Slashdot Mirror
Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations
SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."
The universe is clearly electrical in nature, which is why every "spacial anomaly" encountered in Star Trek history causes consoles to spark and power systems to fail. :)
With spending like this, exactly what are "conservatives" conserving?
What kind of horse shit story is this?
It's St Andrews, not "Saint Andrews", this kind of crippling ignorance is astonishing.
>>this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing.
Isn't it rather an indication that they're doing their job? Data which challenge our current models are the most valuable things scientists can collect, because they give researchers chance to refine their theories.
If all the astrophysicists and satelite projects were returning information which merely fit their current theories, there would seem to be less need for such research. In scientific research, the known unknowns are difficult challenges, but the discovery of unknown unknowns are the wonderful bits. Definite Ignorance leads to Progress.
Is Slashdot now a forum for random cranks to publish their personal rants? This isn't a story.
Er. Can we have less of the "electric universe" guy? Geez. Next you'll be posting Bearden rants.
because i'm sick of reading their press releases. get them to put a few satellites up in orbit & do some observations, instead of speculating from the surface, then maybe they can publish some real science when they have some.
The post also links to the same news story twice. Come on, CowboyNeal. How carefully did you look at this?
It seems that any fringe theorist can now post an apparently topical article to Slashdot as a way of getting hits on their Velikovski-style planetary catastrophe web site.
come to think of it Uranus will probably be involved too...
EOF
Codswallop. Everybody knows the universe is powered by good old steam. I'd post a link to the official research site on the prestigious geocities.com server, but space aliens running on diesel stole my bookmarks.
The writer displays a very poor understanding of the scientifical methods used in professional science. And SlashDot should have "filtered" this story.
I am tempted to write: This kind of crippling ignorance among article writers is astonishing.
But I would rather not spoil my positive Karma
My security clearance is so high I have to kill myself if I remember I have it...
The Yin: genius multiple-PhD types figure out something about the sun. Good for them.
The Yang: irrelevant mention of a cabal of self-referential mouth breathers who don't know energy is not a discrete thing but is a property of other things.
Maybe Slashdot posts articles like this to give us a poke and see what our reaction will be. That reminds me of a certain thing I can't quite remember, I think it starts with a "t".
One thing I noticed about Slashdot's feigned ignorance as humour (if that's what it is), it's always about things other than IT. For example, let's see an article asserting that integrated circuits are actually an alien technology harvested from flying saucers the US Government has hidden away. Not funny because it's too ridiculous?
Equine Mammals Are Considerably Smaller
A bunch of crazy crank muthas want to shift some copies of their crappy book. Strange that /. wants to help them in that. Note to author: Yes, you did go for too big a print run. How about tearing the pages from each copy and using to wipe your ass? They'll obviously already be covered in shit so it'll make little difference to the strength of your arguments.
Take this down. Do it now.
Hooooooooooooo!
I need less whitespace and/or less repetition.. as badly as the story needs less 'crackpot'.
OK, I'm down for some alternate hypothesis discussion, but trash-talking bait with a link to a pseudo-scientific website? I could even handle some "conspiracy theory" discussion about editorial bias in peer-reviewed journals. But seeing a reference to the supernatural right off the bat with the supposed purpose of attempting to change a scientific concept -- I just can't take that seriously at all.
Can we tag this pseudoscience.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Just because I don't have a deep knowledge of the part neurons play in intelligence, doesn't mean I can't be completely certain when somebody is acting like a complete dickhead.
Levels of abstraction. Learn about them, friend.
...a mass of incandescent gas in a giant nuclear furnace, where hydrogen is converted to into helium at temperatures of millions of degrees.
capcha: mammal (Alrighty! Yet another song by TMBG.)
So, uh, did all this electricity and plasma and what-have-you cause us to travel in time to April 1st?
I submit that this kind of crippling ignorance in a story submission is...well not astonishing. What was he smoking???
Shame on you Slashdot for even letting this touch the front page. I read "this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing," and wondered who in the hell was who had the balls to say something like that...Is "SteakNShake" a famous physicist I haven't heard of?
Then I clicked that last link. Ooooh. This guy is nuts. Still doesn't explain why he got his rant accepted on Slashdot.
Please Mr. Slashdot, stick to the computer stuff! There is nothing wrong (or even inaccurate) in the cited articles. The structure of the solar magnetic field is complex, and these simulations are probably going to help a lot in understanding them. Personally, I'm looking forward to reading their article ( http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007astro.ph..2604H ).
I'm not exactly the most savvy Slashdot reader around, and even I know this "electric universe" theory is about as credible as the time cube.
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
A number of interests feel it is important to undermine confidence in science by teaching bogus controversies. Slashdot gets quite a bit of this in both submissions and comments. This one is so bogus that it is suprising it slipped through but you'll notice its is attracting its share of global warming is non-anthropogenic posts. Unltimately, this kind of thing teaches us to look more closely at the sources of information. The attempts to manipulate us through our skepicism will eventually be recognized as dishonest: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/your-opinion-c ould-be-paid-for-by.html.s -selling-solar.html
--
Real Solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-user
If it was true or not, I would still be equally baffled. (which may be the purpose of the article)
I tried to think of a good sig, and this wasn't it.
"The world can be saved by steam!"u m_id=3
http://www.apforums.com/view_topic.php?id=651&for
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ninja_High_School
Considering that the story is submitted by a total crackpot, what does that say about the connection to global warming deniers, then?
i doubt that you would, having admitted your lack of knowledge of neuron-interaction, reccomend and petition for extreme and scientifically controversial experimentation on said dickhead
If the bodies claiming global warming is a CO2 related effect are simply abstracting, then we're all being lied to.
Scientific rigorousness.. Look it up
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
I'm sorry, but any pseudoscientific theory of physics that omits Time Cube is one bound to fail peer review at the Journal of Irreproducible Results. Please, slashdot editors! Do your due diligence for once!
I really enjoyed Anonymous Coward trying to be funny, perhaps. Guess ACs aren't as smart as they think after all, next thing they'll be saying that universe is electromagnetic. It's about time these ACs were held accountable, I'm tired of being tethered to their pet theories. They are so holding us back.
to disappear in a puff of logic
In fact I know a B5 scholar who wrote a dissertation on exactly what you wrote last week.
However, like p_trekkie points out, the University of St. Andrews stuff is good research.
Site a story from the regular press corp and then refute its contents and site a friggin web site as proof? WTF? Show me some peer reviewed original research. Electric fields that cause magnetic fields? Anyone whos taken undergraduate electrodynamics knows that plasma dynamics act to elliminate magnetic fields.
How the sun sends the massive amounts of radiant energy towards us is not very important to a climatologist. What happens when that energy reaches us and how our environment reacts to it *is*.
By your logic, how can we *possibly* justify doing anything ever unless we are omniscient?
If your house is on fire you don't just refuse to get the fire extinguisher or refuse to call the fire brigade or refuse to LEAVE THE HOUSE just because you don't know exactly which appliance in your kitchen started it.
Submitter doesn't know his stuff!
A very opinionated observation showing that he just doesn't understand the article or the physics behind the observations!
There's some elementary physics books I can recommend if you like!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
"In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing" Then explain it to them, smart guy. Seriously, being surprised that we don't know everything is the astonishing part - although it could be expected after a century of "omg we have progressed so much, and every generation before us were utterly primitive" attitudes.
I have spoken'eth.
I have worked with scientists for a number of years from a variety of fields (I am a writer and interviewer). I have witnessed the gamut between arrogance and humility, as one would expect in any profession. Yet, I have never spoken to a single scientist or someone who works extensively with scientists who has said science knows everything there is to know. The very questions raised by the process of science is what drives some of the most dedicated individuals I have met. The idea that some level of "ignorance" on the part of science exists and is "astonishing" is merely indicative of someone who is inherently ignorant OF science. No scientist has all the answers nor, I would guess, does any scientist WANT to know all the answers. When there are no more questions, there is no reason to continue searching. The person who posted this story has, in my opinion, an axe to grind with science as a whole for what has probably been a demolition of some silly superstition or mythology, clung to so desperately by those who still need magic as an explanation for the world instead of the inherent splendor of how things really work.
Whatever questions there are regarding the sun and its structure will most likely be resolved someday, if the past is any indication. So too, will new questions arise and the quest will continue. "CowboyNeal" would do well to educate him/herself on this very basic aspect of human nature instead of issuing the tacit implication that because science hasn't answered some current question or another, its past answers must now be considered suspect.
Timecube?
We're using too much toilet paper and our industry is setting the world on fire!
(Seriously, though, the huge amount we're spending on "Global Warming" and the tiny amount we're spending on NASA [as a percentage of GDP] is just incredible. Ever notice all global warming *must* come from our capitalist system, though most of the current "heat" came from before industry? And no one every figures-in the sun...)
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
If you're referring to the Saint Andrew's press release, you have a good point, it does seem to be sprinkled liberally with horse shit. Computer models that mimic superficial aspects of the sun's electromagnetic influence for predictive purposes brings to mind a parable. Think of a man who grows up alone on an island far from any shore with no contact with the outside world. One day he notices the tides rise and fall every day. He fancies himself a scientist so he sets up exquisite measuring devices to precisely measure the tides. After a few days he sees patterns and devises formulas to describe them. After a few weeks he sees his formula is inaccurately predicting the tides so he adds on to his formula to account for the observations, never once considering the cause of the tides. After a few months he finds his formula is still inadequate and makes it more complex to account for new observations, still not giving more than a nod to the fact that tides do have a cause. All he wants is predictivity. So as the years go by his formula becomes more and more complex until finally he can predict with great accuracy the coming and going of tides very far in advance. At this point, practicality gives way to prudence and the search for the cause of the tides is never even begun. This lonely man then spends the rest of his days, a devotee of the religion of predictivity, and in his ignorance he is a very good predictor of tides around his island. And he never knows what causes the tides. Shortly thereafter a cargo container is dropped on his island and he invents polytheism and starts building bamboo planes. http://www.afa.org/magazine/1991/0191cargo.asp
On one hand, I'm angered to see /. so blatantly hijacked by fringe nuts with an axe to grind: the bitter tenor of the post ("this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing") should have set off alarm bells from here to kingdom come.
/.ers come in varying flavours of wisdom and knowledge, there's usually someone that's able to point us in the right direction. They also generally exhibit decent bullshit detection systems, as clearly demonstrated in the response to this particular piece of bovine excrement.
/. as a regular thing, there's only one way down.
On the other, I'm gratified to see the response: even if
But credibility is easy to lose and if stories like this start appearing on
BTW, IAAPA (I am a professional astrophysicist). We're not perfect (the Universe is a big place and full of surprises, thank goodness), but we're hardly stupid.
is how the spaghetti loops interact with the magnetic fields and is electricity stored in the meatballs or WHAT?!?!?!!?!!!!?!???!
The universe does revolve around the earth.
Proving its a POV thing...
So someone needs to go and stand inside the sun.
Anyone?
I'm not sure what you're objecting to, here. Do you reject the notion that plasmas are dominated by electric and magnetic forces or that the observable universe is almost 100% plasma? Again and again new observations puzzle professional astronogers. Unfortunately this confusion on their part does not lead them to reexamine their beliefs, they simply wonder what undiscovered force or particle is responsible for the observed data breaking their cherished models.
You're not the only one scratching your head about the electrical nature of the universe. Professional astronogers routinely ignore electricity in space at their peril. It's astonishing in the twenty-first century that astronogers are still stuck in the gaslight era where they imagine the sun as a huge burning nuclear ball of gas. The sun is not a "gas", it is a solid. http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
For those people who want alternative explanations, (like that this world is not real - we're living in a simulation), then the "Electric Universe" idea that there are "circuits" behind the nature of the universe is probably very comforting. I'd like more predictive ability, less descriptive pseudo-science before we take it seriously.
I object to your claims because they are misrepresentation of what astronomers are saying. And the evidence that you site (google news of all things) to support your contention shows a complete lack of knowledge of the scientific process and a complete inability to get information from the original sources to back up your claims. (or is that on purpose?)
Finally, you portray the accepted models as a sacred cow for scientists that would do anything to protect that sacred cow. Except that the history of science has shown repeatedly that such portrayals are completely and totally false. Which means that you are either ignorant or lying or both. It doesn't matter whether the universe is nearly 100% plasma or nearly 100% swiss cheese, you aren't presenting anything worthy of consideration. It's all too obvious that you have an axe to grind against the "scientific establishment" and because of it, you are incapable of being impartial about your own pet theory or your presumed opponents. And that's before we even get into the questionable credentials of the people supporting your theory.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
Do you really think it adds merit to your beliefs if you simply deny evidence (electricity) that falsifies them? It doesn't, it just makes you like a mole. I respect blind faith but it's doubt that gets you an education.
In light of past and present criticism of the bogus nature of many science articles on Slashdot, this kind of chronic ineptitude among so-called editors is to be expected.
If you post it, they will read.
Is this the worst (ie most-horseshit-in-need-of-deletion) post ever?
If not, any suggestions for worse ones?
What "bullshit" is it that you don't believe? Do you doubt that the sun's corona is plasma? Do you doubt that the affects of gravity on plasmas are negligible compared to the affects of electric and magnetic forces on the same plasmas? I think you have a lot of catching up to do before you can make informed posts on this issue. here, check out this web site hosted by Los Alamos and maintained by Anthony Peratt of Los Alamos National Laboratory: http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/TheUniverse.html
Ok, that's twice. Please accept a little help: "Site" means "location." Web site, drill site, construction site. "Cite" means to quote, praise, or summon. In this case you want "the evidence that you cite" as in "quote."
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
Actually a group of electrical theorists operating the Thunderbolts web site made several successful predictions regarding the "Deep Impact" mission. http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0507 04predictions.htm
It's interesting to note that many of the successful predictions regarding this mission to a comet were "baffling" to professional astronogers who actually planned and carried out the mission. I give the "Deep Impact" team ten out of ten points for technical expertise, zero out of ten for their cartoonish expectations that flew in the face of the actual experimental results.
Here is an assessment of the predictions made by the Thunderbolts team: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0507 19deepinterim.htm
Here is a link to a Google search showing a pretty comprehensive pre- and post-event coverage of the mission, including many successful predictions that "surprised" astronogers and lots of analysis of the actual data from the experiment: http://www.google.com/search?num=100&hl=en&newwind ow=1&safe=off&q=site%3Athunderbolts.info+deep+impa ct+prediction&btnG=Search
I'm not sure how much they pay for hosting and web design or whatever, I'd guess more than $2, unless you're buying it by the minute or something. Here's a link to their "picture of the day" archive, as you can see they've been producing articles five days a week for three years: http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/00archive.htm And a look at their pedigree: http://thunderbolts.info/team.htm
The Scientific Method
1. observe
2. hypothesize
3. predict
4. experiment
5. observe
Once this cycle is complete you have a chance to accept or reject your hypothesis. Astronogers routinely overlook this opportunity to correct their mistakes, instead choosing to reinforce each other's errors by trying to figure out how reality is lying to us and The Model is sacred.
Just like it takes more than your bald assurance to make a claim into a "scientific concept".
If only there were some way that the entire community of scientists could read about new discoveries and new theories, run experiments or make observations, and then publish their results and subject them to critiquing by their peers... We could call it -- oh, I don't know, how about -- peer review.
Wait, we actually have such a system and it has four centuries of wild success in weeding out insane crap and crackpot rantings, such as, say, the Electric Universe.
And look! Now we've looped back to your original post! How elegant.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Ian,
what does the electric sun model predict that is in conflict with "mainstream" theory? This would be the perfect way to prove that it is correct and the fusion model is incorrect. Conversely, if there is no measurable difference between the models, then it becomes a matter of philosophy about which is the truth.
To be credible, pseudoscience first has to discredit legitimate, fact based science.
-- e.g. 'Conventional science steadfastly refuses to recognize my earthshaking breakthrough.'
-- e.g. 'The scientific community is in a conspiracy to suppress my discoveries.'
-- e.g. 'The debunkers are out in force trying to shut us down.'
To illicitly shear the sheep, you must first separate the flock from the shepherds.
I didn't desert Windows; Windows deserted me: BSOD
The problem is that a group of people made those predictions (some of which were made post facto). There is no mechanical method, reproducible by anyone, for making predictions from the Electric Universe picture. Many of the tenets of EU adherents (e.g. that the Sun is powered by an enormous external electric current) are both easily falsified and ludicrous.
ironically enough - the Canadian English dictionary I have doesn't recognize 'spellcheck' or 'plugin' as words.
shift the processing load to your own machine rather then expect Slashdot to do it, and your spellcheck is site independent.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
As an amateur who knows a number of professionals in this area, I have always been surprised that most of the theorizing being published seemed to be sustained by Newton's law of gravity, Einstein's theory of relativity, the observations of particle physicists, and little else. Rarely would electromagnetism enter into the explanations of natural phenomena. This is despite the fact that most of the matter in the universe, as plasma, is subject to a force which is 10 to the 43rd power times more powerful than gravity.
I had questions like: 'how can supermassive black holes, giant sources of gravitational power, emit jets of matter, hot enough to emit X-rays, at nearly the speed of light' and 'how can a diffuse gas cloud of several solar masses and twenty light years across, rotating at the rate of the galaxy it is within, manage to condense into a star with a rotation period of ten hours -- what happened to the angular momentum." They remained unanswered until recently when theorizing involving electromagnetic forces appeared.
I had been told: "Gravity operates only in one direction and is simple to calculate; electromagnetism is actually two separate forces, each in two polarities, and it is very much more difficult to model." I don't think this man was lazy or undereducated, but we are looking at the "old shoes" phenomenon, with a twist.
Everyone cares to use the shoes which are broken in and comfortable, and the tendency is to use them for everything, however inappropriate. But there is more to this than that. Somewhere the plasma- and astro-physicists got into a mud slinging contest. It wasn't science, it was personal. This pointless wrangling militates against good science, because as Mr. Ragle pointed out, nobody has a big enough window to see it all yet. I have seen this "nuts vs. kooks" mentality in the conflict between visual- and radio-astronomers for years. It resembles children arguing about who has the dirtiest socks.
Everybody whose blood is running hot over this matter might want to sit back and consider that if the search for truth requires a majority of time spent proving the other guy wrong, perhaps it is not truth that is being sought.
Oh and I voted this garbage story down in the Firehose, I'm sure I wasn't alone, for what good it did. 1/2 press release on ongoing work, 1/2 Von Danikan / Tesla taking over the world.
The rock, the vulture, and the chain
The comments within this forum on this topic are very disturbing. This is a mob mentality. This is not in any way a scientific debate or discussion of the issues. None of these people have even read any of the Electric Universe materials, and yet everybody is sure that it bullshit. I'm very familiar with the Electric Universe materials and they deserve careful consideration.
Every single person who has gone on the record on these forums talking about a theory that they know very little about will eventually regret their comments here. The evidence for an electric universe is very strong, and continues to strengthen every week that goes by. The real problem is that nobody is paying any attention to what these guys are actually saying. There is nothing flawed about their arguments.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
In the defense of "professional astronomers", their job is a lot like taking the inventory of a Wal-Mart by peering through a keyhole.
"You must try to forget all you have learned. You must begin to dream." -- Sherwood Anderson
Why ignore E&M on the galactic scale? It's because plasmas are quasineutral -- the distribution of charges balances out. Electromagnetic forces in a plasma have a reach that scales like the Debye length. So if the size of the system is much larger than the Debye length, electromagnetic forces will be a small effect in comparison to forces like gravity. Of course to create the most accurate picture, all forces should be taken into account, but that situation quickly becomes computationally intractable (try running OOPIC sometime). Practical physics is about making the right simplifications.
Did I miss something? It's not April 1st, right?
I've been on Slashdot for a long time, and I've seen a lot of crap. I've had arguments with creationists, alien conspiracy theorists, homeopathy-believers and all other manner of misguided folks in the comments sections of various stories.. but for this kind of psuedoscientific horseshit story to actually get approved and posted by the editors is a whole new level of retardation
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
I have a challenge then...find me some math. In any of the electric universe writings that you are aware of, give me an equation. A formula. A mathematical proof. Anything. Then we'll talk.
Thanks, I'll try that. I just use the dictionary box on the FC6 tool bar now and google if the word does not turn up there but I have to feel unsure of the spelling to check it.
Please don't pretend you believe this static electric universe nonsense. You got the result you wanted, lots of people buzizng anf made Cowboy Neal look like an fool.
Fuck off now, please.
Heh.
I have looked at the code for the simulation and looks like it uses the viral theorem to simulate the motion of the spiral galaxies, but I am not an expert on orbital dynamics. Any astronomers on /. know if that behavior happens in more realistic simulations of 3+ spiral interactions?
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
The problem with your statement is that it completely ignores the fact that Wallace Thornhill was the only person to accurately predict all of the results of the Deep Impact mission to Comet Tempel 1 -- results which to this day, nearly two years later, continue to baffle NASA. I think you will find that the only satisfying explanation for our observations of comets involves electromagnetism:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pd
To assert otherwise leaves open the question of how Thornhill could have known about a pre-impact flash before it happened (among his other accurate predictions). Nobody else was predicting anything like that.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
You seem to not be paying much attention to what's happening in astrophysics right now ...
From http://www.physorg.com/news97326842.html:
"there is another major downside of a lower oxygen abundance. Models of the solar interior once predicted that sound waves in the Sun traveled at certain speed, a value that agreed well with the measured speed. Because the speed depends on composition, this is another way that scientists learn about the processes that take place in the Sun, what elements it is made of, and in what quantities. Now, with the Sun having half as much oxygen, carbon, nitrogen, and neon, the sound speed derived from the models doesn't match the measured speed well. "Exactly what this means is not very clear, but it casts doubt on the correctness or at least the accuracy of models of stellar interiors, which are a cornerstone of modern astrophysics," he said.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
You didn't answer any of that guy's legitimate questions. Then, you slandered him and his theory. And then you told him to go away.
I don't understand what the big deal is. If you disagree with the theory so much, why don't you attack it on the basis of its arguments?
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
You're not objectively analyzing the basis for mainstream astrophysical assumptions and speculations.
In what way? It's easy to accuse me of this, but again, you provide no evidence for this, and in fact, you have no evidence that I'm not being objective, or that I am biased in any way. In fact, my evaluation of these papers has absolutely nothing at all to do with any mainstrean astrophysical assumptions that I may have, and everything to do with your lack of providing any sort of remotely verifiable model that explains and reliably predicts anything. All you are doing is trying to shift the blame of your own failure to come up with the next big scientific theory to your detractors, and that is definitely the usual sort of invective that comes from people that believe in this nonsense.
So why shouldn't we call you a crack pot? You don't provide good evidence for your position (strike 1). You misrepresent accepted science by attempting to portray legitimate scientists as people who don't know what they are looking at, but you have all the answers (which is not how the scientific process has *ever* worked) (strike 2), and you trot out the canard that the burden of proof is on the skeptics (strike 3).
For the record I have looked over several of the documents on your website, and not a single one of them presented anything that wasn't patently false, misrepresented evidencial findings in place for many years as some new finding, or made unproven, unverifiable, predictions based on some model that is never presented in any coherent form.
It is not my job to prove you wrong, it is your job to prove to me that you are right. And you have failed miserably. Feel free to accuse me of not objectively evaluating your writings (that would be a false assumption, but I doubt that will stop you). The fact is, I have looked at the evidence that you claim is in your favor, and it doesn't measure up. Most of the time, I wouldn't even call what you present evidence, but more akin to the ramblings of a mind with delusions of granduer. Therefore, you are a crank.
Shop Smart, Shop S-mart!
i agree there's some disturbing mobbish mentality to this thread,
however it seems pretty apparent that the thunderbolts folks aren't producing rigourous work.
as someone else mentioned, the paper contains hordes of unsupported assertions,
photographs which don't really prove anything and in some cases look plain doctored,
writing which seems juvenile, etc.
when a paper makes an assertion like "It is now well documented that every scientist associated with the project was stunned by the scale of the energetic outburst.", i really like to see a source, and not seeing one makes me less inclined to believe in the rigour of the author.
until they can present their work more professionally, i suspect that derision will be the continued response.
The "theory" is as well-founded as Flat Earth. There are many qualified physicists who posted to that effect. I know enough science to detect the smell of bullshit.
Then, you slandered him
Check his posting history. New account, created just for this purpose. He's a troll; trolls provoke arguments about inane subjects just for the hell of it. Look at the whole tone of the submission "this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing". WTF is that except a deliberate attempt to start a flame war?
The thunderbolts folks is really a small group of about five or six guys. They've been trying to just figure out a way to attract other intelligent physicists who are willing to work outside of the mainstream and with no promise for funding for quite a while now. The only way that they've had success with this is in creating materials that can be understood by the public. If you can get to somebody *before* they enter an astrophysics program, for instance, then that student will do a better job of educating himself. To clarify further, the EU Theorists specifically argue that the magnetohydrodynamics class that astrophysics students take is improperly teaching students that they can model space plasmas as fluids. We know from laboratory plasma physics that plasmas in the lab are *electrical* phenomenon, and that their motions are controlled by currents, and vice-versa. And yet, astrophysicists continue to use fluids equations to model space plasmas. This continues even though we now observe numerous hourglass morphologies in our space observations. Hourglass morphologies are the characteristic shape for electrical plasma z-pinches that we observe within the laboratory. One of the closest we've observed, the 1987A supernova remnant, has visible cross sections of filaments that laboratory plasma physicists can precisely enumerate using electrical plasma theory. These "beads" move around in circles around one another. But the entire structure has retained its general shape and size over time, defying any attempt to call it any sort of an explosion remnant. There is nothing about our observations of this particular structure that suggest gravity is a factor. And any time you see a well-defined jet in space, you can pretty much say the same thing. Vortexes will tend to be the natural result of magnetic and electric fields, which induce particles using the right-hand rule to move in circles as they also move laterally through space. Without those fields, most particles in a well-defined jet would just disperse into space into a nebulous cloud.
There are plenty of papers out there that support plasma-based cosmologies. Search on Halton Arp, Anthony Peratt, Eric Lerner or Hannes Alfven. Anthony Peratt actually wrote a popular plasma physics book that has been used in university classes. The www.thunderbolts.info site is not designed to *prove* their theory. It's there to tell you what their theory says, and to make sure that their audience is as wide as possible. If you thought you had discovered something really important about the way the universe works, you might find it more important to describe what you found than to get bogged down in trying to prove it (which you will never convince everybody of anyways).
None of their images are doctored. They are all taken directly from NASA press releases. All of their quotes also come from those press releases. Many times, you can confirm what they're saying by merely following the link to the press release. They do a bit more citation within Don Scott's book, "The Electric Sky".
But the real issue here is that the people on Slashdot will argue with any cosmology that is not gravitationally-dominated. Mainstream astrophysicists have taken the unfortunate position that plasma in space does not reflect the behavior of plasmas we observe within the laboratory. Plasmas in the laboratory are *electrical* in nature and we only use fluids equations to represent them in very limited situations. The idea that plasmas in space are different makes it easier to model them, but there's a great case to be made that it's also the cause of the dark matter "error term" that so many people already suspect is the case. Why infer the existence of invisible particles to explain the rotational characeristics of spiral galaxies when we already know that Anthony Peratt can generate the same spiral galaxy morphologies using nothing but electrical plasmas within the laboratory and in computer simulations?
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Go ahead....you know you want to....just blame George Bush and Global Warming to bring validation to this nut job article!
Reality is for people that can't handle drugs. So do your part, just say no to reality!
If you know about science, then let me explain to you quickly what is being argued with Electric Universe Theory, and then you can decide for *yourself* rather than having to rely upon qualified physicists.
All they are saying is that plasma in space should reflect the behavior of plasmas that we see within the laboratory. This is a big deal because space basically *is* a large plasma and we know that plasma in the laboratory is an *electrical* phenomenon. In the lab, gases become plasmas with less than 1% ionization. Once a gas becomes electrical, its motions no longer have anything to do with gravity. The plasmas can continue to conduct electricity even once they've cooled and no longer glow (the dark mode). Mainstream astrophysicists are taught in magnetohydrodynamics that plasmas in space can be modeled as fluids, that plasmas can *instantaneously* neutralize any charge imbalances, and that plasmas contain frozen-in-place magnetic fields. These modeling concepts have very limited applicability in the laboratory, and yet we base our understanding of nearly all space plasmas on them. You should *expect* that astrophysicists would defend principles that they were taught in school, but you should not interpret this vigorous defense to constitute proof that everybody else is wrong. Even astrophysicists can be wrong. Nobody is impervious to that and history tells us as much. In fact, if you pay attention to the wording of NASA press releases, you will notice that they are frequently admitting that their models are wrong and must be changed on a regular basis to accommodate new observations.
But that's really just the beginning. We see numerous observations with our own Sun and elsewhere in space that are disconfirming to traditional models and yet tend to confirm the Electric Universe materials. The fact that spiral galaxies tend to rotate as a fixed plate actually *supports* the EU notion that electricity is keeping it together because we can do plasma simulations and experiments that look exactly like spiral galaxies. Arguing that it instead supports the existence of some dark matter and that this dark matter (which has never been directly observed after 20 years of trying) constitutes a massive proportion of our universe's matter is inherently non-testable (bad science). How can it ever be completely disproven? We should not be so quick to infer the existence of invisible particles and forces when their characteristics appear to nicely correlate with the behavior of particles and forces that we can demonstrate within a laboratory. Dark matter, for instance, is supposedly matter that gravitationally repels. But plasmas, unlike gravitational forces that we currently know of, can inherently induce repulsion too. Attempts to study dark matter in the universe have revealed that it is oftentimes filamentary in nature. We know from the laboratory that plasmas are also inherently filamentary (and like I said can still exert forces while not glowing).
In fact, to argue that plasma-based cosmologies are like flat earth nonsense is a slander of sorts because the universe consists almost entirely of matter within the plasma state. From the ionosphere as your starting point, you will only find matter in the non-plasma state on the other rocky planets and asteroids. It should come as no surprise that we don't fully recognize the importance of plasmas because they are relatively rare in our immediate surroundings.
When it comes to Electric Universe, Slashdot is a circus. By drawing conclusions based upon the behavior of others rather than formulating their own opinions based upon the evidence, the large majority of people on Slashdot create a monkey-like atmosphere where everybody looks to everybody else to figure out what they should believe. Slashdot is no holy grail of objectivity,
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Meh.. im never going to agree.
why is it anyone who believes in global warming is 'insightful' but people who dont are trolls?
--AlexC
Just because I dont agree with climate change doesnt make me a troll
wow, an EU proponent on slashdot... now i've seen everything. i must say, i admire your bravery. i imagine you're probably about as popular as an ID supporter around here. i myself am both -- i find there are a lot of interesting connections -- but of course i won't try to promote either idea here; that's suicide. couldn't find any contact info for you, but feel free to shoot me an e-mail (you'll have to reply to the spam filter) if you wish to further discuss your ideas.
here's to open-mindedness.
using anti-bacterial hand soap is like drying your feet in the middle of a shower.
Yeah, I screwed up there with what you quoted. That's what I get for posting around 25 postings in one day.
Inherent in your analysis is the assumption that the anomalies we are seeing that we call dark matter are the result of unknown forces or particles rather than yet-unknown (or rather, unaccepted) errors in how we are modeling the matter that makes up space. I get a lot of responses styled like yours here on Slashdot. There tends to be very little discussion that specifically relates to plasmas, and yet we know that space more or less *is* a large plasma. Any slight error in how you model plasmas in space will generate very large error terms. I'm most curious why it is that astrophysicists feel that they can model plasmas in space as fluids under such a wide range of circumstances when laboratory plasma physicists cannot do the same? I've been told that in the lab, the behavior of plasmas is determined almost entirely by the electrical currents that flow through them and that gases become plasmas with less than 1% ionization. We are told by astrophysicists that plasmas will *instantaneously* neutralize themselves in space and that plasmas in space have frozen-in-place magnetic fields. These concepts might be useful for doing math problems, but in the process of making the math easier, have we basically reduced our ability to accurately model the physical phenomenon? These are the questions at the heart of the validity of EU Theory. If you have any challenges on these concepts, I can pass them on to the EU Theorists directly and we can see what they say. It's the lack of a response to these legitimate questions that leads a lot of people to believe in EU Theory. If the mainstream astrophysicists want to nip this in the bud (because the movement is currently expanding), they'd be wise to enter into the EU fray a little bit more than they currently do.
As an outsider looking in, it appears to me that astrophysicists have been too quick to draw conclusions. Speculations that supernovae, for instance, represent "standard candles" formulates the basis of vast amounts of what we think we know about cosmology, and yet, we still identify unexpected supernovae remnant morphologies and problems with the standard solar model on an almost monthly basis (oxygen ratios, etc). My understanding is that there is still no general acceptance on the precise mechanism that makes stars explode. How then can you say with any confidence that you are seeing "standard candles"? When the solar oxygen crisis was divulged last week, hardly anybody on the Slashdot forum recognized that those ratios are crucial for the entire field of helioseismology because gas concentrations allows us to know how the Sun should ring. Helioseismology isn't even a form of seismology. In traditional geo-seismology, *we* are the ones that are pounding on the ground. We are providing the input to the system, and so we know what the results mean. But in helioseismology, we are just interpreting the vibrations that we observe -- for which we have no part in the input. The fact that it is even called seismology is somewhat of a problem. Astrophysicists like to portray their science as a standard science, and they have done a great job of making the public forget that it is instead still an interpretive science.
We see this happen all the time these days: earlier speculations and assumptions in astrophysics will be demonstrated to be incorrect, and entire fields that depend upon those speculations and assumptions will then be thrown into chaos. But the public continues to be told that there is no problem whatsoever -- that the standard models are just fine. Well, no, at some point in time, the standard models are no longer just fine.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Electric Universe Theory is based upon Plasma Cosmology, which there are numerous scientific papers available on (and they have math for you). Plasma cosmology has fallen out of favor lately largely because of all of the commotion regarding the cosmic microwave background, which is perceived by many to be proof of the Big Bang. What you need to understand however is that the piece of equipment that was used in measuring the cosmic microwave background was created exclusively for that experiment. As a test, it was pointed at the moon and there were noticeable errors in the results that it generated. These errors were dismissed. It is in fact a very simple matter to create your own piece of equipment that will generate the now-infamous black body curve when pointed at space. And what we've noticed so far is that the galaxies that are near us are not all creating the "shadows" that are required for this to be a light source that is at the edge of the cosmos. Plasma cosmologists have been saying for some time now that this light could easily be a local source. It is all of the commotion regarding the Big Bang that has induced attempts to prove that it is so, but the proof has not been as simple as those people would have liked it to be.
What EU Theorists are saying that's different from plasma cosmologists is that mathematics is not the only tool that we can use to understand the universe. In fact, we should analyze *all* sources of information, including mythology and ancient writings, to see if there are unexplainable correlations between statements and ideas that originate from ancient peoples separated by vast oceans. What they found is that, when you throw away all of the junk, you are left with some disturbing correlations. A lot of ancient cave art and mythological symbols bear striking resemblances to morphologies we observe within laboratory plasma physics. Astrophysicists will scoff at this type of research as it infringes upon the monopoly they exert over cosmology and it appears to them to be too speculative. However, we learn every week that goes by that in fact much of astrophysics is in fact overly-speculative. Just last week, we discovered that the entire field of helioseismology has been turned upside down due to a solar oxygen crisis (these ratios were used to understand how the sun "rings"). And we see unusual supernova remnants (like 1987A) that correlate precisely with *electrical* plasmas from the laboratory. The consensus that comets are dirty snowballs becomes increasingly unsupported with every mission we send to them that does not find water or ice on the surface. The presence of OH in cometary tails is just as easily explainable with electric machining as it is for sublimation. The pervasiveness of the hourglass morphology in space suggests electrical plasma z-pinches, which we observe within laboratory plasma physics. We do not even need dark matter to generate spiral galaxies that rotate as fixed plates. Anthony Peratt has published computer simulations and laboratory physics experiments that demonstrate that electrical plasmas will do the exact same thing and generate the precise spiral galaxy morphology.
I can relate to requiring math in papers. But the existence of math does not really prove anything. In fact, it is the math itself that is causing problems for modeling plasmas in space. Astrophysicists have been using the *wrong* sets of equations to model plasmas in space.
The www.thunderbolts.info site is tailored for a wide audience. But do not infer that because of that that there is no math behind what you see there. We are talking about laboratory plasma physics here and electrodynamics. These people are no strangers to math. They've just decided to drop the math for that site so that they can be more inclusive.
And when you get down to it, the math is in fact inconsequential. The real problem for people on Slashdot is the allegation that electrical forces are dominant in the universe.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
That I can definitely understand - but it opens the door for misinterpretation and misunderstanding of their theories if they oversimplify things to much to make their point.
Ultimately, it's a real tragedy that the truth about how space plasmas behave requires so much representation and vigorous defense. Wikipedia refuses to even *define* Electric Universe Theory for curious individuals (or even Plasma Cosmology for that matter). Check it out:
o r_deletion/Electric_universe_(concept)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_f
My guess is that many of the people on Slashdot who have formulated their opinions did so by consulting other critics who wrote the previous Electric Universe pages on wiki or Tim Thompson's five-year-old attempt to debunk the Electric Sun Hypothesis (which has since been responded to in full here: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.htm).
What's missing from the entire picture is a desire to even understand what is actually being said by the EU Theorists themselves. Don Scott's book, "The Electric Sky", is the first time that the theory has been codified in full. But the critics have had their way by now to such an extent that nobody even wants to read Don Scott's book -- which stands as an extremely compelling book that I challenge anybody to read and then subsequently ignore.
There is something outright Orwellian when we extract definitions from our public encyclopedia. It's also extremely surreal because the roles are in fact reversed. Mainstream astrophysics does not even work without the assistance of unseen particles and forces (which are inherently untestable), whereas Electric Universe Theory tries to convince people that we should be using laboratory plasma physics to understand the universe. *Completely* backwards.
That this band of about five guys cannot fight off the world does not really say much at all about whether or not they may be right or wrong. It's a bit much like that movie, 300. I'm pretty sure if they started presenting more math for people (which we are in fact pushing them to do), people would find something else to quibble about.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
I followed up on this a little bit more and it appears that quasi-neutrality is a *modeling* tool that only demonstrates the impossibility of charge separation and electric currents in plasmas, if and only if cosmic plasma is treated as a pseudo-plasma, as defined here:
l asma
e ric_current_sheet
c over-plasma-stretching-6-million-light-years-acros s/
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Pseudo-p
Under many circumstances, it is quite legitimate to assume plasmas have infinite electrical conductivity, which makes charge separation and electric currents impossible. In practice, however, space behaves as a *real* plasma that may have finite electrical conductivity, charge separation and electric currents.
The heliospheric current sheet is an example of a real plasma in space, in which three trillian amps of current flows throughout our own Solar System:
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Heliosph
We can opt to believe that this is somehow an aberration and/or that this phenomenon does not scale to larger scales for galaxies, but Anthony Peratt has written papers explaining that electrical plasma phenomenon do appear to in fact scale over vast scales, and can quite easily explain why spiral galaxies rotate as a fixed plate. We'd be wise to seriously consider this as an explanation, in fact, before supposing the existence of particles that have never been directly observed (dark matter), even after 20 years of trying (colored NASA press releases don't count). To argue that EU materials are a "flagrant abuse of plasma physics" appears to be suggesting that the equations that are currently being used to model plasmas take precedence over the physical phenomenon of plasmas that we observe within laboratories and even space (which Hannes Alfven liked to say did not always understand the beauty of the equations themselves).
Lastly, I'd like to direct you to the following recent discovery:
http://caribjournal.com/2007/04/22/scientists-dis
It's emitting synchrotron radiation, so we know that there are double layers present and that this is electrical in nature.
If you actually pay close attention to what's happening, you will in fact notice that as time moves forward, the evidence for electricity in space continues to expand. At this rate, you won't find yourself in the majority with your beliefs about electricity in space for too many more years.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.