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I have read Tim's debunking of the Electric model, and the main reason he doesn't believe in it (besides the fact that the proponenets of the electric model don't depict the Standard Model the way it should), is because no electrons have been found streaming towards the Sun. On the other hand Thornhill and Scott tell us that those electrons have low energy and are easily missed unless we specifically look for them.
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Well, I have a lot of reasons, but that's a big one. On this count Thornhill & Scott are not just wrong, they are really wrong. In fact, the claim is insanely inane. The "energy" that counts in the detection of an electron (or any other particle) is the energy of the collision between the detector and the electron. So, for the energy of the electron to be "too low" for the detector, then the speed of the electron needs to be very nearly the same as the speed of the detector (which is the speed of the spacecraft). But the spacecraft all orbit the sun, so they all vary in velocity as they move about in orbit. The
Ulysses spacecarft, which explored the polar reagions of the sun for the first time, typically goes about 30 km/sec at perihelion (1 AU), and about 8 km/sec at apahelion (5 AU). In order to be undetectable, the electrons would have to mimic the orbit of the spaceraft, by the purest of acidents, as they fall into the sun (and must do this for several spaceraft simultaneously in different places and different orbits). This seems an unlikely event. And if the electrons are low energy, i.e. nearly at rest, with respect to the sun, then they must have a considerable (and detectable) velocity with respect to the spacecraft & detector. The whole argument just makes no common sense at all.
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about the particles that constitute the solar wind, what I gather is that the poles of the Sun are the point where the electrons enter (I have to check this) and the equator is where the + ions are released (net positive charge, so overall the charges are +, but negative charges can also exist).
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This does not describe what we actually know about the
solar wind. In the equatorial region, where Earth and all the pre-Ulysses spacecraft hang out, we have a great deal of observational data extending over decades from a host of spacecraft, and we know that the solar wind consists of electrons, protons and a smattering of larger positive ions, all fleeing the sun at pretty much the same speed. It is hard to imagine that any incoming stream of charged particles could survive passage through that plasma (about 5-10 particles per cubuc centimeter at 1 AU) to reach the sun. As for the poles, we know from the Ulysses data that the solar wind over the poles looks much the same as it does around the equator; electrons, protons & positive ions leaving the sun at about the same speeds. Nary a hint of anything incoming.
The only circuit model on that page is the one for a sunspot, near the bottom of the page. Since Scott is an electrical engineer, one would think he would be a tad embarrased to have his name attached to something quite so silly. See the diagram has a dotted line on it, that traces out the same kind of arch as the
TRACE image shows. The dotted line runs along the current path, which means it has to be parallel to the electric field that accelerates the current. Now look at the trace image, and you can see the lines that are lit up by the confined plasma. But plasma is confined by a magnetic field, and ripped apart by an electric field, so the lines seen in the TRACE image can only be magnetic field lines (an obvious fact that can also be verified by remote measurement of the magnetic field strength via
Zeeman splitting). If there were such a circuit as diagrammed involved in all this, then the magnetic field lines would wrap around the current like a solenoid. But the TRACE image clearly shows that this does not happen. The magnetic field lines in the TRACE image form the arch in parallel, which is physically inconsistent with the circuit. This is all pretty basic stuff, anybody with a background in physics or EE should really not make a mistake that simple.
Now take a peak at the
Laboratory simulation of solar prominences webpage, from Caltech's
Bellan Plasma Group. There are several links to collections of images of simulated solar prominences, for instance the
Sequence of photos of simulated prominences taken with high speed camera. They show the same basic structure as the TRACE images, and all generated by the same kind of plasma processes thought to be responsible for solar prominences & flares. The chief point here is that "standard theory" & "standard experiment" both provide reasonable explanations for "standard observation". There is no "problem" here, that requires the intervention of some new model for the sun, to rescue anything. This is aside from the fact that the circuit diagram given on the electric cosmos page certainly seems to contradict even very basic electromagnetics.
I am a big fan of encouraging original thinking. But not all original thoughts lead far from home. The champions of the electric cosmos just happen to be wrong. It is not a matter of closed minded scientists being too scared to leave the established path. It is a matter of the electric universe folks just getting in over their heads and not being able to deal with it.