Correct, but that doesn't mean that all particles in a plasma have to be ionised, just a little is enough to make the gas act as a plasma.

Nonsense. If the particles have not been ionised then it is not part of a plasma - that's why its called plasma.

I still think that the electric universe is a brain-dead idea, and Velikovsky should have had a good shrink.

Hey, no fair! If Tim can insult Velilovsky and state that his ideas are 'brain-dead' (however accurate) I should be able to insult Arp.

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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power. --Eric Hoffer

Or maybe you're both being unnecessarily nasty.

Cheers.

I think we have to be careful about claiming certain things "go against fundamental physics", when perhaps (but not always), they just might not be "well understood".

A good example of what I mean is the recent "anomalous" Pioneer 10 acceleration. A recent paper on the subject mentions several possible causes of the anonamous acceleration, and rules them ALL out.

I could argue that since all possible causes have been examined and excluded, then the inference is that the Pioneer craft exhibit behavior that "goes against fundamental physics". And indeed, some articles suggest that this "leaves open staggering possibilities that would force wholesale reprinting of all physics books".

I think there is a slight double standard here. When mainstream science has an "anomaly", it is treated as such. When new theories have "anomalies", they are thrown out of the bath-water (to mix a few metaphores).

Quote:

Originally posted by Josh@Nov 10 2004, 05:29 AM Can you electric sun/universe advocates please set out either: how it doesn't go against fundamental physics...

So I would argue that the Electric Unverse does not go "against fundamental physics", but I would be the first to admit that it hasn't detailed it's case; but what is important, is whether there is a case to answer.


<!--QuoteBegin-Josh@Nov 10 2004, 05:29 AM

Quote:

Tim Thompson: The EU hypothesis is far worse than you give it credit for being. [..] Just look at the mess they make of explain ing solar flares, by claiming that the arcs as seen, for instance, in TRACE images are electric fields insted of magnetic fields. But you can tell one from the other by spectroscopy quite readily (the magnetic Zeeman effect and the electric Stark effect). The results are that they are magnetic fields, which has been known for a long time.

Could one of you EU folk kindly rebut this if there is one to be made?[/quote]

I believe that the Stark effect may have been detected, albeit weakly, in some solar flares. See the papers:

• Large Scale Electric Fields in Solar Flare Regions [PDF] (1998) by Pudovkin, M. I.; Zaitseva, S. A.; Shumilov, N. O.; Meister, C.-V..
• Particle Acceleration and Fragmented Deposition for an Electric Field Solar Flare Model (20020 by Kainer, S.; Roberts, D. A.; Goldstein, M. L.
• A Study of the Thermal/Nonthermal Electric Field Model in Solar Flares Using Spectral and Spatial X-Ray Data from Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and YOHKOH (1996) by Kucera, T. A.; Love, P. J.; Dennis, B. R.; Holman, G. D.; Schwartz, R. A.; Zarro, D. M..
• And more papers at the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS)

The Electric Universe does not exclude the magnetic field from solar flares, but suggests that the contribution from electric fields will depend on the electric environment of a star, and hence the electrical stress the star is under. For example, B-type stars have a spectral line at 4471.6Å tat is is accompanied by a “forbidden” partner at 4469.9Å, which apparently occurs when an electric field is present. See the section Spectral Lines in Various Types of Stars.

Regards,
Ian Tresman

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Actually, even a partially ionized gas is considered to be a plasma. A "hot plasma" is considered to be fully ionized, and a "cold plasma" is partially ionized (see Wikipedia definition).

Regards,
Ian Tresman

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plasma-universe.com

Here is the quote from Wikipedia:

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Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power. --Eric Hoffer

Tim, what velocity must this object have to give a redshift of z=2.12. And while you insist the Marti et al study has nothing to do with this, they note that a redshift of z=0.11 confirmed the object as a background object and not a microquasar.

And if an object with z=2.12 can be a microquasar in a local galaxy, then why exactly all the resistance to what Arp has been proposing about these associations? Why not just chalk it all up to "velocity" rather than distance?

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~Timothy Ferris (The Red Limit) 1982

Thanks Ian,

It seems obvious that you and a few others think there is a case to answer. So, why hasn't the theory been detailed, starting with fundamentals and working through to show how everything fits in nicely? The main arguments here seem to be that it goes against "proven" fundamental accepted phyics. Show that it doesn't with a well documented and detailed theory.

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1·618033988749894848204586834365638117720309179805 76286213544862270526046281890244970720720418939113 74

The Big Bang theory has had over 50 years, 5000 astronomers/physicists, and $50-billion thrown at it. There's only perhaps a dozen people working on the electric universe, and a couple of hundred on plasma cosmology, so it's taking time.

I am aware of some peer reviewed articles on their way (and the usual books), which I'll detail in due course.

Regards,
Ian

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plasma-universe.com

Enormous, about 80% of the speed of light. Yes, this is an obvious problem. However ...

The answer to the last question is simple. The redshift-distance relationship for galaxies is not a theory, it is an observed fact. Therefore, Arp's hypothesis is absurd, on the grounds that it claims the falsity of known facts. It's not all about velocity, and we know it. Just do what I always suggest, and go back to fundamentals. Consider something so obvious that nobody has objected yet that I know of: Things that are farther away look smaller (the angular size distance), dimmer (the luminosity distance) & smoother (the surface brightness fluctuations distance). These are all obvious, primary indicators of distance. Galaxies of the same morphological type, as in the Hubble sequence, which are sytematically smaller, dimmer, & smoother, are farther away. Hubble saw that galactic redshifts correlate with these primary distance indicators, and that's how he came up with a redshift-distance relationship in 1929.

The correlation between redshift and primary distance indicators clearly means that high redshift galaxies are farther away than lower redshift galaxies. And since most cosmological quasars are clearly attached to galaxies of the same or similar redshift (example HST images), then they too are at the same distance as the galaxies that host them.

Now, years ago, Arp discovered what he though were improbable correlations between the locations of galaxies and quasars on the sky. But he calculated his probabilities wrong, and after a few years of discussion in the journals, his ideas were properly rejected. The obvious correct solution to the problem is not to do what Arp did, and deny the redshift-distance relationship, but rather to realize that were are dealing with different populations of objects.

So, there are distant, cosmological quasars, and there are nearby, non-cosmological microquasars. They are basically the same kind of thing, powered by a compact central engine (probably a black hole), but on different scales of size & distance.

Now, no theory is problem free, and standard theory & cosmology are no exception. I assume that the authors know how to determine a redshift properly, in which case we are presented with a bizarre problem. But, while a velocity 80% of light is a problem, it's not an impossibility. The Arp hypothesis that quasars are all local objects is an impossibility, and I prefer to accept bizarre over impossible.

Antoniseb asked if it might not be a quasar at large distance, virewed through the galaxy. I tend to doubt that, simply because the object which I call a microquasar may be too close to the center of the galaxy, where the bulge would make it hard to see through. But it is possible, and may be the simplest explanation, despite the difficulty. Look at the HST images of NGC 7319. Download the biggest screen image you can, I used the 3.2 Mbyte jpg image. As you can see, the extended halo of the galaxy is almost transparent, and background spiral galaxies are clearly visible through it. But I don't know the angular scale, and can't tell from the image published in Galianni, et al., where the quasar object is in this image. That would tell me whether or not I think it likely to be visible through NGC 7319.

That's all I can say for now.

Hi Tim,

I just did, and the extended halo is indeed relatively transparent, but the quasar is in the densest part of the galaxy, really opaque, maybe you should check Isferno's rendition of the image in the "Big Bang refuted" thread.

Cheers.

Isferno's image is in Page 6, post 6. Nice false-color images. Thanks Isferno.

The image shows this quasar on the edge of a region that emits a lot of light. What makes you say that this region is opaque? Also, the quasar light is coming at the edge of this region, not the center, or at the leading edge of a dusty lane.

Side note 1: this quasar's brightness may be enhanced by some weak lensing.
Side note 2: there would certainly have been some difficulty separating out the spectrum of this quasar from the forground stars in NGC 7319.

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Hi Antoniseb,

When a galaxy emits light, it needs stars and dust/plasma to do so, that's what makes it opaque for any background object's light. The false colors indicate different shades of opacity (at least that's what I gather from Isferno's explanation) if we were looking for a transparent part in this image enhancement, it would mean it should be white? (correct me if I'm wrong), so any other color means higher opacity.
Furthermore the reddening of objects behind galaxies is readily shown by reddening of the spectrum, which the people in the article showed isn't there, as DGR explained. The way the spectra were measured is also described, complete with spectra.

The brightness should be weakened by the intervening galaxy.

See article,


Cheers.

No, just stars.
You are wrong on this. The false color boundaries represent isolumes of light coming from the galaxy. It is NOT a measure of opacity. Also, how did you gather that white would represent transparency in these images?
I saw the article. It backs up my statement.

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Well, not quite, plasma can be glowing, and reflections off dust also gives "light", making the densest parts of galaxies opaque for background objects.

You're right about the false colors the densest parts are black (giving off the most amount of light), the other colors only show the structure.
In the image of the galaxy no individual stars of NGC 7319 are recognizable, only regions of high and low intensity light. Doesn't that imply that the amount of stars of the densest parts is so great that it is opaque for a background object?
I really don't see any holes in the galaxies' core region.

Maybe these images show the details a little better?

Cheers.

For the star density to make the galaxy opaque, the surface brightness of that region of the galaxy would have to be as bright as the surface of the sun. This galaxy is has about one trillionth of that surface brightness. The other 999,999,999,999 parts per trillion are holes for the light of the quasar to come through.

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Really? Why is that, why not the surface brightness of, say, Jupiter?
I think it should be calculated differently, the real question is how bright must a quasar at the z-distance (2.11) be to be able to shine through the dense part of a galaxy. I don't know the numbers on that, but it surely is easy to see that not many (if any) background objects are visible through a galaxy core.
Anyway, the quasar's spectrum shows that it isn't behind the galaxy (no reddening).

Cheers.

I'm having this same discussion here in the EU thread and in the BB Refuted thread. Basically, it is as I noted above. If the stellar density was so thick as to block light going through the galaxy, you'd need to have so many stars that no matter where you looked, you'd be seeing the surface of some star. Hence it would be as bright as the sun. Actually, it'd probably be a little dimmer and redder than that, but not by a lot.

Just as a further note, even IF it the quasar had a star directly between us and it, we'd see the quasar, because its light would be microlensed around the intervening star.

As to how bright the quasar needs to be to shine through? It's practically a point source of light. If you're telescope can resolve enough detail, it doesn't need to be extraordinary in brightness. Basically it should look like what we're seeing.

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I agree, but there's two things I'm not understanding, why can't we resolve individual stars in the same image while the point source of the quasar is resolved. And how come the quasars' spectrum is not reddened (not the same as redshifted, only a "dimming" of the "blue" frequencies)?

The image shows structure in the galaxy core, I suppose either dust lanes/clouds or lanes of such large numbers of stars that we can't see the individual sources. Isn't it the same as a screen of light for anything behind it?
If you want to answer in the "Big Bang Refuted" thread that's ok, this isn't very focussed on EU any longer.


Cheers.

I'm happy to move this to the other thread.

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Hi Antoniseb,

I hope you're not moving this whole thread to "Big Bang Refuted" (if I read back I saw I wasn't very clear) only the last 2 posts, I think this EU thread will have some input still as there are both proponents and opponents enough for a EU discussion.

Cheers.

No, EU depends to a degree on Arp et al. but Arp et al. do not proclaim the EU model. Clearly they are separate groups of alternative theories, and need their own threads. Until something specific to EU turns up about the quasar behind or in front of NGC-7319, we should keep that topic here in the Arp thread.

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Some noteworthy debate on the EU theory took place in this thread:
Image of Phobos

It will be useful to try and keep EU specific discussion here in the Alternaive Theories -> Electric Universe Model thread.

BTW, for my part I agree with Duane [no surprise there] the things which VanderL claims to see, are not readily apparent to my eyes. I see a bunch of stress fractures from the impact-formation of Stickney Crater.

As noted before, I think it is likely that Phobos and Demos both formed relatively recently [less than a billion years ago], from material kicked up by a giant impact to Mars. This is something that can't be proved for a few decades, and I don't have a huge vested interest in being right about this, but it is the model that makes the most sense to me with the facts we have today.

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Hi Antoniseb,

I agree that this discussion belongs here, I just couldn't shut up when I saw the very detailed images of Phobos. The reason is that in here I mostly discussed with Tim Thompson, and he doesn't want to talk about specific examples, only the physics.

That's exactly where the EU model starts, seeing evidence of electric scarring everywhere in the solar system. You say no, I say yes. Did you check the Ralph Juergens link? He specifically explains why the channels, crater chains and sinuous rilles on both the Moon and Mars are evidence of electric scarring. The same features can be seen on comets, the moons of Saturn and Jupiter, in fact almost every rocky surface in the solar sytem.
Collapse pits and crater chains and "impact" craters are almost exclusively caused by electric discharges (in the EU model). Actually, I think the EU explanation is simpler, there is only one mechanism responsible, while in the mainstream view, a whole host of different explanations, epochs and hypothetical processes are needed (hypothetical because, as just one example, we haven't shown that there are subsurface reservoirs below the collapse pits).
That's not to say that the EU model is correct, it is an alternative explanation that paints a consistent picture on how these rocky surfaces are shaped by electric discharges.

There are a number of features that are specific for EM scarring, and (because it's late already), I'll list some of those tomorrow. I'll add links to pictures (I hope) or maybe include them in the post, so you can judge for yourself if I'm talking nonsense, or if there is something to it.

You didn't read correctly, it says that while normal Earth lightning is responsible for the small scar
the scaled up version of planetary discharges (thousands of times stronger) are responsible for the planetary-sized scars. Now that is a consistent argument, no?



Again, sorry to hear this, and again I know these people are serious, so maybe it puts you off, but that doesn't automatically mean they are wrong or must be dismissed. Sometimes it is hard to find the right tone, as we all know in this forum.


No, I didn't (in fact, we constantly disagree over the images of the solar system), but I'm still unconvinced by your arguments and I still think there is room for an alternative view. So, I'll supply details later,


Cheers.

I'm too lazy to read the whole thunderbolts website but I'm curious? According to the EU model Has the moon been neutralized? Apollo 15 landed next to Hadley Rill, and nothing much seems to have happened electrically to those astronauts, or the delicate equipment they left behind up there. When do they think was the epoch that gigantic electrical discharges shaped the rills on the moon?

Similarly, the Mars Opportunity Rover drove past a small narrow rill on its way to the crater its currently in. Does the EU theory say that this was likely formed by an giant electrical discharge? The rover seems to be doing fine.

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Hi Antoniseb, I hope you’re not "too lazy" to read this post , it became longer than I expected.

Yep, in the EU model, the period of extensive scarring is over for most places in the solar system, eventually planets and moons can reach equilibrium, but there are exceptions.
Comets become active when they move from the outer reaches of the solar sytem towards the Sun, where they try to find a new equilibrium.
Io is still actively being "machined', the "volcanoes" are discharges reshaping Io's surface in precisely the same way as Mars and other surfaces.

The "epoch" of scarring was a period of disruption in the solar sytem, if I didn’t misread the EU version of this event, Saturn was the primary where Earth, Mars and possibly Venus were circling, but to me this is more speculative than the evidence of electric discharges.
This event was recorded in ancient myth, the well-known stories of planets at war. So, that was very recent actually, let’s say within the last 10,000 years.

While the Moon isn't very active nowadays, on Mars there is still evidence of discharging, the dust devils that are frequently seen, are watered down versions, the same as lightning and aurorae on Earth (remember the Elves, Sprites and other stuff connects lightning to space in the EU model) and Venus.

To answer your question, it is no surprise that astronauts on the Moon were unaffected, but the problems with one of the rovers on Mars early on could have been the result of a dust devil. I must add that a number of missions to Mars suffered problems that could have been related to electrical problems, but that is speculation of course.

Oh, and I forget one important scarring event that was active for every planet or moon: in the EU model planets do not accrete, they are expelled from the primary star in nova-like events. At the moment of "birth" the primary star has to accommodate so much electrical stress that the only way to do so is by increasing it’s surface. This process is called "fissioning" and the result depends on (at least) 3 factors; the mass of the star, the amount of electrical overload and the duration of the event. The result can be anything from a planet (closely orbiting the primary) including moons, or several planets up to the creation of binary systems (or higher). This is quite complex, but the idea is that a supernova heralds the birth of a new star, and novae are an indication of planet formation (but I’m not completely sure).

This process is accompanied by big discharges (the discharges help dissipate angular momentum and also help to circularise their orbits) , hence extensive scarring is the result.


Cheers.

Thanks for a nice summary. I did read all of it, though, as you can imagine, some bits increased my doubts about EU. The notion that the epoch of electrical instability in the solar system, and on the Moon, Venus, and Mars happened during the time covered by human oral history seems to minimize the power of this electrical conflagration... After all, we survived.

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Thanks for the thanks, but what do you suppose the Venusians and Martians thought about this episode?



You're right that these parts of the EU proposals are way out, but there is a piece of evidence found by Anthony Peratt (he of the Plasma Instabilities), that conclusively shows that there was an enhanced aurora visible in the skies, recorded by ancient peoples in petroglyphs (rock-carvings) all over the world. This enhanced aurora is one piece in the puzzle of the apparent obsession of the ancients with celestial events. For the EU people it is evidence of the turbulent past of our solar system.

Cheers.

P.S. I hope I don't violate the author's rights but I think this is really important, so if anyone wants to read it, just PM your e-mail address, I'll send the abstract (only the abstract, just to cover my *** really).

I thought Von Daniken was dust. Has EU reconstituted him? We know planetary birth pangs are turbulent, sometimes cannibalistic, but there are no such recent signs of strife. BTW, petroglyphs mean only what the shaman says they mean. S

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Pick one.

Absolutely not! No aliens anywhere in the EU.

Well, the article by Peratt shows that petroglyphs (most, if not all) are celectial depictions of an enhanced aurora, maybe the shaman said the same thing, who knows.

An enhanced aurora consists of several characteristic features, that could have lasted for years. Depending where on Earth you're viewing this aurora it can look like a "stick figure" with two distinct dots at it's side. There are many more forms, all of which can be found in petroglyphs.

Some images can be found in this PDF (you'll have to scroll down a bit), Peratt and others found an astounding amount of petroglyphs from really all over the world. All this is very interesting in it's own right, for the EU model it is important that an enhanced aurora is evidence of enhanced electrical activity in the past.

Cheers.

I promised to this earlier, but alas, volleybal and soccer come first sometimes.

I’ll try to explain in this post what examples gave me reason to consider the possibility that electric discharges created the craters(chains)/valleys/channels on almost every rocky surface in the solar sytem. I linked to Juergens' explanation of these features in an earlier post. This is my own version with examples I gathered from the net, if you don't agree with the explanation just see this as a picture gallery.

The normal explanation of what I'm trying to show has many different explanations: either impacts, rifting, volcanic, tectonic, collapse pits/lava tubes and a whole bunch i forgot to mention, water erosion is never evident in most of these places, even on Mars.
In the electric version there are several possible features unique to the electrical scarring process. Single, short discharges create craters, larger short discharges create larger craters with additional cratering on the highest points (the crater rim) and the crater floor is flat with a central mound and circular grooves as a result of the vortex-like behaviour of the discharge. Stronger discharges produce crater chains when the surface is "hit"several times within a short timespan (minutes). These craters form into crater chains and when the discharge is even stronger new features arise, the craters start to merge and overlap causing the sinuous rilles (Schröter’s Valley on the Moon and Nirgal Vallis on Mars are good examples). The discharge excavates the surface (no debris is left, only clean flatbottomed and steep-walled cliffs and scalloped edges are formed), this also explains why some of the valleys/channels start on seemingly insignificant places and leading either to a larger crater, or they just stop.
Larger channels can have side channels, "tributaries" that are very short and deep with all the other features mentioned above.
Large crater sometimes show "Lichtenberg patterns", radial features known from ordinary lightning here on Earth as well. These can be gigantic, as seen on the Moon,
This webpage http://www.psrd.hawaii.edu/Sept04/LunarRays.html show how they look and what the usual explanation is, in the EU model these features are evidence of electric discharges, exactly like the figures named after a German scientist describing these electrical patterns.


From craters to chains to channels the same process is responsible, the only difference is the "impact distance’ between craters, all of them are electric discharge scars.
The images I compiled are only some examples, I think it would be a fulltime job to find the evidence from the (THEMIS, Malin, Mars express etc) image databases.


Schröter’s Valley on the Moon is an example that shows the same characteristics as some of the Martian channels. The diffrence is that the Martian examples look much fresher (and the image quality is superior).

http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/Schrot...ters_Valley.jpg
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V08218003.html

Here the craters merge into a channel:

http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V08111001.html


Here we also see branching, just like "Lichtenberg" patterns created by ordinary lightning, only scaled up orders of magnitude.
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V08990003.html


A number of start and stop channels/craters in a strange pattern.
http://themis-data.asu.edu/img/V08054002.html

A channel with all kinds of smaller features, craters etched into the surface.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=14506

Here the channels are much wider, notice the scalloped edges which are also visible on all scales in the previous images.
http://www.spaceref.com/news/viewsr.html?pid=8118


Only one crater chain example from the Moon; the "Davey" crater chain.
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/expmoon/Apollo16/A...culpture3dw.jpg

This webpage shows possible crater chains on Earth plus the Davey Crater chain on the Moon.

http://www.boulder.swri.edu/~bottke/crater...hain/chain.html


There are also crater chains (and of course the ubiquitous craters and channels and rilles) on other moons (Callisto, Ganymede, Phobos where I was reminded of the strong resemblance) and all the rocky planets, plus asteroids and comets.

Phew, that was a lot. I hope it shows you what I am seeing, I’m sure there are many things to say as counter arguments. But I think this explanation of all these features (and I haven’t covered a fraction of all the features) is simple (only one mechanism) and consistent.

Cheers.