Slashdot Mirror

This is a really neat demonstration of the power of microlensing for planet finding. Though it's not the first, nor even the second, planet to be found this way (see for example http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0505451 and http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0505451), it really does show how microlensing can find small planets pretty far away from their host stars. It'll be a very good technique for determining the frequency of planets as small as the Earth. As for finding life on the microlensing discovered planets (using the future Terrestrial Planet Finder mission [http://planetquest.jpl.nasa.gov/TPF/tpf_index.cfm ] for example to search for biosignatures in their spectra), it'll be very difficult. The majority of these planets are going to be very far away from us (where there is the highest probability of finding a lens) and, by selection, they're going to have a second bright star very close by on the sky that will be difficult to coronagraph out. The microlensing planets are really all going to be one-shot deals where you have no hope of following them up in the foreseeable future. I think planets found by transits (the upcoming Kepler mission [http://kepler.nasa.gov/]) or by astrometry (the upcoming Space Interferometry Mission [http://sim.jpl.nasa.gov/]) will be much better bets for searching for life.

Even better:
xxx.lanl.gov

This is actually a pretty exciting result that's different from the case of SN 1987A in that they're seeing light from ancient SN which were never observed originally. It's the idea of discovering ancient supernovae by light echoes that's new, not just seeing a light echo from a supernova. You can see their paper at http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0510738.

I'm a retired experimentalist from LANL so there is no need to theorize. Kellog, Brown and Root does the site services.

http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php?fuseaction=home .story&story_id=1320

"Many public key cryptosystems, such as RSA, will become obsolete if Shor's algorithm is ever implemented in a practical quantum computer."

"Many public key cryptosystems, such as RSA, will become obsolete if Shor's algorithm is ever implemented in a practical quantum computer."

For a serious peek at the role of plasma dynamics in the solar system, you need go no farther than NASA: 15.1.1. Applicability of Hydromagnetics and Plasma Physics . For wider application, the Los Alamos National Laboratory has up a nice tour of The Universe (which universe even your neighborhood astronomer, if pressed, will admit is over 99% plasma-phase -- at least the baryonic bits! -- even if he has little inkling what that means), and links to refereed-journal papers.

I'm afraid ceoyoyo and 2008 will need to find their cranks elsewhere. That said, the Velikovskyite cultists at Thunderbolts have a very nice picture-of-the-day archive, with captions that besides being much more fun than the pap on APOD, are remarkably often thought-provoking. You don't have to believe that Venus popped out of Saturn in immediate prehistory (as "proven" by widespread legends) to enjoy them rattling the chains that hold astronomers in their 19th-century Christian-esque universe.

You can't honestly poke fun at a hairy-eyed Velikovskyite without ribbing the Big-bang mooncalves equally. The latter have much less excuse for their silliness, and a lot more to answer for.

I tried to understand their paper, and I must say it's exceedingly hard to understand exactly what they did. I suppose this is often the case with PRLs (due to 4 page limit), but this one seemed particularly opaque and unimpressive. If I was going to write a paper I'd want to make it crystal clear, spell everything out (you can call me on that at the arxiv).

e.g. in the paper there is a quantity Z that is introduced first without definition, then a page later defined in terms of some vectors which are never defined. I guess you have to read their (unpublished) reference, but ugh. And the "geometry of the manifold"? What manifold? Wha? Are you a statistician or a wannabe-differential geometer?

Often it seems academics delight in trying to impress their peers with their terrible sophistication for some reason, to the point where it's really unnecessarily tough to understand something (and the high-falutin ideas in these papers usually turn out to be pretty simple and obvious or otherwise wrong, in my experience). Good job getting this one published indeed.

Well, anyone can and does publish to the arXiv. There are many free sources of information. If there is a market for their publication to remain offline then so be it. Each falls into its own niche and serves its own purpose. Anyone beg to differ?

Well, it still might be too thin, but according to this randomly googled site (http://set.lanl.gov/programs/Mars/Atmosphere.htm)

"The chemical make-up of Mars' atmosphere was measured, on Mars, by the Viking lander spacecraft. The landers analyzed the composition of the atmosphere (mostly of carbon dioxide, with a little nitrogen and argon and other gases), and also the isotopic composition of many elements in the atmosphere."

Looks like lichen heaven.

First, this is all wholly irrelevent to the point I was making. What I said was that if physical constants of the universe are changing quickly enough or over short enough distances that we can measure the effect on manmade probes that are still within light hours of earth, we should be able to clearly make out such effect just from observing the stars nearest to us, which we don't. Your discussion seems to be focusing on much larger (extragalactic) scales. While there is some discussion in the general physics community of the idea that the basic physical constants have changed over the history of the universe, and there are experimental programs working to measure such effects if they exist, there is currently no hard evidence to suggest such change. The "quantized red shift" you cite has already been thoroughly debunked (see, for example, http://xxx.lanl.gov/abs/astro-ph/0208117) as an artifact of small sample size in the earlier studies. This is not to say that we don't see groups of galaxies close together with similar redshifts; but that is thought to be the effect of gravitational binding leading to large scale structures in the universe. Finally, the standard interpretation of the redshifts of light from distant galaxies is not as a doppler shift, which has to do with objects moving apart from each other through space, but with space itself expanding. Imagine that you have pieces of confetti sprinkled about on a sheet of rubber. If you stretch the rubber, the pieces of confetti will move apart from each other without moving across the sheet. In much the same way, as space expands, galaxies move apart from each other simply by staying at the same place in space. The reason this leads to light being redshifted is that space expands pretty much uniformly everywhere, even between subsequent peaks of a light wave. As the peaks of the wave are stretched apart, the wavelength increases, meaning that the light will appear redder.

From some recent experiences with the mpiblast project, and some much older work at llnl I've had better experiences with mpich as being more reliable than lam (one man's limited opinion, a data point not a rule). Also I think it should be more clear that mpiblast is perfectly usable in numa architectures. On first read of the parent I thought this was being ruled out. When debugging in parallel Totalview is a godsend, or was the last time I needed/could afford it. For geek points I'd have to agree that the worms remind me of Sarlacc.

"This particular machine is of course targeted at LANL, and weapons development (oops, did I say that? I mean 'stockpile stewardship')"

Just to expand on that, it is worth noting that the ASCI Blue Pacific supercomputer at LLNL was the first to run a fully three dimensional simulation of a nuclear trigger (plutonium fission) implosion and shortly thereafter was the first to run a full 3D simulation of the secondary fusion stage in a thermonuclear device. This computer was capable of ~3 teraflops and took something like 20 days to run those sims. Blue Gene is ~100 times faster than that computer and judging from the time it took ASCI White (~10 Tflops) to complete a simulation of a full thermonuclear detonation, it would therefore probably not be unreasonable to assume this new computer is capable of full 3D simulation of a complete thermonuclear bomb detonation (primary and secondary) in mere hours to a couple days. It is a shame that we even "need" nuclear weapons, but if we're going to have them I for one would much rather see tests of them done in silicon instead of in a big mushroom cloud!

Yes, it is also sad that while other countries use thier supercomputing power mostly to investigate protien folding and earthquake propagation and other purposes generally recognized as peaceful we mainly use ours for simulation nuclear weapons designs; but it is not all bad. The simulations of imploding fusion fuel can (and will) also be used to simulate the implosion of the tiny fusion microcapsules which are imploded in laboratory laserfusion facilities like NIF. This has the potential to eventually result in laserfusion (inertial confinement fusion) as a power source. Supercomputers which were mainly intended to be used for weapons research in the past have occasionally also served up a few surprises in completely unrelated fields. The supercomputer Cray X-MP (?) at Sandia (?) labs in the mid 80s was where the first simulations of the giant impact theory of the formation of the moon were validated. Its now the predominant theory of the moon's origin. It is hard to imagine that this new computer won't have a few surprises of its own to reveal even if it only donates a small amount of time to non-defense related research.

Yes? Please go on.

I also never took a "plasma" class, only those standard classes in EM, Thermo, Stat Mech. What is the claim of the engineers? Where are we ignorant?

That link again... Also this, evidence in hand that interstellar current flow, in the mode Alfven predicted, is really occurring. When evaluating models for (e.g.) Eta Carinae, you have two problems: (1) how can you get all that stuff to happen using just gravitation, fusion, and shock waves, and (2) how can you get all that plasma (not just "hot gas") that suffuses the whole system to have no effect at all? When you're only talking to other astrophysicists who also know nothing of plasma dynamics, you get to skip (2), but it makes astrophysical speculations look pretty comical from out here.

Plasma has interesting dynamics because its positive charge carriers are 2000x heavier than the negative carriers. Furthermore, they're often mixed in with neutral matter (commonly at 10^-4) that gets entrained. Motion in real plasmas is subject to dozens of nonlinear instabilities. All this makes maintaining electrical neutrality complicated, and not infrequently impossible. The mathematics is intractable, so it's often necessary to fall back on laboratory phenomenology and numerical particle-in-cell simulations.

Nobody promised the real universe would be easy to model. Pretending leads you down a rabbit hole. Your astrophyics colleagues will happily follow you there, but that's not science.

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.

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.

1. If he told you, he would have to kill you.
</p>
2. It is not only sample size that matters here, but also response time. If someone from the Slashdot community responds to your post pointing out 2 (alleged) cases, I'd like to bet you there are many more (very real) cases out there.
3a. Google is your friend. I'll just dump number 1 on the hitlist for "classified patents": Patent search at LANL. No small fry indeed...

Sadly, your client "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.66; Zapitron 27-trit personal computer; Lynx hack attack - server successfully compromised)" violates the automated access guidelines posted at xxx.lanl.gov, and is consequently excluded.

If you believe this determination to be in error, see http://xxx.lanl.gov/denied.html for additional information.

I believe you're on to something. If you look at the paper, you'll notice that Adam's Metasyntactic Variable appears several times within each of the curve-fitted coefficients for the sample galaxies cited in the paper's appendix.

This has a very deep significance, the explanation of which escapes me at the moment.

The concept is neat. I'm not about to wade through the math and double-check anything. It'd be nice if we could stick with general relativity without dark matter.

On a side note, they are distributing the source. It's possible they may even be GPL friendly.

GPL friendly physicists rule.

I think most of the responses to the parent question have missed the intention of the original post.. There is a theory of VSL (variable speed of light) even for c, with the speed of light in a vacuum changing over time (most notably championed by Dr Joao Magueijo of Imperial College London) If you are so inclined you can read the paper yourself here

What this implies is that astrophysics, as practiced, is no more science than, say, sociology. Whenever current astrophysical theories are falsified by observation, a fundamental law gets tossed instead. Lately we have "dark matter" (6x as much of it as the visible universe), "dark energy" (18x as much!), "inflation", and distant galaxies producing hundreds of times more light than similar modern ones. All are futile attempts to rescue the Big Bang from the oblivion it earns by being, finally, irreconcilable with observation. (E.g. light-element ratios; gravitational lensing measurements of galactic mass; fractal, filamentary arrangement of galactic superclusters; preferred direction of cosmic microwave background anisotropy; shall I go on?)

For all the claims of evidence for the role of neutron stars and black holes in galactic-scale events, it all amounts to negative evidence: those are the only way to concentrate enough energy when the only forces you are willing or equipped to work with are gravitation, fusion, and shock waves. Even so, multimillion-degree "hot gases" in free space and 10^14 eV cosmic rays remain beyond their capacity. Current flow in interstellar plasmas easily propagates and concentrates such energies, without reliance on untestable physical laws and ghosts. However, such work can, as a rule, only be published in Plasma Science journals not read (and perhaps not readable) by astrophysicists.

[p.s. read this quick; /. moderators prefer to prevent discussion of failures of mainstream cosmology and astrophysics.]

Replying to trolls is usually a mistake, but fine:

Observation of the CIV Effect in Interstellar Clouds, Trans. Plasma Sci. December 2000

It's not clear that interstellar currents produce much of the sun's light. (It would account for events at the sun surface that core fusion cannot, but the evidence is incomplete.) What is perfectly clear is that they power x-ray emissions of similar magnitudes distributed across light-years-wide nebulae. Any description of a celestial phenomenon where they are known to occur (e.g. where there is a visible "jet", or x-rays over an extended region) that neglects them, and also fails to explain why their effects must be negligible, is trivially wrong. Any model of galactic or cosmic evolution that fails to reproduce them is, likewise, trivially wrong.

People who take dark matter and dark energy seriously obviously aren't very interested in "convincing evidence", because they have exactly none at all. (Not only that, there's no place to put it: galactic lensing analyses show galaxies are no more massive than the stars and dust in 'em.) The only properties either has is whatever mass or repulsion is needed to prop up a falsified cosmogological theory -- and a different amount for each theory.

5. You think that the slowdown of the Pioneer Space Probe is a more important mystery than the Pyramids.

Yeah, I don't quite know why the question is being asked of /. but anywho, glad it is...

I don't particularly trust anything at all I read on "physorg" unless it is also published somewhere else and this search is not boosting my confidence in the article's validity. Other things which make me doubt the clam VERY VERY MUCH are the fact that lightning has a temperature usually not reported in the literature to be above 40-50,000 Kelvin while virtually all fusion devices (which are in thermal equilibrium, as this would also be the mechanism here presumably unless they are proposing some super exotically weird non-equilibrium mechanism) need to attain temperatures in the MILLIONS of K range to even begin seeing neutrons. The fact that they are also claiming that this explains why they see "100 times the background" levels of neutrons during lightning storms is, I think, bordering on the ridiculous. There is a reason it took us until just 2 years ago to discover that lightning emits x-rays, and that is because uhmmm it involves studying lightning at very close range! Interference effects in sensitive electronic equipment caused by the insanely huge magnetic and electric field pulse very close by are extremely hard to eliminate. Until I read the paper, I'll very highly doubt this neutron/fusion "discovery".

Anyway, I think the following line in the submission needs some factual clarification:
"Perhaps more controversially, and yet to be discussed on Slashdot, the NIF has possible plans for a hybrid fusion approach that uses not only deuterium and tritium, but uranium and plutonium as well in what amounts to a miniaturized version of how thermonuclear weapons achieve fusion. Fears are that this could lead directly to micro-H-bombs."

This is a bit of a convoluted misconception. Firstly when NIF (if they ever finish the damn thing) compresses and ignites its DT capsules, they will theoretically produce a gain of something like a maximum of ~50. That is to say, they will release ~50 times more energy than was delivered to them by the lasers which are used to start the reaction and this will result in the emission of a neutron pulse and other thermal and electromagnetic energy in the 10s of megajoules range. This is exactly a replica of a thermonuclear bomb in the lab (without the primary). They ARE "micro-H-bombs", that's the whole idea of the thing. Secondly NIF want's to use uranium and plutonium as reported recently not because they will increase the fusion yield of the micro-bombs but rather because the megabar, megakelvin conditions achievable with NIF will allow the examination of these metals at the conditions which are found at the cores of imploding primaries (and secondary "sparkplugs"). These are called "subcriticals" and they allow the examination of the equation of state" of these metals at energy regimes pertinent to A-bombs without having an actual chain reaction occur.

As for the question "With all the recent discoveries and developments in fusion research, my question for Slashdotters - are we on the verge of something big that will make fusion a practical reality in a much shorter time frame than the often quoted '30 years away, and always will be'"...
Don't count on it. There are lots of very promising and very very exciting ideas out there, but fusion on an economic (and laboratory; ie. not H-bombs) scale is just damn hard to do. The 30 year rule, sadly, still applies. T

Nuclear reactions take place on the surface, not in the core, perhaps explaining why neutrino numbers vary with sunspot cycles, and nuclear reactions are produced in the same way that we produce nuclear reactions in the lab -- by accelerating particles in an electric field.

Nuclear reactions take place on the surface, not in the core, perhaps explaining why neutrino numbers vary with sunspot cycles, and nuclear reactions are produced in the same way that we produce nuclear reactions in the lab -- by accelerating particles in an electric field.

Nuclear reactions take place on the surface, not in the core, perhaps explaining why neutrino numbers vary with sunspot cycles, and nuclear reactions are produced in the same way that we produce nuclear reactions in the lab -- by accelerating particles in an electric field.

Nuclear reactions take place on the surface, not in the core, perhaps explaining why neutrino numbers vary with sunspot cycles, and nuclear reactions are produced in the same way that we produce nuclear reactions in the lab -- by accelerating particles in an electric field.

Halton Arp seems to have some interesting ideas as to what my be causing the redshift.

See this abstract: The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

[ I'm aware that I linked to these in a previous reply under this story; but you may have missed them amidts that long list of links. ]

Is it total nonsense? I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the matter.

By the way, I agree with you about the Electric Universe proponents being too eager to engage in polemics -- it doesn't help their "cause" at all.

I find the stuff on Peratt's website to be more balanced than much of what is found on thunderbolts.info, holoscience.com, and some of the others.

I submitted this controversial article, and I suppose I ought to poke my head up and offer a few observations.

First, if the story, as it showed up early this morning on /.'s main page, was missing a link to the article hosted by holoscience.com, it's not my fault, as I did include one, but the story as submitted (expectedly) underwent heavy editing before it was displayed for public consumption, and the editor must have accidentally dropped the link. By the time I visite Slashdot today, the mistake was corrected.

I've seen many replies under this story crying "crackpots!" and "quacks!".

But I haven't read even one yet that suggests some simple principles or facts which can be used to debunk the basic claim of the plasma cosmologists and the Electric Universe proponents: that plasma physics (i.e. electrodynamics as embodied in the behavior of plasmas) is not given enough credit when scietific models and theories that attempt to explain stellar and interstellar phenomenon.

And I am all ears. I studied physics in college and was well on my way towards a B.A. in that discipline when I decided to try my hand as an entrepreneur during the dot-com boom. I think I've developed a fairly sensitive internal "b.s. meter" over the course of my lifetime. And I try to "keep up" in my personal (albeit hobbyist) study of science, with space physics and cosmology being my dominant interests. I read stuff on the "popular science" level and I am also comfortable reading papers of a more technical nature. I self-admittedly have a more philosophical bent in my musing upon these matters, but that is not a variant of the excuse, "I'm not so good at math" -- I am actually fairly competent when it comes to advanced mathematics.

Several weeks ago, I read the story on /. that pointed to thunderbolts.info's "Deep Impact predictions" page. I'd never heard of "plasma cosmology" and the "Electric Universe" theories before . . . and so began to read about them. I discovered that there is quite a spectrum of thought that makes up this fringe scientific camp.

On the one hand, you have the plasma physicists/cosmologists that believe that the behavior of stars, galaxies, galactic clusters, etc. are governed not primarily by the gravitational force but rather gravity AND electrodynamics, with electrodynamics dominant in many contexts. And they pretty much stop with that assertion and confine most of their work to exploring it.

The Electric Universe enthusiasts go farther, and are trying to develop an all-encompassing framework in which they see every aspect of the universe (from the subatomic to the intergalactic) and its history as governed by the "Electric Force."

Am I true believer in the so-called "Electric Universe?" No. I actually find members of that end of the spectrum in question to be a bit too eager to engage in polemics, and that doesn't impress me. On the other hand, I will say that I find myself highly sympathetic to the work and claims of plasma physicists like Dr. Anthony Peratt.

Here's why, in a nutshell: Since I was a little kid I've been fascinated by ideas like black holes, neutron stars, the "big bang," grand unified theories, etc., etc., etc. In fact, it was my reading Timothy Ferris' Galaxies when I was in the 2nd grade that planted the seeds for my future interest in pursuing physics as a career. I read Hawking's A Brief History of Time in the 6th grade, "understood" it, and from there began a more rigorous self-directed study into more advanced treatments of physics and mathematic

There's serious work going on detecting and characterizing solar-, nebular-, galactic-, and galactic-supercluster- scale current flow that the Electric Universe people are happy to co-opt. Regardless of how supernovas happen, what you end up with really are huge clouds of electrically-conductive plasma at widely-varying densities, compositions, and degrees of ionization, that spontaneously organize. Forms routinely observed in laboratory plasma experiments, scaled up many orders of magnitude, are unmistakable in such nebulae, just as is also seen on a smaller scale in our own solar system (e.g. the aurora), and on an immensely larger scale in the galactic core.

The article in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science itself is interesting and valid speculation with very good experimental discussion, and (in my opinion) provides a good explanation of the commonality of megalith features and petroglyph designs across prehistoric cultures worldwide. In it, he argues that all of the predominant petroglyph types can be viewed as observations of a persistant high-intensity plasma discharge in the upper atmosphere, visible simultaneously across several points on Earth. There is very good comparison between multiple representative petroglyphs, theory calculations and experimental observations of plasma structures that could have been visible resulting from an increase in the solar wind by an order of magnitude or so. However, this article says NOTHING about supernovae, and lots about preexising and accepted phenomena, so I'm not sure why it's presented as evidence.

On the other hand, I'm a QIP scientist, and not a plasma scientist, so if anyone with a plasma physics background can give a more rigorous discussion of the IEEE paper, I'd be very interested!

Here's what looks like the abstract of their precious journal article (it's a PDF):http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/downloadsCo smo/peratt2004ICPS.pdf

As far as I can tell, there's no reference to any sort of interstellar events - just a very strong aurora, which would exhibit certain symmetries according to current research in plasma physics; ancient societies might then be inspired to inscribe this auroral event in petroglyphs. The paper then puts forth support for this idea by showing that the positions of these symmetric ancient drawings are well oriented with a theorized auroral event.

I'm no plasma physicist, but I would be very suprised if even the extreme forces of a supernova, located many thousands of light-years away, would be able to do a fraction of what the solar wind of a star eight light-minutes away could achieve. If the conclusions of this paper are correct, and there was some sort of massive auroral event in antiquity, I would expect a better explanation to lie in variations the Earth's own magnetic field or in high solar activity; after all, that's what well-confirmed theory tells us produces the aurora.

FTFA:

The crucial evidence for the electrical nature of supernovae must come from experiment and observation. Anthony L. Peratt, Fellow, IEEE, published a seminal paper in the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 31, No. 6, December 2003. It was titled Characteristics for the Occurrence of a High-Current, Z-Pinch Aurora as Recorded in Antiquity. In it he explained the unusual characteristics of a high-energy plasma discharge. He discussed mega-ampere particle beams and showed their characteristic 56- and 28-fold symmetry. He wrote: "A solid beam of charged particles tends to form hollow cylinders that may then filament into individual currents. When observed from below, the pattern consists of circles, circular rings of bright spots, and intense electrical discharge streamers connecting the inner structure to the outer structure."

*sigh* I seriously doubt that 'supernovae are catastrophic electrical discharges focused on a star', and think that this is instead more unsubstantiated guesswork on the part of the Electronic Universe Theorists.

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the pic[t]ure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impetus For Le Sage Gravity

Such currents in near-vacuum plasma, called Birkeland currents, have been directly detected flowing between stars. Finding and analyzing these (real, measurable) flows has to be more interesting than mapping interstellar "gas" density or chasing "dark matter" unicorns. Actually to measure a current flowing between the Milky Way and a Magellanic cloud would make a career -- and ultimately make "dark matter" and "supermassive black holes" seem about as relevant to future work as phlogiston gas and cranial phrenology are today.

Can you really call longitudinal waves coherent

Since you can't amplify atoms, you really can't get a sonic laser

the entire science of interferometry

or even monochromatic

"laser" is one of those fancy new buzzwords

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

Edwin Hubble. "Humason assembled spectra of the nebulae and I attempted to estimate distances." So wrote Hubble of his colleague Milton Humason in 1935 by which time spectra had been obtained for over 150 nebulae. Hubble was a stern warner of using the Doppler effect for galaxies and argued against the recessional velocity interpretation of redshift, convincing Robert Millikan, 1923 recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics and director of physics at the California Insitute of Technology, that the redshift interpretation as an expanison of the universe was probably wrong, the year before both of their deaths in 1953.

Hubble ended his book Observational Approach to Cosmology with the statement:..."if the recession factor is dropped, if redshifts are not primarily velocity-shifts, the picure is simple and plausible. There is no evidence of expansion and no restriction of time-scale, no trace of spatial curvature, and no limitation of spatial dimensions. Moreover, there is no problem of internebular material. The observable region is thoroughly homogeneous; it is too small a sample to indicate the nature of the universe at large. The univers[e] might even be an expanding model, provide[d] the rate of expansion, which pure theory does not specify, i[s] inappreciable. For that matter, the universe might even be contracting."

Taken from:

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/contribut ors.html

Thuderbolts.info

Thunderbolts' Picture of the Day

Picture of the Day Archive

A few very interesting selections from the archive:

The Picture that Won't Go Away

Quasars in Infrared are Still Nearby

Predictions on "Deep Impact"

Electric Stars

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

Space Shuttle Struck by Megalightning?

The website of Halton Arp

The Observational Impet

I already get my porn from xxx.lanl.gov