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Re: "Where are the mathematical models?"

An excellent place to learn about the numerous scientific papers which relate to this subject is at Ian Tresman's site here.

However, learning the subject in this manner could be slightly confusing, as it can be difficult for people to learn new frameworks. Our tendency is to view the world through the lens of the theories we know. So, other sites have been constructed to help with this difficult process of switching frameworks. There are three sites which have been created for this purpose of facilitating the transition: here, here and here.

There have also been a couple of essential books published on these subjects: The Electric Sky offers a technical discussion for laypeople, whereas Anthony Peratt's Physics of the Plasma Universe can be used to understand some of the more technical details at a specialist science level. That said, it is also important to read Halton Arp's published work.

A couple of very good documentaries have also been created to try to convey these ideas -- like here and here.

Many of us who follow these matters also keep personal libraries of papers which relate to these subjects. These libraries involve literally thousands of scientific papers, but they are typically hidden behind paywalls. So, whatever point you think you are making, it would seem that what is really happening is that you've failed to even identify the sources where these models are discussed.

The reality of the situation is that you did not make it to first base, but this did not stop you from going online to criticize these ideas which you did not learn about.

Re: "The electric charge is repulsive and attractive. On a closed volume, like a galaxy, there would a net force of zero."

You're approaching the problem from the perspective of electrostatics (the science of pith balls). Since we are talking about laboratory plasma phenomena like charge mobility (which enables conduction) and double layers (which act as the circuit's structure), plasma physics is an electrodynamic phenomena -- in the spirit of electric circuits. It is literally possible -- and people have done this -- to model stars as a sort of transistor, galaxies as a component within an electric circuit (with the caution that we should not assume that the circuit is closed on itself), and to model the Birkeland current filaments as transmission lines (realize that the solar cycle is not specifically predicted by a thermonuclear Sun) -- and we know that this can possibly be a valid approach because of this dark matter problem -- because at the distances involved with interstellar space, gravity is just a tiny fraction of the force which would be necessary to produce the observed motions.

So, we have to be very careful when trying to think through what an electrical cosmology should be like. Plasma is the macro-scopic behavior of charged particles. You can think of it as a level up in complexity from electrostatics. It is an attempt to explain the collective behaviors of charged particles as they move through these very large "circuits" -- but truthfully, it is an attempt to do so without a complete picture of what is really going on at the smallest scales. (and that is why we must rely very heavily upon laboratory observations to arrive at accurate models in this domain).

I have in other threads in these comments explained at great length about how plasma filaments are a valid approach to solving the dark matter problem. I recommend looking at those explanations for a more direct answer to how this can be.

Re: "Ultimately, you need look no further than a picture of our fucking sun, and tell me how the magical plasma universe prevents that thing from becoming a massive ball of gravitationally collapsed fusion fire."

If this is your process, then I can tell you that you've completely misjudged the complexity of this controversy.

Don Scott has published a very detailed explanation of the operation of the Sun from an electrical cosmology perspective. Your process does not appear to involve learning the model he has put forward, and so I would kindly suggest that if you'd like to participate in the debate, that the first step is to learn the model.

I'll probably get down voted but I would rather point out the dangers of what Feynman called "Cargo Cult Science" ...

> What if the physics of a distant galaxy is different from the one around here?
It is. Wake me up when Scientists have discovered the strong-intergalactic and weak-intergalactic force, let alone White Holes.

> We can now see more or less to the edge of the observable Universe
Again, another assumption. There is no "edge". You keep assuming a linear Euclidean space/time. That is akin to asking "What happened 'before' the beginning of the universe. There was NO BEFORE."

Any contrary view that doesn't fit into the presupposed current dogma is ignored. ( http://electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm ) Ergo, the "Age" of the Universe is significantly off by ~7 billion years because Scientists are making some pretty major incomplete assumptions about red-shift and don't understand the Cycle of the Universes. The fact that the Mayan estimated the age of the universe at 16 billion years (which is slightly more accurate) then the SWAG (scientific wild-ass guess) of the current 13.7 billion year old estimate of Science ( http://map.gsfc.nasa.gov/media/060915/index.html ) should say something.

> Unless we discover infinite speeds
Again, that is an assumption. You don't *need* infinite speeds for FTL travel. You are limiting your thinking to moving in space-time, but it is also possible to move in the reciprocal time-space. The *analogy* of the classic "worm hole" is a good example.

> then we would fill it in a few millennia - but if that was possible odds are someone else would have done it already.
1) I don't think you realize just HOW big space is,
2) The Universe ALREADY IS populated. We've only searched a TINY, TINY, TINY fraction of the physical dimension again using assumptions of what we THINK the properties of alien life would be. This story of using hairspray is proof of this idiocracy.

  You'll have proof of this in ~20 years that we are not alone.

> So we will forever know (through observation and direct contact) only very, very small part of the Universe.
Again, another assumption. My advice is that there are two words one should remove from ones vocab: never and forever, because sooner or later, one or the other tends to get proven wrong.

> But it does not mean we are absolutely powerless to comprehend it.
Agreed. Science is the process (journey) of removing ignorance one at a time.

> You underestimate the amount of thought that was,is and will be spent on the assumption in question.
No I do not. You are underestimating ALL *your* *assumptions* AND the implications.

UNTIL we have *physically* BEEN there Scientists need to be honest and act with integrity "We .. just .. don't .. know." It is fine to make implications but being married to Scientific dogma only leads to a rather rude divorce when new facts are discovered.

The first step towards knowledge is to admit "I don't know."

It's school science education. Not university level study.

You teach the current ideas of science - you even teach the old stuff that we know is wrong but still works for the domains you are interested in.

For example, I was taught that F=ma in my high school science class, even though we've known for 90 years that that's simply not true.

High school science is not about doing cutting edge research, it's about learning the basics of science. Hence you teach what the scientific community as a whole currently accepts.

You teach that the sun is powered by fusion that occurs due gravity, you don't teach that the sun is an iron ball supernova remnant even though some people argue it is ( http://www.ballofiron.com/ ), you don't teach that the sun is an externally powered anode in a galactic circuit even though some people argue it is ( http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm ). You don't "teach the controversy" and leave it up to the students to decide which theory they like the best. Sure the widely accepted understanding could be wrong, but the place for arguing that is not the high school science class taught by a teacher almost certainly not specialized in that particular field.

Einstein didn't try to have his theory taught in high school science classes as a short cut instead of convincing other actual scientists to accept it.

I'd like to know if there was any more evidence for this:
http://www.thesunisiron.com/
http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/
http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/ciencia/ciencia_sol01.htm
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm
http://www.electricuniverse.info/Electric_Sun_theory

> Sometimes kicking and screaming, as in the case of continental drift, but the evidence always wins in the end.

Add the Red Shift = Distance fallacy, by Hubble's assistant, Halton Arp.
* http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

Halton C. Arp, a professional astronomer was Edwin Hubble's assistant, says otherwise ...

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

> We don't need to repeat the formation of a star, the equations and basic physics that define what happens are unchanging

That's a fallacy due to

a) assumptions, and
b) Science is vastly incomplete;

namely time, time, and time again we see things that we don't expect.

> And if it's like any other mainstream astronomical theory, the testable predictions really won't matter. At all. If those predictions are found to be false, they'll just make a long series of ad-hoc modifications to the theory in order to "save" it instead of seriously questioning their worldview/paradigm/framework (whatever you care to call it) because of the pseudoscientific disaster that astronomy has become.

That's true of any institution -- it eventually becomes self-serving to maintain the status-quo because that is in its best interest for its own survival. Science, sadly, is not unique in this.

And like they say, "Science progresses one funeral at a time."

> Edwin Hubble and the fact that there are two equally valid interpretations of the redshift equation and we have settled the question of which to use by making an assumption.

Actually the story gets even weirder! Halton C. Arp a professional astronomer, who ironically enough, was Edwin Hubble's assistant (!), proved the "redshift equals distance" is junk science.
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

> When astronomy has a crisis in the next 5-10 years or so, perhaps most of you will be surprised.

Actually, the sh!t hits the fan and the real party starts when they find human skulls on Mars -- that will be the big "WTF?" moment in astronomy, cosmology, and religion, but not sure if that will happen in the next 10 years, as the exact date is not important. The fact that a paradigm shift WILL happen in Science, is only thing that DOES matter.

Its about time for us to remember where we came from.
--
You are a Spiritual Being in a Human Body have a Physical Experience.

What is the "electric sun" hypothesis really? I read the following:

The Sun may be powered, not from within itself, but from outside, by the electric (Birkeland) currents that flow in our arm of our galaxy as they do in all galaxies.. This possibility that the Sun may be exernally powered by its galactic environment is the most speculative idea in the ES hypothesis and is always attacked by critics while they ignore all the other explanatory properties of the ES model.

It puzzles me that such an important thing is left dangling. Is the Sun externally powered or not? Yes or no? It is obvious why critics focus on this. It is easy to rebut.

The Sun being externally powered would be easily observable from Earth. In fact, we would see similar inflow of energy into our atmosphere, dramatically heating up the surface of the Earth and by our space probes. We would observe the plasma flowing in onto the Sun. The fact is we don't observe these effects. Hence, we can discard that prediction of the theory, assuming someone ever gets bold enough to make it.

Also the "electric sun" model doesn't explain the extraordinary amount of energy coming from the Sun, the mass of the Sun, presence of fusion products in the Sun's photosphere (nor any elements heavier than helium in the Solar System), and doesn't explain the neutrino influx. It doesn't explain why Jupiter doesn't look like the Sun. We get the usual dog and pony show about plasmas, Birkeland currents, etc. It's junk. Obviously there are some complex EM phenomena going on, but that isn't the power source for the Sun.

The many unexpected and anomalous astronomical observations are not really that surprising given that the astrophysical theories used to predict/interpret them are limited and likely mostly wrong. One big omission is the ignored role of the electric field. For a good overview of what should be (but is not) taken into account, see this site: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm

The Electric/Plasma Universe

Nereid, if your allegations about the Electric Universe were even remotely true, then there's no way in hell that people like Anthony Peratt would associate themselves with these ideas. Your arguments constitute a complete non sequiter when placed into that context. In fact, every time that you pretend that the issues are as simple as this juvenile short list of hypotheses, a person could be forgiven for interpreting your statements as blatant obfuscations and malicious in intent. There is an actual debate here to be had, and the real action is far above the playing field that you've laid out for yourself. If you want to impress somebody, then why don't you find a problem within the rejoinder to Tim Thompson ...

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm

This is the level of detail that I would expect to see from you before I would ever consider forwarding something on to anybody. Short of a detailed refutation of these sorts of arguments (and demanding that we be your library assistant will not cut it), you're beneath our radars.

ps -- I'm amazed that you insist on pointing out the problems with EU within comments attached to a story titled, "Could We Find a Door to a Parallel Universe?" Who's the pseudoscience, here? The topic of the article was about some astrophysicist who wastes a bunch of time trying to invent imaginary matters that would allow him to manipulate wormholes! The particular thread that I commented on was started by a person who was ridiculing astrophysics for how absurd it has become. Are you just completely oblivious to what's happening around you?

By thoroughly debunked, are you referring to Tim Thompson? There exists a rejoinder to his assertions which has yet to be responded to by anybody at http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm. By the way, Tim Thompson is well known for just throwing up a bunch of garbage to see what will stick. For instance, his assertion that the various Venus albedo values should be averaged in spite of the fact that some of the values were created in the late 1800's is a prime example. Even to this day, people continue to believe that he was victorious in those exchanges even though an unbiased review of the details demonstrates that Taylor did nothing more than repackage his assumption of Venus in thermal equilibrium into the conclusion. What's particularly unusual about that situation is that the wikipedia censors will not even allow mention of this fact onto wikipedia as they interpret the whole situation as you do without actually looking at ad thinking about the references that are being discussed.

Or perhaps you are talking about attempts to argue EU Theory on the Bad Astronomy Forum, as if these forums are not structured and wholly intended to defend the mainstream theories. On that forum, simplistic calculations are sufficient reason to discredit entire theories. People made a big deal, for instance, of the calculations that supposedly demonstrated that there was not enough charged particles to power the Sun. The problem is that the details of the solar wind's structure continue to reveal itself to be filamentary, and demonstrate that such calculations are now rather antiquated.

For the benefit of everybody, you should clarify exactly which attempt to debunk EU Theory you are referring to.

For people wanting a more technical discussion of why magnetic reconnection is likely a farse, check this out ...

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm

You know this has been proven false by more than a few people more than a few times over?

Do a search for yourself and save the embarrassment of spewing someone else's literary diarrhea.

For anyone that took the time to read the comment above, this theory is easily dismissed by the fact that electrons flowing TO the sun have NEVER been detected with the explanation from the believers of the electric model being "we're not looking hard enough"

The z-pinch effect of high intensity, parallel current filaments in an arc plasma is very strong. Whatever nuclear fusion is taking place on the Sun is occurring here in the double layer (DL) at the top of the photosphere (not deep within the core). The result of this fusion process are the "metals" that give rise to absorption lines in the Sun's spectrum. Traces of sixty eight of the ninety two natural elements are found in the Sun's atmosphere. Most of the radio frequency noise emitted by the Sun emanates from this region. Radio noise is a well known property of DLs. The electrical power available to be delivered to the plasma at any point is the product of the E-field (Volts per meter) times current density (Amps per square meter). This multiplication operation yields Watts per cubic meter. The current density is relatively constant over the height of the photospheric / chromospheric layers. However, the E-field is by fa

Why not respond to this ...

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm

That would be a great starting point. It was deleted from the BAUT Forum shortly after posting it because nobody was willing to be attacked. In the absence of a piñata, the theory does not exist to the people at BAUT. The EU Theorists are seeking individuals who believe that they can debate these points, but nobody's been willing to step up to the plate so far. Go figure ...

Arguing that arguments that are not peer-reviewed by mainstream astrophysicists do not count is disingenuous. People who have staked their careers on the mainstream theories will resist every attempt at disruptive paradigm shifts.

Feel free to talk to me like an adult, btw ...

The reason that you don't find the EU materials convincing is because you have not read them yourself. Then, what happens is that you and others like yourself go out onto forums like these and proclaim that this theory is nonsense on the basis of a complete lack of information. You act as if the fact that we *can* create proofs for the Big Bang implies that we cannot do the same for any other cosmology. This is a wrong approach. The point is that we should create proofs for multiple cosmologies and then compare those proofs on the basis of new observations. It would be very easy to convince ourselves of something that is not true if we in fact do not do this. The plasma cosmology proof has not been adequately investigated to the point that we are sure that it is wrong. We have not applied the same standard of "theory refinement" to plasma cosmology that we have the more mainstream theories. Halton Arp's thesis of quasar ejection, for instance, has in fact recently been confirmed by a new set of statistics (and yet nobody is interested in pursuing it any further). Any objective observer would admit that electrical and magnetic phenomenon are *increasing* in importance within astrophysics today.

Let me be extremely clear on this: there currently exists no argument that can disqualify Electric Universe Theory. If you believe that you have one, then you should proclaim it right here and now so that I can forward it to the theorists themselves, and we can consider their response. Tim Thompson's Electric Sun paper has been fully and completely rebutted: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm.

There is something else that you need to know. Astrophysics is not the only way to solve this problem. We have alternate techniques for figuring out how the universe operates. Man has been writing down in great detail what he has seen in the sky for around 10,000 years now. Nobody has been able to understand what was being said up until 1994 when Talbott met Wal Thornhill. It is because of the concept of a gravity-centric universe that mythology has not made any sense whatsoever. What you fail to realize is that within the context of plasma cosmology, mythology tells one single story which completely correlates with plasma physics. Tens of thousands of references exist to support this point and they all tell the same exact story. This new "datapoint" can be used to identify with fairly high confidence which cosmology is correct, for to claim that these witnesses are speaking gibberish would require that all of the people of the ancient world would have to simultaneously be wrong, and coincidentally all be wrong in the same way. They may all live on different continents, but they all speak with one single voice. I already know that you will not believe this. Don't bother going into it. I only tell you this so that later, when you see this phenomenon unfolding around you, you will realize that you have not fully or fairly considered both sides of the argument.

Enjoy your gravity-centric universe while it lasts. We're just trying to figure out the right way to introduce the materials right now. The new mythological findings are relatively impenetrable. If you want a headstart on what I'm talking about, then read "God Star" by Dwardu Cardona. But, believing that you guys can understand the universe with equations alone, I'm quite sure that you will not -- and I'm completely fine with that. This is probably a good place to end this conversation. People who exhibit such strong preferences and prejudices about data have allowed themselves to become emotionally involved in their belief systems and have no right to understand the universe -- which cares little what you think about it.

I encourage you, if you or others have any specific technical problems with that text, to propose them right here and now. I will promptly forward them to the theorists themselves, and if your challenges are serious, you can reasonably expect a response within 1 - 2 week.

It's as simple as that. Fire away. ... Or, was this a bluff?

When it comes to challenges, they are very eager to answer anybody with doubts. The problem is that Slashdot people tend not to actually propose legitimate challenges. They rarely leave the world of vague assertions. People on Slashdot typically prefer to attack their credentials rather than their statements.

If you are interested, for instance, you can see a rebuttal to Tim Thompson's challenge to The Electric Sun Hypothesis here:

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm

Ultimately, it's a real tragedy that the truth about how space plasmas behave requires so much representation and vigorous defense. Wikipedia refuses to even *define* Electric Universe Theory for curious individuals (or even Plasma Cosmology for that matter). Check it out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_fo r_deletion/Electric_universe_(concept)

My guess is that many of the people on Slashdot who have formulated their opinions did so by consulting other critics who wrote the previous Electric Universe pages on wiki or Tim Thompson's five-year-old attempt to debunk the Electric Sun Hypothesis (which has since been responded to in full here: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm).

What's missing from the entire picture is a desire to even understand what is actually being said by the EU Theorists themselves. Don Scott's book, "The Electric Sky", is the first time that the theory has been codified in full. But the critics have had their way by now to such an extent that nobody even wants to read Don Scott's book -- which stands as an extremely compelling book that I challenge anybody to read and then subsequently ignore.

There is something outright Orwellian when we extract definitions from our public encyclopedia. It's also extremely surreal because the roles are in fact reversed. Mainstream astrophysics does not even work without the assistance of unseen particles and forces (which are inherently untestable), whereas Electric Universe Theory tries to convince people that we should be using laboratory plasma physics to understand the universe. *Completely* backwards.

That this band of about five guys cannot fight off the world does not really say much at all about whether or not they may be right or wrong. It's a bit much like that movie, 300. I'm pretty sure if they started presenting more math for people (which we are in fact pushing them to do), people would find something else to quibble about.

...a solid body: http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/ ...the focus of an electric discharge, which powers it: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm ...to be respected. The sun doesn't dodge bullets. Bullets dodge the sun. http://passthebrass.com/2005/12/chuck-norris-owns- you/

The tired light model does not predict the observed time dilation of high redshift supernova light curves. This time dilation is a consequence of the standard interpretation of the redshift: a supernova that takes 20 days to decay will appear to take 40 days to decay when observed at redshift z=1.

Oh, but it's even worse than THAT... recent observations that the vacuum is *not* purely empty, but apparently seething with energy, give rise to a modern, quantum mechanical confirmation of the 19th century concept of that sacreligious word: the (a)ether. But, modelled as a matrix of quantum particles (muons, in this case), it is possibly palatable to modern science. How can this be relevant, you ask? When one models physics BASED on this matrix of quanta, all kinds of things that are currently mysteries become clear. Like for example, the observation that redshift is quantized. That, along with other observations, give lie to the fact that Doppler redshift of star spectra is *ONLY* due to distance and speed. Which means that all astronomical distances recorded and marked based on redshift alone, vs. parallax measurements, fall under new scrutiny. And which allows for areas of the universe (like the high-energy surrounds of quasars) that have a higher energy density than our local galactic neighborhood. And these higher energy domains have "ether" concentrations that will affect what? You guessed it: the speed of light, the fine structure constant, the cosmological constant, and the value of G, the gravitational constant.

Here you go: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/

It's probably not HIS newsletter, and I can't confirm that they describe dark matter in there, but since they describe everything else in the universe in terms of plasma and electricity, dark matter is probably in there somewhere. Don't read too much though -- it'll rot your brain.

I'm sorry, I should have been clearer. We see galaxies whose redshift suggests (according to the standard interpretation) that they're 12 billion light years away, and thus formed in the first billion years after presumed recombination, made of stars that had to be 4 billion years old at the time. I.e., 12+4 > 13.7.

As an astrophysicist, I'd like to be an apologetic for the standard cosmological model ...

That's to your credit. Most astrophysicists would prefer to pretend that, e.g., quantized redshift as referenced to the CMB rest-frame in low-redshift galaxies, or to angularly-nearby low-redshift galaxies in the case of high-redshift galaxies and quasars, don't exist. Most would prefer to pretend that high-redshift quasars (e.g. z=2.11) physically in front of low-redshift opaque galaxies (e.g. NGC 7319, z=0.0225) don't exist.

Most seem to prefer to pretend that MHD conditions apply to the dynamics of interplanetary and interstellar plasmas, so they can pretend it's all just "hot gas". I have a private e-mail from a well-known astrophysicist asserting, without apparent embarrassment, "Plasmas behave as ideal gases on scales much larger than the Larmor radius of motion around the magnetic field." He admits most graduate students in astrophysics, still, never attend a laboratory class on plasma dynamics, and just work artificial problem sets using the MHD approximation.

Um...how so? check this page for some explanations: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm

It's called electricity. And the reason that we can't detect it is that most of the current scientific community is far too attatched to the theory that gravity is the major force in the galaxy, and they refuse to acknowledge any other possibility.

check this link for more info: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/

and this one for even more: http://www.thunderbolts.info/

"They rarely take any courses in electrodynamic field theory, and thus they try to explain every new discovery via gravity, magnetism, and fluid dynamics which is all they understand."

Which is interesting since every astro Ph.D. program that I know of has an advanced course in electrodynamics as a basic requirement. Not to mention that "magnetism" is simply one aspect of electrodynamics...

Why is slashdot wasting its precious collective time discussing cranks?

Here is the [cough] official [cough] statement of the Electric Universe Model, which appears to have been thought up by an electrical engineer during his lunchtime:

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/

There's a theory about influence of electricity in universe. Here are few links that might help you. http://www.electric-cosmos.org/links.htm/
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=9eq6g3 aj/
http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/elec_fields.html /

The effects will be great, no doubt. Too bad the science behind most of what they'll say is bunk.

Camp 1: Support the work of William Tifft in '70s, and subsequent work of Napier and Guthrie in '97 showing quantized redshifts, used as proof of geocentric or galactocentric universe, with concentric shells of galaxies around us or our galaxy. Tifft's early work utilized results of pencil-beam surveys, largely discredited because a foamy universe produces the same results. Napier and Guthrie find quantization in larger sample of galaxies in the Virgo cluster, statistically significant only when assuming the local cluster is falling towards Virgo. Many members of this camp are Christians who think that Earth is special because of Divine Interest in the human race.

Camp 2: Arp and friends. They think that redshift has two components, one associated with velocity and one an intrinsic (inherent) property of the object that increases with time. While they deny the geocentric shell model and the quantization of "total" redshift, they do think the intrinsic redshifts are quantized. Start with galaxies in the middle of a pair of quasars. One must assume the quasars have the same intrinsic redshift (and that they had a common origin in the 'parent' galaxy), and then the intrinsic redshift of both can be found by an average of the total redshifts of the two quasars. Quantization of the intrinsic redshift is implied to mean that something about the quasars changes as they age- in discrete steps. This is where they decide to throw out much of modern physics on its ear. They conclude that quasars are new matter being born in an infinitely-old, flat universe (somehow being spit out of the hearts of more mature galaxies). New matter starts out with zero mass and gains mass as it ages, either as the square of the elapsed time or in discrete quantum steps, depending on which website one reads. ref.

Camp 3. 'Mainstream' scientists - Think that redshift is due to the peculiar velocity of the emitting object and the stretching of the space through which the photons must travel on their way here. Quasars are very far away, not near foreground galaxies. Problems: 90% of the expected matter is invisible. A 'dark energy' is necessary to explain the perceived expansion. ref

So I got confused when you started the thread by saying something that sounded like you were in camp 1, but then posting links to camp 2. Some mainstream astronomers think there may be something interesting lurking in reports of quantization., so don't knock us for asking about it. Even worse would be if we ignored it entirely.

That's what all of the canals were for...

Since these scientist chappies are getting so good at finding water on a completely dry planet (and explaining away global floods on another planet which is covered in water to an average depth of 2.7km), perhaps they can figure out where that much lightning came from? It certainly explains all of those rocks you see strewn around in Mars lander images.