The explanation has been provided. The real problem is that it's not the answer that people expected or wanted to hear. I refer you to Don Scott's "The Electric Sky". You can also view their www.thunderbolts.info site, but you won't get the complete picture from that site that you would get by reading the entire theory all at once.
Anthony Perratt can generate spiral galaxies using nothing but the electrical properties of plasma in both computer simulations and in laboratory physics experiments. No dark matter is required. What is required is that we have to change the way that we educate our astrophysicists. The magnetohydrodynamics professors must stop or at least severely restrain their use of gas and fluid laws in modeling plasma in space. There's no good reason to believe that plasma in space would act any differently than plasma in the laboratory does. Electrical plasma -- the stuff in the labs -- acts completely differently than gases and fluids. If you've ever seen a novelty plasma globe, you'll recognize this. The movement of those filaments is in no way similar to the actions of gases or fluids. Electrical plasma naturally forms filaments called Birkeland Currents. And depending on the current flow, these filaments will attract one another and pinch together -- without ever combining. The force that results from this pinching can collect matter and condense it into spheres. Given enough charge density, these spheres will then split into two separate spheres. This is all natural for plasma, and all of our space observations can be interpreted within the framework of these laboratory plasma physics processes.
It's NASA's choice to interpret all observations through one single cosmology. It was also the choice of the astrophysical community to ignore Hannes Alfven's realization that the techniques that he devised to model plasma in magnetohydrodynamics were in fact "pseudo-pedagogical" -- an idea that appears to help, but in fact causes great harm to our understanding of the universe. To blame people for pointing these things out is unfair.
From what I can gather, the people who are proposing the Electric Universe concept receive no government funding for any of the work they do. They survive by sales of their publications. In order to understand what they are arguing, you must purchase their books. Don Scott has published a very good book called "The Electric Sky" and Wallace Thornhill is about to publish his book, "The Electric Universe", which I've read and personally find to be very compelling. Reading "The Electric Universe" is an interesting experience because the sheer weight of the evidence can become overwhelming. The www.thunderbolts.info site and the www.holoscience.com site (I particularly enjoy that latter site) are provided free of charge, but they lack the comprehensive big picture analysis provided by the books.
The Electric Universe Theory is not a tenuous theory. It is against-the-mainstream, but the primary premise is a simple one: that plasma in space perfectly reflects the activity of plasma within the laboratory. In other words, it has resistance and charge density. Mainstream astrophysicists assert that plasma in space instantaneously neutralizes any charge imbalances, that plasma has frozen-in-place magnetic fields and that magnetic fields can exist in the absence of a current flow. None of these assertions are supported by laboratory plasma physics. They are mathematical tricks that astrophysicists have decided are fair game. We know for a fact that plasma pervades nearly all of space. We better be damn sure that it's being modeled properly. Any allegation that plasma is being incorrectly modeled in space should be seriously investigated due to the sheer magnitude of the discrepencies that would result.
How you're able to determine charge density on the basis of temperature is somewhat of a mystery. We can't even do that for our own Sun. We know from the laboratory that plasma has three distinct modes of operation -- the dark mode, the normal glow mode and the arc mode -- and that it continues to conduct electricity within its dark mode even though plasma in this mode would emit neither photons nor infrared light/heat whatsoever. So, even if the process that creates the charged particles would emit infrared, the allegation is not that this process is occuring within this image. If it helps, you might consider that when you pass electricity through copper wires (which is also a form of plasma), your wires conduct quite well without glowing. Gaseous plasmas in fact conduct better than copper wires.
The fact that you are not objectively considering the subject matter is evident in your decision to take a condescending tone. If you ever do decide to investigate the matter objectively, I think you will be surprised to find that there is indeed a serious debate here.
Observant space enthusiasts will notice the excessively large number of hourglass morphologies that continue to appear in NASA's press releases. These hourglass morphologies can only be awkwardly called the result of gravitation. A cursory familiarity with laboratory plasma physics will help people to recognize that the most likely explanation is that these are in fact z-pinches wich result from Birkeland Currents. In a zoomed image, you can see the filamentary Birkeland Currents on two opposing sides of the red "square" being pinched down to a central point. These same filaments are also observable, but in cross-section, in the 1987A supernova remnant. Which components are visible varies from image to image, but the general morphology of the hourglass remains discernible.
Here are some additional hourglass morphologies with pictures that have been observed:
Since hourglass morphologies are somewhat disconfirming to traditional mainstream cosmologies (ie, the Big Bang), the fact that they continue to be observed all over the universe escapes the notice of professional astrophysicists, whose primary concern is to prove the Big Bang Theory and Stellar Evolution Theories. Objectively interpreting these shapes for what they most likely represent means dropping complicated, mainstream astrophysical explanations, and accepting the notion that electricity flows through space over plasma as we know it does within the laboratory. In these particular instances, at least, it is clear that the electrical force is dominant to gravity. We can opt to devise all sorts of gravitation-centric explanations for hourglass morphologies, but in doing so, we consciously opt to violate Occam's Razor.
The implications of such strong evidence of electricity in space are overwhelming -- which provides all of the explanation necessary for avoiding abandonment of the traditional, more popular gravity-centric theories. When astrophysicists eventually accept that plasma in space has electrical resistance just like the plasma we observe in the laboratory, then they will begin to re-interpret all of our observations in terms of Maxwell's Equations rather than fluid and gas laws. And the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy will forever disappear, as this substitution can provide the exact forces necessary to explain things like how spiral galaxies can spin as if they are solid plates and how matter might repel other matter. The fact that we as a culture currently prefer to consider imaginary forces and particles to explain these "anomalies" rather than forces that we already understand will forever paint us to future generations as people who decided to favor the mathematicians and theories over our observational data and decades of experimental laboratory physics work.
The evidence for electricity in space is not a sparse patchwork here and there. It is a flood of data that is only allowed to escape the notice of the public with the help of overconfident astrophysicists and a mob mentality within the space enthusiast community. Anybody who is intellectually curious about the universe and less concerned with what the people around them believe than what in fact appears to be true should consider learning more about plasma physics and the electric universe we live in. Don Scott
Thats the best laugh I've had this week. Everybody knows comets were created by An Intelligent Designer exactly 6000 years ago.
Like many others, you are likely unaware that mainstream astrophysicists are the ones that have taken the unfortunate position that laboratory plasma physics do not apply to our observations of space. In the laboratory, plasma is an electrical phenomenon. Electric Universe Theorists allege nothing more than that plasma in space has electrical resistance like plasma on Earth in our laboratory experiments.
This lack of awareness allows you to sustain faith in traditional cosmological concepts and to categorize Electric Universe Theory with absurd concepts like Intelligent Design. If you had an even superficial understanding of laboratory plasma concepts like Birkeland Currents and Z-pinches, then you would without a doubt recognize the familiar hourglass morphology that appears in an absolutely astounding number of NASA press releases every week that passes.
I recommend that you investigate the issue before commenting on it any further so as to avoid the possibility of later realizing that you might have played a role in directing other objective minded people away from considering the fact that plasma in space is electrical. When this fact eventually becomes accepted -- and it will -- people will wonder what went wrong. If plasma in space is in fact electrical, then that can have very significant ramifications for global warming. I can't imagine how horrible I'd personally feel if I one day found out that the comments I had once posted on Slashdot had in some way contributed to a mob mentality that could have negative consequences for the lives of future people. These are in fact very serious issues that require foresight and objectivity. You'd be wise to treat the EU concept with as much sensitivity as is common for environmental issues today because it will eventually be revealed that they are inextricably linked. It's an unfortunate fact that people with good intentions can in fact cause great harm.
Very few people are following it. This is a big problem because as time moves forward, evidence continues to mount in favor of the EU Theories. People on these boards are especially hostile and condescending towards the theory, but you shouldn't think much of it because very few of those people have actually read the materials. I've read a fair amount of it all and it's become clear to me that these people are not receiving a fair hearing. I have an electrical engineering background, which helps a little bit in understanding their theory. But the EU Theorists intentionally write for a semi-technical audience. Even if you are only partially familiar with the mainstream theories, they typically provide you with a larger historical context about how the theories have evolved than any of the traditional cosmology materials.
It's always nice to see that there are still some people out there that are willing to evaluate the data on their own. The underlying lesson people get from the current mainstream cosmologies is that cosmology is too complicated for everyday people to understand. This causes people to defer to authority and to disrespect the views of anybody who is not eminently qualified. The problem with this is that it does not take into account the possibility that the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy may have more to do with how we have educated our astrophysicists than being some legitimate physical enigma. Astrophysicists are all taught to model plasma in space with fluid-gas type equations in their magnetohydrodynamics courses. Although this makes modeling plasma far easier, it completely ignores the fact that plasma in the laboratory has electrical resistance and conducts electricity. This is a very big deal because electrical plasma acts *nothing* like a fluid. It naturally forms electrical transmission lines that are called Birkeland Currents, and these Birkeland Currents will twist tightly around one another without combining. With enough electrical energy, this twisting can pinch matter into spheres. And with enough electrical energy, these spheres can then be forced to split into two smaller spheres in spectacular explosions. We know all of this for a fact from laboratory plasma physics experiments, and yet, even though we see a never-ending stream of direct evidence that this is happening within our space observations, the astrophysicists feel no obligation to consider any cosmological theory that might threaten the ones they developed a hundred years ago. As if they have the right to cherry-pick their science, the mainstream astrophysicists opt to ignore all of this.
Hannes Alfven, who received a Nobel Physics Prize for creating the magnetohydrodynamics field, during his acceptance speech warned the astrophysics community that in light of his findings over the course of his career, he came to the realization that much of his earlier work that treated plasmas as fluids was a "pseudo-pedagogical" concept: an idea that superficially appears to be helpful, but which in fact causes great harm to our ability to understand the universe. Ironically, the man who proposed the specific mechanisms for modeling non-electrical plasmas in space ended up being the world's premier advocate for electricity in space. This was about four decades ago. He was roundly ignored. Few professionally trained astrophysicists are even aware today of the warning he made to the physics community. But the importance of his statements has only increased over time as it has become apparent that plasma permeates nearly all of space. His warning that the mainstream astrophysics community was heading towards a dead end remains prophetic to this day.
If you are interested in learning more, you can get a comprehensive treatment of the EU materials in Don Scott's "The Electric Sky". The Thunderbolts crew is about to post up a public forum to discuss the materials within the next couple of weeks. You can also download some video torrents titled "Universe -- The Cosmology Quest" (parts 1 and 2) and "Thunderbolts of the Gods" that provide a more gentle introduction to the material.
Despite numerous observations of comets that are anomalous to the mainstream traditional theory that comets have something to do with the early formation of the planets, NASA continues to prioritize the theory over the data. We already possess all of the data we need to understand what it is that makes comets tick. The real problem is that neither NASA nor the space enthusiasts (on this forum at least) like the answer because it is a square peg in a round theory of the universe:
Comets are covered in great depth in Don Scott's "The Electric Sky" and Wallace Thornhill's upcoming book "The Electric Universe", as well as on their thunderbolts site at:
Some people will be surprised to learn that Wallace Thornhill accurately predicted the results of the Deep Impact Mission -- results which continue to confound NASA and the astrophysical community to this day. But predictions mean little these days so long as they are disconfirming to the theories we developed decades ago. And NASA continues to treat the anomalous data regarding comets as an issue that has no significant bearing upon the bigger cosmological picture.
It's clear by now that NASA's purpose is not to objectively interpret our observations of the universe, but rather to specifically find data that confirms the Big Bang and stellar evolution. They've stated as much. One thing is clear: comets will keep them very busy in this regard.
With regards to comets, the burden is no longer on the EU Theorists. They've made a prediction that came to pass. The burden is now upon the astrophysical community to read their theory of how comets work and to consider the details of the prediction and outcome of that prior mission. How is it that Thornhill could have known what would happen with Deep Impact? How could he have known about the pre-impact flash? Nobody was predicting anything like that. Can anybody really argue that this was by pure chance? Or is it possible that he's right?
If any of them would design a repeatable experiment that conflicts with existing theories, they'd become instantly famous.
Wallace Thornhill accurately predicted *all* of the anomalous results from the Deep Impact Mission to Comet Tempel 1. Results that remain anomalous to NASA to this day were all natural byproducts of EU Theory. Did it make him famous? No, not really. People still blew him off. It is a fact, actually, that pretty much all of the anomalies in the space sciences today have an electrical explanation. Nobody really cares, to tell you the truth. We live in "interesting" times, I suppose.
It may seem to people who have not read the Electric Universe materials that Tim Thompson puts the issue to rest. This is far from the case.
Although I can certainly see major problems with some of his analysis (like the notion that neutrino flavors change in only one direction), I do not personally have the capability to evaluate all of Tim Thompson's arguments. Few people do. Does that mean that he is the only person capable of formulating an opinion on the universe? No, it does not. Does it mean that he is more qualified to evaluate the situation? No, not even. It is oftentimes worse to know something wrong than to not know anything at all. It is a fact that astrophysicists are unanimously taught in school that electricity plays no important role in space. Those people were educated before it became apparent that space is filled with plasma, and these educational programs persist in spite of the fact that Hannes Alfven, the father of plasma physics, tried in vain to convince the astrophysicists that electricity does flow through space. We know from the laboratory that plasma is electrical in nature. It is a gas that consists of a certain percentage of charged particles. Plasma is in fact *highly* conductive in our laboratory experiments. Astrophysicists are taught that they can ignore this fact in school in a class called magnetohydrodynamics. In that class, they are taught that plasmas can "instantly neutralize" and that plasmas have frozen-in-place magnetic fields (look it up on wiki "if you care"...). These simplifications are useful for doing math because it allows them to avoid using Maxwell's Equations and model plasma as a superconductor -- even when the plasma stretches light years in distance. Contemplate the concept of a plasma that's light years across instantly neutralizing. It's silly. Now, if you remove that assumption and permit the plasma in space to act as plasma in the laboratory does, then you are effectively giving resistance to the plasma. With resistance, plasma conducts electricity. It's not space that deprives plasma of its conductivity. It's the astrophysicists.
Plasma is unique in that we know from the lab that its physical interactions induce electric current, and vice-versa. If you accept, as astrophysicists do, that plasma pervades 99.999% of all space, then out of necessity, it's inevitable that electrical currents will result from violent physical interactions in space.
Astrophysicists are oftentimes taught in class that it would require more energy than exists within the universe to completely strip the electrons from all of the atoms in a teaspoon of salt. Some education there! That assumes that the plasma universe started in a neutral state. We know no such thing.
One could then argue, well, if plasma in space was electrical like the stuff in the lab, then we'd see evidence of this in our observations. And in fact, we do. Every single week that goes by, in fact, there are images of z-pinches that we observe within the laboratory in NASA press releases. This week, in fact, we saw two such images:
I'm perhaps offtopic and misguided on this posting, but that by no means makes me a crackpot. There is nothing about the Sun that was predicted by the fusion-only concept. You give mainstream theories far too much credit. Every week that passes sees additional anomalies with stellar evolution and the Big Bang Theory. To you, they are merely small problems that will eventually be figured out and assimilated into the bigger picture. Unbeknownst to you, when those anomalies are rearranged and presented within the context of laboratory plasma physics, all of those anomalies suddenly make sense.
Chances are that you have read none of the EU publications. You are not even aware of the arguments being made or the fact that the numerous independent pieces of anomalous space data all unanimously point to electrical plasmas in space. It's not a sparse patchwork of ideas. It is an overwhelming flood of data from all points of observation that simultaneously point to one single conclusion. And yet you offer the opinion that you are fluent enough that you *know* that the EU Theorists must not be correct. You offer people no actual reasons to believe that I'm a crackpot other than the fact that I believe in an against-the-mainstream theory. And yet the mainstream gravity-driven theories cannot account for 95% of all matter in the universe -- much of which appears, as only electricity can do, to *repel* other matter by your own theories' admission. Your favored mainstream theories are based upon ideas about plasma that we know to not be true from laboratory plasma physics, and yet you cling to them because the people around you do. You confuse the comfort of consensus for the notion of being objective, or for that matter even supported by data. You relish the feeling of being part of a team or club where everybody thinks the same, and where everybody is working towards a singular goal in harmony, already knowing what you'll find before you even look. You ignore the fact that this is not how science works. In a worst-case scenario, you will not realize that this is a mistake until perhaps you are far too old too do anything about it. If you feel a deep urge to understand your surroundings, you will eventually regret the fact that you commented on a subject that you know little about. The thought that you could have possibly dissuaded objective people from investigating a subject matter that you had lost your objectivity on (and which you will eventually turn out to be wrong on), will eat at you. But, like others, you'll convince yourself that you did no harm. It is all a part of human nature.
It appears that nobody seems to be asking the next logical question: if the neutrinos aren't there, then what about the Sun?
Neutrinos are the required result of nuclear fusion within the Sun. They are not charged particles and they will travel through a light-year of lead. Now that Sudbury has been scrapped, there remains a severe deficit of neutrinos coming from the Sun for the nuclear fusion model. We're only seeing about one-third of what should be there for that model. But what else do we know? To quote Wallace Thornhill in his upcoming book, "The Electric Universe":
The neutrino output varies inversely with the surface sunspot cycle. Were they produced in the nuclear 'furnace' at the center of the Sun, this relationship would be inconceivable, since solar physicists calculate that it takes about 200,000 years for the energy of internal fusion to affect the surface. In the electrical model, more and larger sunspots mean less 'lightning' at the surface, where the nuclear reactions occur. Thus, the decline in neutrinos with increasing sunspot number is expected.
And...
Neutrino counts have been found to wax and wane with the flux of particles in the solar wind, a predictable effect if the solar wind is part of an electric circuit fueling nuclear fusion on the Sun's surface.
The issue remains: if neutrinos are being generated on the Sun's surface and if sunspots appear to us as dark, cool spots relative to the rest of the Sun, then what, if anything of any relevance, is happening within the Sun's core?
And why does the solar wind continue to accelerate as it passes all of the planets? Why should we suppose any mechanism for accelerating charged particles *other* than an electric field centered at the Sun?
And how is it that the Sun's corona is 100x hotter than its surface if the core is supposedly the source of the energy?
Why did the Ulysses probe observe a million mph flow of electricity into the Sun at its south pole? We're told that it's just not important to the bigger picture, but why is it there in the first place?
Why has man had such trouble generating a controlled nuclear fusion reaction here on Earth? Is it possible that our incorrect assumptions about the Sun are affecting our ability to objectively evaluate methods for nuclear fusion?
To mainstream astrophysicists, these are *individual* problems that will eventually be worked out so that we can continue to believe what they want -- that the Sun is nothing more than a thermonuclear reactor at the core. But, when you look at the whole picture, and when you understand the role that plasma plays within the universe and how plasma operates within the laboratory, the evidence is overwhelming that the Sun is being powered externally and electrically. The fact is that there remains no stellar evolution theory that has not been directly observed to be violated. We willfully and perhaps ignorantly choose to believe that stars "evolve" over time from one place on the HR diagram to another even though we've seen stars jump all over it over short periods of time.
It's testament to the fact that nobody is listening to the EU Theorists that nobody here is apparently aware that Don Scott delivered a scathing review of the Sudbury Experiment in his recent book, "The Electric Sky". The problem with that experiment was that it was not an experiment. It drew conclusions based upon assumptions about how many neutrinos were leaving the Sun because it assumed that the Sun must be generating so many neutrinos within its core. It wasn't until a later experiment that it was determined that these oscillations could not be used to explain the neutrino deficit because the oscillations were not happening in just one direction. I presume that this announcement is a confirmation of those results.
If we are to learn from our mistakes, this should be a lesson to laboratory scientists around the world that astrophysics, curr
You can reach me directly at pln2bz@vireo.net. I don't mind posting my email address. To be honest, nobody on this forum really cares what I think. And I don't care that they know what I'm doing.
There is nobody currently focusing on the educational system, believe it or not -- not since Hannes Alfven at least, who died more than a decade ago. Hannes Alfven was smart in that he left many descendants of his inquisitive philosophy. You can run into these guys all over the place on the web. The best thing, believe it or not, is that they don't all agree with one another like the mainstream astrophysicists do these days.
The main issue with your idea is that you're underestimating the reaction that you would receive from the astrophysics staff at any university you attended with an astrophysics department. They all unanimously consider EU Theory to be pseudo-scientific because they have all been taught, ironically enough, Alfven's *early* works on frozen-in-place magnetic fields. Few of them are aware that Alfven actually tried to convince everybody during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech for magnetohydrodynamics that currents must be causing the magnetic fields. I've noticed this once firsthand here on these forums. One of the few astrophysicists I've actually run into on these forums tried to correct me on this point and I had to go back and find the specific quotes. All of this doesn't really mean that your idea is bad. It just means that you need to be prepared for resistance, and when it happens, you should thrive off of it. You need to have some plan for taking advantage of the resistance within the media. Use the "bad" publicity that you will inevitably get and somehow turn it into a good thing that gets EU theories and proponents more exposure. This can be tricky because the 30-second sound byte works against you: it's currently far more believable to an uninformed audience to claim that electricity does not flow through space than it is to assert that dark matter doesn't exist. So long as dark matter is not really specified in any detail, it retains an element of possibility. The second you start getting into specifics about electricity flowing over diffuse interstellar clouds of matter and into the Sun, it's easy for people to knock you down as being absurd even though you may know much more about the issue than others.
For these reasons, I suspect that at least initially, targeted anonymously posted materials would be more effective than live talks at universities. I've spent a lot of time contemplating this and I even got to a point where I was planning out fliers for creation and distribution. The Thunderbolts crew, I'm sure, would enjoy being a part of this. If you decided to travel around the country, for instance, visiting the premier astrophysical institutions and posting bills or leaving copies of some type of EU materials so that they could be found by astrophysics students, this would certainly have a long-term impact and the EU people would probably offer their help. Wallace Thornhill, the guy who kind of took over where Alfven left off, says in his bio that he had to leave the educational system because he became so discouraged by the atmosphere. As a side note, you should be aware that the EU guys are on the verge of creating a public user forum, where enthusiasts can talk to one another about such things.
The problem is that, although this would be *very* fun, there is no money in this. You would have to somehow have a reserve to draw upon and a never-ending will to just do good in the absence of profit.
My idea of the traveling road show isn't actually as risky as it sounds when you consider that I'm starting out at Burning Man, a non-commercial venue that has a high percentage of my real target audience. That event is attended by huge numbers of tech-savvy silicon valley entrepreneurs and CEO's, believe it or not. There is an element of certainty that something positive (in terms of connections) would develop from that experience. Over th
I wanted to add one more thing to my previous response.
What's happening right now with astrophysics is extraordinary. It's never been the case to my knowledge that modern man has been so wrong about something and simultaneously so confident in his wrong beliefs. The implications can potentially be catastrophic in the long-term. But there is a little-mentioned business side to this story. The EU Theorists have done a great job of laying down the groundwork for some possibly lucrative financial ventures. I mention this because if this is something that you have an interest in, it might pain you ten years from now to see others making a bunch of money off of it when in fact you had a head start on those people who will be doing so.
The theory could act as an excellent foundation or starting point for a movie script or book. My personal goal is somewhat different though: I want to create a small crew, a traveling road show, based upon a Burning Man style geodesic dome camp that can be disassembled and packed into a freight truck. The goal is to make the science entertaining. This is where electricity comes in. Electricity by itself has lots of excitement potential. The show I want to put on will be part demonstration, part live performance (perhaps with ambient DJ's, drummers and fire dancers) and a big part educational. I want to convert all of the concepts of EU Theory into CGI graphics. I want people with no math skills to be able to compare the two sets of simulations (mainstream vs EU) so that they can formulate an opinion on their own. My dome will have numerous projectors, plasma globes, jacob's ladders, tesla coils, perhaps a terrella and exhibitions involving plasma phenomenon. There will be simulated lightning strikes in audio and with special effects, and fire art worked into the show. But the main purpose will be to present the evidence for EU Theory in the form of CGI graphics that can be selected in real-time. I want to be able to move through the graphics at my own pace as I explain the concepts. This will be a place where EU concepts can be heard by the public in the absence of dissenting mainstream astrophysicists (as happens on this forum). The crew for this show would probably have to live on a bus and would travel around the world, delivering the EU message throughout primarily North America and Europe. It's an unusual concept that I'm only on the early stages of planning for. But if that sort of thing interests you, or if you know anybody with CGI experience, let me know. I'll probably start building the dome within another two years for Burning Man. It will start as a Burning Man camp for 2-3 years, and then once I get enough equipment going, I will transition it to a road show and start making money off of it. I hope to build my own CGI cluster within 1-2 years. If I have to learn CGI myself, I'll do it. But I'm always searching out for people to join me. I already have a close friend who knows how to handle professional audio and video equipment. Just thought I'd mention it. It's obviously a long-term goal, but it's something that I am committed to seeing through. That's how I will fit into this whole picture. I'm not a theorist. I'm just the middle man for the conveyance of information to the public.
It's a constant process of doubting your own arguments though. In this particular case, I screwed up a little bit because 1987A is categorized as a Type II supernova, which is not used as a standard candle. Type 1a supernovae are used for standard candles.
One of the difficult things in thinking about the arguments on both sides is merely keeping track of all of the categorization that has been created to accomodate the observations to the Big Bang and stellar evolution theories. Traditional theories tend to break the universe into parts and conquer them one at a time because a gravity-centric universe would lead to a bunch of disconnected processes. EU Theory, on the other hand, attempts to understand unifying principles within the universe because it proposes that the system is for the most part interconnected by filamentary plasma. I try very hard to get everything right by fact-checking, but sometimes things slip through. Better here, though, than on a stage in front of a thousand people (which is where I hope to one day end up).
In the end, you have to spend just as much time learning about the traditional theories as you do EU Theory. But the more you do that, the more it pays off. It's easy to argue *for* EU Theory. But it's much harder to argue *against* BB Theory and stellar evolution with people who are familiar with the latest research.
It's educational to at least take a quick peek at the Bad Astronomy Forums (although I'm with you in that I can't take too much of it). It raises your awareness that there are very complicated debates happening on the subject. Most importantly, it also demonstrates the attitude amongst the mainstream astrophysicists that they do not believe it is their burden to investigate all cosmologies. The public is not really aware that this is happening. Many people consider BB Theory to be too theological for them. But they accept that since it's discussed the most, then it must have the most evidence. But it's the choice of the mainstream astrophysicists to generate that evidence. They can also generate confirmatory evidence for plasma-based cosmologies too. They just don't want to. This is one of the things that the public needs to learn. It could have a dramatic impact upon the global warming debate. When the solar system appears to be inexplicably warming, there is a burden to investigate all possible explanations. For the astrophysicists to allow their preferences and prejudices to get into the way of solving a problem that threatens the existence of all people is on some level both selfish and irrational.
By the way, although people still like to point to the cosmic microwave background data every chance they get, astrophysicists are still having difficulty proving that the light originates from the edges of the universe. If objects between us and the light do not cast shadows, then the light would have a local origin. I've seen it speculated that the microwave radiation could in fact be the result of filamentary plasma moving currents through space. It would be somewhat ironic if the astrophysicists have accidentally stumbled upon a mechanism for proving the pervasiveness of electrical plasma in space when in fact they were trying to prove an afterglow from an explosion.
So yes, there is tons to be discovered even in our own backyard but at the same time theories and predictions can be made with some degree on without knowing everything there is to know.
I accept your logic. But you fall short of describing the complete scientific method. If you make assumptions, and then make additional observations that tend to disconfirm your assumptions, then there are times when your discoveries should cause you to re-examine your initial assumptions. We've launched all sorts of probes and telescopes since we came up with our astronomical theories, and although you can make a case that the data does match the theory, attempts to prove otherwise have fallen out of favor. So, by adopting the assumptions as "mainstream" and then moving on as business-as-usual, we've damaged the objectivity of science. People are more inclined to believe the assumptions than the disconfirmatory data returned from the probes and telescopes. That is an important part of the story of astronomy today.
One of the most curious things that nobody seems to be talking about is how astrophysicists appear to have garnered for themselves the right within the scientific community to dictate science back to the domains from which astrophysics is based upon. Not only is astrophysics a meta-science, but if you judge astrophysicists on how confident they are in their *interpretations* of their observations, they appear to believe that it is the *foundation* of science. This is problematic because it frequently causes us to favor their interpretation over other peoples' laboratory work and even mankind's common sense (dark matter and dark energy, for instance). This failure of context has the potential to bleed into all of our textbooks like a virus. Many people, like myself, believe that it has already happened. Even if you don't, no rational scientist can hold up this system and declare that it is impervious to major potential problems.
This thread's originator is an example of somebody awakening from a sleep... coming to the awareness that, wait a minute, should I be believing what these people are telling me?...
Scientists just recently learned new things [spaceref.com] about our closest star that are changing the way they study/view it. How is possible that we can create a reliable simulation based on information that's changing?
I'm no astrophysicist, but it seems sketchy. So they made a movie. So what?
If this person digs a little bit further into the issues, he may also discover that we've discovered many very unusual morphologies for supernova remnants (the classic being 1987A) that appear to violate our early assumptions regarding stellar evolution. So, how can you possibly consider a supernova to be a "standard candle" if all we have to show for our understanding of them is retroactive simulations and a theory that has underperformed in its predictive capabilities? Many of the supernova remnants are hourglass morphologies. One wonders exactly what perspective the observer must be in in order for the "standard candle" luminosity during the explosion to apply?!%$ It's patently absurd, if you ask me.
For the mainstreamers out there, this is how interest within against-the-mainstream ideas begin. People stop *listening* and start *thinking* about what they're being told. They remember that they have a brain that can perform simple logic, even when complicated issues are involved. Oftentimes, an expert or enthusiast will then chime in with some complex evidence regarding the CMB or some textbook astronomy facts regarding the mainstream opinion. But their words are fashioned solely to cause the person asking the questions to stop *thinking* and conform back to the mainstream. They rarely stop and wonder, "Wait, maybe I swallowed bullshit too!"
It's all quite a spectacle, if you ask me. It's very possible that either (a) our children will laugh at us (best cas
I don't know if anyone has come up with a convincing argument that explains how sun spots affect the Earth's climate.
One very detailed explanation has indeed been suggested. The problem is that, despite being well thought out, few people are interested in hearing about solutions that are out-of-the-mainstream:
Since the late 1970s, three Sun-watching satellites recorded surprising changes in heat, ultraviolet radiation, and solar wind. Dr. Sam Solanski, director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, said, "The Sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures." "The Sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was...." Dr. Solanski admitted to not knowing what is causing the Sun to burn brighter. A leading authority, Eugene N. Parker, adds, "...we really do not properly understand the physics of the varying luminosity of the Sun." This highlights the fundamental problem with the global warming verdict from climate experts. It is based on profound ignorance about how the Sun really "ticks" and what forms of energy are input to a planet's climate. For this they can blame astrophysicists.
[...]
Before ridiculing this article for being against the mainstream, be aware that Wallace Thornhill is not chopped liver. And traditional astrophysics has no real good answer right now for why the Sun (and the whole solar system in fact) has been on a warming trend. The simultaneous warming of the planets is typically suggested to be pure coincidence, and Earth's global warming is typically suggested to be coincidental to the Sun's warming.
Even if you disagree with Thornhill's analysis, it's extremely important to treat him and others commenting on the problem with respect. Although it is currently not in vogue in these parts to be respectful to people like Thornhill, the importance of getting the analysis right eventually in the end overrides all self-serving playground desires to publicly condemn somebody for being different. As rational people, the last thing we need to be doing is discouraging physicists from speaking on the subject just because they don't say what other people already believe. You can choose to believe him or not, but it makes sense to listen, and anybody who decides to convince others that he is a fool will not be able to take that back if he's one day shown to be right.
Are you aware that there are stars whose surface temperatures are too low to have fusion within their cores?
Are you aware that traditional cometary theory has basically been disconfirmed by the Stardust and Deep Impact missions?
Are you aware of the insane number of anomalies represented by rilles on the rocky planets within our own solar system? Many of these rilles actually travel both up and down with the topography of the land.
Have you reviewed the evidence by Halton Arp of high redshift quasars in front of or connected to low-redshift spiral galaxies?
Have you seen the supernova remnant of 1987A? Does that look to you like the remnants of an explosion?
Why do so many nebulae have hourglass morphologies?
Are you aware of the extent to which we have observed synchrotron radiation within the universe? Do you know what this means?
Are you aware that solar neutrinos will decrease when sunspots increase? Are you aware that this is impossible according to the current thermonuclear reaction models of the Sun with neutrinos being generated at the core?
Why does the solar wind continue to accelerate as it passes the planets? What mechanical Newtonian process could possibly be accelerating them?
Why does electricity flow into the Sun's poles? The Ulysses probe sees a million mph flow of electrons and protons at the poles of the Sun. Why is it there?
In fact, why do planets like Venus and Saturn have "eyes" at their poles?
Are you aware that many of the nebulae we expected were stellar nurseries (like R Corona Australis) in fact exhibit intense synchrotron x-ray radiation and 100 million degree temperatures (even though they were predicted to be around 400 degrees below zero)? If stars are in fact coming to existence there, this would be completely inconsistent with gravitational collapse.
I can go on like this for hours. It seems to me like mainstream astrophysicists should be spending a lot less time on confirming evidence and perhaps start trying to resolve all of this *disconfirming* anomalous evidence. But maybe the reason that many of these things have not been resolved is because they just don't make sense in terms of mainstream theories. Either way, surely you are aware that we can offer up additional proofs for the cosmic microwave background. Just because it's not popular to do so doesn't mean that it cannot be done.
Not quite sure if you're talking to me or the other guy that I was talking with who agreed with me (I suppose both and all of the rest of us who are growing in numbers...), but you seem to care a lot that other people believe something different than yourself. And I guess, quite ironically, that would make you quite a bad scientist as well (!) since the public expects that scientists remain open-minded in the face of evidence -- which, despite your assertions, exists and is quite plentiful.
You get modded troll because you have all the characteristics of a complete and total quack.
I love the surreal nature of being called a quack by people who believe that dark matter is many times more plentiful than baryonic matter and yet cannot be seen; and by people who believe that matter can act to gravitationally repel other matter as dark energy must. The irony is beautiful. I'm glad to be a quack for believing that astrophysics should not violate the laws of physics that we've identified within the laboratory. If your confidence was not so unintentionally destructive, I might laugh. The unfortunate fact is that you won't realize that dark matter and dark energy don't exist for many more decades. At that time, all of the people you've convinced to not read about the theory that you refused to learn about yourself will have already long forgotten about your bad tip.
It's really unhealthy to care so much about what other people care about. If two people somewhere in some room or in some forum are talking about EU Theory, there's really no reason why you should get upset about that because we're not telling you what to believe. End of story.
You parrot back information from disreputable sources
When science is in a crisis, scientists have an obligation to re-examine all theories on the table. So, mainstream astrophysicists don't believe that it's possible that the Sun can have an electric source... So what! If they had their own theories that weren't so observationally anomalous, then we would have never had this conversation in the first place.
Why do you believe that the EU Theorists are "disreputable"? Because some astrophysicists on Bad Astronomy did some calculations and figured that it shouldn't be possible? Every single astrophysics school teaches their students that plasma in space instantly neutralizes in charge. It is the contention of the EU Theorists that this principle is mathematical rather than physical -- and wrong. It should be no surprise then that EU Theory is against the mainstream. But being against the mainstream does not by default mean that they are disreputable. And if we ever treated science in that way, our knowledge base would stop increasing forever. Moving against-the-mainstream concepts into the mainstream is a normal process of the advancement of science.
What you appear to not understand is that the EU Theorists are using observational data (interpreted through laboratory plasma physics) to discredit mainstream astrophysical theories. There was, believe it or not, a time when observations meant more than calculations.
you say things you don't understand, you keep on bringing up things that have been disproved as if they were fact,you have a highly inflated sense of your own intelligence, you think everyone who disagrees with you is both a moron and out to get you. You ignore anything anyone says that proves you wrong. No one wants to debate you because you understand neither what they are saying, nor even what YOU are saying. It's utterly pointless.
You are free to your own beliefs. That's how things work in these parts. However, I'm worried how you may react one day when you find that your beliefs are wrong. Will you still be mad at the people who held them? Or will you then divert your uncontrolled anger to yourself?
Just about every time I report to people on this forum that observed data is conflicting with their defined model of the universe. I get moderated as troll. I really wish people would wake up and smell the coffee. The data is vastly different from the assumptions.
Merely pointing this fact out as it occurs every time it occurs can have an impact in itself. Many people will wait until they see numerous others bringing this up to actually consider the concept. The great communicators today in astrophysics will typically introduce the current theory within the context of the theory's history, and this added information (which you very rarely get with NASA press releases) can affect peoples' beliefs about the current theories' believability.
I actually attempted to get Slashdot to post the disconfirming Stardust results to their homepage as a story without inserting any comments advocating any specific cosmology, and they refused my request (I suppose on the idea that disconfirming evidence is not "news"?). If true, I find this to be very problematic. It used to be that anomalous data points directed future research and affected our beliefs. This was an important part of the scientific method, and its recent absence appears to have been completely ignored by the public.
A big part of the problem is that although the people who run Slashdot can be credited with having an interest in astronomy, these same people have not involved themselves in the technical details of the arguments and would prefer to defer to "experts" rather than evaluate the arguments on their own. They are just as much behind the curve as the rest, and many good ideas go unnoticed by this website's management due to a pseudoscience labeling.
Another big problem that I have a lot of personal experience dealing with specifically on this forum are the avid astrophysical enthusiasts. They feel no responsibility for discouraging other people away from against-the-mainstream theories, oftentimes completely unaware of the overwhelming nature of the disconfirming evidence for the Big Bang and stellar evolution. They oftentimes consider advocates of against-the-mainstream (ATM) as being "misleading"; anything that is not mainstream is somebody's "pet theory"; and they try to make the case that ATM advocates want to *convert* the entire world to their own pet theories (as opposed to merely just creating a debate). Slashdot is heavily steeped in these types. They are condescending. They may be fairly intelligent. But their confidence and hubris can negate their intelligence. When you refuse to assimilate to their way of thought, they will give up on you. But they will rarely consider reading any books that you suggest for them. They don't understand that there is more value to multiple mainstream cosmologies. With one cosmology, you *listen*. With two or even three reasonable options, you *analyze* and *compare*.
The real problem is that the avid astrophysicist enthusiasts right now don't realize that there will never be a solution to this dark matter, dark energy problem within the mainstream models. It's clear that these concepts have become so unphysical that they are basically non-sequiters (anti-gravitational matter, for instance). It's especially ironic that a kid can read through all of Douglas Adams' books and not realize that he was ridiculing mainstream astrophysics! And if you don't recognize the previous non-sequiter, then you at least must recognize that it doesn't make sense that such a plentiful particle like dark matter can emit no electromagnetic radiation and not ever be detected here on Earth despite 20 years of trying. That's another non-sequiter.
My advice to you is that you not give up. Experiment with various techniques for getting your message across (you'll find that some definitely work better than others and your writing will improve over time as a result). If you have the time, become an expert in the evidence and try to understand all the
It shouldn't surprise us that GRB's don't behave as we thought. Nearly everything we think we know about them is based upon assumptions and speculation that are only minimally supported by evidence. There is potential for error at every single step of this process. To continue to be surprised that our telescopes are returning anomalous data when that's what's been happening nearly every single day for years and years and years is silly. At some point, you have to go back to your assumptions and figure out where you went wrong.
I dont see how you got the patience to argue with folks like the above but I guess that what it takes.
There are major differences between mainstream atrophysicists and the EU Theorists. If you are curious, go to http://www.bautforum.com/ and search on "electric universe" or "electric sun". The mainstream astrophysicists have a tendency to become condescending with regards to EU Theory. It's much the same on these forums. The thing is, few of them have actually read Don Scott's new book.
You can tell that the entire field has become quite used to a lack of skepticism within the public responses to NASA press releases. It appears that they are unaware that this goodwill is all based upon an audience that remains uninformed about plasma. The EU interpretation of NASA's observations consistently resolves anomalous data that NASA is frequently surprised with these days. They manage to explain much of the mechanics of the universe using forces that we can fully characterize within the lab. And they present a good number of predictions that can be tested. It's just a matter of time before these theories make it into the mainstream, but it will be a very painful process.
The real truth is that there are only good things that can result from people comparing two different cosmologies. It's no different than business: if Microsoft was the only company creating operating systems, there would be little impetus to improve their product. The new arrival of Apple and Google indirectly increases the quality of Microsoft's products. Without skepticism within their public audience, modern-day astrophysics has become an inferior product.
All that aside, it's very important to listen carefully to both sides of the debate. There's a lot to be learned by talking to people with mainstream astrophysical views. Unfortunately for them though, all of those Bad Astronomy debates come off as extremely demeaning. In the event that those people turn out to be wrong, which I believe to be the case, a lot of people are going to wish they had not gone on the record like that. People will be taking a closer look ten or twenty years from now at the things that are being said on this issue right now so that we can understand exactly what went wrong. There will inevitably be an investigation into how the peer review system broke down and why people didn't listen to the EU Theorists earlier. There's a chance that what we're seeing with global warming is just the beginning of a serious event for the human species. Or, it could turn out to be nothing. EU Theory clearly allows for a larger spectrum of possibilities than the mainstream theories.
There seems to be some serious misinformation on the deep impact site on nasa's website. Theres places where they claim most all that emissions from the impact is water. Some bold statements like "after weeks from the impact there were the equivalent of 1000 Olympic size swimming pools of water emitted from the comet."
It is possible that their sensors are receiving data that indicate something along the lines of water. If I understand things right -- and I'm slightly more fuzzy on this than many other items -- but I believe the EU Theorists are asserting that intense plasma phenomenon within comets can induce fusion. That could create some challenging data for scientists to resolve.
I really enjoyed the electric sky book. Really makes me more critical about what I see spouted out by nasa and other organizations about the universe.
That's what's so amazing about the book. Once you fully understand the EU message, you can now interpret NASA press releases on your own, and you can decide for yourself what to believe. Clearly, the more people that read the book, the more people who will critically think about NASA press releases and astrophysical theories in general. When you have only one choice for what to believe,
No one has concluded it "must" be spinning. The evidence, however, is greatly in its favor.
This is untrue. I'm very interested in a summary of the evidence. Please share.
Let's quickly review the indicators that suggest that you are wrong: Neutron stars typically belong to binary star pairs, which would explain why electrical charge transfer is occurring. Pulsar emissions tend to have a duty cycle of 5% and graphs of their luminosity correspond to bursts of electricity. Neutronium has never been demonstrated to exist and violates established physical laws. It's proposed through speculation that the overwhelming force of gravity due to the spin overrides our established science. This proposal is solidified with little more than speculative math.
Astronomers expected that the "rotation" (pulsing) of the neutron star--conceived as an isolated mass in space -- would slow at a consistent rate. But then they observed a significant "glitch" in the pulse rate, an event that "released a burst of energy that was carried outward at near the speed of light by the pulsar wind." Of course, unpredictable variations in both the pulse rate and intensity of an electrically discharging Pulsar would be expected with any changes in the electrical environment through which it moved.
Proponents of the electric model are particularly impressed by the two embedded "bows" seen along the polar jet (upper left). Astronomers initially called these "windbow shocks", a theorized mechanical effect of high-velocity material encountering the interstellar medium. But electrical theorists recognized a configuration common to intense plasma discharge in laboratory experiments: toruses or rings stacked along the polar axis of the discharge. And subsequent enhanced pictures (cf., upper right) made clear that the "bows" were in fact stacked toruses, not easily explained in gravitational terms.
Also noteworthy is the manner in which the axial jet or column, as it extends beyond the "upper" torus, takes on an undulating, serpentine quality, as revealed by a series of Chandra snapshots (lower array). This too is of great significance to the electrical theorists since some in their group--years before these recent observations in space-- claimed that ancient witnesses observed such undulating phenomena stretching along the polar axis of the earth, when our planet moved through a more dense, more electrically active environment.
This is no slam-dunk case.
From what I can tell, it's pure speculation that we're looking at rotating bodies -- and given that the speed of supposed rotation continues to increase on an almost monthly basis with new observations, one would expect that the belief in a rotating body would diminish with each announcement that the speed of rotation has been observed to increase. But rather than modify our speculative theories regarding neutron stars, astrophysicists would first have the entire scientific community modify its theories based upon laboratory physics to accomodate these increases in spin rate. That's poor methodology. We can perform input-output experiments within the laboratory. In order to justify overriding our lab science, the burden is upon astrophysicists to first exhaust *all* possible cosmological explanations. You cannot claim on one hand that it is not the duty of cosmologists to investigate all cosmologies and then on the other hand that physicists modify textbooks to accommodate an anomalous cosmologically-constrained observation. That's a clear demonstration of what is called hubris -- thinking that everybody else is wrong and you are right.
That's because evidence has not mounted in support of those theories, which have long been falsified.
A dense stellar corpse called a neutron star has been found spinning at an astonishing 1122 rotations per second - 1.5 times faster than any other star. If confirmed, the finding could bolster the possibility of exotic "soft" states of matter inside dense stars.
When you see a flashing object and conclude that it *must* be spinning, that's hardly out-of-the-box thinking.
And when you see a supernova explosion that lasts 125 days long without fading, one might question whether or not this can really be categorized as an explosion in the traditional sense...
The explosive death of a massive star has broken the record for longest-lived light show. Observations from NASA's Swift satellite have revealed a so-called gamma-ray burst for which the afterglow remained visible for more than 125 days.
[...]
Unlike other afterglows, the long-lived one showed little drop in brightness over the 125 days of observation. The prolonged light output suggests an underlying engine that pumped energy continuously to the burst.
It's always interesting to me to see that as evidence mounts in support of EU Theory and Thornhill's Electric Sun Hypothesis, people continue on as if it's business as usual. It's oftentimes stated that the Electric Sun Hypothesis is absurd because we've never seen any flow of electricity into the Sun. It appears that that's not really a valid claim. From http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070220_sun_s pole.html:
Ulysses is also collecting data on the holes over the sun's poles, known as coronal holes. These are regions where the magnetic field of the Sun opens, allowing solar winds to escape and galactic cosmic rays to get in.
"Flying over the sun's poles, you get slapped in the face by a hot, million mph stream of protons and electrons," Posner said.
In any other science, a flow of protons and electrons is called "electricity". In astrophysics, that continues to be blasphemy.
The article continues on...
"The interesting thing about the past flybys was that, especially the ones in the solar minimum, there were some asymmetries between the north and the south [poles], and we are now trying to learn whether these are still there or whether they have changed," Posner told SPACE.com. "That is what we are eagerly awaiting."
If anybody cares, Wallace Thornhill will tell you what they will find. All of these "surprises" are integral parts of his Electric Sun Hypothesis. But nobody seems to care and the mainstream astrophysicists continue to live in their self-imposed box.
The "box" is The Big Bang Theory and Stellar Evolution. And by interpreting all of our observations through these theories rather than attempting to fit them to other various cosmologies, mainstream astrophysicists and enthusiasts alike have placed themselves inside of it. But, much to the consternation of people who don't like EU Theory, our observations increasingly support the statements being made by the EU Theorists. By not being aware
The problem is that there is this overwhelming pressure within this forum and other scientific forums to keep people from believing in some out-of-the-mainstream ideas. And if you ask me, it is this pressure that has led to the dead end that astrophysics and cosmology find themselves in today. Rather than encouraging out-of-the-box thinking, many fair, technically-minded people will readily outcast people who think differently than themselves. And they do this while completely ignoring the long-term, large-scale social effects that it can have upon the scientific community as a whole. If people realized that astrophysicists will still be chasing after dark matter and dark energy for the rest of our lifetimes, then with that foresight, they might realize that it's better if lots of people are pursuing lots of possibilities. But people are so confident that we're on the right track as is that they don't find alternative cosmologies to be worth investigating. In fact, their confidence occurs in spite of the existence of numerous serious problems with the Big Bang Theory and modern day astrophysics. It is only by ignoring these anomalies that they are able to maintain their confidence.
And yet, those other theories will make you think just as much, if not more, than the books you've enjoyed so far. If you want to experience what I'm talking about, then buy Don Scott's new book, "The Electric Sky". It's an amazing book that I challenge anybody to read and then forget. You'll never read another NASA press release the same way. The logic is solid. The observations are all modern. The theory is both interesting and believable. And once you are aware of a second possible cosmology, you will find that your mind will switch from just listening to also comparing each new piece of evidence as it comes out.
You just proved my point. You're chastising me for having a different cosmological preference (as if that's a bad thing!) rather than embracing the notion that lots of people can happily coexist with lots of different cosmological beliefs. I've made a specific point of not even mentioning what my preferences are within this thread because I believe that regardless of my own beliefs that it's important that society realize that the Big Bang Theory has not been proven and that the world is big enough for people to have lots of beliefs in this regard.
Although your response is a typical one here on Slashdot, it is simplistic and a false choice. It's an either-you're-with-us or not kind of philosophy. The real problem is that the media and enthusiasts appear to only be able to promote or think in one theory at a time. How you solve a difficult problem when you all so readily chastise anybody who thinks differently than yourself is somewhat confusing to me. This is likely because scientists and humans alike tend to ignore disconfirming evidence, and there is little mention in the press releases about all of the assumptions that these news articles depend upon. The net effect when you only learn one theory is that you spend more time *listening* than *comparing*. I don't see the harm in people critically reading NASA press releases, and deciding for themselves if they believe them or not on an individual basis.
Multiple mainstream cosmologies is a good thing. It is not the bogeyman. It will *increase* interest in astronomy (especially amongst atheists) and attract more out-of-the-box thinkers to the problem. By casting the out-of-the-mainstream thinkers as being some sort of religious zealouts bent on converting the whole world, you ignore the fact that they are some of the few people who are actually *thinking* carefully about our observations. If and when it ever becomes accepted that this Big Bang Theory was a wrong path, the mainstreamers will inevitably turn to those people who have not been interpreting all of the observations through that single cosmology. By outcasting the critics, mainstreamers can perhaps make themselves feel more comfortable -- but at what expense? In the process, they've reduced the number of critical thinkers. If they cared more about finding the truth than their legacy and the perception of being right, then they would welcome *all* interest in cosmology and astrophysics as being a positive phenomenon because the more people working on it, the more likely you are to solve the problem.
My personal observation is that it has somehow eluded the mainstreamers that they might be wrong. This is amazing considering the sheer number of anomalies that have been discovered recently within cosmology and astrophysics. All I can think is that a lot of people are shielding themselves from some of the more recent disconfirming observations because they've developed a love affair of sorts with the old-school theories. When the observations no longer support our older theories, we must retain our ability to reconsider those old assumptions. If we don't hold onto that, then the scientific process has broken down.
Slashdot Mirror
The explanation has been provided. The real problem is that it's not the answer that people expected or wanted to hear. I refer you to Don Scott's "The Electric Sky". You can also view their www.thunderbolts.info site, but you won't get the complete picture from that site that you would get by reading the entire theory all at once.
Anthony Perratt can generate spiral galaxies using nothing but the electrical properties of plasma in both computer simulations and in laboratory physics experiments. No dark matter is required. What is required is that we have to change the way that we educate our astrophysicists. The magnetohydrodynamics professors must stop or at least severely restrain their use of gas and fluid laws in modeling plasma in space. There's no good reason to believe that plasma in space would act any differently than plasma in the laboratory does. Electrical plasma -- the stuff in the labs -- acts completely differently than gases and fluids. If you've ever seen a novelty plasma globe, you'll recognize this. The movement of those filaments is in no way similar to the actions of gases or fluids. Electrical plasma naturally forms filaments called Birkeland Currents. And depending on the current flow, these filaments will attract one another and pinch together -- without ever combining. The force that results from this pinching can collect matter and condense it into spheres. Given enough charge density, these spheres will then split into two separate spheres. This is all natural for plasma, and all of our space observations can be interpreted within the framework of these laboratory plasma physics processes.
It's NASA's choice to interpret all observations through one single cosmology. It was also the choice of the astrophysical community to ignore Hannes Alfven's realization that the techniques that he devised to model plasma in magnetohydrodynamics were in fact "pseudo-pedagogical" -- an idea that appears to help, but in fact causes great harm to our understanding of the universe. To blame people for pointing these things out is unfair.
From what I can gather, the people who are proposing the Electric Universe concept receive no government funding for any of the work they do. They survive by sales of their publications. In order to understand what they are arguing, you must purchase their books. Don Scott has published a very good book called "The Electric Sky" and Wallace Thornhill is about to publish his book, "The Electric Universe", which I've read and personally find to be very compelling. Reading "The Electric Universe" is an interesting experience because the sheer weight of the evidence can become overwhelming. The www.thunderbolts.info site and the www.holoscience.com site (I particularly enjoy that latter site) are provided free of charge, but they lack the comprehensive big picture analysis provided by the books.
The Electric Universe Theory is not a tenuous theory. It is against-the-mainstream, but the primary premise is a simple one: that plasma in space perfectly reflects the activity of plasma within the laboratory. In other words, it has resistance and charge density. Mainstream astrophysicists assert that plasma in space instantaneously neutralizes any charge imbalances, that plasma has frozen-in-place magnetic fields and that magnetic fields can exist in the absence of a current flow. None of these assertions are supported by laboratory plasma physics. They are mathematical tricks that astrophysicists have decided are fair game. We know for a fact that plasma pervades nearly all of space. We better be damn sure that it's being modeled properly. Any allegation that plasma is being incorrectly modeled in space should be seriously investigated due to the sheer magnitude of the discrepencies that would result.
How you're able to determine charge density on the basis of temperature is somewhat of a mystery. We can't even do that for our own Sun. We know from the laboratory that plasma has three distinct modes of operation -- the dark mode, the normal glow mode and the arc mode -- and that it continues to conduct electricity within its dark mode even though plasma in this mode would emit neither photons nor infrared light/heat whatsoever. So, even if the process that creates the charged particles would emit infrared, the allegation is not that this process is occuring within this image. If it helps, you might consider that when you pass electricity through copper wires (which is also a form of plasma), your wires conduct quite well without glowing. Gaseous plasmas in fact conduct better than copper wires.
The fact that you are not objectively considering the subject matter is evident in your decision to take a condescending tone. If you ever do decide to investigate the matter objectively, I think you will be surprised to find that there is indeed a serious debate here.
Observant space enthusiasts will notice the excessively large number of hourglass morphologies that continue to appear in NASA's press releases. These hourglass morphologies can only be awkwardly called the result of gravitation. A cursory familiarity with laboratory plasma physics will help people to recognize that the most likely explanation is that these are in fact z-pinches wich result from Birkeland Currents. In a zoomed image, you can see the filamentary Birkeland Currents on two opposing sides of the red "square" being pinched down to a central point. These same filaments are also observable, but in cross-section, in the 1987A supernova remnant. Which components are visible varies from image to image, but the general morphology of the hourglass remains discernible.
.jpg
Here are some additional hourglass morphologies with pictures that have been observed:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4953165/
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0510 05eta-carinae.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0504 26bug-nebula.htm
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/0504 15milkyway.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Supernova-1987a
Since hourglass morphologies are somewhat disconfirming to traditional mainstream cosmologies (ie, the Big Bang), the fact that they continue to be observed all over the universe escapes the notice of professional astrophysicists, whose primary concern is to prove the Big Bang Theory and Stellar Evolution Theories. Objectively interpreting these shapes for what they most likely represent means dropping complicated, mainstream astrophysical explanations, and accepting the notion that electricity flows through space over plasma as we know it does within the laboratory. In these particular instances, at least, it is clear that the electrical force is dominant to gravity. We can opt to devise all sorts of gravitation-centric explanations for hourglass morphologies, but in doing so, we consciously opt to violate Occam's Razor.
The implications of such strong evidence of electricity in space are overwhelming -- which provides all of the explanation necessary for avoiding abandonment of the traditional, more popular gravity-centric theories. When astrophysicists eventually accept that plasma in space has electrical resistance just like the plasma we observe in the laboratory, then they will begin to re-interpret all of our observations in terms of Maxwell's Equations rather than fluid and gas laws. And the enigmas of dark matter and dark energy will forever disappear, as this substitution can provide the exact forces necessary to explain things like how spiral galaxies can spin as if they are solid plates and how matter might repel other matter. The fact that we as a culture currently prefer to consider imaginary forces and particles to explain these "anomalies" rather than forces that we already understand will forever paint us to future generations as people who decided to favor the mathematicians and theories over our observational data and decades of experimental laboratory physics work.
The evidence for electricity in space is not a sparse patchwork here and there. It is a flood of data that is only allowed to escape the notice of the public with the help of overconfident astrophysicists and a mob mentality within the space enthusiast community. Anybody who is intellectually curious about the universe and less concerned with what the people around them believe than what in fact appears to be true should consider learning more about plasma physics and the electric universe we live in. Don Scott
Like many others, you are likely unaware that mainstream astrophysicists are the ones that have taken the unfortunate position that laboratory plasma physics do not apply to our observations of space. In the laboratory, plasma is an electrical phenomenon. Electric Universe Theorists allege nothing more than that plasma in space has electrical resistance like plasma on Earth in our laboratory experiments.
This lack of awareness allows you to sustain faith in traditional cosmological concepts and to categorize Electric Universe Theory with absurd concepts like Intelligent Design. If you had an even superficial understanding of laboratory plasma concepts like Birkeland Currents and Z-pinches, then you would without a doubt recognize the familiar hourglass morphology that appears in an absolutely astounding number of NASA press releases every week that passes.
I recommend that you investigate the issue before commenting on it any further so as to avoid the possibility of later realizing that you might have played a role in directing other objective minded people away from considering the fact that plasma in space is electrical. When this fact eventually becomes accepted -- and it will -- people will wonder what went wrong. If plasma in space is in fact electrical, then that can have very significant ramifications for global warming. I can't imagine how horrible I'd personally feel if I one day found out that the comments I had once posted on Slashdot had in some way contributed to a mob mentality that could have negative consequences for the lives of future people. These are in fact very serious issues that require foresight and objectivity. You'd be wise to treat the EU concept with as much sensitivity as is common for environmental issues today because it will eventually be revealed that they are inextricably linked. It's an unfortunate fact that people with good intentions can in fact cause great harm.
Very few people are following it. This is a big problem because as time moves forward, evidence continues to mount in favor of the EU Theories. People on these boards are especially hostile and condescending towards the theory, but you shouldn't think much of it because very few of those people have actually read the materials. I've read a fair amount of it all and it's become clear to me that these people are not receiving a fair hearing. I have an electrical engineering background, which helps a little bit in understanding their theory. But the EU Theorists intentionally write for a semi-technical audience. Even if you are only partially familiar with the mainstream theories, they typically provide you with a larger historical context about how the theories have evolved than any of the traditional cosmology materials.
It's always nice to see that there are still some people out there that are willing to evaluate the data on their own. The underlying lesson people get from the current mainstream cosmologies is that cosmology is too complicated for everyday people to understand. This causes people to defer to authority and to disrespect the views of anybody who is not eminently qualified. The problem with this is that it does not take into account the possibility that the mysteries of dark matter and dark energy may have more to do with how we have educated our astrophysicists than being some legitimate physical enigma. Astrophysicists are all taught to model plasma in space with fluid-gas type equations in their magnetohydrodynamics courses. Although this makes modeling plasma far easier, it completely ignores the fact that plasma in the laboratory has electrical resistance and conducts electricity. This is a very big deal because electrical plasma acts *nothing* like a fluid. It naturally forms electrical transmission lines that are called Birkeland Currents, and these Birkeland Currents will twist tightly around one another without combining. With enough electrical energy, this twisting can pinch matter into spheres. And with enough electrical energy, these spheres can then be forced to split into two smaller spheres in spectacular explosions. We know all of this for a fact from laboratory plasma physics experiments, and yet, even though we see a never-ending stream of direct evidence that this is happening within our space observations, the astrophysicists feel no obligation to consider any cosmological theory that might threaten the ones they developed a hundred years ago. As if they have the right to cherry-pick their science, the mainstream astrophysicists opt to ignore all of this.
Hannes Alfven, who received a Nobel Physics Prize for creating the magnetohydrodynamics field, during his acceptance speech warned the astrophysics community that in light of his findings over the course of his career, he came to the realization that much of his earlier work that treated plasmas as fluids was a "pseudo-pedagogical" concept: an idea that superficially appears to be helpful, but which in fact causes great harm to our ability to understand the universe. Ironically, the man who proposed the specific mechanisms for modeling non-electrical plasmas in space ended up being the world's premier advocate for electricity in space. This was about four decades ago. He was roundly ignored. Few professionally trained astrophysicists are even aware today of the warning he made to the physics community. But the importance of his statements has only increased over time as it has become apparent that plasma permeates nearly all of space. His warning that the mainstream astrophysics community was heading towards a dead end remains prophetic to this day.
If you are interested in learning more, you can get a comprehensive treatment of the EU materials in Don Scott's "The Electric Sky". The Thunderbolts crew is about to post up a public forum to discuss the materials within the next couple of weeks. You can also download some video torrents titled "Universe -- The Cosmology Quest" (parts 1 and 2) and "Thunderbolts of the Gods" that provide a more gentle introduction to the material.
Despite numerous observations of comets that are anomalous to the mainstream traditional theory that comets have something to do with the early formation of the planets, NASA continues to prioritize the theory over the data. We already possess all of the data we need to understand what it is that makes comets tick. The real problem is that neither NASA nor the space enthusiasts (on this forum at least) like the answer because it is a square peg in a round theory of the universe:
f
C omets
http://www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pd
Comets are covered in great depth in Don Scott's "The Electric Sky" and Wallace Thornhill's upcoming book "The Electric Universe", as well as on their thunderbolts site at:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/00subjectx.htm#
Some people will be surprised to learn that Wallace Thornhill accurately predicted the results of the Deep Impact Mission -- results which continue to confound NASA and the astrophysical community to this day. But predictions mean little these days so long as they are disconfirming to the theories we developed decades ago. And NASA continues to treat the anomalous data regarding comets as an issue that has no significant bearing upon the bigger cosmological picture.
It's clear by now that NASA's purpose is not to objectively interpret our observations of the universe, but rather to specifically find data that confirms the Big Bang and stellar evolution. They've stated as much. One thing is clear: comets will keep them very busy in this regard.
With regards to comets, the burden is no longer on the EU Theorists. They've made a prediction that came to pass. The burden is now upon the astrophysical community to read their theory of how comets work and to consider the details of the prediction and outcome of that prior mission. How is it that Thornhill could have known what would happen with Deep Impact? How could he have known about the pre-impact flash? Nobody was predicting anything like that. Can anybody really argue that this was by pure chance? Or is it possible that he's right?
Wallace Thornhill accurately predicted *all* of the anomalous results from the Deep Impact Mission to Comet Tempel 1. Results that remain anomalous to NASA to this day were all natural byproducts of EU Theory. Did it make him famous? No, not really. People still blew him off. It is a fact, actually, that pretty much all of the anomalies in the space sciences today have an electrical explanation. Nobody really cares, to tell you the truth. We live in "interesting" times, I suppose.
...). These simplifications are useful for doing math because it allows them to avoid using Maxwell's Equations and model plasma as a superconductor -- even when the plasma stretches light years in distance. Contemplate the concept of a plasma that's light years across instantly neutralizing. It's silly. Now, if you remove that assumption and permit the plasma in space to act as plasma in the laboratory does, then you are effectively giving resistance to the plasma. With resistance, plasma conducts electricity. It's not space that deprives plasma of its conductivity. It's the astrophysicists.
It may seem to people who have not read the Electric Universe materials that Tim Thompson puts the issue to rest. This is far from the case.
Although I can certainly see major problems with some of his analysis (like the notion that neutrino flavors change in only one direction), I do not personally have the capability to evaluate all of Tim Thompson's arguments. Few people do. Does that mean that he is the only person capable of formulating an opinion on the universe? No, it does not. Does it mean that he is more qualified to evaluate the situation? No, not even. It is oftentimes worse to know something wrong than to not know anything at all. It is a fact that astrophysicists are unanimously taught in school that electricity plays no important role in space. Those people were educated before it became apparent that space is filled with plasma, and these educational programs persist in spite of the fact that Hannes Alfven, the father of plasma physics, tried in vain to convince the astrophysicists that electricity does flow through space. We know from the laboratory that plasma is electrical in nature. It is a gas that consists of a certain percentage of charged particles. Plasma is in fact *highly* conductive in our laboratory experiments. Astrophysicists are taught that they can ignore this fact in school in a class called magnetohydrodynamics. In that class, they are taught that plasmas can "instantly neutralize" and that plasmas have frozen-in-place magnetic fields (look it up on wiki "if you care"
Plasma is unique in that we know from the lab that its physical interactions induce electric current, and vice-versa. If you accept, as astrophysicists do, that plasma pervades 99.999% of all space, then out of necessity, it's inevitable that electrical currents will result from violent physical interactions in space.
Astrophysicists are oftentimes taught in class that it would require more energy than exists within the universe to completely strip the electrons from all of the atoms in a teaspoon of salt. Some education there! That assumes that the plasma universe started in a neutral state. We know no such thing.
One could then argue, well, if plasma in space was electrical like the stuff in the lab, then we'd see evidence of this in our observations. And in fact, we do. Every single week that goes by, in fact, there are images of z-pinches that we observe within the laboratory in NASA press releases. This week, in fact, we saw two such images:
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070406_red_r ectangle.html
http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/~
Thanks for the clarification, and for not shooting off a hostile or demeaning response.
I'm perhaps offtopic and misguided on this posting, but that by no means makes me a crackpot. There is nothing about the Sun that was predicted by the fusion-only concept. You give mainstream theories far too much credit. Every week that passes sees additional anomalies with stellar evolution and the Big Bang Theory. To you, they are merely small problems that will eventually be figured out and assimilated into the bigger picture. Unbeknownst to you, when those anomalies are rearranged and presented within the context of laboratory plasma physics, all of those anomalies suddenly make sense.
Chances are that you have read none of the EU publications. You are not even aware of the arguments being made or the fact that the numerous independent pieces of anomalous space data all unanimously point to electrical plasmas in space. It's not a sparse patchwork of ideas. It is an overwhelming flood of data from all points of observation that simultaneously point to one single conclusion. And yet you offer the opinion that you are fluent enough that you *know* that the EU Theorists must not be correct. You offer people no actual reasons to believe that I'm a crackpot other than the fact that I believe in an against-the-mainstream theory. And yet the mainstream gravity-driven theories cannot account for 95% of all matter in the universe -- much of which appears, as only electricity can do, to *repel* other matter by your own theories' admission. Your favored mainstream theories are based upon ideas about plasma that we know to not be true from laboratory plasma physics, and yet you cling to them because the people around you do. You confuse the comfort of consensus for the notion of being objective, or for that matter even supported by data. You relish the feeling of being part of a team or club where everybody thinks the same, and where everybody is working towards a singular goal in harmony, already knowing what you'll find before you even look. You ignore the fact that this is not how science works. In a worst-case scenario, you will not realize that this is a mistake until perhaps you are far too old too do anything about it. If you feel a deep urge to understand your surroundings, you will eventually regret the fact that you commented on a subject that you know little about. The thought that you could have possibly dissuaded objective people from investigating a subject matter that you had lost your objectivity on (and which you will eventually turn out to be wrong on), will eat at you. But, like others, you'll convince yourself that you did no harm. It is all a part of human nature.
Neutrinos are the required result of nuclear fusion within the Sun. They are not charged particles and they will travel through a light-year of lead. Now that Sudbury has been scrapped, there remains a severe deficit of neutrinos coming from the Sun for the nuclear fusion model. We're only seeing about one-third of what should be there for that model. But what else do we know? To quote Wallace Thornhill in his upcoming book, "The Electric Universe":
And ...
The issue remains: if neutrinos are being generated on the Sun's surface and if sunspots appear to us as dark, cool spots relative to the rest of the Sun, then what, if anything of any relevance, is happening within the Sun's core?
And why does the solar wind continue to accelerate as it passes all of the planets? Why should we suppose any mechanism for accelerating charged particles *other* than an electric field centered at the Sun?
And how is it that the Sun's corona is 100x hotter than its surface if the core is supposedly the source of the energy?
Why did the Ulysses probe observe a million mph flow of electricity into the Sun at its south pole? We're told that it's just not important to the bigger picture, but why is it there in the first place?
Why has man had such trouble generating a controlled nuclear fusion reaction here on Earth? Is it possible that our incorrect assumptions about the Sun are affecting our ability to objectively evaluate methods for nuclear fusion?
To mainstream astrophysicists, these are *individual* problems that will eventually be worked out so that we can continue to believe what they want -- that the Sun is nothing more than a thermonuclear reactor at the core. But, when you look at the whole picture, and when you understand the role that plasma plays within the universe and how plasma operates within the laboratory, the evidence is overwhelming that the Sun is being powered externally and electrically. The fact is that there remains no stellar evolution theory that has not been directly observed to be violated. We willfully and perhaps ignorantly choose to believe that stars "evolve" over time from one place on the HR diagram to another even though we've seen stars jump all over it over short periods of time.
It's testament to the fact that nobody is listening to the EU Theorists that nobody here is apparently aware that Don Scott delivered a scathing review of the Sudbury Experiment in his recent book, "The Electric Sky". The problem with that experiment was that it was not an experiment. It drew conclusions based upon assumptions about how many neutrinos were leaving the Sun because it assumed that the Sun must be generating so many neutrinos within its core. It wasn't until a later experiment that it was determined that these oscillations could not be used to explain the neutrino deficit because the oscillations were not happening in just one direction. I presume that this announcement is a confirmation of those results.
If we are to learn from our mistakes, this should be a lesson to laboratory scientists around the world that astrophysics, curr
You can reach me directly at pln2bz@vireo.net. I don't mind posting my email address. To be honest, nobody on this forum really cares what I think. And I don't care that they know what I'm doing.
There is nobody currently focusing on the educational system, believe it or not -- not since Hannes Alfven at least, who died more than a decade ago. Hannes Alfven was smart in that he left many descendants of his inquisitive philosophy. You can run into these guys all over the place on the web. The best thing, believe it or not, is that they don't all agree with one another like the mainstream astrophysicists do these days.
The main issue with your idea is that you're underestimating the reaction that you would receive from the astrophysics staff at any university you attended with an astrophysics department. They all unanimously consider EU Theory to be pseudo-scientific because they have all been taught, ironically enough, Alfven's *early* works on frozen-in-place magnetic fields. Few of them are aware that Alfven actually tried to convince everybody during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech for magnetohydrodynamics that currents must be causing the magnetic fields. I've noticed this once firsthand here on these forums. One of the few astrophysicists I've actually run into on these forums tried to correct me on this point and I had to go back and find the specific quotes. All of this doesn't really mean that your idea is bad. It just means that you need to be prepared for resistance, and when it happens, you should thrive off of it. You need to have some plan for taking advantage of the resistance within the media. Use the "bad" publicity that you will inevitably get and somehow turn it into a good thing that gets EU theories and proponents more exposure. This can be tricky because the 30-second sound byte works against you: it's currently far more believable to an uninformed audience to claim that electricity does not flow through space than it is to assert that dark matter doesn't exist. So long as dark matter is not really specified in any detail, it retains an element of possibility. The second you start getting into specifics about electricity flowing over diffuse interstellar clouds of matter and into the Sun, it's easy for people to knock you down as being absurd even though you may know much more about the issue than others.
For these reasons, I suspect that at least initially, targeted anonymously posted materials would be more effective than live talks at universities. I've spent a lot of time contemplating this and I even got to a point where I was planning out fliers for creation and distribution. The Thunderbolts crew, I'm sure, would enjoy being a part of this. If you decided to travel around the country, for instance, visiting the premier astrophysical institutions and posting bills or leaving copies of some type of EU materials so that they could be found by astrophysics students, this would certainly have a long-term impact and the EU people would probably offer their help. Wallace Thornhill, the guy who kind of took over where Alfven left off, says in his bio that he had to leave the educational system because he became so discouraged by the atmosphere. As a side note, you should be aware that the EU guys are on the verge of creating a public user forum, where enthusiasts can talk to one another about such things.
The problem is that, although this would be *very* fun, there is no money in this. You would have to somehow have a reserve to draw upon and a never-ending will to just do good in the absence of profit.
My idea of the traveling road show isn't actually as risky as it sounds when you consider that I'm starting out at Burning Man, a non-commercial venue that has a high percentage of my real target audience. That event is attended by huge numbers of tech-savvy silicon valley entrepreneurs and CEO's, believe it or not. There is an element of certainty that something positive (in terms of connections) would develop from that experience. Over th
I wanted to add one more thing to my previous response.
What's happening right now with astrophysics is extraordinary. It's never been the case to my knowledge that modern man has been so wrong about something and simultaneously so confident in his wrong beliefs. The implications can potentially be catastrophic in the long-term. But there is a little-mentioned business side to this story. The EU Theorists have done a great job of laying down the groundwork for some possibly lucrative financial ventures. I mention this because if this is something that you have an interest in, it might pain you ten years from now to see others making a bunch of money off of it when in fact you had a head start on those people who will be doing so.
The theory could act as an excellent foundation or starting point for a movie script or book. My personal goal is somewhat different though: I want to create a small crew, a traveling road show, based upon a Burning Man style geodesic dome camp that can be disassembled and packed into a freight truck. The goal is to make the science entertaining. This is where electricity comes in. Electricity by itself has lots of excitement potential. The show I want to put on will be part demonstration, part live performance (perhaps with ambient DJ's, drummers and fire dancers) and a big part educational. I want to convert all of the concepts of EU Theory into CGI graphics. I want people with no math skills to be able to compare the two sets of simulations (mainstream vs EU) so that they can formulate an opinion on their own. My dome will have numerous projectors, plasma globes, jacob's ladders, tesla coils, perhaps a terrella and exhibitions involving plasma phenomenon. There will be simulated lightning strikes in audio and with special effects, and fire art worked into the show. But the main purpose will be to present the evidence for EU Theory in the form of CGI graphics that can be selected in real-time. I want to be able to move through the graphics at my own pace as I explain the concepts. This will be a place where EU concepts can be heard by the public in the absence of dissenting mainstream astrophysicists (as happens on this forum). The crew for this show would probably have to live on a bus and would travel around the world, delivering the EU message throughout primarily North America and Europe. It's an unusual concept that I'm only on the early stages of planning for. But if that sort of thing interests you, or if you know anybody with CGI experience, let me know. I'll probably start building the dome within another two years for Burning Man. It will start as a Burning Man camp for 2-3 years, and then once I get enough equipment going, I will transition it to a road show and start making money off of it. I hope to build my own CGI cluster within 1-2 years. If I have to learn CGI myself, I'll do it. But I'm always searching out for people to join me. I already have a close friend who knows how to handle professional audio and video equipment. Just thought I'd mention it. It's obviously a long-term goal, but it's something that I am committed to seeing through. That's how I will fit into this whole picture. I'm not a theorist. I'm just the middle man for the conveyance of information to the public.
It's a constant process of doubting your own arguments though. In this particular case, I screwed up a little bit because 1987A is categorized as a Type II supernova, which is not used as a standard candle. Type 1a supernovae are used for standard candles.
One of the difficult things in thinking about the arguments on both sides is merely keeping track of all of the categorization that has been created to accomodate the observations to the Big Bang and stellar evolution theories. Traditional theories tend to break the universe into parts and conquer them one at a time because a gravity-centric universe would lead to a bunch of disconnected processes. EU Theory, on the other hand, attempts to understand unifying principles within the universe because it proposes that the system is for the most part interconnected by filamentary plasma. I try very hard to get everything right by fact-checking, but sometimes things slip through. Better here, though, than on a stage in front of a thousand people (which is where I hope to one day end up).
In the end, you have to spend just as much time learning about the traditional theories as you do EU Theory. But the more you do that, the more it pays off. It's easy to argue *for* EU Theory. But it's much harder to argue *against* BB Theory and stellar evolution with people who are familiar with the latest research.
It's educational to at least take a quick peek at the Bad Astronomy Forums (although I'm with you in that I can't take too much of it). It raises your awareness that there are very complicated debates happening on the subject. Most importantly, it also demonstrates the attitude amongst the mainstream astrophysicists that they do not believe it is their burden to investigate all cosmologies. The public is not really aware that this is happening. Many people consider BB Theory to be too theological for them. But they accept that since it's discussed the most, then it must have the most evidence. But it's the choice of the mainstream astrophysicists to generate that evidence. They can also generate confirmatory evidence for plasma-based cosmologies too. They just don't want to. This is one of the things that the public needs to learn. It could have a dramatic impact upon the global warming debate. When the solar system appears to be inexplicably warming, there is a burden to investigate all possible explanations. For the astrophysicists to allow their preferences and prejudices to get into the way of solving a problem that threatens the existence of all people is on some level both selfish and irrational.
By the way, although people still like to point to the cosmic microwave background data every chance they get, astrophysicists are still having difficulty proving that the light originates from the edges of the universe. If objects between us and the light do not cast shadows, then the light would have a local origin. I've seen it speculated that the microwave radiation could in fact be the result of filamentary plasma moving currents through space. It would be somewhat ironic if the astrophysicists have accidentally stumbled upon a mechanism for proving the pervasiveness of electrical plasma in space when in fact they were trying to prove an afterglow from an explosion.
I accept your logic. But you fall short of describing the complete scientific method. If you make assumptions, and then make additional observations that tend to disconfirm your assumptions, then there are times when your discoveries should cause you to re-examine your initial assumptions. We've launched all sorts of probes and telescopes since we came up with our astronomical theories, and although you can make a case that the data does match the theory, attempts to prove otherwise have fallen out of favor. So, by adopting the assumptions as "mainstream" and then moving on as business-as-usual, we've damaged the objectivity of science. People are more inclined to believe the assumptions than the disconfirmatory data returned from the probes and telescopes. That is an important part of the story of astronomy today.
... coming to the awareness that, wait a minute, should I be believing what these people are telling me? ...
One of the most curious things that nobody seems to be talking about is how astrophysicists appear to have garnered for themselves the right within the scientific community to dictate science back to the domains from which astrophysics is based upon. Not only is astrophysics a meta-science, but if you judge astrophysicists on how confident they are in their *interpretations* of their observations, they appear to believe that it is the *foundation* of science. This is problematic because it frequently causes us to favor their interpretation over other peoples' laboratory work and even mankind's common sense (dark matter and dark energy, for instance). This failure of context has the potential to bleed into all of our textbooks like a virus. Many people, like myself, believe that it has already happened. Even if you don't, no rational scientist can hold up this system and declare that it is impervious to major potential problems.
This thread's originator is an example of somebody awakening from a sleep
If this person digs a little bit further into the issues, he may also discover that we've discovered many very unusual morphologies for supernova remnants (the classic being 1987A) that appear to violate our early assumptions regarding stellar evolution. So, how can you possibly consider a supernova to be a "standard candle" if all we have to show for our understanding of them is retroactive simulations and a theory that has underperformed in its predictive capabilities? Many of the supernova remnants are hourglass morphologies. One wonders exactly what perspective the observer must be in in order for the "standard candle" luminosity during the explosion to apply?!%$ It's patently absurd, if you ask me.
For the mainstreamers out there, this is how interest within against-the-mainstream ideas begin. People stop *listening* and start *thinking* about what they're being told. They remember that they have a brain that can perform simple logic, even when complicated issues are involved. Oftentimes, an expert or enthusiast will then chime in with some complex evidence regarding the CMB or some textbook astronomy facts regarding the mainstream opinion. But their words are fashioned solely to cause the person asking the questions to stop *thinking* and conform back to the mainstream. They rarely stop and wonder, "Wait, maybe I swallowed bullshit too!"
It's all quite a spectacle, if you ask me. It's very possible that either (a) our children will laugh at us (best cas
One very detailed explanation has indeed been suggested. The problem is that, despite being well thought out, few people are interested in hearing about solutions that are out-of-the-mainstream:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=8gfbe
Before ridiculing this article for being against the mainstream, be aware that Wallace Thornhill is not chopped liver. And traditional astrophysics has no real good answer right now for why the Sun (and the whole solar system in fact) has been on a warming trend. The simultaneous warming of the planets is typically suggested to be pure coincidence, and Earth's global warming is typically suggested to be coincidental to the Sun's warming.
Even if you disagree with Thornhill's analysis, it's extremely important to treat him and others commenting on the problem with respect. Although it is currently not in vogue in these parts to be respectful to people like Thornhill, the importance of getting the analysis right eventually in the end overrides all self-serving playground desires to publicly condemn somebody for being different. As rational people, the last thing we need to be doing is discouraging physicists from speaking on the subject just because they don't say what other people already believe. You can choose to believe him or not, but it makes sense to listen, and anybody who decides to convince others that he is a fool will not be able to take that back if he's one day shown to be right.
Oh please.
Are you aware that there are stars whose surface temperatures are too low to have fusion within their cores?
Are you aware that traditional cometary theory has basically been disconfirmed by the Stardust and Deep Impact missions?
Are you aware of the insane number of anomalies represented by rilles on the rocky planets within our own solar system? Many of these rilles actually travel both up and down with the topography of the land.
Have you reviewed the evidence by Halton Arp of high redshift quasars in front of or connected to low-redshift spiral galaxies?
Have you seen the supernova remnant of 1987A? Does that look to you like the remnants of an explosion?
Why do so many nebulae have hourglass morphologies?
Are you aware of the extent to which we have observed synchrotron radiation within the universe? Do you know what this means?
Are you aware that solar neutrinos will decrease when sunspots increase? Are you aware that this is impossible according to the current thermonuclear reaction models of the Sun with neutrinos being generated at the core?
Why does the solar wind continue to accelerate as it passes the planets? What mechanical Newtonian process could possibly be accelerating them?
Why does electricity flow into the Sun's poles? The Ulysses probe sees a million mph flow of electrons and protons at the poles of the Sun. Why is it there?
In fact, why do planets like Venus and Saturn have "eyes" at their poles?
Are you aware that many of the nebulae we expected were stellar nurseries (like R Corona Australis) in fact exhibit intense synchrotron x-ray radiation and 100 million degree temperatures (even though they were predicted to be around 400 degrees below zero)? If stars are in fact coming to existence there, this would be completely inconsistent with gravitational collapse.
I can go on like this for hours. It seems to me like mainstream astrophysicists should be spending a lot less time on confirming evidence and perhaps start trying to resolve all of this *disconfirming* anomalous evidence. But maybe the reason that many of these things have not been resolved is because they just don't make sense in terms of mainstream theories. Either way, surely you are aware that we can offer up additional proofs for the cosmic microwave background. Just because it's not popular to do so doesn't mean that it cannot be done.
Not quite sure if you're talking to me or the other guy that I was talking with who agreed with me (I suppose both and all of the rest of us who are growing in numbers
I love the surreal nature of being called a quack by people who believe that dark matter is many times more plentiful than baryonic matter and yet cannot be seen; and by people who believe that matter can act to gravitationally repel other matter as dark energy must. The irony is beautiful. I'm glad to be a quack for believing that astrophysics should not violate the laws of physics that we've identified within the laboratory. If your confidence was not so unintentionally destructive, I might laugh. The unfortunate fact is that you won't realize that dark matter and dark energy don't exist for many more decades. At that time, all of the people you've convinced to not read about the theory that you refused to learn about yourself will have already long forgotten about your bad tip.
It's really unhealthy to care so much about what other people care about. If two people somewhere in some room or in some forum are talking about EU Theory, there's really no reason why you should get upset about that because we're not telling you what to believe. End of story.
When science is in a crisis, scientists have an obligation to re-examine all theories on the table. So, mainstream astrophysicists don't believe that it's possible that the Sun can have an electric source
Why do you believe that the EU Theorists are "disreputable"? Because some astrophysicists on Bad Astronomy did some calculations and figured that it shouldn't be possible? Every single astrophysics school teaches their students that plasma in space instantly neutralizes in charge. It is the contention of the EU Theorists that this principle is mathematical rather than physical -- and wrong. It should be no surprise then that EU Theory is against the mainstream. But being against the mainstream does not by default mean that they are disreputable. And if we ever treated science in that way, our knowledge base would stop increasing forever. Moving against-the-mainstream concepts into the mainstream is a normal process of the advancement of science.
What you appear to not understand is that the EU Theorists are using observational data (interpreted through laboratory plasma physics) to discredit mainstream astrophysical theories. There was, believe it or not, a time when observations meant more than calculations.
You are free to your own beliefs. That's how things work in these parts. However, I'm worried how you may react one day when you find that your beliefs are wrong. Will you still be mad at the people who held them? Or will you then divert your uncontrolled anger to yourself?
Merely pointing this fact out as it occurs every time it occurs can have an impact in itself. Many people will wait until they see numerous others bringing this up to actually consider the concept. The great communicators today in astrophysics will typically introduce the current theory within the context of the theory's history, and this added information (which you very rarely get with NASA press releases) can affect peoples' beliefs about the current theories' believability.
I actually attempted to get Slashdot to post the disconfirming Stardust results to their homepage as a story without inserting any comments advocating any specific cosmology, and they refused my request (I suppose on the idea that disconfirming evidence is not "news"?). If true, I find this to be very problematic. It used to be that anomalous data points directed future research and affected our beliefs. This was an important part of the scientific method, and its recent absence appears to have been completely ignored by the public.
A big part of the problem is that although the people who run Slashdot can be credited with having an interest in astronomy, these same people have not involved themselves in the technical details of the arguments and would prefer to defer to "experts" rather than evaluate the arguments on their own. They are just as much behind the curve as the rest, and many good ideas go unnoticed by this website's management due to a pseudoscience labeling.
Another big problem that I have a lot of personal experience dealing with specifically on this forum are the avid astrophysical enthusiasts. They feel no responsibility for discouraging other people away from against-the-mainstream theories, oftentimes completely unaware of the overwhelming nature of the disconfirming evidence for the Big Bang and stellar evolution. They oftentimes consider advocates of against-the-mainstream (ATM) as being "misleading"; anything that is not mainstream is somebody's "pet theory"; and they try to make the case that ATM advocates want to *convert* the entire world to their own pet theories (as opposed to merely just creating a debate). Slashdot is heavily steeped in these types. They are condescending. They may be fairly intelligent. But their confidence and hubris can negate their intelligence. When you refuse to assimilate to their way of thought, they will give up on you. But they will rarely consider reading any books that you suggest for them. They don't understand that there is more value to multiple mainstream cosmologies. With one cosmology, you *listen*. With two or even three reasonable options, you *analyze* and *compare*.
The real problem is that the avid astrophysicist enthusiasts right now don't realize that there will never be a solution to this dark matter, dark energy problem within the mainstream models. It's clear that these concepts have become so unphysical that they are basically non-sequiters (anti-gravitational matter, for instance). It's especially ironic that a kid can read through all of Douglas Adams' books and not realize that he was ridiculing mainstream astrophysics! And if you don't recognize the previous non-sequiter, then you at least must recognize that it doesn't make sense that such a plentiful particle like dark matter can emit no electromagnetic radiation and not ever be detected here on Earth despite 20 years of trying. That's another non-sequiter.
My advice to you is that you not give up. Experiment with various techniques for getting your message across (you'll find that some definitely work better than others and your writing will improve over time as a result). If you have the time, become an expert in the evidence and try to understand all the
It shouldn't surprise us that GRB's don't behave as we thought. Nearly everything we think we know about them is based upon assumptions and speculation that are only minimally supported by evidence. There is potential for error at every single step of this process. To continue to be surprised that our telescopes are returning anomalous data when that's what's been happening nearly every single day for years and years and years is silly. At some point, you have to go back to your assumptions and figure out where you went wrong.
There are major differences between mainstream atrophysicists and the EU Theorists. If you are curious, go to http://www.bautforum.com/ and search on "electric universe" or "electric sun". The mainstream astrophysicists have a tendency to become condescending with regards to EU Theory. It's much the same on these forums. The thing is, few of them have actually read Don Scott's new book.
You can tell that the entire field has become quite used to a lack of skepticism within the public responses to NASA press releases. It appears that they are unaware that this goodwill is all based upon an audience that remains uninformed about plasma. The EU interpretation of NASA's observations consistently resolves anomalous data that NASA is frequently surprised with these days. They manage to explain much of the mechanics of the universe using forces that we can fully characterize within the lab. And they present a good number of predictions that can be tested. It's just a matter of time before these theories make it into the mainstream, but it will be a very painful process.
The real truth is that there are only good things that can result from people comparing two different cosmologies. It's no different than business: if Microsoft was the only company creating operating systems, there would be little impetus to improve their product. The new arrival of Apple and Google indirectly increases the quality of Microsoft's products. Without skepticism within their public audience, modern-day astrophysics has become an inferior product.
All that aside, it's very important to listen carefully to both sides of the debate. There's a lot to be learned by talking to people with mainstream astrophysical views. Unfortunately for them though, all of those Bad Astronomy debates come off as extremely demeaning. In the event that those people turn out to be wrong, which I believe to be the case, a lot of people are going to wish they had not gone on the record like that. People will be taking a closer look ten or twenty years from now at the things that are being said on this issue right now so that we can understand exactly what went wrong. There will inevitably be an investigation into how the peer review system broke down and why people didn't listen to the EU Theorists earlier. There's a chance that what we're seeing with global warming is just the beginning of a serious event for the human species. Or, it could turn out to be nothing. EU Theory clearly allows for a larger spectrum of possibilities than the mainstream theories.
It is possible that their sensors are receiving data that indicate something along the lines of water. If I understand things right -- and I'm slightly more fuzzy on this than many other items -- but I believe the EU Theorists are asserting that intense plasma phenomenon within comets can induce fusion. That could create some challenging data for scientists to resolve.
That's what's so amazing about the book. Once you fully understand the EU message, you can now interpret NASA press releases on your own, and you can decide for yourself what to believe. Clearly, the more people that read the book, the more people who will critically think about NASA press releases and astrophysical theories in general. When you have only one choice for what to believe,
This is untrue. I'm very interested in a summary of the evidence. Please share.
Let's quickly review the indicators that suggest that you are wrong: Neutron stars typically belong to binary star pairs, which would explain why electrical charge transfer is occurring. Pulsar emissions tend to have a duty cycle of 5% and graphs of their luminosity correspond to bursts of electricity. Neutronium has never been demonstrated to exist and violates established physical laws. It's proposed through speculation that the overwhelming force of gravity due to the spin overrides our established science. This proposal is solidified with little more than speculative math.
Detailed observations of the Vela Pulsar indicate additional problems. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/arch/040920 pulsar.htm:
This is no slam-dunk case.
From what I can tell, it's pure speculation that we're looking at rotating bodies -- and given that the speed of supposed rotation continues to increase on an almost monthly basis with new observations, one would expect that the belief in a rotating body would diminish with each announcement that the speed of rotation has been observed to increase. But rather than modify our speculative theories regarding neutron stars, astrophysicists would first have the entire scientific community modify its theories based upon laboratory physics to accomodate these increases in spin rate. That's poor methodology. We can perform input-output experiments within the laboratory. In order to justify overriding our lab science, the burden is upon astrophysicists to first exhaust *all* possible cosmological explanations. You cannot claim on one hand that it is not the duty of cosmologists to investigate all cosmologies and then on the other hand that physicists modify textbooks to accommodate an anomalous cosmologically-constrained observation. That's a clear demonstration of what is called hubris -- thinking that everybody else is wrong and you are right.
Well, let's review some interesting things that have happened since I took my leave of absence ...
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Inventing a new particle every time an unexplained observation occurs is hardly thinking out of the box
From http://space.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn1122 1&feedId=astronomy_rss20:
When you see a flashing object and conclude that it *must* be spinning, that's hardly out-of-the-box thinking.
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And when you see a supernova explosion that lasts 125 days long without fading, one might question whether or not this can really be categorized as an explosion in the traditional sense
From http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070308_swift _gammas.html:
It's always interesting to me to see that as evidence mounts in support of EU Theory and Thornhill's Electric Sun Hypothesis, people continue on as if it's business as usual. It's oftentimes stated that the Electric Sun Hypothesis is absurd because we've never seen any flow of electricity into the Sun. It appears that that's not really a valid claim. From http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/070220_sun_s pole.html:
In any other science, a flow of protons and electrons is called "electricity". In astrophysics, that continues to be blasphemy.
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The article continues on
If anybody cares, Wallace Thornhill will tell you what they will find. All of these "surprises" are integral parts of his Electric Sun Hypothesis. But nobody seems to care and the mainstream astrophysicists continue to live in their self-imposed box.
The "box" is The Big Bang Theory and Stellar Evolution. And by interpreting all of our observations through these theories rather than attempting to fit them to other various cosmologies, mainstream astrophysicists and enthusiasts alike have placed themselves inside of it. But, much to the consternation of people who don't like EU Theory, our observations increasingly support the statements being made by the EU Theorists. By not being aware
Those are good points.
The problem is that there is this overwhelming pressure within this forum and other scientific forums to keep people from believing in some out-of-the-mainstream ideas. And if you ask me, it is this pressure that has led to the dead end that astrophysics and cosmology find themselves in today. Rather than encouraging out-of-the-box thinking, many fair, technically-minded people will readily outcast people who think differently than themselves. And they do this while completely ignoring the long-term, large-scale social effects that it can have upon the scientific community as a whole. If people realized that astrophysicists will still be chasing after dark matter and dark energy for the rest of our lifetimes, then with that foresight, they might realize that it's better if lots of people are pursuing lots of possibilities. But people are so confident that we're on the right track as is that they don't find alternative cosmologies to be worth investigating. In fact, their confidence occurs in spite of the existence of numerous serious problems with the Big Bang Theory and modern day astrophysics. It is only by ignoring these anomalies that they are able to maintain their confidence.
And yet, those other theories will make you think just as much, if not more, than the books you've enjoyed so far. If you want to experience what I'm talking about, then buy Don Scott's new book, "The Electric Sky". It's an amazing book that I challenge anybody to read and then forget. You'll never read another NASA press release the same way. The logic is solid. The observations are all modern. The theory is both interesting and believable. And once you are aware of a second possible cosmology, you will find that your mind will switch from just listening to also comparing each new piece of evidence as it comes out.
You just proved my point. You're chastising me for having a different cosmological preference (as if that's a bad thing!) rather than embracing the notion that lots of people can happily coexist with lots of different cosmological beliefs. I've made a specific point of not even mentioning what my preferences are within this thread because I believe that regardless of my own beliefs that it's important that society realize that the Big Bang Theory has not been proven and that the world is big enough for people to have lots of beliefs in this regard.
Although your response is a typical one here on Slashdot, it is simplistic and a false choice. It's an either-you're-with-us or not kind of philosophy. The real problem is that the media and enthusiasts appear to only be able to promote or think in one theory at a time. How you solve a difficult problem when you all so readily chastise anybody who thinks differently than yourself is somewhat confusing to me. This is likely because scientists and humans alike tend to ignore disconfirming evidence, and there is little mention in the press releases about all of the assumptions that these news articles depend upon. The net effect when you only learn one theory is that you spend more time *listening* than *comparing*. I don't see the harm in people critically reading NASA press releases, and deciding for themselves if they believe them or not on an individual basis.
Multiple mainstream cosmologies is a good thing. It is not the bogeyman. It will *increase* interest in astronomy (especially amongst atheists) and attract more out-of-the-box thinkers to the problem. By casting the out-of-the-mainstream thinkers as being some sort of religious zealouts bent on converting the whole world, you ignore the fact that they are some of the few people who are actually *thinking* carefully about our observations. If and when it ever becomes accepted that this Big Bang Theory was a wrong path, the mainstreamers will inevitably turn to those people who have not been interpreting all of the observations through that single cosmology. By outcasting the critics, mainstreamers can perhaps make themselves feel more comfortable -- but at what expense? In the process, they've reduced the number of critical thinkers. If they cared more about finding the truth than their legacy and the perception of being right, then they would welcome *all* interest in cosmology and astrophysics as being a positive phenomenon because the more people working on it, the more likely you are to solve the problem.
My personal observation is that it has somehow eluded the mainstreamers that they might be wrong. This is amazing considering the sheer number of anomalies that have been discovered recently within cosmology and astrophysics. All I can think is that a lot of people are shielding themselves from some of the more recent disconfirming observations because they've developed a love affair of sorts with the old-school theories. When the observations no longer support our older theories, we must retain our ability to reconsider those old assumptions. If we don't hold onto that, then the scientific process has broken down.