Quote:
Originally Posted by ATKINS
Thanks for the lesson, but my own academic training taught me all that many years ago.
As regards the post in question, Nereid's analysis was mere quibbling over these two words, presumably to throw up some sort of smoke-screen. I pointed out in my response to her that removing "only" and "then" from the text would make no difference to the argument being presented. To prove the point, let me reproduce the incriminated section without the two naughty words:
"I'm not sure, though, that we should speak of the 'electric comet case' (my bold). If EU proponents seem to be focusing particular attention on comets, it's ["only" deleted] because they are easier to observe hands-on than many other types of (much) more distant object (e.g. galaxies, "galaxy clusters", "black holes", quasars, etc.) which, they argue, display similarly electrical characteristics. The argument goes, as you well know, that if observed cometary behaviour can indeed ["only" deleted] be explained in terms of electric discharge phenomena being produced by the movement of an electrically charged body through the electromagnetic field of the sun, ["then" deleted]this proves that we do not live in an electrically neutral universe."
Do these three omissions alter the logical structure of the argument? I think not. Of course such words may be vitally important in certain demonstrations but within this particular text they are, as I said, "insignificant". Context is everything.
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Rather than wait until
ATKINS re-states the case, I shall use this post to triangulate to it. Of course, this is only my interpretation.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by ATKINS triangulation
I'm not sure, though, that we should speak of the 'electric comet case'. If EU proponents seem to be focusing particular attention on comets, it's because they are easier to observe hands-on than many other types of (much) more distant object (e.g. galaxies, "galaxy clusters", "black holes", quasars, etc.) which, they argue, display similarly electrical characteristics. The argument goes, as you well know, that if observed cometary behaviour can indeed be explained in terms of electric discharge phenomena being produced by the movement of an electrically charged body through the electromagnetic field of the sun, this proves that we do not live in an electrically neutral universe.
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So, some questions:
* what other reasons (than "
easier to observe hands-on") have "
EU proponents" given for "
focusing particular attention on comets" (if any)?
* how would "
observed cometary behaviour can indeed be explained in terms of electric discharge phenomena [...]"
prove "
that we do not live in an electrically neutral universe"?
* examining a core concept of this last question, how is "
an electrically neutral universe" defined?
* we could spend some time establishing how important comets are, in the scheme of things in the universe as a whole; I expect we'd agree that they are pretty darn trivial (small total mass, small total volume, within any significant part of the universe, and so on). Assuming we reached agreement on how trivial they are, why would demonstrating their non-zero net charge imply anything about the universe as a whole?
* "
an electrically charged body" is not quantified; to what extent do you consider the (triangulated) assertion to be valid for bodies which have a net charge of between 1 and 100 (say) e (the charge of the electron), or between -1 and -100 e?