma cosmologists predicted this filamentary nature ... and the mainstream did not. In fact, the mainstream predicted just the opposite and has only been able to partially explain the observed filaments by invoking huge quantities of unobservable, ghost-like dark matter that can assume any property they happen to need, and by filling the universe we can see with "winds" that can blow this way and that in whatever manner is required at that moment. :D

It'd be nice if the woos could show any evidence that the filaments of which they speak are by their nature made of plasma. Such a large-scale filamentary structure does exist, but the filaments are due to the distribution of galaxy clusters, which as far as I know, don't constitute humongous chains of plasma stretching across the universe. Here's some links for more information on this...

Large-scale structure of the universe

Large-scale homogeneity

Btw, we should all ask ourselves why BeAChooser, Zeuzzz, or any other EU-PU woos here haven't bothered to explain the inherent contradictions in the arguments they make that say:

1. General relativity is a well-established and tested theory of the cosmos.

2. The big bang cosmology is a joke.

- AND NOTE -

3. GR actually predicted the BBC and also allowed for a cosmological constant (dark energy), so the two are intricately bound together. If you lose one you have to lose the other.

4. How can EU-PU woos maintain both points #1 and #2 while completely ignoring point #3?

For them to simply hand wave away (or blatantly ignore) this kind of glaring contradiction within their own arguments does not give the EU-PU woos any credibility in my book.

While I'm at it, here is a link to the mountains of evidence we have in support of big bang cosmology; note that consistency with general relativity is right there near the top...

Evidence for the Big Bang

If they were looking for a physics ally in me, they have failed miserably as I am tired of seeing them butcher our physics & cosmology knowledge so badly. I am no longer interested in talking with them. The only reason I continue to post on this thread is to point out their errors for the benefit of lurkers...

... oh, and to discuss legitimate science related to the Pioneer Anomaly ;)
 
Since you are so keen to keep bringing up that small wikipedia entry that purports to debunk plasma cosmology, thats have a look at some of the problems with it. As i said before, your best bet to see PC material is not on wikipedia, this site is far less biased.


Yeah, a plasma universe woo site (URL is plasma-universe.com) - really unbiased. Gimme a break - the woos have only posted this a crazy number of times in an attempt to get people to read their crackpot ideas (I won't stoop to call them theories).


What they fail to note that these observations are consistent with both mainstream ideas and plasma cosmology, and that is probably why they do not say how this observation actually falsifies plasma cosmology.


It's pretty tough to falsify something when no tests or experiments are ever proposed. All I've seen so far from the EU-PU woo crowd is bad physics, worse physics, contradictory arguments, hand-waving, ad-hoc assertions, and arguments from ignorance. Not interested...


I am still waiting for your source that refutes plasma cosmology, apart from wikipedia. If you cant find one, ask yourself why that is.


Folks, there's no website that falsifies my "theory" of drunken cosmic leprechauns, so that must mean it's correct! See, I can make non-testable, ad-hoc, arguments from ignorance too.

Can I get published in the Plasma Universe journals now? :)
 
Now, I don't want to be thought of as narcissistic or self-promoting, no sir, but I ask you to compare that with the opening sentence of my OP. Was that prophecy, or was that prophecy?

Good show! Don't worry about blowing your own horn. Experience shows nobody else is going to do it for you.
 
Yeah, a plasma universe woo site (URL is plasma-universe.com) - really unbiased. Gimme a break - the woos have only posted this a crazy number of times in an attempt to get people to read their crackpot ideas (I won't stoop to call them theories).
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Please don't refer to people as woos, it's insulting. I've already asked you politely before.
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It's pretty tough to falsify something when no tests or experiments are ever proposed. All I've seen so far from the EU-PU woo crowd is bad physics, worse physics, contradictory arguments, hand-waving, ad-hoc assertions, and arguments from ignorance. Not interested...
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Hannes Alfvén, who coined the phrase "Plasma Universe" (Ref) (Ref), won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 for his "fundamental work and discoveries in magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) with fruitful applications in different parts of plasma physic" (Ref). MHD maths is used by just about everyone who studies plasmas.

Alfvén, and pioneers such as Irving Langmuir (Nobel Prize winner) and Kristian Birkeland extensively experimented. Alfvén himself stressed the importance of an empirical based approach (Ref, full text), as did other colleagues such as Carl-Gunne Fälthammar (Ref) (Ref) and Winston H. Bostick (Ref).

The tests, experiments and predictions are all there, in peer reviewed journals including Nature, Science, Astrophysics and Space Science, Astrophysical Journal, and many many others.
 
It's pretty tough to falsify something when no tests or experiments are ever proposed. All I've seen so far from the EU-PU woo crowd is bad physics, worse physics, contradictory arguments, hand-waving, ad-hoc assertions, and arguments from ignorance.


Plasma cosmoloigts have made many predictions.

"According to some scientists and philosophers of science, a theory is or should be judged by its ability to make successful predictions. This paper examines a case from the history of recent science - the research of Hannes Alfven and his colleagues on space plasma phenomena - in order to see whether scientists actually follow this policy. Tests of five pre-dictions are considered: magnetohydrodynamic waves, field-alligned ('Birkeland') currents, critical ionization velocity and the existance of planetary rings, electrostatic double layers, and partial corotation. It is found that the success or failure of these predictions had essentially no effect on the acceptance of Alfven's theories, even though concepts such as 'Alfven waves' have become firmly entrenched in space physics. Perhaps the importance of predictions in science has been exaggerated; if a theory is not acceptable to the scientific community, it may not gain any credit from successful predictions."

Alfven also predicted double radio sources, and that most of the mass in the universe is plasma.

Kristian Birkeland predicted auroral electrojets in 1908. In 1967 Alex Dessler wrote an article arguing that Zmuda et al had indeed detected field align-currents. Alfvén subsequently credited (1986) that Dessler "discovered the currents that Birkeland had predicted" He also predicted that we would observe birkeland currents in space, which turned out true.

In 1913, Birkeland was the first to predict that plasma was ubiquitous in space. He wrote: "It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds."(Ref), which has been confirmed, as 99% of the universe is matter in a plasma state.

In 1916, Birkeland was probably the first person to successfully predict that the solar wind behaves as do all charged particles in an electric field, "From a physical point of view it is most probable that solar rays are neither exclusively negative nor positive rays, but of both kinds"; in other words, the Solar Wind consists of both negative electrons and positive ions.

Wallace Thornhill predicted the flash produced by a small electrical discharge in the deep impact excercise. He said "The electrical energy will be released before impact" and this was confirmed by NASA investigator Peter Schultz, describing the event recorded from the spacecraft: "What you see is something really surprising. First, there is a small flash, then there's a delay, then there's a big flash and the whole thing breaks loose”.

And he also said that "An abundance of water on or below the surface of the nucleus (the underlying assumption of the dirty snowball hypothesis) is unlikely.", which was also confirmed.

There are many more, Nobel prize winner Langmuir also made a couple of predictions that turned out true, as did Anthony Peratt with galaxy shapes and pinch effects in the cosmos, Gerrit L. Verschuur made predictions in the field of CIV, etc,


Can I get published in the Plasma Universe journals now? :)


your jokin right? Did you actually read any of the site? it even states what journals the work is published in.


Heres a small list of some of the plasma cosmology papers published in mainstream astronmy journals;


* Introduction to Plasma Astrophysics and Cosmology - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 227, Issue 1-2, pp. 3-11

* Electric space: Evolution of the plasma universe - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 244, Issue 1-2, pp. 89-103

* Advances in numerical modeling of astrophysical and space plasmas - Astrophysics and Space Science Volume 242, Numbers 1-2 / March, 1996

* How Can Spirals Persist? - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 227, Issue 1-2, pp. 175-186

* Advances in Numerical Modeling of Astrophysical and Space Plasmas 2 - Astrophysics and Space Science Volume 256, Numbers 1-2 / March, 1997

* Plasma and the Universe: Large Scale Dynamics, Filamentation, and Radiation - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 227, Issue 1-2, pp. 97-107

* Rotation Velocity and Neutral Hydrogen Distribution Dependency on Magnetic Field Strength in Spiral Galaxies - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 227, Issue 1-2, pp. 167-173

* Radiation Properties of Pulsar Magnetospheres: Observation, Theory, and Experiment - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 227, Issue 1-2, pp. 229-253

* Confirmation of radio absorption by the intergalactic medium - Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 207, no. 1, p. 17-26

* X-Ray-emitting QSOS Ejected from Arp 220 - The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 553, Issue 1, pp. L11-L13.

* A Possible Relationship between Quasars and Clusters of Galaxies - The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 549, Issue 2, pp. 802-819.

* On Quasar Distances and Lifetimes in a Local Model - The Astrophysical Journal, 567:801–810, 2002 March 10

* GALACTIC NEUTRAL HYDROGEN EMISSION PROFILE STRUCTURE - The Astronomical Journal, 118:1252È1267, 1999 September

* Filamentation of volcanic plumes on the Jovian satellite I0 - Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 144, no. 1-2,

* On the evolution of interacting, magnetized, galactic plasmas - Astrophysics and Space Science (ISSN 0004-640X), vol. 91, no. 1, March 1983

* Magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions —near-Earth manifestations of the plasma Universe - Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 144, Issue 1-2, pp. 105-133

* Distances of Quasars and Quasar‐like Galaxies: Further Evidence That Quasi‐stellar Objects May Be Ejected from Active Galaxies - The Astrophysical Journal, 616:738–744, 2004



I really can't be bothered to post any more, you can see about seventy or so other papers published in mainstream astronomy journals here; http://www.soundintent.com/

Is there something wrong with journals like The Astrophysical Journal, the Journal of Astrophysics and Space Science, The IEEE Journal of Plasma Physics MattusMaximus?

Sometimes it helps to actually know about what you are arguing against :) I am still waiting for your scientific reasons to dismiss plasma cosmology material.
 
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There is a difference between describing a theory as woo, and calling the proponents woos. The latter is an ad hominem.

No it isn't. Ad hominem is a specific logical fallacy of the form:

A says X.
A also says/does/is Y.
Therefore X is wrong.

For example, "You are a woo, therefore your claims are wrong." would be an ad hominem. This is not the case here. Instead, what is being said is "Your claims are wrong, therefore you are a woo.". Not the same thing at all, and not a logical fallacy in any way.

Incidentally, there does seem to be a tendency among woos to claim that other people are engaging in logical fallacies, often ad hominem, despite clearly having no idea what the fallacies actually mean. If you'd claimed it was an insult you might have had a point, although it is incredibly mild and is more of a description than an insult. As it is, you are siply wrong.
 
I don't know if this has been posted yet, but it seems like an empirical formula has been found that describes the flyby anomaly well, though the physical explanation of the formula is still unknown.

Curiouser and curiouser, as they say.

http://space.newscientist.com/artic...ation-may-account-for-wayward-spacecraft.html

Interesting. I'm trying to think what the rotation of the earth would have to do with it. The article says that frame dragging wouldn't alter the velocity this much, and the Gravity Probe B experiment is not showing any significant deviation from general relativity yet, although it looks like they are still calibrating it. But effects of the magnitude these space craft are experiencing should be large enough to be detected by Gravity Probe B by now. So I'm thinking that this is not a gravitational effect. Gravity Probe B is in a 400 mile orbit. Perhaps this is caused by something that exists beyond low earth orbit, such as the magnetosphere. And no, I'm not an electric sun proponent or a plasma cosmologist. It's just that the spacecraft anomalies do not appear to be gravitational in nature. The fact that spacecraft that approach and exit at near equal but opposite inclinations are not affected while others are suggests a dipole effect rather than a monopole.
 
No it isn't. Ad hominem is a specific logical fallacy
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Indeed, there is also a fallacy called an "ad hominem fallacy", named from the latin phrase "ad hominem". In general terms, an ad hominem refers to "attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument" (Ref), and is indeed made as an insult.

The forum rules note (#12) "Attack the argument, not the arguer".

If you'd claimed it was an insult you might have had a point, although it is incredibly mild and is more of a description than an insult. As it is, you are siply wrong.
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The Skeptics Dictionary describes it as "a derogatory and dismissive term". No matter what the magnitude of its offensiveness, it is still offensive.
 
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Indeed, there is also a fallacy called an "ad hominem fallacy", named from the latin phrase "ad hominem". In general terms, an ad hominem refers to "attacking an opponent's character rather than answering his argument" (Ref), and is indeed made as an insult.

The forum rules note (#12) "Attack the argument, not the arguer".


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The Skeptics Dictionary describes it as "a derogatory and dismissive term". No matter what the magnitude of its offensiveness, it is still offensive.
I noticed that you clipped off the portion of the post that addressed this.

Do you honestly think you can pull off such a clear deception when the post in question is a mere two posts above yours?
 
I noticed that you clipped off the portion of the post that addressed this.
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Calling someone a "woo", no matter what your justification, is an insult an ad hominem however you want to look at it. Logic is no excuse.
 
Forum Rule #11: Posts must be on topic to the thread subject. On this Forum thread drift is expected but must follow from the discussion.
 
Let me address this for the benefit of Irony.
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For example, "You are a woo, therefore your claims are wrong." would be an ad hominem.
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"You are a woo" is an ad hominem.
"You are a woo, therefore your claims are wrong." is an ad hominen fallacy that incorporates an ad hominem.

"Your claims are wrong, therefore you are a woo.". Not the same thing at all, and not a logical fallacy in any way.
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"Your claims are wrong" is a perfectly fine opinion.
"..therefore you are a woo" is an ad hominem.
"Your claims are wrong, therefore you are a woo" does not necessarily follow.

I think Cuddles's claims concerning ad hominems are wrong. It doesn't make Cuddles a woo.

"Isaac Newton's claims on the occult were wrong". It doesn't make him a woo, though we may agree that his claims on the occult were woo.

"Einstein's claims on Charles Hapgood theory of "The Earth's Shifting Crust" were wrong, but it doesn't make Einstein a woo, though we may agree that his claims were woo.

And even if we think someone is a woo, we don't have to call them so.
 
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