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Spiraling Magnetic Signal Shows Up In the Cosmic Background
pln2bz writes "Astronomers looking for confirmation for emissions from early stellar formation in the cosmic microwave background radiation instead found a signal indicating large amounts of unaccounted-for spiraling magnetic fields in space, but without any accompanying infrared emissions. The discovery possibly dredges up the claims of plasma cosmologists like Eric Lerner, who claim that the intergalactic medium is a strong absorber of the CMB with the absorption occurring in a fog of narrow filaments. These filaments are the result of plasma's natural tendency, as observed within the plasma laboratory and in novelty plasma globes, to form braided, ropelike structures which are collimated by coiled magnetic fields."
This news is too nerdy to understand. Can someone explain it in more detail?
Had to go look at the Electric Universe's webpage (won't link to it now; the curious can drive traffic). I see no mention of anything like this structure predicted on any sort of scale like this, though they post-hoc claim that galactic-sized spiraly bits can be explained with their theory. Probably their page is in need of revision, though, with these new findings...
The universe really is made out of spiral energy!
Maybe it's the explanation for the problem these hippies' are having? No, on second thoughts, the problem is that they're hippies.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Interpretation of the extragalactic results (the real source of the OP) :
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0559
Note that the above paper does not mention the "wildly speculative" spiraling magnetic fields idea.
Extragalactic results in general :
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0555
Galactic results
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0562
A description of the instrument :
http://arxiv.org/abs/0901.0546
Oh, cool!
Thank you, I didn't know that was the correct term.
A Man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties -- Albert Einstein
...which is "what are the implications of this discovery with regards to the development of FTL travel and subsequent discovery of green alien chicks in bikinis?"
Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann joke/reference goes here :)
Hi Simon!!
I suspect that there are a lot of slashdotters who aren't strong on Cosmology and won't be bothered looking up the significance of the CMB on Wikipedia (I must say the Wikipedia article is particularly dense and won't be the easiest for non-specialists to digest).
So in a nutshell, the CMB is the the radiation we see in every direction of the sky. It's a little more complicated but you can think of it as the afterglow of the big bang. (Note: That is an over-simplication. To understand it better you have to look at a timeline of what happened after the big bang, especially hyper-inflation and recombination).
The reason it's so important is that it is the result of and thus put limits on the conditions at the time of the Big Bang. Since we don't have time machines and can't observe the universe from the outside, it is a critical piece of observational data against which we test our theories.
It is a particularly important piece of the puzzle when trying to work out what's going on with regards to dark matter because the amount of dark matter and the way in which it formed must be consistent with conditions that produced the CMB we observe.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
The spending is spiraling out of control, out of this world and is astronomical, as every one knows.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Experimental data speculation + crackpot plasma theory = Slashdot science?
That the universe is a big giant plasma ball that hasn't been played with in a while... so what happens when someone plugs us back in and touches the glass again?
A man conceived a moments answers to the dream, Staying the flowers daily, sensing all the themes. As a foundation left to create the spiral aim, A movement regained and regarded both the same, All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you. Changed only for a sight of sound, the space agreed. Between the picture of time behind the face of need, Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid, Emotion revealed as the ocean maid, All complete in the sight of seeds of life with you.
Squirrel!
Or this could just be the transmissions of some aliens.
Shall we bend over with our upturned hinds towards the morning sun now? Is the Universe smaller than we thought because a black hole bigger than our own galaxy keeps us from seeing a lot?
Three letters spring into mind - DNA
In order to form an immaculate member of a flock of sheep one must, above all, be a sheep.
If each universe (as discussed in previous post) has some thing in common, maybe, like a gravity-field and each of the universes were in a Mega-verse levity-field (you can laugh now) floating around like galaxies in our own small universe, then maybe ....
A gravity field universe passing through a levity-field mega-verse would generate a background energy halo. The mechanics much like magnets generation of electricity..., but gravity is not magnetism and levity is not electricity (laugh again, please).
What if; a black-hole not only causes a gravitational distortion, but collapse of so much mass/particles in one singularity causes the space-time of our (Newton, Einstein, Bohr, Shrodinger, Heisenberg, Hawking...) universal physics no longer exist at the center of the singularity (which is based on levity-field physics).
Can a black-hole-levity-well be (much/sorta) like a universe-gravity-well in a levity-field? ... maybe...almost... self sustaining ...
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
Please recall that Mr pln2bz is an Electric Universe fanatic, pretending to be an objective outsider who was swayed by the Thunderbolts' persuasive arguments.
Funny, it was my impression that the "electric cosmos" viewpoint consisted largely of pseudoscience...
Shining flying purple wolfhounds show me where you are.
Please take those claims with a healthy grain of salt. For whatever reason, the Electric Universe movement is heavily laden with kooky pseudoscience.
I'm not saying you should discredit it completely. Just treat it with a skeptical eye and separate the reasonable EM phenomena from the ridiculous claims.
He has a history of posting any story that can possibly be interpreted as supporting the electric universe theory, along with his speculations as to why the story proves EU correct. Just saying...
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
The whole of astrophysics and cosmology is laden with kooky psuedoscience. The large number of observations that just won't fit and out-there patches to rescue models that should really be considered as having been falsified should tell you as much.
If you doubt that, consider the following observations: the over 1M Kelvin hot solar corona (where is that energy coming from?), the dark centers of solar spots (should the inside of the sun not be hotter instead of cooler?), the angular clustering of high-redshift quasars with "foreground" galaxies (less than one-in-a-million chance of emerging from the isotropic distribution dictated by Big Bang cosmology).
Ok, I'll bite. What do you get when you separate the reasonable from the ridiculous claims of Electric Universe? All I get is the nul set.
Magnetoacoustic waves due to convection cells cresting at the photosphere the dark centers of solar spots (should the inside of the sun not be hotter instead of cooler?)
In general yes, but the chromosphere is slightly (well, 1000-2000K hotter) than the underlying photosphere, due to the vagaries of radiative transfer and (wait for it) magnetoacoustic waves
Yeah, I've heard Geoffrey Burbidge talk about five times now, and he and Arp are off their nut. In light of their theory of ejection from the central black holes, which is frankly bizarre even compared to the rest of the field of cosmology (I'm looking at you, Jayant Narlikar), I will stick with my original operating hyposthesis, that it is a combination of lensing (which occurs near massive objects like galaxies) and selection effects (more pictures are taken of galaxies than empty voids, and are scrutinized far more deeply.) Whereof one does not know, thereof one should not speak.
"I guess the moral of the story is, don't paint your airship with rocket fuel." -- Addison Bain
EM phenomena in the sun are well understood. Please don't stir up a fake aura of mystery around solar EM. "Electric Universe" theories are junk science. If you want those theories to be taken seriously, get rid of the junk.
Could be somebody up there pulled the handle and we're just starting the spin down the bowl?
This guy must be from the dept-of-redundancy-dept
"They've canceled the show but we're still here. What does that make us?" "Big Damn Junkies, Sir!" "Ain't we just"
The corona is radiating like mad in the UV, EUV, and X-ray. Have a look at some of the UV imagery: http://umbra.nascom.nasa.gov/eit/eit_full_res.html. In those bands the corona is more luminous than the surface. The magnetoacoustic model cannot quantitatively account for that, the required energy flux to keep the corona temperature up there is way too high.
Bullshit. Where is the quantitative explanation for the (obviously magnetodynamic) solar cycle? Whence the twisted plasma filaments edging solar spots? http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/3306886.html?page=1&c=y Not well understood at all.
Um, it is not the energy density that is the issue but rather the required energy flux. Over half of the massive UV, EUV, and X-Ray coronal emissions are radiated out into intersteller space. This requires continuous extreme heating of the corona to sustain.
Wrong. The energy is produced inside the corona. The energy production mechanism has been verified in the laboratory. Just create a Helium and Hydrogen plasma and see what strange things happen: http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0509/0509127.pdf.
Bullshit. Where is the quantitative explanation for the (obviously magnetodynamic) solar cycle?
This may come as a surprise, but mainstream ivory-tower astronomers (the same ones you claim are persecuting your daring and brilliant theories) have no problem with an MHD-drive solar cycle.
Convection cells in below the photosphere carry charged particles. Moving charge is current. Thus, magnetic fields. Convection cells *in* the photosphere couple to the deeper cells, but become twisted as the sun rotates.
The plasma filaments edging solar flares are exactly the same phenomena we have around the Earth's magnetic poles: aurorae. It's not a conspiracy, man!
Now I will concede that corona heating is not fully understood. EU kooks love to complain, "It's so hot! The energy is coming from somewhere you mainstream guys don't even know about!"
The mainstream folks are OK with the fact that the corona is hot. The sun is fully well capable of making enough energy to heat it. The anomaly isn't where the energy comes from, it's how the energy gets deposited in the corona.
Alfven waves are the popular EU mechanism for coronal heating. I have no problem with this, but you'll have to demonstrate how wave heating can deposit energy in the corona rather than simply propagating clean through.
I'm no solar physicist, but I'd wager that coronal heating draws upon both waves *and* reconnection. Has anyone looked at coronal temperatures at various altitudes/depths through a whole solar cycle?
If it's purely Big Flare reconnection heating, the corona should be clearly hotter during solar maximum.
If it's a "mini flare" reconnection heating is the main mechanism, the lower corona should be hotter than the upper, especially during solar minimum.
If it's wave heating... well.... you'll have to demonstrate how alfven waves would ever dissipate in the corona in the first place. As I understand EM, they'd tend to truck straight through without much heating.
Metals are a metal, except when they are not.
-
Sure, there are hand-waving mechanisms consistent with the mainstream astronomy view that are interesting to entertain as hypotheses. But if, as you claimed, solar EM phenomena would indeed be well-understood, there would instead be models encompassing the major observable phenomena with quantitative accuracy.
As to coronal heating, a picture does more than a thousand words. Have a look at this soft X-ray image of the sun: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest/sxt/full/sxtdag_512.gif. Does that not look awfully like energy production in the corona? Not surprisingly, several experiments have been done that have verified the existence of an energy production mechanism under coronal conditions, though an appropriate theory is still lacking. The mechanism occurs in a low-pressure plasma containing helium and hydrogen, see for example http://arxiv.org/ftp/physics/papers/0509/0509127.pdf and http://www.springerlink.com/content/3u3v2eqnv9y1jmwg/.
Pure hydrogen plasmas without helium do not show anomalous energy release. Given that, it can be understood why the solar wind is strongly modulated by how much helium is present: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070530114957.htm
...the Sun can be modeled as a plasma glow discharge based upon our observations of the glow discharge in the plasma laboratory.
No, it can't be. Laboratory plasmas are small; stars are not. In your example, the Sun is a very massive (n.b.: "having mass") plasma, about 2*10^30kg, concentrated in one place. Such balls of plasma have very high temperatures and pressures at their cores which cause nuclear fusion to occur, and they certainly cannot be contained in any literal "laboratory" in the sense you meant it.
The Electric Universe is based upon [that] simple premise...
The problem is that the premise is incorrect; it is indeed a "simple" premise though.
It really shouldn't even be controversial
Agreed.
And you shouldn't dismiss it until you can at least rattle off all of the key characteristics of both a glow discharge and the heliosphere.
You shouldn't accept it until you can at least rattle off all the key characteristics of stellar equilibrium, stellar fusion, helioseismology, spectroscopy, stellar dynamics in aggregate, and from the looks of things basic thermodynamics as well (you can't have that much hydrogen in one place and expect it not to fuse!).
If [granules in the photosphere] were convection cells, they would be light in the centers.
First, that is primarilty what is actually observed. Second, that some slightly cooler material in the centers of some granules is expected from the laws of thermodynamics and fluid mechanics, and this has been fairly well understood for half a century. Third, spectral analyses of the cells reveals exactly the convective action expected from such convection cells.
Those are tornadic cells...
No, they are convection cells.
...rotation comes directly from electromagnetism.
Yeah, nothing rotates that wasn't set into rotation by electromagetism? This is the kind of claim that rightly causes people not to take the claimant seriously.
Use your head, people.
I second this. But, note that there are correct and incorrect answers, and merely "using one's head" (as implied by this anthropocentric appeal that the universe is somehow constrained to be amenable to our common sense) is not likely to improve on the state of the art in knowledge; everyone has such intuition, and it has proven too unreliable on its own-- thus the rise and subsequent success of scientific rigor.
Science is inherently controversial...
No, Science is about extending the boundaries of our understanding. There are right answers and wrong answers, and we need not find our attempts to extend these boundaries "controversial" at all, though in practice it can indeed happen.
That's interesting. The corona's shouldn't be hot enough to support ppI branch fusion*, but the catalyst article seems to indicate that something is going on. Thanks for sharing that.
* proton-proton chain fusion, branch I is as follows:
He-3 + He-3 -> He-4 + 2 H + 12.86 MeV
Cosmology is the search for answers in the universe. We aren't going to find those answers without ever questioning our magnetohydrodynamics models. That's what's happening here. *YOUR* paradigm was evolved before it was even discovered that space was filled with charged particles. That you guys didn't imagine that this should have any serious impact upon the paradigm was a major mistake. As you know, the plasma state of matter is very different from gas.
Quasi-neutrality is oftentimes misunderstood by people like yourself to mean that electricity in space doesn't do anything. But, quasi-neutrality is the state of the positive column between the anode and cathode of a plasma glow discharge. Despite the quasi-neutrality of the column, positive charged particles are accelerated away from the anode and electrons drift in towards the anode. The Electric Universe merely proposes the same behavior for the Sun.
The glow discharge model can accommodate some of the Sun's most perplexing characteristics -- features that the thermonuclear model for the Sun never predicted, and struggles to explain to this day. For instance, the Standard Model fails to naturally explain the inverse temperature of the corona. How is the Sun's atmosphere heated to 100x the surface temperature without raising the surface temperature? To explain this, magnetic reconnection has been proposed as one possible mechanism. But, this is pretty much standard practice in astrophysics for dismissing an enigma: when in doubt, blame either magnetic fields, black holes or dark matter. In this particular case, they look to the activity of magnetic field lines -- as if magnetic fields can store and release energy. This confers a metaphysical status to magnetic fields that I don't necessarily disagree with, but which is very reminiscent of an aether. In other disciplines of science, magnetic fields are acknowledged to be the side-effect of an electric current. Astrophysicists have also taken the unusual stance that field lines can actually "connect". To plasma physicists and electrical engineers, these notions about magnetic fields are rather silly. And if explained exactly what is being claimed, they will unanimously agree that the astrophysicists are really forging their own deductive pathway.
The Standard Model has also had a very hard time explaining the fact that the solar wind fails to appreciably decelerate even as it passes the orbits of the planets. It's as if little rocket ships are propelling them forward against the force of gravity -- as if, (gasp!) gravity is not controlling the charged particles. Well, it wouldn't be the first time! For God's sake.
What exotic mechanism will be postulated for this acceleration, which mostly happens near the Sun, but in fact slightly continues throughout the entire heliosphere? Needless to say, we see the exact same behavior in the laboratory with glow discharges. There exists a weak electric field within the positive column of the glow discharge that accounts for this continued acceleration.
Look at the supposed convection cells on the Sun's photosphere ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Granules2.jpg
Explain to me this: Why are the cells denser and hotter at the edges than in the middle? Is there any other convection that you can point to that has ever been observed by man to be like that? Those cells are better described as tornadic because they are densest at their edges (not the centers). Their rotation is most likely electrodynamic in nature.
People like yourself claim with so much certainty that our magnetohydrodynamic models for space plasmas are accurately modeling the plasmas as magnetized fluids. And they do this in spite of the direct observation of Birkeland Currents connecting the Sun to the Earth by THEMIS!
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2007/11dec_themis.htm
Braided ropelike structures of plasmas can ONLY be modeled as electrodynamic behavior. They have NOTHING to do with fluids. You guys ar
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
I see no support whatsoever for plasma cosmology in the new data. It's an unexpected bright spot in the CMB spectrum. There are quite a few possible explanations and not really enough evidence yet to prefer any one of them in particular.
Very interesting and last couple of posts here.
I'm an engineering & physics undergrad, and have never heard of this EU theory before. After I post this I will google it or hit up wiki to try and find out what the whole thing is about.
That said, when I read the AC's post "not a debate," it sounded really convincing to me - that whatever this EU theory is sounds totally looney. But pln2bz's response was even better. Regardless of what EU theory is (I still don't know), I got insight on some interesting phenomena or problems in cosmology/astronomy I've never heard of before. It provoked much more stimulating thought and imagination.
Now I feel like the AC's post tricked me!
But now I'll look up what this EU theory is (and see if it really is some batshit crazy timecubish "theory")
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_Universe
Ah, of course! Psy trance! Silly me, I have one of their albums in my collection even...
Oh, wait a minute.
This article is about the band. For the cosmological model, see Plasma cosmology.
My bad... But wait a minute, from the rest of the discussion I see:
Plasma cosmology and the Electric Universe 'theory ' are not the same. The electric universe folks use plasma cosmology to try to support their claims, but the reverse is not true.
Hmm, well after reading that wiki page I didn't really get much about the actual theory. And I'm lazy. I couldn't find a good summary anywhere else, or quick discussion of the main underlying processes / explaination of cosmological observations.
I'll leave the theory to someone more qualified than I, or to those folks who begin their post with "Well this is way beyond my understanding of Physics, but, as I understand it....". Rather, I just want to comment that, as it is commonly used, the word "signal" connotes transmission of a message from a sentient sender to a sentient receiver. The definition given by TheFreeDictionary.com should suffice: "3. Electronics An impulse or a fluctuating electric quantity, such as voltage, current, or electric field strength, whose variations represent coded information." (I suppose that we could assume that the Universe herself, himself, or itself is sending "coded information" to us, but then we'd have to parse the word "assume", and we wouldn't want to make donkeys of ourselves, now, would we?) So, I suggest that this "signal" is really an "emission", the characteristics of which lead astronomers to conclude that there are spiraling magnetic fields in the region of space they were observing. They expected to find IR radiation accompanying those spiraling magnetic field, but they didn't. Hence their surprise. Now, despite the fact that I'm not qualified to form such a theory, I'll state mine: The Universe is actually like an onion, only the number of layers is infinite. Once we humans peel back one layer -- Eratosthenes did! -- another is revealed. Newton peeled that one, to reveal the one that Einstein peeled, and then Hugh Everett III peeled-back another, and so on, ad universium.... Do I have my layers labeled right? I don't rightly know. But you might ask the Mother Hen....
the dark centers of solar spots (should the inside of the sun not be hotter instead of cooler?)
In visible light, sunspots look "cooler" than their surroundings.
This is because their emissions are further up the spectrum. Take a look at sunspots in the xray region sometime.
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
Indeed, there are short-wavelength emissions associated with sunspots. But these are non-thermal: it is not a black-body spectrum with an emphasis on emissions at shorter wavelength because of a higher temperature. Were that so, the emissions in the visible would still be higher than for lower-temperature regions since the black body radiation curve not just shifts its peak but also increases in intensity across the spectrum with increasing temperature: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Blackbody-lg.png
Moreover, the x-ray emissions seem to originate mostly from the corona and not from the surface: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest/sxt/full/sxtdag_512.gif. The spatial correlation of coronal activity with sunspots is likely the result coronal plasmas being caught up in the magnetic-field loops pinned down by sunspots. See for example this EUV image: http://www.lmsal.com/YPOP/ProjectionRoom/latest_TRACE_171.html.
Zerkshop, be careful with your open mind. It will get you into trouble in the physics discipline. As you get older, you will come to see that cosmology is unfortunately no place for people with open minds like yourself. The best tactic is to learn your studies as hard as you can, but keep your opinions of "fringe" scientific readings to yourself. I wouldn't even let your professors know that you're reading this stuff. It could very well affect your upward mobility within your field.
(As for psy trance, I would propose that psytrance has largely been killed off by dubstep. A lot of people who used to listen to psytrance have discovered that dubstep is a far more melodic and danceable drum&bass. I highly recommend it!)
What you've noticed with wikipedia is like watching the Hatfield-McCoy family feud through a pinhole in a fence. The theory of the Electric Universe has been barred from wikipedia by the likes of Leroy Ellenberger, scienceapologist and various other BAUT/talk.origins "authorities". These authorities are actually defenders of conventional wisdom. They do not believe in building new cosmological models because they try to tear them all down before any are ever built. Everybody seems to take their cue from the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today website, run by Phil Plait, where people who create new astrophysical paradigms are set before a panel of like 6 or 8 astrophysicists and burned at the stake on every single minute detail imaginable. What that effectively does is spur people to try to develop mathematics-based models. What we need to be doing, however, is questioning our mathematical models. We need to be taking a closer look at our physical fundamentals within the discipline of physics. The EU Theorists are doing this. We need to be asking tough questions about things like galactic rotation, observations of the photosphere, filamentary structures in space, stellar observations that are enigmatic to the Standard Model, etc.
The fact that people cannot go to wikipedia to understand what the theory says makes it pretty damn difficult for people to learn what the theory says and whether or not its wrong. We've been struggling for years now just to be allowed to explain to people what the theory says on wiki. Online vigilantes have worked tirelessly to prevent it, even though they frequently have to violate their own precious wikipedia rules in order to do so. We can in fact point to published literature, some of it by Nobel Physics laureates like Hannes Alfven, and some of it peer-reviewed to support our interpretations for astrophysical imagery. The Electric Universe debunkers spend much of their time trying to use high school electrostatics to disprove that the math can be made to work when modeling the Sun as a glow discharge. But, so long as the prominent features of the two match up, isn't it obvious that the math can be made to work? And why do they think that people are taught plasma physics in high school? Electrostatics can be used to disprove the behavior of a plasma glow discharge in the laboratory. Can we really count on it to help us in cosmology, or in the study of astrophysical plasmas -- which constitute 99.999% of all visible matter in space?
Unfortunately, and not by choice, the only places to understand EU Theory are at http://www.thunderbolts.info, http://www.holoscience.com and in their books "The Electric Sky" by Don Scott, and "The Electric Universe" by Wal Thornhill. I would in particular point to the writings of Wal Thornhill, who is largely self-taught on the subjects of astrophysics and plasma physics. Wal has proven himself to be very well read on the subject of glow discharges -- better than most professional astrophysicists -- and this has been the key in formulating a new plasma-based cosmology. The more you read of Wal Thornhill, the more you will likely come to respect him as I have. He's been playing the role of scientific heretic for a very long time now. He knows ALL of the criticisms dished at him by now, and he's
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
EM phenomena in the sun are well understood. Please don't stir up a fake aura of mystery around solar EM. "Electric Universe" theories are junk science. If you want those theories to be taken seriously, get rid of the junk.
Um, you guys should get your own house in order before criticizing others. From http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2814-earths-magnetic-field-boosts-gravity.html ...
The values of G measured so far seem to fit with that idea. But the researchers say the best way to test their theory would be to take accurate measurements of G at locations such as the magnetic poles and particular longitudes on the equator, and then check those values against the predictions.
Studies of the Sun also support the theory. To make mathematical models of the star's interior tally with experimental data, physicists have to use a lower value of G than is traditionally agreed. Mbelek says his calculations predict that electromagnetism would not boost gravity as much at higher temperatures, so you would expect G to be lower inside the Sun.
Exotic physics
But other researchers are not convinced. Clifford Will, a gravity theorist at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, believes improvements in terrestrial experiments will eventually do away with the need for explanations that rely on such exotic physics.
"In many ways it's a scandal that we don't have an agreed value for G, but if you look at the experiments, the values have been converging," he says. "In five years or so, we'll have an agreed value."
But Mbelek does not think so. Although the precision of individual measurements is improving, he says, the values are not converging.
I smell junk!
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Alfven waves are the popular EU mechanism for coronal heating. I have no problem with this, but you'll have to demonstrate how wave heating can deposit energy in the corona rather than simply propagating clean through.
If you spoke correctly here (and I'm not sure that you intended to say "EU" there), I believe that this demonstrates a rather severe misunderstanding of the EU model. The corona is hot for the same reason that an anode in a glow discharge is hot. An electron drift occurs within the heliosphere, from the heliospheric boundary (the cathode) towards the anode. This is pretty basic plasma physics here -- the same thing we see with high-voltage DC transmission lines. They ionize the air around them because their voltage difference with the atmosphere creates an electric field that causes electrons to drift into the transmission line while ions are simultaneously accelerated away. The heat is a natural byproduct of the discharge.
Should we just assume that it is pure coincidence that all of the Sun's most prominent features correspond precisely to the glow discharge? Only if we are being biased about it.
I'm no solar physicist, but I'd wager that coronal heating draws upon both waves *and* reconnection. Has anyone looked at coronal temperatures at various altitudes/depths through a whole solar cycle?
Spoken like Plato. It's fun to deduce the operation of the universe, eh? Deduction, however, isn't even necessary when we can study plasmas within the laboratory, and plainly see that our magnetohydrodynamics models are completely archaic.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Sunspots are understood reasonably well in terms of magnetic fields.
Yeah, except for the fact that the sunspots exhibit attraction to one another without apparent combination. By sharp contrast, this is exactly what would be expected if you took a cross-section of two twisted Birkeland Current filaments. They possess long-range attraction and short-range repulsion, meaning that they will dance around one another and yet never fully combine. Think novelty plasma globe.
And Harp's "surveys" have long been known to be statistically invalid. They suffer from selection effects. And there are also some real physical effects that correlate distant objects with foreground objects, such as gravitational lensing.
My understanding is that most, if not all, claims of gravitational lensing require the existence of copious amounts of dark matter in order to even get into the ballpark mass required.
Also, I've seen all sorts of pitiful attempts by ideologues to cast doubt upon Arp's findings. At one point, scientists actually published a paper claiming that Arp's quantization was not observed in raw redshift observations. Those researchers didn't understand what Arp was saying well enough to even realize that the quantization was being proposed for only the intrinsic component of the raw value.
Tom Bridgman has similarly been trying to argue that Arp's quantization is the result of some sort of statistics error. But, why would the recessional component not also demonstrate quantization?
It seems to me that ideologues are very anxious to be done with Arp's observations, which come in a pretty wide array of types of evidence. To this day, however, the idea that redshift must only come in one flavor is pure speculation. The only reason it's never questioned is because it serves as a critical crutch propping up the dominant paradigm.
People will surely argue about Arp for decades to come. The statistics argument is the treatment of last resort for scientific heretics. It's the same thing that was done to Verschuur when he proposed that he was seeing relatively local filaments of hydrogen within the CMB. When people resort to statistics for argumentation, we'd all be wise to keep in mind that there may be politics involved.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Ok, I'll bite. What do you get when you separate the reasonable from the ridiculous claims of Electric Universe? All I get is the nul set.
Let me guess: You don't have a clue about how a glow discharge works, do you?
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
I love how somebody labeled you as "flamebait" for pointing this out. I mean, that's a fairly uncontroversial statement you made there. The Electric Universe is almost entirely based upon the observations of the glow discharge in a plasma laboratory. It shouldn't really be all that controversial.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.
Speculating a little bit, SETI is not receiving signals because ET is most likely inside of the diffuse atmosphere of brown dwarf stars. Planets can orbit within the glow of a brown dwarf. You cannot transmit radio signals through a plasma double layer like that, so ET doesn't even know what stars are inside of this environment. All he can see in his sky is a red glow and possibly vortex-like plasma formations. The perpetual harvest that surrounds him deprives him of any desire to contact us anyways. Why would you try to contact aliens when you are in the Garden of Eden? Brown dwarf atmospheres contain copious amounts of water, which when combined with the perpetual glow from the sky, would cause the entire planet to explode with life.
We have a pretty good idea that this is happening because it appears to be what happened to the Earth as well. Humans were alive to testify to it.
Sounds pretty absurd to you, I'm sure. But when you dig into the details, it's a pretty interesting theory for SETI's failure.
"A man cannot begin to learn that which he thinks he already knows." --Epictetus, 1st Century A.D.