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I am simply the person who is showing you that we've been misled - by others. When a person shows you that somebody else may be misleading you, a rational response would be to thank the person for taking the time to explain it.

You really need only look at the lengthy process you've just experienced to understand how "hundreds of millions of scientists all over the world and throughout history" might be coming to the wrong conclusion: Recall that the problem began when a Wired science journalist failed to mention a controversy that is very much related to the incredibly anomalous observation that quasars can "shut down" in less than ten years. I've spoken to numerous people about Halton Arp; there are not many people who are deeply aware of his work.

Notice how you ended up on Tom Bridgman's site, where he then misled you in a number of ways about Halton Arp's claims. It took me only a few minutes to show you how. Why are you not upset with Tom Bridgman? Either way, don't you see that the "hundreds of millions of scientists all over the world" would also end up at Tom Bridgman's site?

Then you posted incredibly misleading Debye screening screening claims. It took me less than 10 minutes to present four well-documented examples of Debye screening violations. That has somehow upset you - even though, in practical terms, I have helped you to see an overt contradiction in modern physics. Many people today - physicists included - continue to believe that EM charges are screened even as observations of kiloparsec-long electric currents have become acknowledged by mainstream astronomers. These are not reasons to become angry with the person who has pointed out the contradiction. You've witnessed a truth which very few people have seen. It's a special experience to see a mistake in science before the scientific community has realized it.

Science as a Personal Journey

Your own personal reaction to controversial science says much about the depth of your own thinking and your own propensity to lead. When we treat controversies as an open-ended clash of worldviews where the answer is not already known, we sharpen our critical voice, we develop the habits of higher-order thinking, and we open the door to becoming effective leaders ...

When science becomes controversial, we have to prepare for the possibility that there may be a mistake in our body of knowledge. To the extent that we refuse to do so, we abandon the aspect of scientific theory which distinguishes it from other aspects of our culture — its provisional nature.

What has been overlooked in the unfortunate science journalism and science education which dominate today is that there are processes happening in each of our own individual minds which greatly resemble this never-ending process of change we see at play on the larger stage of the scientific world. And just the same, when we fail to actively engage with controversial science at the personal level, we are diminishing our own personal propensity for change — which sets into motion habits which then limit our own leadership capabilities ...

The heart of the problem is this: to get to the true complexity of a scientific debate, a person has to be willing to entertain the notion that there exists a mistake in their own personal knowledge ... to succeed at critiquing ourselves and our beliefs, we must ourselves go through a personal transformation. We have to cross what is called the subject-object barrier, from a state where we are in the grips of our existing worldview (e.g., subject to the textbook theory) to a state where we can discuss this mainstream worldview as an object.

We are talking about two different minds here: It is not merely a technical challenge to cross the subject-object barrier; it is an adjustment to the m

Re: "Gravity may be weak, but it doesn't get shielded like the EM field is."

Many theorists and online critics today insist that there exists a theoretical limit to EM forces dictated by a concept known as Debye screening. The argument commonly goes like this ...

"The good old 'EM is 10^39 times stringer [sic] than gravity' myth. This is ignorance of both gravity and EM! Gravity is weaker but there is only one 'charge' -- it cannot be shielded. EM has two charges -- it can and is shielded. In plasma there are basically no EM forces on scales larger than a few Debye lengths. This is 10 meters in the solar wind."

Wikipedia informs us:

"In plasmas and electrolytes the Debye length (also called Debye radius), named after the Dutch physicist and physical chemist Peter Debye, is the measure of a charge carrier's net electrostatic effect in solution, and how far those electrostatic effects persist. A Debye sphere is a volume whose radius is the Debye length, with each Debye length, charges are increasingly electrically screened. Every Debyelength, the electric potential will decrease by 1/e."

The chart on that page clearly lists these limits to electromagnetism's reach, per medium:

Solar core - 10^-11 m
Tokamak - 10^-4 m
Gas discharge - 10^-4 m
Ionosphere - 10^-3 m
Magnetosphere - 10^2 m
Solar wind - 10 m
Interstellar medium - 10 m
Intergalactic medium - 10^5 m

Siggy breaks the claim down for us in terms that anybody can understand:

"Debye screening is used as an explanation by mainstream to point to why discharges won't occur in galactic scenarios. I.e. the charged particles within a plasma wouldn't be affected by an external electric field outside the Debye length/radius. This length also signifies the volumes where discharges can occur; a few meters in the solar wind and up to a hundred kilometers in intergalactic medium (still not very long distances)."

The problem with this concept is that observations have repeatedly shown us that it fails to actually constrain EM forces. Even if it has proven an accurate general guideline, the idea has repeatedly failed us as a rule or law. Treating this rule-of-thumb like a law of physics is akin to claiming that since the Earth's atmosphere is typically insulating, atmospheric lightning should not be possible. Well, the obvious problem is that you can see, yourself, that lightning happens. So, when you see reports in science articles of electric discharges, ask yourself: Has Debye screening been violated?

(1) A clearcut violation of Debye screening was witnessed in a 2005 Cassini flyby:

"Static electricity is known to play an important role on Earth's airless, dusty moon, but evidence of static charge building up on other objects in the solar system has been elusive until now. A new analysis of data from NASA's Cassini mission has revealed that, during a 2005 flyby of Saturn's moon Hyperion, the spacecraft was briefly bathed in a beam of electrons coming from the moon's electrostatically charged surface ...

Measurements made by several of Cassini's instruments during a close encounter with Hyperion on September 26, 2005, indicate that something unexpected took place in the charged particle environment around the spacecraft. Among those instruments, the Cassini Plasma Spectrometer (CAPS) detected that the spacecraft was magnetically connected to the surface of Hyperion for

Re: "You're basically arguing with a single person on the internet, and from where I'm sitting, you certainly aren't winning that argument."

A very important part of tracking controversies is documenting reactions by both laypeople and academics to controversial science claims. I've become increasingly organized on this since I began tracking controversies about twelve years ago. These conversations are very important in the sense that an uninvolved 3rd person can in certain ways benefit more from witnessing the exchange than the actual participants. If a participant, e.g., is unfairly characterizing the other side; if they are repeatedly condescending or making baseless accusations; if there are aspects to the site culture which appear to diverge from more established IRL cultural norms; or if a person is clearly not conceding fairly-made points, all of these types of behaviors can be witnessed and taken into account by third-person parties who have no personal stake in the arguments.

Mapping out complex scientific debates is, by itself, important historic work which academics have to date refused to do. It's obvious that cosmologists don't even have a "Plan B" for how they would react to settling their science to a dead-end. If and when it happens, they will initially have to consult the work that has already been done by non-academics.

For these reasons, Juan and I take outreach very seriously. I am frequently surprised by the ways in which people behave online, and even more surprising is the reaction from people that I am recording their responses. The Internet is obviously a completely public forum, so everybody should be treating one another as though they can be recorded at all times.

Having tracked the debate for such a long time at this point, I can clearly see that the debate over electricity in space is very much heating up. The trend has been towards more recognition of electric currents and electric fields at astronomical scales; more observations of unexpected counter-rotation at the largest scales (a unique feature of Birkeland currents); more observations of filamentary, skeletal structures pervading galaxies and apparently leading to the formation of stars in groups; more features currently referred to by astrophysicists as "clouds" which upon closer inspection with radio prove to be more like bundles of filaments. These historical trends do not bode well for gravitational cosmology.

Re: "Higher-level reasoning simply looks like confusion from the outside ... Wow, you are quite the narcissist, aren't you? The way you push your own agenda for validation, convinced you're right and we are wrong, certainly fits that bill...

There is no "agenda" at play other than to understand the landscape of the debate. In the world of tracking scientific controversies, identifying the arguments and claims is the mundane precursor to actual independent thought.

Re: "There is *no* known mechanism that allows the rest mass of an electron to change. If there were, we would have found it. It has been shown to remain constant with over 8 decimal digits."

This argument is not well thought out. The physics of quasars is not understood, and you do no service to anybody pretending as though you can tell us what it cannot be. The mainstream is constantly reminding us of how luminous and energetic these objects are, based upon their inferred redshift, so whatever point you are trying to make, you should think more deeply about it.

Re: "If quasars were ejected as electron severely deficient then they would be very much attracted to whatever ejected them, because electrostatic attraction is over 20 orders of magnitude stronger than gravity."

There is a long history of speculators who have formerly claimed that they can reason with electrostatics principles at astrophysical scales. This is one of the anti-patterns which I document online (so you will now be documented with the others).

Astrophysical plasmas are not at all like electrostatics. Electrostatics is the science of charge distribution between solids such that electrons are confined to isolated conductive mediums, but are both immersed within a larger non-conductive medium. In a plasma, the charged particles are free to move throughout the medium. The solid state - e.g., little tiny pebbles like our Earth - is exceptionally rare in space, so the situation plays out very differently. It turns out that there actually are regions of space which are notably more conductive than the broader interstellar medium. We call them Birkeland currents, and they can even act as ion sumps, pulling upon the ambient charged particles surrounding them. We could even use the term "accretion". Laboratory plasma physicists might use any of a variety of terms to describe these processes (Marklund convection or the Lorentz force or the Biot-Savart Law, etc). But, you will absolutely fail if you try to use electrostatics to reason your way to these behaviors. If you need to see more discussion of this, then read this.

Part of the problem here is what happens to an electrostatic discharge when it encounters a plasma double layer. The double layers are the real difficulty which you face when you try to mix these toolsets. In nature, plasmas form into complex structures: sheets, cells, filaments, and even hub-and-spoke connectors which can link the filaments into networks. An electrostatic discharge will rarely penetrate a plasma double layer. If you need something to look at to understand this, then consider the case of a sprite encountering the ionosphere: The ionosphere is the plasma double layer, and the sprite cannot penetrate this structure. In fact, you could make the case that the sprite is a discharge from the top of the storm to the ionospheric double layers. Since these layers basically separate Earth from space, you could fairly state that the sprites are sort of like "lightning to space." But, planetary scientists so disliked that phrase that they invented the term "sprite" (which in folklore is known as a devilish fairy that misleads people).

So, notice that the very first structure we encounter when we go into space is a plasma double layer.

Re: "Slashdot should do better to not allow posters to insert their crackpot ideas into the submission of what is actually a really interesting article."

All that you've done here is to summarize the textbook theory, the content of the article, and the point I made about the reporting. But to what extent are you actually thinking about the things which you are reading about? What you seem to be suggesting is that Slashdot should never cover any idea which deviates from mainstream scientific thought - even if doing so would actually help people to think at a higher level through a process of engaging multiple competing scientific frameworks.

There has been a theory that the end of the last ice age was reversed temporarily, causing a re-glaciation and a dip in global temperatures around 12K years ago. So far no impact craters have been found.

This guy claims to have found a recent airburst impact zone in Mexico and crater impacts in North America, and there is a theory that observations of plasma bursts from a solar event were recorded on rock art.

Galileo's Square-Cube Law appears to work for all land-walking animals alive today, but the scientific community seems to ignore its problematic application to the dinosaurs. Is it because there would seem to be a number of dinosaurs which could not seemingly exist in today's gravity?

"How could dinosaurs get so big despite Galileo's square cube law?

The law - Square-cube law
From wikipedia

'The giant monsters seen in horror movies (e.g., Godzilla or King Kong) are also unrealistic, as their sheer size would force them to collapse.'

Wouldn't the law also affect dinosaurs like the Giraffatitan?

1 Answer
Apala Chaturvedi

Galileo's Dialogue Concerning Two New Sciences contained what he considered to be one of his most profound insights: the square-cube law. If two cubes are made of the same material then they will have the same density. Yet since the two cubes have different area to volume ratios they will likewise have different stress at the base of each cube. If too much stress is placed on an object then it will fail, or in this case a large cube has a much greater possibility of collapsing. This is why sandcastles can only be a few feet high.

Galileo applied this to animals, what we now call allometry, and noted that a this implies the diameter of bones should be proportional to their length. It explains why ants can walk around on spindly little legs while lifting 50 times their body weight, compared to elephants with their tree-trunk sized feet who would strain to lift a quarter of their mass.

Also because of the Square-Cube Law, larger animals have less relative muscle strength than smaller animals. Both the muscle strength and bone strength are functions of the cross sectional area, while the weight of the animal is a function of volume.

It is because of relative muscle strength that an ant can lift fifty times its weight while a human can lift an amount equal to its own weight, and an Asian elephant can only lift 25% of its own weight. The greater muscle to weight ratio of smaller animals is what allows them to jump higher than several times their own height, while at the other extreme an elephant can not even jump.

While Galileo was successful in convincing the Church and the conservative science community that the world is not flat, the conservative science community has yet to embrace Galileo's Square-Cube Law even though it is clearly correct and fundamental to understanding every major science discipline.

Something additional to note is the common occurrence of serious bone diseases such as osteoporosis and arthritis observed in mammoth remains, for this could be called a vindication for the idea that mammoths existed at the very edge of the Square-Cube Law, or that a change in gravity is part of what destroyed them. There's additional discussion of the situation here

There's no such thing as gravitational lensing. Light is not bent by gravity.
Light is an electromagnetic impulse, can't 'bend' that with no matter involved.

The galaxy in between is merely a lens-shaped blob of matter acting as a lens:

https://www.thunderbolts.info/...

Yeah, how dare people discuss the idea that electricity flows through space in a tech forum? And no less, in regards to a mission whose purpose is to resolve "burning questions -- and some sizzling mysteries -- about the orb of hot plasma that lights up our Solar System". Nevermind the fact that the inverse corona temperature enigma is a mystery for the vey reason that it's power source is claimed to come from its core; I mean, we should leave it up to the scientists to come up with "a complex system of plasma, magnetic fields, and energetic particles" to explain how it can be that the farther we get from the power source, the higher the temperatures become.

Of all the ideas offered up as being an explanation of the extreme temperature (more than 2 million Kelvin) measured in the lower corona of our Sun, the simplest is that electrically accelerated high velocity positive ions are colliding with relatively static ions and neutral atoms in that location.

Setting aside the fact that the existence of mathematics does not somehow make it correct, it is absolutely misleading to assert that there is no mathematics associated with either electrical cosmology (for example here) or the Electric Universe (for example here). In fact, understanding both require a deep appreciation for the Lorentz Force and Maxwell's Equations. Mathematics has been a part of electrical cosmology from its inception (for example here).

Math is crucial for understanding the critical ionization velocity effect; it has been used to show how Marklund convection can replace gravitational accretion as a system for forming stars (and unlike the idea of stars accreting gravitationally, the geometry matches observations of actual stars forming all at once in a burst). Don Scott could not have accurately predicted the structure of AGN jets without significant amounts of mathematics. He's a retired EE professor, so he has spent his life immersed in these mathematics which you claim the EU does not include.

Attempts to model space without electrodynamic plasma physics concepts are destined to fail. We know this because it's already been tried, and the approach has failed to explain the nature of the many cosmic plasma structures we observe.

Think about it this way: What is the first plasma we encounter as we leave the Earth? It's the ionosphere. You may not know a whole lot about the ionosphere, but if you've been paying attention at all, you will at least understand that it is layered. You might spend some time thinking about why that is. Why should differing concentrations of charge exist in layers at all? Why not just a smooth gradient of charge that tapers off as one leaves Earth? Why should differing, adjacent regions of charge not neutralize one another?

The math here explains why.

"As neither double layer nor circuit can be derived from magnetofluid models of a plasma, such models are useless for treating energy transfer by means of double layers. They must be replaced by particle models and circuit theory.

A simple circuit is suggested which is applied to the energizing of auroral particles, to solar flares, and to intergalactic double radio sources ... Double layers in space should be classified as a new type of celestial object." ("Double Layers and Circuits in Astrophysics", Hannes Alfven, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Dec 1986)

In a 1992 paper titled, "Double Layers Do Accelerate Particles in the Auroral Zone," the authors plainly state:

"the direct observational evidence for substantial (multi-kV) electrostatic potential structures in the auroral zone is plentiful [16-27].

The Earth's auroral zone is far from being fully understood, but observations clearly show that electrostatic-potential structures (called double layers or electrostatic shocks) reside in the auroral magnetosphere."

Observations of laboratory plasmas have shown that double layers are what lend plasmas their structure. When you see a plasma filament in a novelty plasma globe, you should be asking: Why is charge confined to this thin filament? Laboratory plasma physicists point to the double layer as the source of this structure.

You should also be asking these same types of questions about the Van Allen Radiation belts: How can it be that these belts have all of this

Re: "There is a lot of talk about scientists and very little talk about physical theory. As far as I can tell, EU is some conspiracy theory about scientists as opposed to a science theory. Maybe it would be more attractive and approachable if they drop the antisocial, whiny cruft and stuck to business."

It's probably unfair to judge an entire cosmology through Internet comments. Since a lot of the efforts here are focused upon correcting misconceptions, these efforts may come off to some as "whiny". For a more thoughtful introduction, you might consider, instead, reading The Electric Sky by Don Scott, which goes into great length about how we can explain astronomical observations with ordinary laboratory plasma physics observations.

If you'd prefer to avoid purchasing their book, then consider their technical introduction, The Essential Guide -- which is actually geared towards those with an EE background. It is quite technical.

Alternatively, if you come from the world of plasma physics, you'd want to also supplement these works with the second edition of Physics of the Plasma Universe And in that case, there are also a couple of papers you should read here and here, which both review critiques of MHD in good detail.

Personally, I also recommend focusing upon the historical arguments, whose importance are greatly under-appreciated ... e.g., the mistaken assumption of empty space, the story of Kristian Birkeland, the history of the Birkeland current concept, the electron theory as a worldview, the story of Halton Arp, the Big Bang's big redshift assumption, and this discussion of the debate over uniformitarianism vs catastrophism, for starters.

For those that just want a very basic and quick introduction, then watch these two Youtube videos.

There is really no shortage of high-quality resources, pitched at all of the various levels. If you aren't seeing them, then that definitely says more about your own efforts to find these resources than anything else.

The mystery is a lot simpler, just read up on https://www.thunderbolts.info/... and other Electric Universe research. Our sun is basically a gigantic electric arc lamp.

IMarv

And, by the way, they actually do make predictions -- which is the first link that comes up if you type into Google "electric universe predictions".

Re: "You need to make testable predictions that differ from the current model."

There are many examples of observations at the level of planetary --> intergalactic scales which are expected in an electrical cosmology, but not in a gravitational one (and realize that it is acknowledged that gravity dominates at the smaller scales). To give a few examples ...

1. The failure of the solar wind to appreciably decelerate even as it passes the Earth's orbit. In the laboratory, we accelerate charged particles with an electric field. Basic physics is suggestive of the idea that the Sun is the center of an electric field, and it extends outwards to the heliopause.

2. The fact that galactic rotation curves are easily produced by modeling the cosmic plasma as laboratory plasma. The reason it is so is because the spiral arms trace out electric currents. Very simple physics compared to the dark matter conjecture. In fact, Winston Bostick produced spiral galaxy forms in the plasma laboratory many, many years ago, and Anthony Peratt created his supercomputer simulations as a reaction to that former experimental work.

3. The CMB itself can be argued to be evidence for electric currents in space, because

"High-power microwave generation on earth belongs exclusively to devices using relativistic electron beams ... A relativistic electron beam that does not produce microwave radiation is unknown. These same basic mechanisms are likely to have their natural analogs in cosmic plasmas."

As for the unexpected bell-curve shape of this signal, it could very well result from the signal passing through the heliopause, but even if that proves to be problematic, it's not at all scientific to rush to judge that this is evidence for a creation event.

4. The layering of the ionosphere is evidence that the Earth has a net charge to it. Why? Because we can do the experiment in the laboratory: Set up a metal sphere in a vacuum, and pump it full of charge until the charge density becomes very high. What happens? Layering of charge. These are actually called double layers in the plasma laboratory, and they are recognized as electrodynamic phenomena (which is likely why astrophysicists have so far refused to catalog double layers as astrophysical entities, even though they've been observed in the Van Allen radiation belts).

5. The Earth is observed to electrically interact with the Sun every 8 minutes. You didn't recognize this as an electric current because the scientists called it either a "magnetic portal" or a "flux transfer event", but it is obvious that the magnetic field is caused by an electric current. What we've yet to see any acknowledgement of from mainstream scientists is that these discharges every 8 minutes might be acting as a feedback which stabilizes our solar system.

6. The Cassini spacecraft was struck in 2005 by an electric current from Hyperion, even though it was a full 1,200 miles away from the small object.

during a 2005 flyby of Saturn's moon Hyperion, the spacecraft was briefly bathed in a beam of electrons coming from the moon's electrostatically charged surface

The scientists referred to it as an "electrostatic shock", but this was an obvious violation of Debye screening, which should have limited the electrostatic discharges in this region to 10 meters. Incidentally, the researchers sat on the news of this event for a full 9 years before reporting it to the public.

In each case, we see something happening which is expected for electricity in space, but u

As long as you continue to refuse to review the falsifying evidence, you will continue to think that cosmology is not in crisis.

"When Big Bang proponents make assertions such as “the evidence taken together hangs together beautifully,” they overlook observational facts that have been piling up for 25 years and that have now become overwhelming. Of course, if one ignores contradictory observations, one can claim to have an “elegant” or “robust” theory. But it isn’t science." -- Halton Arp

What you should do is to forget about theoretical claims, ask your self if the Big Bang is falsifiable, and if it is, then look at the raw data compiled in those four books. Check out for example the following link with just one example found in the books:

https://www.thunderbolts.info/...

There you will see four objects, with four completely different redshifts, two of the four objects being quasars, physically associated through a plasma filament. That is impossible, according the Big Bang assumptions regarding redshift.

"It seems likely that redshift may not be due to an expanding Universe, and much of the speculations on the structure of the universe may require re-examination." - Edwin Hubble, PASP, 1947

"The evidence that many objects previously believed to be at great distances are actually much closer confronts us with the most drastic possible revision of current concepts." - Halton Arp.

The four books and related papers are chock full of similar raw evidence in which it is observationally found that the idea of redshift being an indicator of an "expanding Universe" (whatever you may want to physically interpret by that) has been falsified again and again and again.

Anyway, you seem to reject the possibility that the Big Bang Theory is observationally falsifiable. In such case, it is not a science. One way or the other, I finished with these postings. Enjoy!

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: "Dumbass, at the same vast distances, so are electricity and magnetism."

Forgive my cynicism, but I see that we have now arrived at the point where people are ignoring the implications of the geometry of the plasma filament. The plasma filament presents a perfectly valid solution to the distance problem because of its inherent long-range attraction and short-range repulsion between separate filaments. What this means in practice is that the electric force is then extended to whatever distance -- basically infinite -- that the filament extends to.

For many years, a number of "debunkers" have attempted to undermine this solution to the dark matter problem by claiming either that plasma is quasi-neutral (and hence non-conductive) or that the electric force is shielded at some distance (Debye screening). The Thunderbolts Group has soundly rebutted the quasi-neutrality argument here, and I've personally documented three exceptional violations of Debye screening here.

In a sense, these earlier arguments are basically voided by this new mainstream admission of light-years long filaments of plasma currents, but since the reporting by mainstream science journalists on these topics is so confused, the memo never seems to be received by the "debunkers".

Maybe it's just diffraction. http://www.thunderbolts.info/t...

hey, I'm famous!

But seriously, I've done a fair bit of reading regarding the arguments for and against the mathematics of black holes. Which always comes back to Einstein. Which proponents point to the sky and declare GPS as proof that the equations work, and call for anyone questioning the equation(s) in question, to provide a better one.

That's not the point, the point is, there's enough reason to question it's accuracy on much larger scales, such as galactic. Even our notions of calculating distance. Science seems very confident that they're right, and continue to stand on the standard theory, when the guy that first spoke it to the world was actually a creationist, and Einstein loved every word of it!

So I sit on the fence, looking both ways, and see only two options. The standard model, and the Electric Universe model, which really is worthy of interest. I think most people stumble because of the multi-disciplinary view of the universe it requires. An Electrical Engineer meets physicist, meets astronomer. A decent mathematician wouldn't go a miss either, when trying to make sense of it all.

So if you're interesting in peering over the fence, I find this article quite amusing to read, and hard to refute. http://www.thunderbolts.info/t... Us mere mortals are often asked to choose a side, and yet, as much as I love science, the Electric Universe seems to refresh the parts other beers cannot reach.

Of course there is gravity. It just happens to be 10^39 weaker than electricity.
While some people defending the Electric Universe Theories are more like football fans, it does make a lot of sense - and this particular phenomena on TFS is rather likely electric in nature.

It is not a question of "swallow it all" - Electric Universe can be a steady Scientific Approach - it is not because you think there is no way the Sun is powered someway else than nuclear fusion in its core that you can't stop to think why some impact craters are hexagonal instead of round.

"Edit: They're now saying the harpoons didn't fire after all."

It's irrelevant. Even if they did fire, the electrical system would be shorted out. It can't work. It's not possible.
More here and here

Let's see if the lander has an electrical anomaly on the way down. Should be interesting.

https://www.thunderbolts.info/...

This is one of the areas I think the electric universe guys are correct about.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/t...

No they're not. Stop going to those websites. Everything on there is nonsense. Pulsars are a fairly well understood fenomena. Astronomers have found 1 observation out of billions of stars that contradicts their math, and they already have a plausible explanation for it.

This is one of the areas I think the electric universe guys are correct about.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/t...

https://www.thunderbolts.info/...

We are just as likely to find a tribe of bigfoot living on it. And no, I'm not kidding. There would have to be as much wrong with modern sience for the Electric Universe to be correct, that Vacuum loving Sasquatches would be equally as likely.

https://www.thunderbolts.info/...

If as the Electric Universe people claim, redshift does NOT equal distance, then redshift is an intrinsic property of the celestial bodies in question and the universe is not actually expanding (as a side effect, you need no dark matter, no mysterious quasars, no black holes that require one to MISREPRESENT the Schwarzchild equations to describe). If the universe is not actually expanding, then there is no "reverse the expansion to come up with a big bang" and you have the old fashioned steady state theory of the universe.

Unless of course you think the more complex theory full of mysterious unobservable entities like dark matter is correct and better uses Occam's razor. See the electric force weakens linearly with distance. The gravitational force obeys the inverse square law. So the electric force is many many times stronger than gravity over distances and that removes the need for singularities and exotic forms of matter. Considering over 99% of matter in space is not "gas" or "hot gas" but conductive plasma, these problems you mention with standard cosmology don't have to occur.

If you are interested in at least looking at this position before you pass judgment on it (so few manage to do that eh?). If not you can have your circlejerk of narrowminded groupthink where you never find a logical or evidence-based flaw in anything they say, but insist that it just can't be so since it contradicts what impressive credentials have taught you is absolute truth. As we all know, the men with titles and credentials have NEVER been wrong before, and we modern people are too clever for that to ever happen again right?

:-)

AC wrote: "Paul, referring to Disciplined Minds on Slashdot is like admitting that you are a predator alien. We're going to have to be much more clever than that if we want to convince people to question their ideologies. The subconscious will not cede its control unless you offer it something in return. The best way to deconstruct the subconscious is to study branding and market research. Learn about what happens when people buy stuff, and compare that to what people do when they try to evaluate claims about scientific models with limited information.
See my thread: http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=14667 "

First, I probably can't in general disagree with your points on branding, advertising, purchasing, etc. Even if specific cases for specific individuals may differ, as in some people are more analytical than others (sadly sometimes meaning perhaps they are more easily bamboozled by "facts"?), some people may be in a stage of life looking for a new idea to try or an explanation for a past difficulty, etc.. I can wonder if that person to be so good at selling such ideas would be me though? But yes, in general, you are probably right. I liked the personal development diagrams in that thread (having only looked through the first page of 11 in the thread, need to read more later). Reminds me of one I've seen elsewhere with eight stages or so but generally overlapping.And I liked the line in Megamind where he says the difference between a villain and a supervilian (or by extension amateur and professional) is ... "presentation". "-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dy2zB8bLSpk

The first ten episodes of the popular "Downton Abbey" provides examples of workers identifying with the system around them and not seeing much hope for change (although a war shows up and some things do start to change, and some do see potential for change). James P. Hogan echoes similar themes in Voyage from Yesteryear, as people cling to the old scarcity-based social hierarchies even when confronted with abundance. Historian Howard Zinn's take on that: http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html

BTW, you might also like some other quotes I've collected here:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/to-james-randi-on-skepticism-about-mainstream-science.html#Some_quotes_on_social_problems_in_science

Also related (there are better links I've posted before, these are just top Google matches):
http://www.counterpunch.org/2010/02/26/peer-review-as-censorship/
http://landshape.org/enm/peer-censorship-and-scientific-fraud/

One thing Einstein got very right was the need to improve our ways of thinking given our new technological powers:
http://anwot.org/

I'd also agree we could use better communications systems to discuss science and reason together about it. My wife and I have taken some steps towards such things in terms of making free and open source software, but no big successes so far. This web page has a video related to a Kickstarter campaign I thought about doing to further those efforts a couple years ago, but I did not proceed with it (taking work doing more conventional stuff instead for sadly short-term reasons): http://twirlip.com/

At least I still have some time now and then to advocate for a Basic Income as at least one way someday to give people more intellectual freedom (among other things). But even that is a tough sell, although I am glad

People are way ahead of you.

Every year I attend the Electric Universe conference, in January, where I listen to some of the greatest minds in leading edge science who weave a very convincing tale of how Electromagnetism is the dominant, by far, force in the Universe, and they have even made discoveries that virtually prove that the weak nuclear force is an epiphenomenon of electricity in the absolute micro scale (inside subatomic particles), and a LOT of compelling evidence that gravity is an emergent property of electrically charged bodies (e.g., bodies with electromagnetic fields, such as, you know, the Earth, Sun, etc., etc.). They call it Electric Gravity.

Check it out: http://www.thunderbolts.info/

Vague statement. What we have are two phenomena, one which is not explained by the observed mass in galaxies or in clusters, and one not explained by the present (and currently only serious) model of the universe. Feel free to propose alternative models for the universe... but make sure that they fit the current observations *at least* as well as that model and fails to break the Solar System. That is hard to do.

"Hard to do" - unless someone does hit a somewhat correct model - whereby you can explain everything that is observed -inside and outside the Soalr system, without the need for theoretical only (and now undetectable to the point of non-existence) dark matter. -

"The team of astronomers, who used data from Hubble and the European Southern Observatory's New Technology Telescope (NTT) to survey 130 nebulae, posit that powerful magnetic fields may be behind the phenomenon."

Hey, you mean that mainstream science may be coming around to what http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/ have been suggesting?

Good luck!

The electric universe people have been saying comets are not what we think they are for awhile now.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/latest-tblog/

The electric universe people say a lot of things that pretty much put them in astrology territory, so we don't really need to listen to them, much less link to them.

All present-day theories, including black holes, dark matter, dark energy and other theoretical "stuff" depend on gravity as the controlling force in the large-scale development and operation of the universe. There are some scientists that have come up with a theory that the universe is controlled by a force that is 36 orders of magnitude greater than gravity. It is a force that we are much more familiar with and are able to manipulate to our advantage.

These theories don't require any of the esoteric mathematical inventions, such as black holes and all the rest that the gravity only model needs to explain current observations. These theories depend on plasma physics which allows experiments to be done right here on earth that mimic many of the features we see in the solar system and in the furthest reaches of space.

For example, we to see intense radiation, x-rays specifically, from certain spots in outer space. The conventional INTERPRETATION is as you said attributes it to matter falling into a black hole. Here on earth we can generate similar radiation in x-ray machines and accelerators, by using the electric force acting on charged particles of matter.

Anybody can PROVE to you that they exist by doing a simple experiment. They can accelerate the fist at the end of their arm and smash it into your nose. This device is called a nose smasher. The pain that you experience is registered in your pain detector (brain) and will convince you that they very much exist.

If you want more information on these alternate theories, you can begin your research here:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/eg-contents/

I appreciate the thougtful responses I always receive from you.

The world is not only a stranger place than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. It is some incredible arrogance to pretend that we can declare with absolute certainty that anything cannot be. The very best science we have is merely the truth as we know it so far. Science has repeatedly found that its ideas of "impossibility" sometimes turn out to be wrong. Sadly, this usually only happens when the old guard dies off because they refuse to change their minds.

It reminds me of the Electric Unvierse theorists. I find their site to be fascinating. It's updated every weekday and it's the sort of material that makes you think because it comes from a rational non-mainstream perspective. But just try mentioning it around here. People won't just tell you "I disagree with that theory" or "I think they're wrong". They'll tell you how much of a moron you must be, that you should go fuck yourself, that you probably go to witch doctors too, etc. That's how small-minded people deal with anything too far outside the comfortable worldviews their cowardice clings to.

The funny thing is, you don't normally see that level of vitriol and invective used agianst an idea unless there really is something to it. This is the only service the small-minded provide by being the way they are: they let you know when you're onto something.

Even if the Electric Universe theory turns out to be completely false, their critique of how modern astronomy is done is invaluable. It shows the ways that science isn't terribly different from the religious institutions it has come to replace. It still has an orthodoxy and you're still a sort of heretic if you deviate very much from it. You won't be allowed telescope time and your papers won't be published. One would think that open analyis and peer review would quickly reveal any falsehoods, but that is the position of secure people. What you actually see is a sort of irrational fear.

If you're up for it, you would probably appreciate this page and especially this one. Whether you agree with them or not, it will quickly become obvious to you that these are free thinkers. I love seeing that anywhere I find it.

I appreciate the thougtful responses I always receive from you.

The world is not only a stranger place than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine. It is some incredible arrogance to pretend that we can declare with absolute certainty that anything cannot be. The very best science we have is merely the truth as we know it so far. Science has repeatedly found that its ideas of "impossibility" sometimes turn out to be wrong. Sadly, this usually only happens when the old guard dies off because they refuse to change their minds.

It reminds me of the Electric Unvierse theorists. I find their site to be fascinating. It's updated every weekday and it's the sort of material that makes you think because it comes from a rational non-mainstream perspective. But just try mentioning it around here. People won't just tell you "I disagree with that theory" or "I think they're wrong". They'll tell you how much of a moron you must be, that you should go fuck yourself, that you probably go to witch doctors too, etc. That's how small-minded people deal with anything too far outside the comfortable worldviews their cowardice clings to.

The funny thing is, you don't normally see that level of vitriol and invective used agianst an idea unless there really is something to it. This is the only service the small-minded provide by being the way they are: they let you know when you're onto something.

Even if the Electric Universe theory turns out to be completely false, their critique of how modern astronomy is done is invaluable. It shows the ways that science isn't terribly different from the religious institutions it has come to replace. It still has an orthodoxy and you're still a sort of heretic if you deviate very much from it. You won't be allowed telescope time and your papers won't be published. One would think that open analyis and peer review would quickly reveal any falsehoods, but that is the position of secure people. What you actually see is a sort of irrational fear.

If you're up for it, you would probably appreciate this page and especially this one. Whether you agree with them or not, it will quickly become obvious to you that these are free thinkers. I love seeing that anywhere I find it.

Just curious; since you're so well-versed in these theories, could you take a long, hard look at the Electric Universe theory/hypothesis, and tell us where the flaw(s) are?

- or maybe it's just so much of a departure from the standard model, that it's too hard to swallow?

Electric Universe is ridiculous crankery. Frankly, birtherism makes more sense: "Gotcha! That's not a Birth Certificate, it's a Certificate of Live Birth!". At least there's a coherent model of the world in which "birth certificate" and "certificate of live birth" could mean different things (legal minutiae sometimes hinge on such turns of phrase — although not as often as people think). Electric Universe makes a big deal over the existence of plasma and electrical currents, but it refuses to believe in the existence of neutral plasma or the fact that electric currents equalize charge differences, i.e. it ignores or denies the very phenomena (flames and lightning) that let us discover what electricity was in the first place.

Just curious; since you're so well-versed in these theories, could you take a long, hard look at the Electric Universe theory/hypothesis, and tell us where the flaw(s) are?

- or maybe it's just so much of a departure from the standard model, that it's too hard to swallow?

If methane means life then Titan must be a cesspool http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060802methanelakes.htm

The one I looked at most closely was in the intro chapter to one of the books they linked:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/EU%20Intro%20and%20Chap1.pdf

That the shapes and spins of galaxies can be shown in simulation by collapsing parallel electric filaments ("pinch" effect), p. 26.. In contrast, from what I understand, you have to introduce a majority of dark matter & energy into such a simulation to get a stable galaxy if the stars interact otherwise with only gravity.

Something I'm looking at that's related to this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Run

It runs an N-body particle solver using gravitational interactions, to run the cosmic microwave background "forward" to see what kind of modern universe it should develop. This produces the pictures of the filamentary large-scale structure of the universe that I've become accustomed to seeing in recent years, but it turns out you can use the same software to model both radiative and magnetic coupling effects. Here's a variation showing how radiation changes stellar evolution:

    http://www.astro.ex.ac.uk/people/mbate/Cluster/clusterRT.html

Same basic large-scale structure, but different number of "stars", different brightnesses, speeds, etc.

I've got the GADGET code running on my MacBook Air using MacPorts, etc.. should be fun, though very slow :)

You and mainstream scientists keep talking about gas. The solar corona and atmosphere do not consist of gas as we usually think of it, but of electrically conducting plasmas. Such a plasma is a much better conductor of electricity than any metal. The laws of physics that apply to gas, such as Boyles law and other gas laws to not apply in any way. As the galactic electrical current flows toward the sun and away from it, it first has to flow through the corona, which as you say is much less dense than the solar atmosphere further down. Because the corona is less dense, its plasma particles excited by the electric current can travel much faster. The speed of particles is the very definition of temperature. Most of the heat of the sun is generated by electricity the same way as it is on Earth by lightning or an electric arc welder. No one has ever generated a magnetic field by anything other than moving charge. It is these current impinging on and circulating in the sun that produce the enormous magnetic fields we observe.

Electricity is a force 10^39 times stronger than gravity. The only time gravity controls the motion of heavenly bodies, is when these are, fortunately for us, mostly electrically neutral. Most of the universe however is definitely NOT electrically neutral so that most matter exists not as solid, liquid or gas, but in the form of highly ionized plasma. I am an electrical engineer by profession, not a physicist or cosmologist. I am familiar with the laws of electricity and magnetism. What we observe on the sun and in the universe as a whole operates mostly by these laws because of the overwhelming overpowering strength of the electric interaction against gravity. If the rules of electricity and magnetism are taken into account, such fictitious purely mathematical constructs as dark energy, dark matter and black holes are not needed to explain the motion and behavior of stars and galaxies. Novas and supernovas can be explained in terms the dumping of electrical energy triggered by the interruption of inductive electric circuits. Mainstream scientists, especially cosmologists don't study electrical laws and plasma theories. Most of their models are based on the gravitational interaction which applies only to electrically neutral objects. If you want to know more about the electrical activity in the universe, you can look here:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/eg-contents/

There are other websites, but many of them go into esoteric math and field equations. The above-cited website gives a picture more in keeping with the knowledge that someone might have that is not specially schooled in electrical theory.

just reading the EU site now, http://www.thunderbolts.info/EU%20Intro%20and%20Chap1.pdf, they say it's the motion of plasmas, which are the dominant form of actually observed matter in the universe.

They don't read like crackpots to me. Name-calling alternative perspectives is something more indicative of religion than science ;p Also, this is the interwebz; there are actual crackpots in abundance.

From their site:

"... theories tend to harden into ‘facts,’ even in the face of mounting
contradictions. Astronomer Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was published a
quarter-century ago. At that time, some questions were still permitted.
On the issue of redshift, Sagan wrote: “There is nevertheless a
nagging suspicion among some astronomers, that all may not be right
with the deduction, from the redshift of galaxies via the Doppler effect,
that the universe is expanding. The astronomer Halton Arp has found
enigmatic and disturbing cases where a galaxy and a quasar, or a pair
of galaxies, that are in apparent physical association have very
different redshifts....” - p 20. http://www.thunderbolts.info/EU%20Intro%20and%20Chap1.pdf

They're overall arguing that electrodynamics can better explain many astronomical observations than gravitation + dark matter, dark energy and modifications to cosmological constants.

That seems reasonable; correct or not is a matter to be determined.

Dark matter, dark energy, etc. are the first examples I give to friends who are skeptical of big bang cosmology or even science in general, showing it as an example of how science is full of bad "working" theories, but we know it and keep chipping away. I hope I'm not wrong.

The Electric Universe crackpots have always claimed that convection had nothing to do with it.

I've been fascinated with the thunderbolts.info site for quite a while. They haven't yet convinced me that we need to throw out our conventional understanding of the universe, but they have some extremely fascinating theories, and I'm disappointed that I haven't seen any serious responses to their theories.

The Electric Universe crackpots have always claimed that convection had nothing to do with it.

I've been fascinated with the thunderbolts.info site for quite a while. They haven't yet convinced me that we need to throw out our conventional understanding of the universe, but they have some extremely fascinating theories, and I'm disappointed that I haven't seen any serious responses to their theories.

There are many aspects to the electric universe theory. Accepted science today tells us that the energy of the sun comes from an internal fusion reaction. In recent years, modern solar observation satellites have brought back much data which is confusing and puzzling if attempts are made to explain it by the generally accepted theories. Here is an article you can read:

http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/2011/12/08/our-mysterious-and-variable-sun/

There are many other excellent articles on this theory, but some of them are rather complicated.

For more info on the electric universe: http://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/

Remind me how the Electric Universe theory explains nucleosynthesis? If stars are actually just big balls of iron and nuclear fusion isn't powering them, where did the iron, and all of the other elements come from? Traditional cosmology explains it pretty well, and decades of observations of stars at all stages of development supports those explanations very well. How does the Electric Universe fit with all the existing evidence?

Eh what? Did you ever actually study this theory before deciding to comment on it? Of course not.

Two places to start: Holoscience and Thunderbolts.

Hint: they never claim stars are balls of iron. You deserve to feel like a moron for criticising something you do not understand. I doubt you have the objectivity and humility to admit fault here, though. You will probably take the coward's way out and assume I must be insulting you for no reason. Moving on...

They claim they are balls of ionized plasma (i.e. gas-like, not solid-like). Also, sufficiently powerful arc discharges can transmute elements. Also, EU theory doesn't say no fusion happens on a star. It says the star isn't powered by fusion. It would be more like the way we do fusion here on earth, by supplying energy (via laser beams typically) that causes the material to fuse. Just like here on earth, it isn't self-sustaining. It is powered by the energy of the sustained electric discharge.

This seems to be all that the EU haters bring to the table: demagoguery, misrepresentation, and straw men. Pathetic, even if unintended. It suggests you just heard something repeated a few times and ran with it and made no effort to validate what you believe. It's called drinking the kool-aid when people do this in the political arena.

If the above sounds harsh it's because I get tired of how misinformed and thick-headed many of you are. You are armchair critics who make no active effort to learn about something before deciding it must be total bullshit. Anyway, if you want to see the actual EU position on the Sun, please read this.

http://www.thunderbolts.info/webnews/120707electriccraters.htm

The scenario has occurred, but didn't result in fires that time.

Except that this statement is false. There's newspaper reports from all over he US from the latter parts of 1859 of wildfires happening all over the place. Because the US had just covered itself in this really neat continent-sized antenna (the telegraph network) which was throwing sparks all over the place (feel free to peruse the references in this paper).

Still everyone wants to ridicule the Electric Universe Theory. Can you at least humor it and see if it explains a thing or two before looking down your nose at it? Y'know, in the spirit of dispassionate inquiry.

About the telegraph lines. The "solar wind" (that's the mechanical description of it) is the flow of charged particles from the sun. Charged particles that are in motion is the very definition of an electric current. That's just a fact. The Earth is built like a gigantic leaky capacitor with a negatively charged ionosphere, an insulating/dielectric layer of air and a positively charged ground. When electric current from the sun exceeds the normal input due to solar storms it's not a surprise that this current will especially affect conductive cables. The longer the cables the more they are affected since they are good conductors and the charge is measured in terms of volts per square meter.

It's a shame that these days "Electric Universe" has become the new "conspiracy theory", triggering an instantaneous holier-than-thou ridicule from people who are not familiar with it and have never seriously studied it. It's the opposite of terms like "for the children" or "to fight terrorism" that instantly inspire an equally irrational level of adamand support. If you can overcome the hypnotic knee-jerk of the emotional burdens other people have wrongly placed on such terms, you achieve what is known as thinking for yourself. Good day.

The scenario has occurred, but didn't result in fires that time.

Except that this statement is false. There's newspaper reports from all over he US from the latter parts of 1859 of wildfires happening all over the place. Because the US had just covered itself in this really neat continent-sized antenna (the telegraph network) which was throwing sparks all over the place (feel free to peruse the references in this paper).

Still everyone wants to ridicule the Electric Universe Theory. Can you at least humor it and see if it explains a thing or two before looking down your nose at it? Y'know, in the spirit of dispassionate inquiry.

About the telegraph lines. The "solar wind" (that's the mechanical description of it) is the flow of charged particles from the sun. Charged particles that are in motion is the very definition of an electric current. That's just a fact. The Earth is built like a gigantic leaky capacitor with a negatively charged ionosphere, an insulating/dielectric layer of air and a positively charged ground. When electric current from the sun exceeds the normal input due to solar storms it's not a surprise that this current will especially affect conductive cables. The longer the cables the more they are affected since they are good conductors and the charge is measured in terms of volts per square meter.

It's a shame that these days "Electric Universe" has become the new "conspiracy theory", triggering an instantaneous holier-than-thou ridicule from people who are not familiar with it and have never seriously studied it. It's the opposite of terms like "for the children" or "to fight terrorism" that instantly inspire an equally irrational level of adamand support. If you can overcome the hypnotic knee-jerk of the emotional burdens other people have wrongly placed on such terms, you achieve what is known as thinking for yourself. Good day.