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Originally Posted by Extropia DaSilva
I certainly cannot argue with the extraordinary precision with which general relativity has been found to match observations. Monitoring the orbits of one double neutron star system has confirmed Einstein's predicted gravitational waves (through a shortening of the stars' orbital period) to an astonishing 14 decimal places. GR's status as a theory worthy of the highest recognition was built on success like that.
Nevertheless plasma cosmology does sometimes appear to my naive eyes to come up with more plausible explanations. I would imagine that if plasma cosmologists posited the existence of an object that either violated the laws of relativity or quantum mechanics, this would be held as definitive proof that the theory was catastrophically wrong.
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Well, except for those 'plasma cosmologists' who add 'new physics', this kind of inconsistency cannot last for long ... we can take it for granted that any serious 'plasma cosmology' is consistent with both GR and QM.
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But it is actually their oponents who believe certain observations reveal 'black holes' and it is they who come up with theories concerning a universe with 5 large dimensions of space contorted into a certain geometry (which does not look like our universe at all) in order to 'fix' the GR/QM violation problem.
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I have no idea what you are talking about here - could you clarify please?
Specifically, which of the many different (kinds of) observations that point to 'black holes' as the best explanation do you feel are too weak to support the conclusion ("here be black holes")?
And what "theories" concern "
a universe with 5 large dimensions of space contorted into a certain geometry (which does not look like our universe at all) in order to 'fix' the GR/QM violation problem"?
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Meanwhile, plasma cosmology simply notes that the supposed evidence matches the plasma focus
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Let's not skip over this quite so fast, shall we?
Perhaps the most serious criticism of 'plasma cosmology' is just what you have (apparently) lightly passed over here - the ability of any such 'cosmology' to match the relevant good observational results ...
quantitatively.
Since you seem to have made this a claim, under the ATM rules, I am going to ask you, specifically and explicitly, to provide support for this claim.
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but who cares what their practical observations say when we have such beautiful mathematics to play with?
Another thing that is very curious to me, is the way that plasma cosmology never gets so much as a mention in pop-science cosmology publications. They mention Big Bang and the Steady State Theory, sure, and explain why the latter ultimately failed.
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Perhaps that's because this particular kind of cosmology, as a science, never even got to first base?
In any case, the 'sins' of "
pop-science cosmology publications" are many indeed - starting with why the mainstream concordance cosmology is referred to as "Big Bang" (when of course it's nothing of the sort - it's a perjorative term used by Hoyle (a father of the Steady State theory)!
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But plasma cosmology sites speak of 'tired light' theories that PREDICTED a CMB of 2.8 to 3.2 degrees K.
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Now that's a first (for me)!
Can you provide a reference? A reference that is a paper in a peer-reviewed journal (whose scope includes cosmology)?
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On the other hand, before its true value was measured by Penzias and Wilson, the Big Bang theory predicted a value of 5K to 50K
If this site is historically accurate, it is plain to see that plasma cosmologists actually PREDICTED the temperature of the CMB to a greater accuracy than Big Bang cosmology.
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Which of course begs the question of what, in modern astronomy and cosmology, are the best tests of the strength (or otherwise) of a theory?
For example, I could get together with a dozen or so of my friends and make some 'predictions' of some as yet unobserved phenomenon. We could, with the right analysis, come up with a range of predictions that almost certainly includes what - in future - will be observed. And, since each of the dozen of us published 'independently', at least one of us will look, in hindsight, to have been uncannily prescient.
But is that science?
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Of course, AFTER the CMB was measured, Big Bang theorists could tweak its many parameters to make it fit. Shouldn't this little detail get a mention?
Here is another example.
New Scientist ran an article about magnetic fields in space and commented 'there are tantalising hints that they run in plasma filaments across...vast tracts of space'. I would have thought that this would have been the perfect opportunity to at least mention Kristian Birkland and the currents named after him, that feature so heavily in plasma cosmology but.....No. NO mention of any plasma cosmology at all!
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So your beef is with the way mass circulation publications write their stories?
Or is it with your claim that there is some connection between Birkland (sic) current and what the New Scientist article was about?
If the latter, then perhaps you could show the connection - in terms of theory - between Birkeland currents and the reported observations?
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There really does seem to be some conserted effort to keep PC out of the picture. It cannot be because it is 'unscientific'. ID always gets a chapter devoted to it in 'evolution' books, and would you believe that a Horizon programme on the status of pluto as a planet (or not) gave the last word to an astrologer?
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So this really is more about the 'air-time' PC gets, not about how well it can account for the relevant astronomical observations!
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But when that same flagship science program ran a feature on dark matter, they explained that there were TWO possible answers. It does exist, or it does not and we need to modify Newtonian gravity. But there are NOT two, there are THREE! Why not mention the theory that says galaxies are plasma and subject to Maxwell's laws? Why not mention that plasma physicists can account for the rotation curves of galaxies without recourse to dark matter and physics-defying objects like black holes?
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Perhaps because this plasma physicist's account is seriously deficient in a great many other respects? For example, IIRC, this so-called account has the spiral galaxies bereft of central bulges and nuclei - despite the fact that they are among the most prominent features of spirals!
(you can find discussion of this very case, in the >2000 post-long EU thread, right here in the ATM section of BAUT).
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General Relativity is truly a triumph, but I understand it deals with gravity only. Is it any wonder that we require such exotic hypotheses as dark matter and dark energy in order to make theory fit observations of a universe that is 99% plasma and (so I understand) therefore shaped by electricity?
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Indeed.
And if you would like to present a 'plasma cosmology' account (quantitative, of course) of any one of the following, then other BAUT members may judge for themselves just how well this idea actually fits the solid observational data:
* Olbers' paradox
* large-scale structure of the universe
* abundance of light nuclides (
1H,
2H,
3He,
4He, ...)
* the CMB - near-perfect BB spectrum, dipole (including magnitude), angular power spectrum, polarisation, ...