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Originally Posted by Nereid
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Originally Posted by ATKINS
I'd say that the Electric Comet article presents the case pretty well by bringing together and summarizing in one article the whole set of recently observed phenomena concerning cometary behaviour which does not seem to comply with expectations based on the "dirty snowball" model. It would, of course, now need to be updated, at least as regards the chapter on the Stardust mission (“Stardust Shatters Comet Theory"), to include the latest findings on the apparently asteroidal nature of Comet Wild 2.
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OK, so you seem to accept it as a valid presentation of the case that various observed phenomena associated with comets can only be explained with an 'electrical interpretation' - if not, please say so - I'll take a look at it in more detail later. |
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Originally Posted by ATKINS
I support David Talbott and Wallace Thornhill's contention that the whole set of observed phenomena associated with comets can be accounted for by an EU interpretation. And it's not simply after-the-event rationalization: as you well know (we already crossed swords on this over a year back), the EU theory also allowed Thornhill to make very precise predictions regarding the Deep Impact collision the day before the event. To my mind, a theory which can both account for past and present observations (including the most recent, the latest findings concerning the asteroidal nature of Comet Wild 2) and predict future events can't be that far off the mark.
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A quick look at the content of the Thornhill and Talbott "Electric Comet" PDF (
www.thunderbolts.info/pdf/ElectricComet.pdf), as a possible, science-based, model; let's call it the 'Electric Comet Model', or 'ECM' for short.
Page 5 of the document presents the ECM as a set of eight bullet points. True to its name, the physical mechanisms in the ECM have to do with electric currents and fields. Leaving aside (for now) the origin of comets (covered in the first part of the first bullet), here are the key mechanisms:
+ the charging of comets
+ the formation of coma and tail
+ "
electrical discharge machining" (EDM) of the surfaces of comets
+ the formation of jets and filaments
+ the maintenance of filaments
+ the maintenance of the coma
+ "
electrostatic cleaning" of the surfaces of comets
+ electrostatic deposition of dust and debris on the surfaces of comets.
In addition, a ninth physical mechanism is described on page 16:
+ the emission of x-rays.
No references are given. It is as if these mechanisms appeared in the document without any help from others, apparently Thornhill and Talbott did not need to stand on the shoulders of anyone, giant or not (thank you Newton). There are hints that others contributed to building the foundation: "
The collimation of such jets is a well-documented attribute of plasma discharge" for example (though the relationship between EDM and plasma discharge is not mentioned), a debt to "
engineer Ralph Juergens" is acknowledged on page 6, and there are several mentions of un-named "
electrical theorists" (and one of "
electric theorists") on other pages, with the implication that they had a hand in developing at least parts of the ECM
1.
How can one evaluate these nine ECM physical mechanisms? Given the absence of any references, I can think of only two approaches: 1) examine them using only what's written in the document, and 2) make an arbitrary choice of external references.
In my next post I'll proceed with approach 1).
1 Here I am examining only the ECM as presented in the PDF, and references to it, sans the bit about origins. So, for example, the reference to Alfvén's ideas on CMEs is beyond scope.