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Sunspots Return
We're emerging from the longest, deepest sunspot drought since 1913 (we discussed its depths here) with the appearance of a robust group of sunspots over the weekend. Recently we discussed a possible explanation for the prolonged minimum. The Fox News article quotes observer Michael Buxton of Ocean Beach, Calif.: "This is the best sunspot I've seen in two years." jamie found a NASA site where you can generate a movie of the recent sunspot's movement — try selecting the first image type and bumping the resolution to 1024. The magnetic field lines are clearly visible.
I know it's popular here to say everything that comes from Fox News is complete bullshit, but maybe just once and a while they have a good article. We should be thankful for that.
CQ DX here we come! Time to hang wire and pound brass!
73, w7com
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
Very strange, as magnetic field lines are entirely imaginary.
I guess you've never played with magnets and iron filings?
XML is a known as a key material required to create SMD: Software of Mass Destruction
No, they're quite real. Being immaterial aspects of electro-magnetism,
they are, however, normally invisible. Here, however, you can see the
superhot plasma flowing along them, much as you can get iron filings
on a piece of paper to do with an ordinary magnet.
Anyone who questions the validity of a theory should be heard.
Anyone who offers valid criticisms of your theory with data to back them up should be heard. Saying anyone who questions a theory should be heard might sound nice in theory, but in reality it means you have a bunch of people throwing out unsubstantiated garbage in order to muddy the waters and further their own agendas, which are rarely motivated by scientific concerns.
Because I betcha that if Congress gets Cap and Trade in place, throw in some Kyoto claims, that in a few years if we see a cooling trend beyond our current one, they will lay claim to proof they were right.
In other words, the salesmen won. No matter the out come they will claim to have proven themselves. In the end all we get will be more embedded taxes.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
They're no more real than latitude lines. The magnetic field is continuous, it doesn't possess discrete lines. Objects IN the field can form a line, but that is more of a spontaneous symmetry breaking effect... I.E., iron filings could form a hundred distinguishable lines, or a thousand. The filings experiment is neat, but I think it gave millions of schoolkids the idea that there is an actual number of preferred lines running from one end of the magnet to the other.
A cone doesn't have a finite number of preferred paths down from the top. But if you pour water on the top, the water will run downhill and form a number of discrete streams. That does mean that there are 'lines of gravity'.