Something new under the sun

[DeiRenDopa]

If you are, as you say, not a professional physicist, how do you go about evaluating stuff that people like sol invictus post here?

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Same as everyone, on the sum of my knowledge and experience, ask around, read a bit, and keep an open mind.

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Thanks for this.

I presume that you mean 'same as everyone who is not a professional physicist'; I gather from what sol invictus, ben m, Ziggurat, and MattusMaximus (and maybe others; apologies for not mentioning you) have written, that they actively evaluate stuff that's in Peratt's papers or the Scott material (to give just two examples) by doing thought experiments (if a star were to be pushed around by a galactic magnetic field, how strong would it have to be? - that sort of thing).

As this 'how do you evaluate?' is an important part of what I think may be causing such long plasma cosmology threads, would you mind taking the Scott paper questions (in my previous posts) and explain how you evaluated both the paper and people like Ziggurat's comments on it?

Zeuzzz, if you're reading this, how do you go about evaluating stuff that people like sol invictus post here?
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How did you determine which professional physicists were pioneers of the PU, and which were not?

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• "Stockholm, August 1956, Revisited", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Apr 1989, Volume: 17, Issue: 2, page(s): 69-72. ("The author believes that the modern-day foundations of the plasma universe can be traced to a significant degree to the International Astronomical Union Symposium number 6 held in August, 1956, in Stockholm." 1956 Conference proceedings and contributors
• Anthony L. Peratt, "Guest editorial sixth special issue on space and cosmic plasma" (2003) IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Dec. 2003, Volume: 31, Issue: 6, Part 1, pages 1109-1111 (Full text PDF)
• Anthony L. Peratt, "Guest Editorial, Electrical Engineering, Plasma Science, and the Plasma Universe", IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Volume 14, Issue 6, Dec. 1986 Page(s):613 - 615 (full text PDF)

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Great! This plus your note on Birkeland suggest to me that you are a 'history of ideas' man, that your website is mostly about where plasma cosmology and plasma universe ideas came from and how they developed.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Continuing to look at this ...

Magnetism is caused only by the flow of charge. Magnetism and electricity are inextricably linked via maxwells equations. This is addressed in the publication I keep quoting (and will continue to until someone actually shows why it is wrong)

http://members.cox.net/dascott3/IEEE-TransPlasmaSci-Scott-Aug2007.pdf

It is clear that a rigorous understanding of the real physical properties of magnetic fields in plasmas is crucial for astrophysicists and cosmologists. Incorrect pronouncements about the properties of magnetic fields and currents in plasma will be counterproductive if these conceptual errors are propagated into publications and then used as the basis of new investigations.

There are some popular misconceptions;

1) Magnetic “lines of force” really exist as extant entities in
3-D space and are involved in cosmic mechanisms when
they move.
2) Magnetic fields can be open ended and can release energy
by “merging” or “reconnecting.”
3) Behavior of magnetic fields can be explained without any
reference to the currents that produce them.
4) Cosmic plasma is infinitely conductive, so magnetic fields
are “frozen into” it.

(rest of post omitted)

As I mentioned in my reply to iantresman earlier today, several people have commented on Scott's paper, and some have (I think) pointed out why it is wrong.

Perhaps to better understand one reason why this thread is so long, I will attempt to gather all the responses (and your comments on them) together into one post. If nothing else that would likely give me greater insight into why you think no one has explained why Scott is wrong despite the fact that at least one person thinks just such an explanation has been given.

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I started looking, and quickly found quite a few posts on this involving exchanges between Zeuzzz and sol invictus, Zeuzzz and ben m, and Zeuzzz and Ziggurat. Not all the exchanges directly addressed Zeuzzz' lament ('someone actually shows that it is wrong'), and I think it instructive to look at why: in a nutshell, it seems to me Zeuzzz' posts have the same attribute as I commented on earlier: very firm, very clear, no-room-for-misunderstanding, but packaged with a failure to include sufficient context or scope (maybe this is what others mean by 'shifting the goal posts'?).

However, I think we can look at just two replies, that of Tubbythin, and that of Ziggurat:
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Well there's a strawman in the abstract for starters.

I will once again point out the mistake I pointed out before. They state:
"Note that no electric currents exist near or at the neutral point. If they did, the point would no longer be magnetically neutral."
This is trivially falsified by one of the most basic magnetic configurations any first-year physics student studies: uniform current density in a circular wire. The center of the wire has nonzero current but zero magnetic field - it is a neutral point with electric current.

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A strawman in the abstract could certainly suggest the paper is unlikely to be very credible, but it doesn't necessarily mean the core content is wrong.

On the other hand, Ziggurat's comment seems to go right to the heart of the core content, and - if Ziggurat is correct - then Scott's paper does indeed have a fatal flaw. To use an analogy, if you have spelling mistakes in your answer to a homework math question, but the 'working' is correct, then clearly you've been sloppy but your work is otherwise sound. However, if you goof up in just one line in your working, your answer is wrong.

So Zeuzzz (and iantresman and BeAChooser, as well as anyone else reading this): if correct, does Ziggurat's comment amount to showing that Scott's core point is fatally flawed? If not, why not?

Also, can you test Ziggurat's comment independently, to see if it is, in fact, correct? If so, have you done so (and what did you find)? If not, why not do so?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

Continuing to distinguish between 'sloppy work' and 'fatally flawed'...

The 71 page 1996 Peratt paper ("Advances in Numerical Modeling of Astrophysical and Space Plasmas"), which both iantresman and Zeuzzz have said is a plasma cosmology paper (or was it plasma universe?), contains examples of other distinctions one could make.

That Peratt has views on cosmology and astrophysics that are not mainstream is both well-known and easy to verify, and this paper certainly contains plenty of instances where those views are expressed.

However, as the paper is principally about numerical modeling of astrophysical and space plasmas, it is more important to ask whether the stuff he writes about on that topic is wrong - did he goof up on his plasma physics, or his numerical modeling, or his computer science? If he didn't, then the core content of the paper is in #1 of ben m's list (even if there are gratuitous, non-core comments, that are in #2).

Not surprisingly, as the paper is 71 pages long, there are other layers.

For example, is the general approach Peratt takes to modeling the most efficient, for the types of plasmas mentioned? Given that there's no difference, in terms of the physics, of a current approach compared with a magnetic field one, and given that Peratt is as staunch an advocate of the current one as you could find, does the paper shortchange computational methods by downplaying a B one?

Another example might be section 4 ("Radiation Characteristics of the Plasma State") - only three types are covered, are there more that he omitted? of the three, transition radiation is not linked with any particular observed astrophysical or space plasma (unlike synchrotron radiation), and the section on thermal radiation seems to be a thinly disguised rehash of a falsified-many-times-over plasma cosmology hypothesis (on the CMB). And in any case, the core content - numerical modeling - does not seem to include anything on radiation characteristics anyway!

Back to Zeuzzz, et al.

In what ways do you consider this Peratt paper to be "plasma cosmology"?

 

[The Man]

http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/magnetic/magcur.html#c2

With the calculation for the magnetic field of a current in an infinitely long straight wire as B=m₀*I/2*p*r, with r = 0 you wind up with a division by zero or technically an “undefined” magnetic field within an imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wire. But this is not the end of the story, remember that a real wire or current has a cross sectional area and with Zig’s assertion of a “uniform current density in a circular wire” we can work out the magnetic field at the center in that consideration. We can brake down an infinitely long three dimensional straight wire as an infinite number of imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires around a central axis all carrying the same current. One of these imaginary wires at r = X from the central axis would produce a magnetic field of Bx=m₀*I/2*p*X at the central axis. Since this is a circular wire for any of the infinite imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires that we might consider there is a similar one the same distance away in the opposite direction or r = -X. So the magnetic field from that wire at r = -X is B-x=m₀*I/2*p*-X or B-x = -Bx so Bx + B-x = 0. The result being that the sum of all the magnetic fields from all infinite imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires around the central axis, at the central axis is 0 plus the magnetic field within the imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wire at the central axis which is technically “undefined”.

But that still isn’t the end of the story. At some point P with a current of I at a distance of r = X from that point and a current of -2I at a distance of r = 2X from that point there would be no magnetic field at point P.
B1= m₀*I/2*p*X
B2= m₀*-2*I/2*p*2*X
Or B2= -B1 so B1 + B2 = 0


So Scott's paper does indeed have a fatal flaw. In that a point with no magnetic field (or a neutral point) can indeed have a current at or currents near that point.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Hi Zeuzzz, Rather than posting screeds of text on Dancing David's question on plasma scaleabilty, you should point him to the Wikipedia article on plasma scaling, its applications and limitations.

Yes indeed, that wiki page uses a lot of peratts material and is very informitive. For example that picture on the right about the scaling relationship between small to galactic sized plasmas is from one of his publications, and so is much of the other mathematics on that page.

Much of it was infact copied diretly from plasma-universe.com in the first place, which is always my first choice for plasma stuff, I try to stay clear of wikipedia http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Plasma_scaling

 

[Zeuzzz]

Hmm. Yet somehow "Plasma Cosmology" is different than "nuclear astrophysics" or "high-energy astrophysics" or "condensed matter physics", all of which have a "general emphasis on the importance of X". You see, most subfields of physics don't declare that a large fraction of the work outside of their emphasis is wrong. Ultracold atom researchers do not, by and large, write long anti-LHC articles in their atomic physics journals, nor accuse astrophysicists of ignoring cosmic Bose condensates.

You appear to be very confused.

Not much of what has been talked about so far would be considered strictly Plasma Cosmology material, as not much of what has been talked about has been anything to do with cosmology. Nearly everything talked about here certainly adds credencee to the plasma cosmology approach, so may be talked of under that bracket, but little direct cosmology material has really been discussed yet.

I really think that I need to explain what plasma cosmology is again, and I think that the confusion is over the term 'cosmology'.

Plasma cosmology is an alternative cosmology which offers local plasma based explanations to the observations thought to prove the Big Bang. The effects of plasma in space are held in much higher regard than the conventional gravity driven Big Bang picture, and are used to explain things that would otherwise be left up to mathematical extrapolations. Most of these alternative production methods involve many of the new properties of plasma that are still being investigated to this day. Plamsa cosmology is based on the physics of the plasma universe.

The Plasma Universe. This is the science that plasma cosmology is primarily based on, and is a much more modern area of science when compared to the standard model. This was started primarily by the work of Alfven, and has been continued by his colleagues and associates ever since. Although much of Alfvens work on the physics of the plasma universe has turned out to be true, a lot of it is still deemed controversial, and most of his ideas are still rejected today, despite him having recieved a Nobel prize in this area.

Electric Universe. More speculative, involves charge on stars higher than conventionally accepted, electric stars, currents between bodies, electric comets, discharge craters, fusion on the suns surface, electric connections between boudaries, questioning validity of gravity, black holes, plasmas, etc.

Can you list several key points where plasma cosmology thinks mainstream cosmology is wrong?

Yes. I can list a few off the top of my head;

- An incredibly hot, dense volume was created out of nothing about 13.7 billion earth-time years ago
- The we can accurately know nearly exactly what the conditions were like just seconds after this event
- Three hypothetical entities are needed to help fit the observations to the cosmological theory (the inflation field, dark matter, and the dark energy field)

also;
- Many structures in the universe are older than the Universe is
- Existance of inexplicable voids
- Problems in light element abundances predictions
- Too may free parameters involved in matching the anisotropy of the microwave background with predictions (seven last time I checked)

Its basically like looking the Big Bang theory from a common sense perspective, without the ridiculous claims that often accompany it, such as "The Big Bang Explains the origin of the Universe" sort of rubbish they teach you at school. The Big Bang has never explained what the origin of the universe is, it excels at explaining how the universe evolved from an incredibly hot, dense volume about 13.7 billion earth-time years ago, but remains surprisingly silent on the 'origin' of that volume.


A Comparison of Plasma Cosmology and the Big Bang - IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON PLASMA SCIENCE, VOL. 31, NO. 6, DECEMBER 2003

THE DOMINANT theory of cosmology, the Big Bang, is contradicted by observation, and has been for some time. The theory’s predictions of light element abundance, large-scale structure, the age of the universe and the cosmic background radiation (CBR) are in clear contradiction with massive observational evidence, using almost any standard criteria for scientific
validity. This situation is not new. In 1992, I reviewed these contradictions [1], and concluded that theory had already been clearly falsified. Since that time, the evidence against the Big Bang has only strengthened. There is a second framework for cosmology–plasma cosmology. This approach, which assumes no origin in time for the universe and no hot, ultradense phase of universal evolution, uses the known laws of electromagnetism and the phenomena of plasma behavior to explain the main features of the universe.
It was pioneered by Hannes Alfven, Carl-Gunne Falthammar, and others [2]–[4] and has been developed since then by a small group of researchers including the present author and A. L. Peratt [5]–[13]. In contrast to the predictions of the Big Bang, which have been continuously falsified by observation, the predictions of plasma cosmology have continued to be verified.

The present review seeks to update the comparison between these two world systems in light of recent observations and theoretical developments, including some new results not yet published elsewhere. At the end of this review, I will consider some of the reasons why the Big Bang remains dominant in the field, despite its clear falsification by observation. In many respects
this resembles the situation of 400 years ago, when the clearly falsified Ptolemaic system remained dominant some 60 years after the introduction of the Copernican system. There is of course a third main cosmological perspective, the Steady State theory developed by Hoyle et al. [14]. However a systematic comparison of plasma cosmology and the Steady State theory requires its own article and is outside the scope of this review.

I don't quite know how to express how wrong that is. If that's how it works, Plasma Cosmology is of no more use than a stopped watch that's right twice a day. It means that any confident pro-plasma statements are, in a certain sense, pure bluster. Plasma cosmology sounds like it knows what it's talking about, not because it actually knows, but because it was designed to sound that way.

Hows about you just address the plasma cosmology material and just state why it is wrong? So far you dont seem to have read any, let alone quoted any, or explored any of the links I have provided.

[*]You know what Plasma Cosmology says about many things, like coronal heating,

No. Currently they use the same model as standard astronomy for coronal heating, but they will certainly hold the 'Electric universe' theorists ideas of a global E-field causing this heating in much higer regard than conventional opinion.

rotation curves

Plasma cosmology have a different explanation for rotation curves?

 

[iantresman]

Much of it was infact copied diretly from plasma-universe.com in the first place, which is always my first choice for plasma stuff, I try to stay clear of wikipedia http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Plasma_scaling

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Just to correct the precedent, I took the Plasma Scaling article from Wikipedia, and put it onto the Plasma Universe site, and made some changes that can be seen from the article History.

I note that I have not answered several other posts above... haven't had enough time today!

 

[iantresman]

.I think there's a typo in the first part; it should read "I think I've already mentioned that defining "plasma cosmology" and the "plasma universe" is not precise. Anthony Peratt has written [the last three words should have been a link?] that "'Plasma Cosmology', the study of the plasma universe" which makes them almost synonymous."

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Correct, I've added the link above.

I note that there lots of other questions to answer, but unfortunately I've had to pick and choose as time permits.

 

[ben m]

Yes. I can list a few off the top of my head;

- An incredibly hot, dense volume was created out of nothing about 13.7 billion earth-time years ago
- The we can accurately know nearly exactly what the conditions were like just seconds after this event
- Three hypothetical entities are needed to help fit the observations to the Big Bang theory, the inflation field, dark matter, and the dark energy field.

also;
- Many structures in the universe are older than the Universe is
- Existance of inexplicable voids
- Problems in light element abundances predictions
- Too may free parameters involved in matching the anisotropy of the microwave background with predictions (seven last time I checked)

I presume, in saying that "the big bang model has problems with light element abundances" and "too many free parameters", that PC claims to have an accurate description of the CMB wavelength spectrum, anisotropy spectrum, and polarization mode spectrum ... with fewer free parameters? Is that a safe statement? Great, that's what I was looking for.

Hows about you just address the plasma cosmology material and just state why it is wrong? So far you dont seem to have read any, let alone quoted any, or explored any of the links I have provided.

You've ignored the dozen or more posts on this thread telling you exactly why the cosmology is wrong. PC's rotation curves "solution" is to implicitly give stars a huge electromagnetic coupling to a huge field, both of which are ruled out. PC is inconsistent with galactic gravitational lensing data. PC is inconsistent with galaxy cluster gravitational lensing data. PC is inconsistent with *both* the Bullet Cluster weak lensing data and, when you think about it, the Bullet Cluster star/gas separation. PC is (I suspect) inconsistent with terrestrial tests of the equivalence principle, which show that the motion of a pendulum requires that the pendulum's acceleration towards the Galactic center has the same force per unit mass as the Sun/Earth system's acceleration. (I'll look into this again.)

Is that "stating why PC is wrong" clearly enough for you?

Given that you ignored all of that, how much time should I really waste arguing with your CMB, BBN, and large-scale structure claims?

 

[DeiRenDopa]

You appear to be very confused.

Not much of what has been talked about so far would be considered strictly Plasma Cosmology material, as not much of what has been talked about has been anything to do with cosmology. Nearly everything talked about here certainly adds credencee to the plasma cosmology approach, so may be talked of under that bracket, but little direct cosmology material has really been discussed yet.

I really think that I need to explain what plasma cosmology is again, and I think that the confusion is over the term 'cosmology'.

Plasma cosmology is an alternative cosmology which offers local plasma based explanations to the observations thought to prove the Big Bang. The effects of plasma in space are held in much higher regard than the conventional gravity driven Big Bang picture, and are used to explain things that would otherwise be left up to mathematical extrapolations. Most of these alternative production methods involve many of the new properties of plasma that are still being investigated to this day. Plamsa cosmology is based on the physics of the plasma universe.

The Plasma Universe. This is the science that plasma cosmology is primarily based on, and is a much more modern area of science when compared to the standard model. This was started primarily by the work of Alfven, and has been continued by his colleagues and associates ever since. Although much of Alfvens work on the physics of the plasma universe has turned out to be true, a lot of it is still deemed controversial, and most of his ideas are still rejected today, despite him having recieved a Nobel prize in this area.

Electric Universe. More speculative, involves charge on stars higher than conventionally accepted, electric stars, currents between bodies, electric comets, discharge craters, fusion on the suns surface, electric connections between boudaries, questioning validity of gravity, black holes, plasmas, etc.

(rest of post omitted)

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Thanks Zeuzzz, that is very helpful.

However, it does, unfortunately, seem to leave room for lots of confusion.

For example, all the stuff that's between the edge of our solar system and a few hundred million light years away, like the formation of stars, their evolution, the nature of novae and supernovae, the dynamics of our galaxy, the nature of the supermassive compact objects in the nuclei of so many galaxies, what clusters of galaxies are composed of, where ultra-high energy cosmic rays come from, etc, etc, etc.

Little of that is, strictly speaking, what cosmology aims to study (though of course a good cosmological model should not produce things that are at odds with this).

Even more confusing is that several of the papers in your list, the one you said were 'plasma cosmology papers published in mainstream astronmy journals', seem to have nothing to do with cosmology! "Radiation Properties of Pulsar Magnetospheres: Observation, Theory, and Experiment", for example. Another one is galaxy rotation curves, and the Peratt paper on it.

Would you please say a few words about 'plasma cosmology' (and the rest) and stellar structure and evolution; galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution; galaxy cluster structure and evolution; and AGNs?

 

[Dancing David]

Yes indeed, that wiki page uses a lot of peratts material and is very informitive. For example that picture on the right about the scaling relationship between small to galactic sized plasmas is from one of his publications, and so is much of the other mathematics on that page.

Much of it was infact copied diretly from plasma-universe.com in the first place, which is always my first choice for plasma stuff, I try to stay clear of wikipedia http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Plasma_scaling

Hi Zeuzz, have you decided what in Birkeland's pictures corresponds to what process on the sun. then we can get up to the scaling. thanks.

David

 

[Dancing David]

You appear to be very confused.

Plasma cosmology have a different explanation for rotation curves?

Hi,

If you are saying that PC/PU provides a different explanation for rotation curves, then do you still want to say 'the whole galaxy, or would you like to say that there is particular object that is accelerated faster than gravity minus dark matter would explain. Then we can find the mass, accelerationa nd decide a charge. then we can find the size of what force is accelerating the object.
When you are ready, name the object, and the force.

Thanks

david

 

[Zeuzzz]

I presume, in saying that "the big bang model has problems with light element abundances" and "too many free parameters", that PC claims to have an accurate description of the CMB wavelength spectrum, anisotropy spectrum, and polarization mode spectrum ... with fewer free parameters? Is that a safe statement? Great, that's what I was looking for.

The plasma alternative views the energy for the CBR as provided by the radiation released by early generations of stars in the course of producing the observed 4He. The energy is thermalized and isotropized by a thicket of dense, magnetically confined plasma filaments that pervade the intergalactic medium. This model has accurately matched the spectrum of the CBR using the best-quality data set from COBE[27]. This fit, it should be noted, involved only three free pamenters and achieved a probability of 85%.

Since this theory hypotheses filaments that efficiently scatter radiation longer than about 100 microns, it predicts that radiation longer than this from distant sources will be absorbed, or to be more precise scattered, and thus will decrease more rapidly with distance than radiation shorter than 100 microns. Such an absorption was demonstrated by comparing radio and far-infrared radiation from galaxies at various distances--the more distant, the greater the absorption effect[5,7].

What seems more likely, one of plasmas many effects in the cosmos giving the values of the CMB wavelength spectrum, anisotropy spectrum, and polarization mode spectrum or a Big Bang that happened 13.7 billion years ago, was created out of nothing, and requires three hypothetical entities (inflation field, dark matter, dark energy field) to even work in the first place?

PC's rotation curves "solution" is to implicitly give stars a huge electromagnetic coupling to a huge field, both of which are ruled out.

Wrong

PC is inconsistent with galactic gravitational lensing data.

How?

PC is inconsistent with galaxy cluster gravitational lensing data. PC is inconsistent with *both* the Bullet Cluster weak lensing data and, when you think about it, the Bullet Cluster star/gas separation.

Evidence?

 

[Zeuzzz]

For example, all the stuff that's between the edge of our solar system and a few hundred million light years away, like the formation of stars, their evolution, the nature of novae and supernovae, the dynamics of our galaxy, the nature of the supermassive compact objects in the nuclei of so many galaxies, what clusters of galaxies are composed of, where ultra-high energy cosmic rays come from, etc, etc, etc.

Much of this is the same as what is observed, they are not changing things that we know for sure, nor are they coming up with a new explanation for everything, they interpret certain specific things differently.

In relation to your questions though, Alfven did have some theories on the formation of stars, there have been some papers published on the Z-pinch morphology of supernovae and some about interesting trends in local supernovae times, the dynamics of the galaxy are currently thought to be a mix of gravitation and plasma forces, compact objects are still made of plasma and need not be so mysterious, or spin so fast (in the case of millisecond pulsars!) and cosmic rays are thought to originate from the E-fields set up by double layers (I think Alfven had a theory for this)

Even more confusing is that several of the papers in your list, the one you said were 'plasma cosmology papers published in mainstream astronmy journals', seem to have nothing to do with cosmology! "Radiation Properties of Pulsar Magnetospheres: Observation, Theory, and Experiment", for example. Another one is galaxy rotation curves, and the Peratt paper on it.

This is where it gets a bit confusing, that is strictly plasma universe material as it plasma physics in space, but it falls undeer the plasma cosmology bracket too, as plasma cosmology is based on the physics of the plasma universe.

Would you please say a few words about 'plasma cosmology' (and the rest) and stellar structure and evolution; galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution; galaxy cluster structure and evolution; and AGNs?

Peratt looks at galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution, as have some of the other authors who have built on his work since

Stellar structure and evolution I believe to be currently similar to the standard model, although more prominence is given to the role of electric currents in stars features such as flares, CME's, the corona, heliospheric currents, polar currents, ISM currents, connections between bodies, boundaries, etc.

 

[Reality Check]

PC is inconsistent with galaxy cluster gravitational lensing data. PC is inconsistent with *both* the Bullet Cluster weak lensing data and, when you think about it, the Bullet Cluster star/gas separation.

Evidence?

Press release: "NASA Finds Direct Proof of Dark Matter" and the paper it is based on "A Direct Empirical Proof of the Existence of Dark Matter"

 

[Zeuzzz]

Hi Zeuzz, have you decided what in Birkeland's pictures corresponds to what process on the sun. then we can get up to the scaling. thanks.

David

Lets first have a look at the formation of the bright ring around the Terrella on the picture on the left that I posted above.

Birkeland had this to say about it: http://www.plasma-universe.com/inde...ectric_Phenomena_in_Solar_Systems_and_Nebulae

As soon as these shells were put on outside the silvered globe, I obtained point-discharges in great numbers; but they were not so intense as I had expected, not even when a large condenser was placed in parallel with the vacuum-tube. It was only after having exhausted my discharge-box for a long time and filled it with hydrogen, and again and again exhausted it, that these point-discharges began to be powerful.

Figs. 260 a, b, and c show three photographs of discharges under varied conditions.

The first is of an experiment with a considerable gas-pressure and very slight magnetisation of the globe. It shows an interesting radiation from the polar regions, but the point-discharges, which, it is true, are most numerous in the equatorial regions, have not separated into two zones as they usually did when the surface of the cathode was smooth.

Considering the filamentation seen around the edges, the coronal polar hole, the similar magnetic fields used, the thinner texture filaments at the poles, can you say that the phenomeon being simulated on Birkelands Terrella does bear a strong resemblence to the corona around the sun? Bearing in mind that this is exactly what Terrella's are designed to do, emulate the EM field of bodies in space.

 

[DeiRenDopa]

For example, all the stuff that's between the edge of our solar system and a few hundred million light years away, like the formation of stars, their evolution, the nature of novae and supernovae, the dynamics of our galaxy, the nature of the supermassive compact objects in the nuclei of so many galaxies, what clusters of galaxies are composed of, where ultra-high energy cosmic rays come from, etc, etc, etc.

Much of this is the same as what is observed, they are not changing things that we know for sure, nor are they coming up with a new explanation for everything, they interpret certain specific things differently.

In relation to your questions though, Alfven did have some theories on the formation of stars, there have been some papers published on the Z-pinch morphology of supernovae and some about interesting trends in local supernovae times, the dynamics of the galaxy are currently thought to be a mix of gravitation and plasma forces, compact objects are still made of plasma and need not be so mysterious, or spin so fast (in the case of millisecond pulsars!) and cosmic rays are thought to originate from the E-fields set up by double layers (I think Alfven had a theory for this)

Even more confusing is that several of the papers in your list, the one you said were 'plasma cosmology papers published in mainstream astronmy journals', seem to have nothing to do with cosmology! "Radiation Properties of Pulsar Magnetospheres: Observation, Theory, and Experiment", for example. Another one is galaxy rotation curves, and the Peratt paper on it.

This is where it gets a bit confusing, that is strictly plasma universe material as it plasma physics in space, but it falls undeer the plasma cosmology bracket too, as plasma cosmology is based on the physics of the plasma universe.

Would you please say a few words about 'plasma cosmology' (and the rest) and stellar structure and evolution; galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution; galaxy cluster structure and evolution; and AGNs?

Would you please say a few words about 'plasma cosmology' (and the rest) and stellar structure and evolution; galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution; galaxy cluster structure and evolution; and AGNs?

Peratt looks at galaxy dynamics, structure and evolution, as have some of the other authors who have built on his work since

Stellar structure and evolution I believe to be currently similar to the standard model, although more prominence is given to the role of electric currents in stars features such as flares, CME's, the corona, heliospheric currents, polar currents, ISM currents, connections between bodies, boundaries, etc.

.

Thanks very much for this, Zeuzzz, it is really very helpful.

However, rather than get too deep into this fascinating area, would you mind answering the questions I asked here?
.

So Zeuzzz: if correct, does Ziggurat's comment amount to showing that Scott's core point is fatally flawed? If not, why not?

Also, can you test Ziggurat's comment independently, to see if it is, in fact, correct? If so, have you done so (and what did you find)? If not, why not do so?

.
Here is Ziggurat's comment again:
.

I will once again point out the mistake I pointed out before. They state:
"Note that no electric currents exist near or at the neutral point. If they did, the point would no longer be magnetically neutral."
This is trivially falsified by one of the most basic magnetic configurations any first-year physics student studies: uniform current density in a circular wire. The center of the wire has nonzero current but zero magnetic field - it is a neutral point with electric current.

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The Man also wrote something that seems very apt:
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With the calculation for the magnetic field of a current in an infinitely long straight wire as B=m0*I/2*p*r, with r = 0 you wind up with a division by zero or technically an “undefined” magnetic field within an imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wire. But this is not the end of the story, remember that a real wire or current has a cross sectional area and with Zig’s assertion of a “uniform current density in a circular wire” we can work out the magnetic field at the center in that consideration. We can brake down an infinitely long three dimensional straight wire as an infinite number of imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires around a central axis all carrying the same current. One of these imaginary wires at r = X from the central axis would produce a magnetic field of Bx=m0*I/2*p*X at the central axis. Since this is a circular wire for any of the infinite imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires that we might consider there is a similar one the same distance away in the opposite direction or r = -X. So the magnetic field from that wire at r = -X is B-x=m0*I/2*p*-X or B-x = -Bx so Bx + B-x = 0. The result being that the sum of all the magnetic fields from all infinite imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wires around the central axis, at the central axis is 0 plus the magnetic field within the imaginary one dimensional infinitely long straight wire at the central axis which is technically “undefined”.

But that still isn’t the end of the story. At some point P with a current of I at a distance of r = X from that point and a current of -2I at a distance of r = 2X from that point there would be no magnetic field at point P.
B1= m0*I/2*p*X
B2= m0*-2*I/2*p*2*X
Or B2= -B1 so B1 + B2 = 0


So Scott's paper does indeed have a fatal flaw. In that a point with no magnetic field (or a neutral point) can indeed have a current at or currents near that point.

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The general context of these question is 'how do you evaluate something about PC/PU/EU'? or 'how do you evaluate what sol, ben, Zig, etc have written'?

 

[ben m]

What seems more likely, one of plasmas many effects in the cosmos giving the values of the CMB wavelength spectrum, anisotropy spectrum, and polarization mode spectrum or a Big Bang that happened 13.7 billion years ago, was created out of nothing, and requires three hypothetical entities (inflation field, dark matter, dark energy field) to even work in the first place?

Were you born with some sort of genetic knowledge of the list of particles which make up the Universe? Is that one of the secrets that the aliens implant in your subconscious via invasive probes? Sorry, for me it isn't. The only way I know of figuring out what the Universe is made of is by making measurements of the Universe.

How do you know there aren't primordial micro-black-holes? If there were, you'd see x-ray bursts of thus and such type; we don't. How do you know there aren't electrically charged monopoles mixed with matter at 1 part in 10^16? If there were, you'd see persistent currents in SQUIDs of thus and such type; we don't. How do you know there isn't a fourth light neutrino? Well, if there were, you'd expect to see thus-and-such shift of the Z boson width. How do you know gravity has a 1/r^2 dependence at small distances? Well, we looked for deviations with experiments down to 50 microns and saw only 1/r^2 with thus-and-such precision, and that's all we know.

How do you know there isn't a particle like a neutrino, but heavier? Well, if there were, you'd expect to see extra mass in gravitational lensing, extra kinematic mass, fast formation of large-scale structure, and certain shapes in the CMB and BAO spectra ... and there you go.

On similar grounds: how do you know there's a Higgs boson? How do you know whether strangelets are stable? How do you know the neutron star equation of state? We don't know these things, because the experiments haven't been done yet. Should we ask you instead, Zeuzzz? Since you're so certain of the nonexistence of heavy weak particles----do you know the number of neutrino flavors, the Higgs mass, and whether axions solve the strong CP problem?

 

[Zeuzzz]

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Thanks very much for this, Zeuzzz, it is really very helpful.

Here is Ziggurat's comment again:

I will once again point out the mistake I pointed out before. They state:
"Note that no electric currents exist near or at the neutral point. If they did, the point would no longer be magnetically neutral."
This is trivially falsified by one of the most basic magnetic configurations any first-year physics student studies: uniform current density in a circular wire. The center of the wire has nonzero current but zero magnetic field - it is a neutral point with electric current.

The Man also wrote something that seems very apt:
..

The general context of these question is 'how do you evaluate something about PC/PU/EU'? or 'how do you evaluate what sol, ben, Zig, etc have written'?

There is nothing wrong with Scott's statement in the context that he uses it, for the point he is describing when he makes this statement it holds true.

I agree with Ziggurats statement that by using a wire, in a geometric sense given various conditions (ie, uniform current density, perfectly circular and symetrical wire) you could produce a theoretical neutral line at the very centre of the wire, but since this line is achieved by cancelling the magnetic field vectors it has no 3D extent, and thus can carry no current.

So there is nothing directly wrong with Ziggurats statement in a theoretical sense, although I would say it is misleading. Although the wire that the neutral line is in does have current flowing through it, you can not say that the neutral line has current flow across it, as it is just a 2D line and can carry no charge in that sense.

And given those original conditions there can be no current flow across the neutral point, the current is uniform and so travelling in a straight line, and so no charge will actually cross this neutral point. If it did, it would no longer be magnetically neutral, as it is the moving charge that creates the magnetic component.

Once you have charge flowing you will always have a magnetic component to account for. If the charge flows across a neutral point, it will no longer be magnetically neutral.

http://members.cox.net/dascott3/IEEE-TransPlasmaSci-Scott-Aug2007.pdf

The magnetic field strength vector at any point in the plane
of the figure is the vector sum of all component fields that are
produced by all differential current segments in the vicinity. At
the neutral point (or line), the current on the right produces a
magnetic field strength vector that is vertically upward. Similarly,
the current on the left produces a magnetic field vector
that is vertically downward at that point. Therefore, these two
field strength vectors sum to zero at the center of the figure, and
the strength of the B field at such a neutral point is identically
zero. Additional currents AND/OR current sheets can be added
to this diagram. Doing so will alter the topology of the magnetic
field, possibly introducing additional neutral points or lines and
separatrices.

Note that no electric currents exist near or at the neutral point.
If they did, the point would no longer be magnetically neutral.
The energy that is stored at any point in a magnetic field is
proportional to the square of the magnitude of the magnetic flux
density at that point, i.e.,

I see nothing wrong with that paragraph. And neither did the IEEE journal of plasma physics or their peers.

 

[Zeuzzz]

Were you born with some sort of genetic knowledge of the list of particles which make up the Universe? Is that one of the secrets that the aliens implant in your subconscious via invasive probes? Sorry, for me it isn't. The only way I know of figuring out what the Universe is made of is by making measurements of the Universe.

How do you know there aren't primordial micro-black-holes? If there were, you'd see x-ray bursts of thus and such type; we don't. How do you know there aren't electrically charged monopoles mixed with matter at 1 part in 10^16? If there were, you'd see persistent currents in SQUIDs of thus and such type; we don't. How do you know there isn't a fourth light neutrino? Well, if there were, you'd expect to see thus-and-such shift of the Z boson width. How do you know gravity has a 1/r^2 dependence at small distances? Well, we looked for deviations with experiments down to 50 microns and saw only 1/r^2 with thus-and-such precision, and that's all we know.

How do you know there isn't a particle like a neutrino, but heavier? Well, if there were, you'd expect to see extra mass in gravitational lensing, extra kinematic mass, fast formation of large-scale structure, and certain shapes in the CMB and BAO spectra ... and there you go.

On similar grounds: how do you know there's a Higgs boson? How do you know whether strangelets are stable? How do you know the neutron star equation of state? We don't know these things, because the experiments haven't been done yet. Should we ask you instead, Zeuzzz? Since you're so certain of the nonexistence of heavy weak particles----do you know the number of neutrino flavors, the Higgs mass, and whether axions solve the strong CP problem?

Where did that come from?

I dont half get some odd psychological reactions around here.

Anyone reading that would think that the material being discussed here is my personal work, and I am claimng to have the answers to everything.

If you want to ask me a question please do so, but try to keep them sane questions.