There's also the sad fact that there are a number of scientists who have a stroke of what they assume is brilliance and ignore the inadequacies of their theory and any contradictory evidence. The momentum of scientific thought, as much as it hurts revolution, also protects science from a lot of inane BS.
The idea that electricity flows through space is not at this point inane BS. It's already accepted that electrical flows occur from the Sun to the Earth. Clearly, on the Earth, we are protected by the magnetosphere. But, what about bodies that do not have magnetospheres? Is it so insane to include as a *possibility* that they are being etched by plasmas? Not really. In fact, for the very reason that it's not inane BS, it deserves to be a possible explanation for the observation of the tiger stripes and the hot point sources.
That's not to say I think either side is right or wrong. But we shouldn't assume that the underdog is right *just because* he's fighting the establishment.
I don't assume that I'm right either. I'm just trying to have a conversation, really, because I honestly don't trust the establishment to admit that it is wrong on this issue. What they're going to do is work their way to the same conclusions the hard way, by fighting tooth and nail to avoid considering the possibility that electricity does things of importance in space, and people like you and I will probably be dead by the time it happens.
We see plenty of indicators by now that electrical terraforming may be occurring. The plume on Io, for god's sake, looks *exactly* like the output of a plasma gun. Images from Kristian Birkeland's terrella experiments from 100 years go are so identical to eclipsed shots of Io (with its hot point sources) that the two images are literally impossible to distinguish. There are rille structures on several planets that we've observed which move both up and down with the terrain. A person can imagine that the land lifted up in spots *or* that the rille could have been etched by plasma. People who argue that we should not investigate these things are basically assuming their way to their own conclusions. These ideas should not be judged within the assumptions of papers. We should evaluate the concept of electrical terraforming instead within the conclusions.
So tell us, if you'd be so kind pln2bz, how do you suggest anyone - scientist, non-scientist; member of the American public, citizen of Germany; and so on - should judge, evaluate, test, assess and otherwise check up on the dozens, hundreds, thousands,... of other 'viewpoints'?
Are you arguing that people should not try to understand complex subjects because it is difficult?
If you want plasma socmology to be taken seriously, then supporters would do well to cut the crap and bring the substance, because though it's an intriguing theory, I see a lot of kooky stuff going on.
Is dark matter and dark energy not kooky stuff to you? When astrophysicists have difficulty, for instance, identifying enough matter to generate gravitational lensing, and just assume the needed dark matter necessary to make it so, is that not also kooky to you?
When astrophysicists see filaments of plasma in space that are surrounded by helical magnetic fields and that span tens of thousands of light years, is it kooky to you to suppose as a possibility that the helical magnetic field is a result of the flow of charged particles? That actually seems to be somewhat logical to me. I don't think that most people who work with Maxwell's Equations or plasmas in the lab would find that very kooky either. People who work with things that have to work in the real world around us would in fact tend to think it's kooky to *not* suppose that such structures represent large-scale flows of electricity.
The idea that bodies like Io and Enceladus are being electrically etched is not even a dramatic statement at this point really. You're not paying attention to the bigger picture. You should check the Aurora thread from last week where I was ridiculed for pointing out that NASA admits that the Sun and the Earth can become electrically connected. The talking points against electricity in space do not even necessarily exclude electrical etching of Enceladus. It's not what they expect to see, and they won't like it when they probably do eventually see it, but I doubt it will sway any of these people to finally realize that the universe is completely electrically connected.
If you're the expert, shouldn't you do the science then?
Please don't act as if there has never been anything to suggest that bodies in space can acquire and trade electrical charges. The Deep Impact results can legitimately be interpreted that way. If it's not the case, then somebody needs to come up with a reasonable explanation for why there were two flashes. I've yet to see that. I've only seen it said that the impactor traveling at 6.3 miles per second could generate two flashes based upon a layer of dust on the surface of comet Tempel 1. That's not a very convincing argument.
There's a *big* difference, btw, between arguing that a proper case has not been made for the electrical terraforming of planets, and that it is an absurd idea. Most of the conventional paradigm advocates I talk to argue the former case. You appear to be arguing the latter. If it's so absurd that electrical plasmas are etching out Enceladus, then it makes sense that you should be able to demonstrate why the link I posted is so wrong.
A link to the electric universe nonesense posted by slashdot's #1 EU fanboy is about as informative as "The DaVinci Code", "State of Fear" or "The Panda's thumb".
That's a pretty strong statement considering that the American public is being asked to pay for a mission to the planet to study these supposed cracks, and presumably to eventually study the supposed ocean beneath the ice. I think that most Americans would appreciate hearing more than just one viewpoint on how their money is being spent. One can be forgiven for getting the impression that most conventional astrophysicists would prefer to die trying to prove the Big Bang than have to take part in studying an alternative cosmology.
By "Offtopic", I think they mean it's not their preferred cosmology.
There is a subtle guerrilla war going on within the discipline of astrophysics right now. Many of the conventional astrophysicists are refusing to consider the *possibility* that electricity in space does things of importance. Even when the evidence is compelling, they refuse to take part in any serious investigation that the conventional theories may be seriously wrong. The thing is, in the past, we used to evaluate ideas within the conclusions of studies. They're ruling the idea out within their assumptions. Even though reasonable arguments exist that space plasmas can become highly electrical, and even on huge scales at that, they stick to their guns that electricity in space cannot do anything of any importance -- and they consistently declare that the idea is so absurd that it does not even deserve consideration within the disciplines of astrophysics, the weather sciences, climatology or geology, among others. At the current rate, we're perhaps going to spin our wheels here for a couple of decades until public awareness of the role of electricity in space increases. Currently, the level of awareness of what's happening is quite low due to the complexity of the subject. But, over time, people will get better at explaining the situation, and more people will begin to wonder why we do not consider the *possibility* that electricity actually does things in space (other than just creating magnetic fields).
The truly sad thing is that, if the public actually knew about the evidence, they would certainly not agree that the idea does not deserve consideration. There is a huge disconnect right now between the more over-zealous astrophysicists and reasonable, objective people.
There's in fact a pretty good chance that somebody will actually chime in on this thread actually. They consider people like myself as spreading "misinformation".
Be careful, or you'll be reported to the Bad Astronomy Grand Inquisitors. And by the way, there is no ocean beneath the ice on Enceladus unless and until it's declared within an astrophysical journal because things don't exist unless there is math to demonstrate at least an order of magnitude of certainty that it can be possible. Images and videos must first be converted to retroactive computer simulations that demonstrate without a doubt that the dominant paradigm could be true, so until that happens, appeals to simple vision will not apply. Unfortunately, for now, there appears to be no special urgency to get to all of that as everybody's already quite busy re-discovering Kristian Birkeland's lab results from 100 years ago.
There is no longer a useful conversation here. You've allowed the conversation to become so vague that it no longer possesses any meaning. I've attempted to bring up specific facts along the way, but you've repeatedly refused to deal with a single one of them.
In modern science, it doesn't count as a prediction if it isn't published, with the details of how it was made laid out in sufficient detail that others (with the relevant training in the relevant parts of plasma physics) can independently verify how it was made (logical consistency, no errors in the math, and so on)....
To the best of my knowledge, DT did not publish anything at all like this.
Ergo, DT did not make any predictions, in the sense of a (space science, plasma physics) scientific prediction.
But I could be wrong; can you point me to the issue of the relevant peer-reviewed journal in which DT published his prediction?
There are other mechanisms to validate timestamps for predictions. We could just as easily identify Internet cross-references to the prediction. And in fact, it's easy to do just that...
The idea that Thornhill's prediction does not mean anything unless the people who are threatened by it in fact sanction it is hardly a strong argument.
Further, in modern space science (or plasma physics, or astrophysics, or...), it's not a prediction unless it's quantitative, at least to an OOM (order of magnitude).
Actually, the quantitative nature of the prediction is readily apparent to most people: *two* flashes is a different number than *one* flash. Your requirements for his prediction are completely meaningless within the context of the number of flashes. How does order of magnitude make any sense whatsoever with respect to a prediction on the number of flashes?
Does the fact that Thornhill did not predict the exact magnitude of the flash or delay between the two flashes discount the fact that he got the number of flashes right? No, not at all, unless you can demonstrate how it is possible that he could have been so lucky. Does the existence of two flashes demonstrate that Thornhill's explanation of what happened deserves consideration in future missions? Yes, it does.
So, I've been patient so far, but you seem really desperate here. Rather than propose a reasonable mechanism for the two flashes, it seems that all you can do is to cast doubt on the actual prediction itself and argue that it wasn't stated properly. If I'm to believe that Thornhill got lucky, then by what mechanism do you credit the double flashes? If you cannot explain this, from what do you derive your confidence that Thornhill is so wrong? It seems to me that you are judging his prediction on the basis of his theory's conclusions -- which would seem to indicate that there is in fact no accurate prediction that Thornhill could ever make that would in your eyes be valid.
They appear to have the *absurd* idea that the Earth can become electrically charged and that the Earth's surface can be described as a leaky capacitor. They must have misunderstood the literature they cite, huh?
I can't believe that they would try to understand the weather like that. I mean, they probably don't even understand quantum mechanics.
First, there's no such thing as 'EU Theory', in the standard, scientific meaning of 'Theory' (think of 'Theory of General Relativity', for example).
Well, surely, if you cover your eyes with your hands, you will not see it. The ironic thing perhaps is that you actually read what an infinite improbability drive was when you were younger and you're now apparently trying to use it.
Second, within the scientific paradigm of physics (plasma physics, astrophysics, etc), Wallace Thornhill did not make any predictions, much less any accurate predictions!
I would be wary of relying upon arguments that depend upon a lack of awareness within the public, for if large numbers of people finally learn about the prediction, and you are still arguing that he made no prediction, people will consider your approach to be a bit "unique". I fail to believe that the public will adopt your more nuanced definition of what a prediction is (whatever that is).
But more than that, I also wonder what your purpose is in denying these things rather than arguing against them? It appears to be less of an attempt to understand your surroundings than an attempt to *define* your surroundings.
FYI, they are certainly interesting questions, but I doubt that they are 'burning' to any serious space scientist, plasma physicist, or astrophysicist. Why? If you really want to know, sign up for a PhD in one of these fields...
Actually, I can identify some fundamental problems within astrophysics without having to get a degree. Can you explain, for instance, the root cause of the two flashes in the Deep Impact Mission? From what I've read -- and this is not a particularly complicated issue -- Wallace Thornhill was the only one who accurately predicted that there would be two separate flashes. I thought that accurate predictions were important within astrophysics, but it seems as though after-the-fact simulations are just as good, if not better.
I've been told that the second flash was in fact a "post-impact" flash, but one wonders how the two flashes could be distinguished when the probe was traveling at 6.3 miles per second? Are we to assume that the dust layer was *really* thick? Or, do we have to accept that the probe was slowed down by the first flash? Either way, it seems to me that Thornhill's *prediction* deserves just as much consideration as those two ad hoc explanations. I guess Thornhill could just be really lucky, but shouldn't we evaluate that within our conclusions rather than our assumptions?
These seem like completely legitimate questions to me, and I'm very concerned that they are not taken more seriously because they go to the heart of the issue of whether or not bodies in space can acquire and trade electrical charge. In recent years, we've seen volcanic lightning *precede* the outgassing of materials, lightning going to the edge of space and low-frequency electromagnetic precursors to large earthquakes. As you certainly realize, magma is a plasma. Is it not possible that we're observing a large leaky capacitor here? Is it not possible that the increase in electric field associated with storm clouds is the cause of thunderstorm lightning? Why would we continue to cling to the idea that the system is closed at the ground if we observe lightning going to the edge of space? All of these questions are *completely* legitimate.
I'm also somewhat curious, Nereid, what you think about this item:
This object in the picture is called a kon-go, and translates from Japanese to "thunderbolt". As you probably already know, plasma physicists know this precise morphology to represent a z-pinch (you will likely recognize it as a bipolar supernova remnant), and the filaments that emanate from the z-pinch are actually Birkeland Currents. Now, that's a rather specific and unusual coincidence, don't you think? I bought one of these at a store and noticed that the filaments emanated out of the heads of dragons, which only adds to the intrigue. How in the world would people of the past know that *that's* the primordial morphology of lightning that we observe within a plasma laboratory?
I don't understand what it is about the astrophysical education that induces people to lose their curiosity about such things, but I certainly do not want to lose mine in the same way. I'd love to learn more about astrophysics, and I will spend the rest of my life doing so, but not at the expense of becoming close-minded to alternative cosmologies. Your invitation to "learn" sounds more like an invitation to stop asking these important and completely legitimate questions.
If you are so independent a being from Thornhill and Scott and Talbott and Cardona et. al, with separate free will and powers of investigation, why do you find no flaws in their assertions while others do?
The reason is that I've reviewed the criticism, and my conclusion is that the debate is legitimate. There are truly two world views here. Although the numbers of supporters are not equally distributed, it's a legitimate debate between some laboratory plasma physicists and a large number of astrophysicists. I've reviewed the arguments presented by Tim Thompson; I've reviewed some of the older catastrophist materials between Carl Sagan and Velikovsky, and I've read some of Ginenthal; I've reviewed the Electric Universe materials by Don Scott and Wallace Thornhill; I've gone through the "mythological" evidence by Dwardu Cardona and Rens van der Sluis with an open mind; and I've paid very close attention to the accurate predictions that Wallace Thornhill has made, and almost more importantly, the responses to those predictions. Taken as a whole, EU Theory survives the criticism fully intact. In fact, it even presents many unresolved issues for the mainstream.
The problem is that the arguments are just far too complicated for most people to understand, and so it remains under the radar as far as the public is concerned. Many people have made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that this low visibility is a reflection upon the legitimacy of the arguments themselves. Of the few who are trained to understand astrophysical issues, the education they received clearly favored one particular cosmology. And that explains why the issue is so contentious. This is in fact a debate over whether or not their mathematics is matching the decades of laboratory research that has gone into plasma physics.
If a group of plasma physicists is arguing, for instance, that magnetic reconnection is in fact just a re-statement of exploding double layers or that there are major issues with how magnetism is treated within astrophysics, then those are *very* serious allegations that deserve a dignified response, and if possible, experimental validation one way or another. The fact that the plasma physics portion of EU Theory claims are just being ignored though for the sole reason that it is the EU Theorists who are saying them says much about the way in which astrophysicists deal with these sorts of issues.
One thing is clear to me from my readings: conventional astrophysicists completely and consistently underestimate the legitimacy of the EU Theory arguments and evidence. Many don't even know enough about it to realize that they're siding with mathematical models against lab results.
If they seem so perfect to you, is that because they are in fact so perfect or instead because of something else, such as a willing or otherwise uncritical read on your part, or?
Actually, the issue with conventional astrophysics today is that certain interpretations for observations are being completely ignored. If you look, for instance, at the Baltis Vallis on Venus, you observe a sinuous rille that spans 4,200 miles and that moves both up and down with the terrain, in apparant defiance of gravity. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050203venusriver.htm:
"... Topographical analysis of the flow paths produced a puzzling result: some of them seem to flow uphill! Since gravity is gravity on any planet, the ground in these places must have shifted since the time the rivers ran."
Well, if we're to avoid allowing assumptions into our conclusions, then another completely legitimate explanation is that the sinuous rille was created by an electrical plasma, as we appear to also see occurring on Io and Enceladus. And we see the same exact thing with the Colorado River and the Kaibab Upwarp: rivers do not tend to punch straigh
I think your comment provides insight into your psyche, and into what really thrills you about this Electric Universe theory. The story you tell others, and the story that maybe you honestly wish were true, is that your main thrill lies in obtaining a True Understanding of the universe.
Let's be completely clear with what my goal is here: I'm here to understand why people ridicule plasma-based cosmologies and EU Theory. I don't understand how most astrophysical textbooks can agree that plasma is the dominant state of visible matter within the universe, and yet the idea that we would study that dominant state within a laboratory to understand what's happening on a macroscopic level is somehow so ridiculous that I have to be publicly psychoanalyzed for it.
You act as if I'm on a different mission though. You act as if I'm here to *prove* that EU Theory is true in spite of the evidence. I possess no special attachments to the theory like that. As much as I enjoy the presence of those people I've met during this process, I will drop them like a hot potato if it turns out that there is something seriously wrong with their theories.
I don't doubt you possess that desire, as that seems present in just about every human. However, you fantasize about people getting prizes for discovering things. On one hand, you worship Alven and parrot Scott's/Thornhill's soundbyte about his Nobel Prize acceptance speech bringing conspicuous attention to the fact that the recipient of such a prestigious award held as his expert opinion ideas that can be tangentially misconstrued to support your own Electric Universe.
[...]
Think about how many times you've said "Alfven warned" and "Alven pleaded" and "Nobel Prize acceptance speech, and think about how shallow and superficial an argument that is. It's an appeal to authority; in this case, at least a pertinent authority on space plasmas, but an appeal to authority nonetheless. You claim you place emphasis on evidence, experimentation and sound argument, yet puzzle over why nobody seems to take the Electric Universe seriously. You should consider the possibility that they consider your standards of evidence and bases of argumentation and logic to be quite hopeless, and you shoot yourself in the foot with comments like the one you made above. You come off as driven by a sense of justice and righteousness rather than by an unbiased and earnest yearning for truth and understanding, despite your efforts not to seem so and not actually to be so (both noble goals that I think everyone struggles with.
Alfven worked with plasmas in the laboratory -- as opposed to just playing with the equations. Specifically, he cites a problem with the applicability of the frozen-in-place concept for low density plasmas.
Alfven specifically stated in his speech:
I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedagogical concept but a dangerous "pseudopedagogical concept." By "pseudopedagogical" I mean a concept which makes you believe that you understand a phenomenon whereas in reality you have drastically misunderstood it.
I never believed in it 100 percent myself. This is evident from the chapter on "magnetic storms and aurora" in the same monograph. I followed the Birkeland-Störmer general approach but in order to make that applicable to the motion of low-energy particles in what is now called the magnetosphere it was necessary to introduce an approximate treatment (the "guiding-center" method) of the motion of charged particles. (As I have pointed out in [5, sec. III.1], I still believe that this is a very good method for obtaining an approximate survey of many situations and that it is a pity that it is not more generally used.) The conductivity of a plasma in the magnetosphere was not relevant.
Some years later, criticism by Cowling made me realize that t
Any observation of a rope-like magnetic plasma structure, based upon laboratory plasma physics, is a legitimate candidate for a Birkeland Current. But this is somewhat semantical. I think the thing that a lot of EU Theory advocates would like to hear explained (and that somebody else on the forum hinted at), are the following questions:
If it is now normal to refer to structures within our solar system as electrical currents, then where does the charge differential come from? At what point does the system become conventionally viewed as a closed, quasi-neutral system?
The reason I ask this is because the largest scale observations we possess of the universe are in fact *filamentary*. If we see charge transfer on the smallest scales, the solar system, and if we also see filaments on the largest scales, then is it not possible that this is in fact a continuum of charge transfer? If not, *why* not?
These are the real burning questions at this point.
Also, out of curiosity, what do you believe is the mechanism for the acceleration of the solar wind? Why does it continue to accelerate even as it passes the planets?
Every single person who doubts that this is more than coincidental can surely be excused for the sole reason that the implications are kind of hard to get a full handle on. It's really kind of shocking. But, it's important that people be aware of the possibility of Birkeland Currents in space, and even more, I think perhaps people should just accept that there is a distinct possibility that we just live in interesting times.
The interesting new information is actually the following:
"THEMIS encountered its first magnetic rope on May 20, 2007," says Sibeck. "It was very large, about as wide as Earth, and located approximately 40,000 miles above Earth's surface in a region called the magnetopause." The magnetopause is where the solar wind and Earth's magnetic field meet and push against one another like sumo wrestlers locked in combat. There, the rope formed and unraveled in just a few minutes, providing a brief but significant conduit for solar wind energy. Other ropes quickly followed: "They seem to occur all the time," says Sibeck.
What happens within the laboratory with *electrical* plasmas is that the plasma will tend to form filaments of charged particles. It is a natural state of the plasma. Furthermore, multiple filaments will tend to possess long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with one another. In other words, they will twist around one another without fully combining. This can be observed by any layperson by looking closely at the point where your novelty plasma globe's filaments touch the glass. What appears as one filament from a distance is in fact two filaments twisting around one another like a rope that unwind with contact to glass. This roped structure within the laboratory constitutes a flow of charged particles, and as those charged particles move across the rope in response to voltage potentials, this flow of charged particles will in turn create helical magnetic fields around the filaments. Maxwell's Equations demand it.
The observation of a roped magnetic structure connecting the Sun and Earth is extremely important because we know from our laboratory experiences with plasmas that rope-like structures occur when the plasma is electrical. I'm very curious what the response will be from the astrophysical community about this *structure*. Will they argue that the similarity in morphologies is actually coincidental?
If so, somebody should share the talking points with NASA, because they appear to be off-message...
"THEMIS also has observed a number of small explosions in Earth's magnetic bow shock. "The bow shock is like the bow wave in front of a boat," explained Sibeck. "It is where the solar wind first feels the effects of Earth's magnetic field. Sometimes a burst of electrical current within the solar wind will hit the bow shock and--Bang! We get an explosion."
Despite being nominated seven times, from what I'm reading right now, he never actually got it. But it was for political reasons associated with his business partner, Eyde. Eyde was a bit shady, and wanted to be included into the award even though he was just the financial backer.
It is still possible though that the Nobel Prize committee could eventually change their rules that preclude posthumous awards. It's one of those rare situations where a rule change may be appropriate because Birkeland basically drove himself mad in the process of trying to convince the world of his own convictions. If it turns out that he was actually correct -- and this does appear to now be possible -- then it would be the *right* thing to do. And if they refuse to do so, then perhaps whatever paradigm takes over could create its own award.
I don't mind typing in this stuff. From "The Extinction of the Mammoth" by Charles Ginenthal...
On what basis, then, is it thought that mammoths were animals that could tolerate extremely cold climates? The usual evidence proposed for this supposition were fully outlined and answered by Hans Kraus in his privately published book, "The Mammoth in Ice and Snow".
"Kraus shows that none of the eight characteristics of the mammoth that have been cited as evidence for adaptation to cold is either a valid or reliable index. The characteristics include small ears, long curved tusks, short legs, long hair and thick skin, short tail, anal flap, fat hump, and thick layer of fat beneath the skin.
"For example, the short ears, short legs and short tail are unreliable indicators because they do not vary consistently with latitude in comparison among rabbits and foxes. That is, a rabbit in a cold climate can have a larger ear than one in a warmer climate, when the opposite would be expected. (Kraus, pp. 16b-25.) The curved tusks which allegedly were used to clear snow during winter foraging, show abrasion comparable to tusks of present-day elephants which do not engage in shoveling activity. (Kraus, pp. 26-33.) No living arctic mammal relies on subcutaneous fat for insulation. Land animals tested in the middle of winter possessed no thermally significant layer of fat beneath the skin. (P.F. Scholander, et al, "Body Insulation of Some Arctic and Tropical Mammals and Birds," Biological Bulletin, Vol. 99 (1950), pp. 232-233, 266 cited in Kraus, pp. 92-94). Unlike the mammoth, no hoofed grazing animals in the arctic today have shaggy leg hair which would interfere with movement through snow. Contemporary grazing arctic animals with short leg hair are able to minimize heat loss by lowering the temperature of their legs by controlling both the flow and temperature of blood in them. (Kraus, pp. 53-60)
"As [one of] the largest living, grazing arctic land animals -- and in contrast to the mammoth -- the caribou possesses both hair erector muscles and sebaceous glands. (Kraus, p. 52) The mammoth's alleged adaptation to cold is a misconceived conclusion, unsupported by the facts." (quote from C Leroy, "Replies," KRONOS, Vol. VII, No. 4, (Summer 1982), pp. 73-74.)
You state...
There are many modern examples of mammals that are fairly large and have no problem living on the tundra. Muskoxen have "shaggy" coats and don't seem have trouble with snow. I would say that a pretty shaggy coat is a good thing when it is -80F. Caribou also do very well feeding on the tundra. Neither of the things you listed would prevent a mammoth sized creature from living on the tundra.
The mammoth hair (which is actually around 8 inches thick) extends down to the feet and the musk oxen's hair doesn't extend that far.
Even if we still disagree, though, what did the mammoths eat? In order to support herds of that beast, there must exist nutritious biomass to support those herds. Each animal would have consumed something like 200 lbs of vegetation every single day. What cold-growing plant can generate those amounts while its roots cannot penetrate the ice beneath the ground?
I think Ginenthal makes some great points. He's gathered a lot of disparate facts from multiple disciplines that when considered together do a pretty good job of explaining the current state of understanding of what happened.
THEMIS also has observed a number of small explosions in Earth's magnetic bow shock. "The bow shock is like the bow wave in front of a boat," explained Sibeck. "It is where the solar wind first feels the effects of Earth's magnetic field. Sometimes a burst of electrical current within the solar wind will hit the bow shock and--Bang! We get an explosion."
Emphasis is of course mine.
This whole situation is making for quite a show. Either NASA has forgotten their talking points, or something -- perhaps THEMIS -- has encouraged them that it is now okay to refer to electricity in space.
Slashdot Mirror
The idea that electricity flows through space is not at this point inane BS. It's already accepted that electrical flows occur from the Sun to the Earth. Clearly, on the Earth, we are protected by the magnetosphere. But, what about bodies that do not have magnetospheres? Is it so insane to include as a *possibility* that they are being etched by plasmas? Not really. In fact, for the very reason that it's not inane BS, it deserves to be a possible explanation for the observation of the tiger stripes and the hot point sources.
I don't assume that I'm right either. I'm just trying to have a conversation, really, because I honestly don't trust the establishment to admit that it is wrong on this issue. What they're going to do is work their way to the same conclusions the hard way, by fighting tooth and nail to avoid considering the possibility that electricity does things of importance in space, and people like you and I will probably be dead by the time it happens.
We see plenty of indicators by now that electrical terraforming may be occurring. The plume on Io, for god's sake, looks *exactly* like the output of a plasma gun. Images from Kristian Birkeland's terrella experiments from 100 years go are so identical to eclipsed shots of Io (with its hot point sources) that the two images are literally impossible to distinguish. There are rille structures on several planets that we've observed which move both up and down with the terrain. A person can imagine that the land lifted up in spots *or* that the rille could have been etched by plasma. People who argue that we should not investigate these things are basically assuming their way to their own conclusions. These ideas should not be judged within the assumptions of papers. We should evaluate the concept of electrical terraforming instead within the conclusions.
Are you arguing that people should not try to understand complex subjects because it is difficult?
Is dark matter and dark energy not kooky stuff to you? When astrophysicists have difficulty, for instance, identifying enough matter to generate gravitational lensing, and just assume the needed dark matter necessary to make it so, is that not also kooky to you?
When astrophysicists see filaments of plasma in space that are surrounded by helical magnetic fields and that span tens of thousands of light years, is it kooky to you to suppose as a possibility that the helical magnetic field is a result of the flow of charged particles? That actually seems to be somewhat logical to me. I don't think that most people who work with Maxwell's Equations or plasmas in the lab would find that very kooky either. People who work with things that have to work in the real world around us would in fact tend to think it's kooky to *not* suppose that such structures represent large-scale flows of electricity.
The idea that bodies like Io and Enceladus are being electrically etched is not even a dramatic statement at this point really. You're not paying attention to the bigger picture. You should check the Aurora thread from last week where I was ridiculed for pointing out that NASA admits that the Sun and the Earth can become electrically connected. The talking points against electricity in space do not even necessarily exclude electrical etching of Enceladus. It's not what they expect to see, and they won't like it when they probably do eventually see it, but I doubt it will sway any of these people to finally realize that the universe is completely electrically connected.
Please don't act as if there has never been anything to suggest that bodies in space can acquire and trade electrical charges. The Deep Impact results can legitimately be interpreted that way. If it's not the case, then somebody needs to come up with a reasonable explanation for why there were two flashes. I've yet to see that. I've only seen it said that the impactor traveling at 6.3 miles per second could generate two flashes based upon a layer of dust on the surface of comet Tempel 1. That's not a very convincing argument.
There's a *big* difference, btw, between arguing that a proper case has not been made for the electrical terraforming of planets, and that it is an absurd idea. Most of the conventional paradigm advocates I talk to argue the former case. You appear to be arguing the latter. If it's so absurd that electrical plasmas are etching out Enceladus, then it makes sense that you should be able to demonstrate why the link I posted is so wrong.
That's a pretty strong statement considering that the American public is being asked to pay for a mission to the planet to study these supposed cracks, and presumably to eventually study the supposed ocean beneath the ice. I think that most Americans would appreciate hearing more than just one viewpoint on how their money is being spent. One can be forgiven for getting the impression that most conventional astrophysicists would prefer to die trying to prove the Big Bang than have to take part in studying an alternative cosmology.
Oh man, I'm in trouble now!!!
By "Offtopic", I think they mean it's not their preferred cosmology.
There is a subtle guerrilla war going on within the discipline of astrophysics right now. Many of the conventional astrophysicists are refusing to consider the *possibility* that electricity in space does things of importance. Even when the evidence is compelling, they refuse to take part in any serious investigation that the conventional theories may be seriously wrong. The thing is, in the past, we used to evaluate ideas within the conclusions of studies. They're ruling the idea out within their assumptions. Even though reasonable arguments exist that space plasmas can become highly electrical, and even on huge scales at that, they stick to their guns that electricity in space cannot do anything of any importance -- and they consistently declare that the idea is so absurd that it does not even deserve consideration within the disciplines of astrophysics, the weather sciences, climatology or geology, among others. At the current rate, we're perhaps going to spin our wheels here for a couple of decades until public awareness of the role of electricity in space increases. Currently, the level of awareness of what's happening is quite low due to the complexity of the subject. But, over time, people will get better at explaining the situation, and more people will begin to wonder why we do not consider the *possibility* that electricity actually does things in space (other than just creating magnetic fields).
The truly sad thing is that, if the public actually knew about the evidence, they would certainly not agree that the idea does not deserve consideration. There is a huge disconnect right now between the more over-zealous astrophysicists and reasonable, objective people.
There's in fact a pretty good chance that somebody will actually chime in on this thread actually. They consider people like myself as spreading "misinformation".
Be careful, or you'll be reported to the Bad Astronomy Grand Inquisitors. And by the way, there is no ocean beneath the ice on Enceladus unless and until it's declared within an astrophysical journal because things don't exist unless there is math to demonstrate at least an order of magnitude of certainty that it can be possible. Images and videos must first be converted to retroactive computer simulations that demonstrate without a doubt that the dominant paradigm could be true, so until that happens, appeals to simple vision will not apply. Unfortunately, for now, there appears to be no special urgency to get to all of that as everybody's already quite busy re-discovering Kristian Birkeland's lab results from 100 years ago.
We live in a sad, sad world.
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2006/arch06/060313moonjets.htm
There is no longer a useful conversation here. You've allowed the conversation to become so vague that it no longer possesses any meaning. I've attempted to bring up specific facts along the way, but you've repeatedly refused to deal with a single one of them.
There are other mechanisms to validate timestamps for predictions. We could just as easily identify Internet cross-references to the prediction. And in fact, it's easy to do just that
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/07/03/1246254
The idea that Thornhill's prediction does not mean anything unless the people who are threatened by it in fact sanction it is hardly a strong argument.
Actually, the quantitative nature of the prediction is readily apparent to most people: *two* flashes is a different number than *one* flash. Your requirements for his prediction are completely meaningless within the context of the number of flashes. How does order of magnitude make any sense whatsoever with respect to a prediction on the number of flashes?
Does the fact that Thornhill did not predict the exact magnitude of the flash or delay between the two flashes discount the fact that he got the number of flashes right? No, not at all, unless you can demonstrate how it is possible that he could have been so lucky. Does the existence of two flashes demonstrate that Thornhill's explanation of what happened deserves consideration in future missions? Yes, it does.
So, I've been patient so far, but you seem really desperate here. Rather than propose a reasonable mechanism for the two flashes, it seems that all you can do is to cast doubt on the actual prediction itself and argue that it wasn't stated properly. If I'm to believe that Thornhill got lucky, then by what mechanism do you credit the double flashes? If you cannot explain this, from what do you derive your confidence that Thornhill is so wrong? It seems to me that you are judging his prediction on the basis of his theory's conclusions -- which would seem to indicate that there is in fact no accurate prediction that Thornhill could ever make that would in your eyes be valid.
By the way, you might want to correct these guys too ...
http://www.nofc.forestry.ca/fire/faq_lightning_e.php
They appear to have the *absurd* idea that the Earth can become electrically charged and that the Earth's surface can be described as a leaky capacitor. They must have misunderstood the literature they cite, huh?
I can't believe that they would try to understand the weather like that. I mean, they probably don't even understand quantum mechanics.
Well, surely, if you cover your eyes with your hands, you will not see it. The ironic thing perhaps is that you actually read what an infinite improbability drive was when you were younger and you're now apparently trying to use it.
I would be wary of relying upon arguments that depend upon a lack of awareness within the public, for if large numbers of people finally learn about the prediction, and you are still arguing that he made no prediction, people will consider your approach to be a bit "unique". I fail to believe that the public will adopt your more nuanced definition of what a prediction is (whatever that is).
But more than that, I also wonder what your purpose is in denying these things rather than arguing against them? It appears to be less of an attempt to understand your surroundings than an attempt to *define* your surroundings.
Actually, I can identify some fundamental problems within astrophysics without having to get a degree. Can you explain, for instance, the root cause of the two flashes in the Deep Impact Mission? From what I've read -- and this is not a particularly complicated issue -- Wallace Thornhill was the only one who accurately predicted that there would be two separate flashes. I thought that accurate predictions were important within astrophysics, but it seems as though after-the-fact simulations are just as good, if not better.
I've been told that the second flash was in fact a "post-impact" flash, but one wonders how the two flashes could be distinguished when the probe was traveling at 6.3 miles per second? Are we to assume that the dust layer was *really* thick? Or, do we have to accept that the probe was slowed down by the first flash? Either way, it seems to me that Thornhill's *prediction* deserves just as much consideration as those two ad hoc explanations. I guess Thornhill could just be really lucky, but shouldn't we evaluate that within our conclusions rather than our assumptions?
These seem like completely legitimate questions to me, and I'm very concerned that they are not taken more seriously because they go to the heart of the issue of whether or not bodies in space can acquire and trade electrical charge. In recent years, we've seen volcanic lightning *precede* the outgassing of materials, lightning going to the edge of space and low-frequency electromagnetic precursors to large earthquakes. As you certainly realize, magma is a plasma. Is it not possible that we're observing a large leaky capacitor here? Is it not possible that the increase in electric field associated with storm clouds is the cause of thunderstorm lightning? Why would we continue to cling to the idea that the system is closed at the ground if we observe lightning going to the edge of space? All of these questions are *completely* legitimate.
I'm also somewhat curious, Nereid, what you think about this item:
http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/071203lightningworship.htm
This object in the picture is called a kon-go, and translates from Japanese to "thunderbolt". As you probably already know, plasma physicists know this precise morphology to represent a z-pinch (you will likely recognize it as a bipolar supernova remnant), and the filaments that emanate from the z-pinch are actually Birkeland Currents. Now, that's a rather specific and unusual coincidence, don't you think? I bought one of these at a store and noticed that the filaments emanated out of the heads of dragons, which only adds to the intrigue. How in the world would people of the past know that *that's* the primordial morphology of lightning that we observe within a plasma laboratory?
I don't understand what it is about the astrophysical education that induces people to lose their curiosity about such things, but I certainly do not want to lose mine in the same way. I'd love to learn more about astrophysics, and I will spend the rest of my life doing so, but not at the expense of becoming close-minded to alternative cosmologies. Your invitation to "learn" sounds more like an invitation to stop asking these important and completely legitimate questions.
The reason is that I've reviewed the criticism, and my conclusion is that the debate is legitimate. There are truly two world views here. Although the numbers of supporters are not equally distributed, it's a legitimate debate between some laboratory plasma physicists and a large number of astrophysicists. I've reviewed the arguments presented by Tim Thompson; I've reviewed some of the older catastrophist materials between Carl Sagan and Velikovsky, and I've read some of Ginenthal; I've reviewed the Electric Universe materials by Don Scott and Wallace Thornhill; I've gone through the "mythological" evidence by Dwardu Cardona and Rens van der Sluis with an open mind; and I've paid very close attention to the accurate predictions that Wallace Thornhill has made, and almost more importantly, the responses to those predictions. Taken as a whole, EU Theory survives the criticism fully intact. In fact, it even presents many unresolved issues for the mainstream.
The problem is that the arguments are just far too complicated for most people to understand, and so it remains under the radar as far as the public is concerned. Many people have made the unfortunate mistake of assuming that this low visibility is a reflection upon the legitimacy of the arguments themselves. Of the few who are trained to understand astrophysical issues, the education they received clearly favored one particular cosmology. And that explains why the issue is so contentious. This is in fact a debate over whether or not their mathematics is matching the decades of laboratory research that has gone into plasma physics.
If a group of plasma physicists is arguing, for instance, that magnetic reconnection is in fact just a re-statement of exploding double layers or that there are major issues with how magnetism is treated within astrophysics, then those are *very* serious allegations that deserve a dignified response, and if possible, experimental validation one way or another. The fact that the plasma physics portion of EU Theory claims are just being ignored though for the sole reason that it is the EU Theorists who are saying them says much about the way in which astrophysicists deal with these sorts of issues.
One thing is clear to me from my readings: conventional astrophysicists completely and consistently underestimate the legitimacy of the EU Theory arguments and evidence. Many don't even know enough about it to realize that they're siding with mathematical models against lab results.
Actually, the issue with conventional astrophysics today is that certain interpretations for observations are being completely ignored. If you look, for instance, at the Baltis Vallis on Venus, you observe a sinuous rille that spans 4,200 miles and that moves both up and down with the terrain, in apparant defiance of gravity. From http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050203venusriver.htm:
Well, if we're to avoid allowing assumptions into our conclusions, then another completely legitimate explanation is that the sinuous rille was created by an electrical plasma, as we appear to also see occurring on Io and Enceladus. And we see the same exact thing with the Colorado River and the Kaibab Upwarp: rivers do not tend to punch straigh
Let's be completely clear with what my goal is here: I'm here to understand why people ridicule plasma-based cosmologies and EU Theory. I don't understand how most astrophysical textbooks can agree that plasma is the dominant state of visible matter within the universe, and yet the idea that we would study that dominant state within a laboratory to understand what's happening on a macroscopic level is somehow so ridiculous that I have to be publicly psychoanalyzed for it.
You act as if I'm on a different mission though. You act as if I'm here to *prove* that EU Theory is true in spite of the evidence. I possess no special attachments to the theory like that. As much as I enjoy the presence of those people I've met during this process, I will drop them like a hot potato if it turns out that there is something seriously wrong with their theories.
Alfven worked with plasmas in the laboratory -- as opposed to just playing with the equations. Specifically, he cites a problem with the applicability of the frozen-in-place concept for low density plasmas.
Alfven specifically stated in his speech:
Any observation of a rope-like magnetic plasma structure, based upon laboratory plasma physics, is a legitimate candidate for a Birkeland Current. But this is somewhat semantical. I think the thing that a lot of EU Theory advocates would like to hear explained (and that somebody else on the forum hinted at), are the following questions:
If it is now normal to refer to structures within our solar system as electrical currents, then where does the charge differential come from? At what point does the system become conventionally viewed as a closed, quasi-neutral system?
The reason I ask this is because the largest scale observations we possess of the universe are in fact *filamentary*. If we see charge transfer on the smallest scales, the solar system, and if we also see filaments on the largest scales, then is it not possible that this is in fact a continuum of charge transfer? If not, *why* not?
These are the real burning questions at this point.
I respond to evidence. But only if you engage me on it.
Do you agree that these are Birkeland Currents?
Also, out of curiosity, what do you believe is the mechanism for the acceleration of the solar wind? Why does it continue to accelerate even as it passes the planets?
Every single person who doubts that this is more than coincidental can surely be excused for the sole reason that the implications are kind of hard to get a full handle on. It's really kind of shocking. But, it's important that people be aware of the possibility of Birkeland Currents in space, and even more, I think perhaps people should just accept that there is a distinct possibility that we just live in interesting times.
I prefer "Nailed it." :)
What happens within the laboratory with *electrical* plasmas is that the plasma will tend to form filaments of charged particles. It is a natural state of the plasma. Furthermore, multiple filaments will tend to possess long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with one another. In other words, they will twist around one another without fully combining. This can be observed by any layperson by looking closely at the point where your novelty plasma globe's filaments touch the glass. What appears as one filament from a distance is in fact two filaments twisting around one another like a rope that unwind with contact to glass. This roped structure within the laboratory constitutes a flow of charged particles, and as those charged particles move across the rope in response to voltage potentials, this flow of charged particles will in turn create helical magnetic fields around the filaments. Maxwell's Equations demand it.
The observation of a roped magnetic structure connecting the Sun and Earth is extremely important because we know from our laboratory experiences with plasmas that rope-like structures occur when the plasma is electrical. I'm very curious what the response will be from the astrophysical community about this *structure*. Will they argue that the similarity in morphologies is actually coincidental?
If so, somebody should share the talking points with NASA, because they appear to be off-message
From http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html:
Despite being nominated seven times, from what I'm reading right now, he never actually got it. But it was for political reasons associated with his business partner, Eyde. Eyde was a bit shady, and wanted to be included into the award even though he was just the financial backer.
It is still possible though that the Nobel Prize committee could eventually change their rules that preclude posthumous awards. It's one of those rare situations where a rule change may be appropriate because Birkeland basically drove himself mad in the process of trying to convince the world of his own convictions. If it turns out that he was actually correct -- and this does appear to now be possible -- then it would be the *right* thing to do. And if they refuse to do so, then perhaps whatever paradigm takes over could create its own award.
You state
Compare an image of a musk oxen
http://www.saskschools.ca/~gregory/arctic/Amuskox.html
To a mammoth
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth
The mammoth hair (which is actually around 8 inches thick) extends down to the feet and the musk oxen's hair doesn't extend that far.
Even if we still disagree, though, what did the mammoths eat? In order to support herds of that beast, there must exist nutritious biomass to support those herds. Each animal would have consumed something like 200 lbs of vegetation every single day. What cold-growing plant can generate those amounts while its roots cannot penetrate the ice beneath the ground?
I think Ginenthal makes some great points. He's gathered a lot of disparate facts from multiple disciplines that when considered together do a pretty good job of explaining the current state of understanding of what happened.
From http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/themis/auroras/northern_lights.html:
Emphasis is of course mine.
This whole situation is making for quite a show. Either NASA has forgotten their talking points, or something -- perhaps THEMIS -- has encouraged them that it is now okay to refer to electricity in space.