Slashdot Mirror
Can Electricity Travel Through Space on Astrophysical Jets? (mdpi.com)
Slashdot reader Chris Reeve writes: An October 2017 paper titled Electric Currents along Astrophysical Jets reports that "Several researchers have reported direct evidence for large scale electric currents along astrophysical jets." A review of the citations at the end of that paper and others (here and here, for instance) would seem to suggest that one of the great Internet science debates has finally been settled: Electricity does indeed travel through space over vast cosmic distances.
What has been interesting to watch about this unexpected development is that science journalists have so far not explicitly reported this as a shift in theory, and commenters on sites like phys.org appear to deny that any change has even occurred: "The jets have been shown not to be electric currents, the energy and the physics involved are certainly not electromagnetic." This comment completely rejecting these new findings was highly rated by other phys.org readers, suggesting that the failure to explicitly report this as a change in theory has left this controversial topic in a highly confused state.
The paper summarizes what it calls "observational evidence for the existence of large scale electric currents and their associated grand design helical magnetic fields in kpc-scale astrophysical jets." And the original submitter details the history of the question in a follow-up comment arguing that at our current moment in time, "a mistaken bias against electricity in space continues to dominate conversations."
What has been interesting to watch about this unexpected development is that science journalists have so far not explicitly reported this as a shift in theory, and commenters on sites like phys.org appear to deny that any change has even occurred: "The jets have been shown not to be electric currents, the energy and the physics involved are certainly not electromagnetic." This comment completely rejecting these new findings was highly rated by other phys.org readers, suggesting that the failure to explicitly report this as a change in theory has left this controversial topic in a highly confused state.
The paper summarizes what it calls "observational evidence for the existence of large scale electric currents and their associated grand design helical magnetic fields in kpc-scale astrophysical jets." And the original submitter details the history of the question in a follow-up comment arguing that at our current moment in time, "a mistaken bias against electricity in space continues to dominate conversations."
I will agree, and after reading the utter BS, not even rational, and very self and observation-contradicting commenters on phys.org who keyboard-warrior instead of do real science and make actual observations, I'm glad I didn't sign up. One might as well sign up to some alt-politics conspiracy theory site...for all the effect it'll have.
At least physorg keeps the nuts all together.. maybe one grenade....
Quoting tons of other errors doesn't make it right. Truth isn't up for vote.
Why guess when you can know? Measure!
It is telling that all papers by this author and his collaborators seem to be in a closed ecosystem of citation where they only are cited each other. I am not familiar with the "Galaxies" journal. At least one of these papers is from A&A, which *is* a real peer-reviewed journal.
There are many red herrings here. First of all, the whole "we have a model that can explain galaxy rotation curves without dark matter" is not nearly as meaningful as some seem to say it is. There is a whole host of observations explained by dark matter, in detail, and with precision. Explaining just one of them doesn't do much if you can't explain all of the rest of the observations.
Likewise, the Big Bang model has a host of observations that support it, in detail, and with numerical precision.
The "electric universe" is not something that is worth paying attention to.
For popular-level information about the problems with the whole electric universe business, see this site: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/...
So the submitter is apparently extremely distressed regarding what goes on in internet discussion threads, both on phys.org and on Slashdot (based on his extremely long comment further up), for some reason.
My advice is - don’t get so worked up over what people say on the internet.
#DeleteChrome
The submitter write, "a mistaken bias against electricity in space continues to dominate conversations." What dominates conversations is a complete lack of credible evidence for this. It reminds me of the old days when Archimedes Plutonium invaded sci.physics and talk.origins.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
This is clearly a troll submission. Bullshit paper in a bullshit journal. Basically the equivalent of a crackpot posting on his own blog. How did this shit get posted?
I am a physicist. You caught one, congratulations.
I think you're spending a lot of time looking at web forums and not spending any time learning actual physics. In 11 years, you could have started from scratch with a Physics BS and finished a PhD by about now. If you'd done that, you would see that actual physicists have long ago incorporated much of what you're saying we don't acknowledge, and thrown out the things that don't match actual observations. It's great to be inspired by interesting theories to enter physics. I love science fiction, and it's why I got into physics. Being a professional physicist doesn't keep me from still appreciating science fiction.
Modern models can incorporate MHD at galactic scale, along with all of the other physical interactions we know of, and so we do incorporate all those things. If you don't like the way it's done, I encourage you to go get a Physics PhD and write your own models. If you don't like the typical assumptions, spend more time coding and less time complaining. Modeling is so easy today that these questions can be posed in a homework assignment for a grad student. (Really, you're getting worked up over homework assignment level physics.)
To physicists, "The Electric Universe" is an antiquated idea, with arguments many generations out of date. You're quoting 30 year old computer models, the proceedings of a minor conference 20 years ago, and a "this is your life, Jim Dungey" review focused on 1960s physics to complain about how modern astrophysics is done. You're referencing a theorist who's a retired engineer. The detail required for a convincing publication has increased dramatically over the last few decades, vocabulary changes every few years, and an understanding of what is "mainstream" changes about every year. It's hard to keep up for full time physicists. Referencing writing published to a much lower standard than what we're used to reading is not convincing.
I've worked with an older theoretician who wanted to get a modern take on his old approach. He sponsored (paid the salary & tuition of) a grad student in a different group with modern computational resources. That's the appropriate way to make the argument you're trying to make. Instead the Electric Universe guys are pretending that 30 year old techniques and publishing standards are good enough. They're not.
Last point, I promise. IEEE is an engineering society with no astrophysics community. It is inappropriate to publish an astrophysics paper there. That's journal shopping, and it is a violation of scientific ethics.
Worse, really.
Some bullshit theory about how the extremely macro-scale universe is predominantly shaped by the electromagnetic force is vindicated by scientific paper that indicates there's more electricity in the universe than was generally thought.
It's a lot like claiming your theory about perpetual motion cars has been vindicated because you slightly miscalculated your car's fuel economy.