Dear posters,

To my mind, the "electric-cosmos" concept has not been refuted at all.

John T

I know a bit about this issue. I used to be a follower of the neo-Velikovskian catastrophists until an extensive email conversation with Leroy Ellenberger, another former Velikovskian, who finally finished my "deconversion" away from V's supporters.

The "Electric Cosmos" theory is bupkis. It is simply a neo-catastrophist corruption of Hannes Alfven's plasma cosmology theory and Halton Arp's "non-expanding" universe models--ideas that, while suspect, are not necessarily "crank" theories (they do end up in legit peer-reviewed journals, after all)--mixed in with Velikovskian catastrophism.

You see, neo-catastrophists need the Electric Star theory in order to justify their off-the-wall "theories" of solar system dynamics, which involve classic Velikovsky gags like gigantic lightning bolts jumping between planets, carving out craters and canyons in the process, and planets being ejected violently from their orbits. The ES theory involves in large part a hijacking Alfven's plasma cosmology and warping it past breaking point to fit their ideas. However, this is similar, if not identical, to certain tactics employed by creationists (some neo-Velikovskians do appear to be creationists as well, BTW), who will hijack anything in the scientific literature--mainstream or not--and distort it beyond recognition in order to justify a 6000 year old universe. As another example, Arp's theories, while not at all necessary for catastrophism to "work," is hijacked by Velikovskians simply because it suits their agenda.

However, the claims of catastrophists have been debunked in numerous writings, including the TalkOrigins archive (see http://talkorigins.org/origins/faqs-catastrophism.html). Tim has argued against the Electric Star theory, and I have also added my own arguements into the debunking of this so-called "theory of stellar physics" in this thread: http://www.badastronomy.com/phpBB/vi...amp;highlight=

Yes, Rees is right. While electromagnetic forces are responsible for the everday behavior of solids, liquids, gases, chemical reactions, etc., they lose their influence under extreme gravitational conditions. Perhaps the most notable example of this is "degenerate matter" which exists primarily in dense stars, including white dwarfs, neutron stars, and also in the interiors of red and brown dwarfs--all objects of considerable densities far exceeding densities encountered on Earth (osmium is the densest non-degenerate solid-state substance, with a specific gravity of about 22.6), or even in the center of the Sun (specific gravity of about 150).

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"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference." - Richard Dawkins

Rees's explanation seems to be misleading, or else I'm missing something. I don't think Jupiter's magnetic field has roughly equal strength with its gravitational field, as he implies. But I could be wrong.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Did you read this document or just look at the pictures? The document states, and I quote:

Further it states:

The document continues:

The document continues further:

The document also states that the impinging matter MUST have a circular projection in the direction of incidence. The document does stipulate, however, that these impacts could have been cones, hemispheres or spheres, and I would assume cylinders since they also have a circular cross section.

Now, aside from the fact that there have never been observed spherical, hemispherical or conic or cylindric meteorites, this ad hoc condition is unlikely to be satisfied. Further, given that these "models" only work in wet cement, it is unlikely they replicated the processes that were at work on the moon, unless you think perhaps the moon was made of wet cement that got hit by balls (or half-balls, cones, cylinders) of similarly unset cement. Is that the point, here? That the moon and its "impactors" were all made of wet cement at one time? Did teamsters make the moon?

It should be obvious at this point that physical impact models fail, where the electric erosion model still rings true. Maybe if people did a bit more research than uncovering a forty-year-old demonstration using wet cement they might realize they are making fools of themselves.

How many sock-puppets does this guy have?

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Feynman
>~~~~<
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

You seem like an ideal candidate to discuss this issue. After all, you responded in two minutes when I posted to a thread that's been inactive for a year and three months. Would you care to discuss the subject of lunar craters and how they got there? Take plenty of time to read my post if you haven't already, four minutes should be enough.

P.S.: It's a good idea to include a subject for your posts in the future, so we get some idea at a glance what your post is about and we can follow threads. Just a suggestion, cheers!

I post to the subject of the thread. There's a lunar portion of this board, go there for lunatiks :wink:.

Impacts by massive objects. Done.

__________________

Feynman
>~~~~<
Science is a way of trying not to fool yourself. The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

I find your tone insulting and I'll ask you nicely to stop insinuating that I am irrational.

If you wish to continue this discussion I'd like you to explain why you think all lunar craters were created by impacts? The wet cement experiments performed forty years ago prove beyond doubt, if the moon had been made of wet cement, and had been impacted by blobs of wet cement with circular projections in the direction of incidence, this mystery would be solved.

That stated, until we get some evidence that the moon was made of wet cement, this particular data set is not entirely useful for verifying the impact hypothesis. In fact it tends to falsify the hypothesis in the stark absence of other evidence suggesting impacts. However, there is the possibility that you know of some other evidence, perhaps some impacts that have been observed and are known to have made the kinds of craters that exist in very large numbers on the moon?

Of course we can't observe everything that has occurred or will occur, but surely there must be some avenues we can pursue to collect evidence to either verify this impact hypothesis or falsify it. In my view, it has already been falsified by observations, and since we have the very reasonable electric force to draw upon, which can create precisely these shapes in ANY material, the mystery is solved. The vast majority of the craters on the moon were created by electrical erosion.

Yep, I'll go for massive, large, and small objects.

If electrical charges cause craters, why doesn't lightning make craters?

Why don't we see craters being created now by electrical charges?

If this phenomenon were real, wouldn't we see craters being built on just about any planet, even our own?

This is such an obvious blunder, but it doesn't seem to have been corrected yet, so here goes. What we have here is a case of oversimplification. Obviously the amount of current a body will draw is based on its electrical properties and the available source of electrons. The last time I checked, surface area was not an inherently electrical property of matter. While surface area will indeed figure into the overall problem, it is not of chief concern when deducing or predicting electrical effects. What is much more important is the body's capacity to draw current. As I'm sure you well know by now, Birkeland currents are filaments that are capable of carrying tremendous electrical currents, and they are proven experimentally to exist. I can't say I understand this fanatical devotion to the stellar fusion model, a model that has been falsified by observations (sunspot observations being just one type).

Please do not repost insinuations that I am irrational, as I find it very insulting.

Wonderful! Now cite some evidence supporting the impact hypothesis, please.

They do. Not only do they cause pitting they also can blast trenches with a morphology very similar to the Grand Canyon and the also very similar canyon on Mars.

We see them every day. Have you heard of arc welders? Take a look at some electron micrographs of cathode erosion, you'll see "terrain" that looks like it could be on the moon.

Amazingly enough, we do see craters on about every rock in the solar system. We see impossibly large craters on rocks that certainly would have been pulverized if they had been created by impacts (barring wet cement hypotheses). We also see channels and gorges on many planets without a large amount of cratering, a finding consistent with the electrical model. And as is typical, astronogers come up with a different ad hoc explanation for each body, including ad hoc conditions like "recent resurfacing" to wedge into the nebular hypothesis of planet formation and "periodic geological activity" and even "periodic precipitation" to account respectively for lack of expected evidence and similarity of electrically-carved shapes to fluid erosion (but in the absence of other evidence of such).

For anyone interested in learning a bit more about the "electric universe" ideas, there is a large archive of brief articles and accompanying photographs (over 150, arhived five days a week) at the Thunderbolts home page, produced by David Talbott, Wallace Thornhill, Amy Acheson, Mel Acheson, Michael Armstrong, Dwardu Cardona, Ev Cochrane, Walter Radtke, C.J. Ransom, Don Scott, Rens van der Sluijs and Ian Tresman, and maintained by webmaster Michael Armstrong.

Here is a brief description of an experiment involving electrical arc cratering, with an accompanying photograph. The article and accompanying photograph appeared in the Thunderbolts' web page "picture of the day" section, July 02, 2004. I think anyone would find this to be a very eye-opening demonstration of the capability of electrical arcing to create craters. In the absence of any evidence verifying impact models, and in the presence of evidence that falsifies them, we must ask if these effects are scaleable. Could the forces at work act on a planetary scale, to gouge enormous craters out of, for example, the moon?



Plasma physicists have revealed that plasma effects are scaleable. They act similarly on every known scale. In a sense they are fractal in nature. And at every scale they obey the same simple rules. Like the simple rules of a fractal, these "laws of physics", as they are known, create incredibly complexity, also on every scale.

All that remains is to verify that the electrical environment around the sun is not perfectly stable. Astronogers keep asking for proof of electric current streaming into the sun. These same people will explain all about the "solar wind", not realizing that this "radiation" they think they understand is a direct consequence of the "missing electrons" they never looked for. It is very difficult to measure negative charge in space, apparently. We can, however, measure positive charge with some success.

We know there has to be an equality of force or the protons would not be accelerating away from the sun. If they were shot like cannonballs out of a "nuclear furnace", they would decelerate as they moved away from the sun. How do you accelerate positively charged particles? By applying an ELECTRIC FIELD. From observations of these accelerating particles we know that the sun's electrical environment is not completely stable. We also know that these positively-charged particles must be part of what is known as a "circuit". Those of you familiar with electronics might know what a circuit is.

We know the Earth constitutes part of a circuit. That circuit is fed by the sun. A few folks in this thread have mentioned equilibrium. It's exactly on topic. The Earth's circuit leaks a lot, so it's being fed. The obvious culprit is the sun. People don't like this idea, that the Earth is being blasted by massive electrical discharges. It's unsettling to realize that's exactly where all this light is coming from in the daytime. Is there anyone here who can deny they get a "charge" from sunshine?

We know the sun routinely burps massive arcs of electricity. We see coronal mass ejections (coronal electron impinging) frequently on the surface of the sun. If the Earth were lying in the face of some of these arcs it would likely be incinerated. Is it such a stretch to imagine one of these bolts streaking out to strike a planet? Look at some images of comets passing close to the sun, the coronal mass ejections nearly grab some of them.

Are these "thunderbolts" a thing of the past? Maybe they are, I don't know. Most agree the birth of the solar system (or growth or whatever) was accompanied by a lot of debris. With a bunch of debris whizzing around shorting the sun's circuits like mosquitos in a bug zapper, it's easy to envision these thunderbolts from the sun tearing up all the planets.

Take a look at some of the high-speed photography of Sandia's "z machine" to get some idea of how just one of these bolts could strike many if not all of the planets, and all of their satellites, nearly simultaneously. How many light minutes is it to Mars? And to our moon? To the sun? It could strike and vanish in hours, leaving only the scars as evidence of its passing. We should learn all we can about these scars, it might save our lives some day.



It's really perplexing. All the data from the "space age" is screaming ELECTRIC at us, but so many are addicted to metaphysical gravity models and "solar wind" gasbags.

Absence of any evidence?
What would you accept as evidence?
I found this: Phys. Rev. Lett. 91, 104301 (2003)
Where is the evidence that falsifies impact cratering models?

Why the difference?
Electrons and protons have the same charge (except for the sign): if we can measure the current due to the protons, how can we miss the electron current if we do not "look for" it?


Interplanetary space is a good vacuum.
Why would protons decelerate?


What makes you think that the Solar System is like a circuit?


As far as I know, the sunlight is not the solar wind.
What makes you think that they are related (on Earth)?

By the way, light does not carry charge.


So, the comets have to get close to the Sun.
What makes you think that these ejections can reach a planet?


Fear-Uncertainty-Doubt (FUD) tactic?
What has this "Z machine" to do with the Solar System?


Yet we cannot measure this electric effects, even if our technology is based on the use of electromagnetic effects.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

And now you're a follower of Leroy Ellenberger? Who will you follow tomorrow?

And postulating massive rocks that blast gigantohuge craters in the Earth and killed the dinosaurs isn't "catastrophism"? I find this urge to link proponents of various models of electrical activity with "catastrophists" is akin to just calling them nazis or nihilists or trolls. It's a weak tactic, considering the alternative hypotheses generally suggest similar catastrophies, but with more preposterous suggestions as to the cause.

You seem to be well versed in what neo-catastrophists need. It's fortunate that you aren't one any more, and that you now no longer believe in or trust these ideas. I do wonder, though, why you find the idea of gigantic lightning bolts to be so improbable, and why you seem to be ignoring abundant evidence that electrical arcing can do damage.

How does one hijack a cosmology? Further, how does one warp or break or in any physical way manipulate a cosmology? This is really unclear and frankly it reeks of hyperbole.

One key difference between various proponents of electrical effect modeling and creationists is that electrical effects are verifiable and we can experiment with them. Big bang believers are much more like creationists, in fact they are creationists, prefering "big bang" to "let there be light".

I'm starting to wonder how you do your research. This is some amazing sociological complexity you're expounding on, replete with hijackings and machiavellian machinations.

Once again I'm at a loss for why you find it so improbable that the sun is powered electrically.

Steel balls dropped into glass beads. And you think this accurately reflects an enormous rock bigger than your house smashing into the moon? Perhaps you should think about this some more. This model suffers the same failing as the forty-year-old wet cement experiments. It in no way approximates what would happen if a rock smashed into the moon or any other humongous round rock. How you can not see this is beyond me. See my post about the other model: Faulty Wet Cement Model Doesn't Hold Water

Have you read the paper?
What exactly is wrong with these experiements?

By the way, you mentioned evidence that disproves the impact cratering models: where is it?

Can you explain in detail why it is not a good approximation?

Can you explain exactly what is wrong with this model?
Can you show us that the electric model can do better?

By the way, it would be helpful if you addressed the other points in my post.

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Which is it? Are they detectable or not detectable? It's unclear which you mean.

This is a really convenient machination. Professional astronogers claim they detect neutrinos, but only a third as many as they expect. How to resolve the dilema? Invent two more "flavors" of neutrino and build two more detectors that will give you the same number as the first detector, then conclude that neutrinos are changing their "flavor" without in situ measurements of these neutrinos at their supposed origin.

This is like watching a train of boxcars and flatcars coming into your town, and without prior knowlege of the train, concluding that all the cars had been switched around en route and changed from flatcars to boxcars and vice versa, but no cars added or removed. It's beyond absurd.

Welcome to the board.

Yes, the emerging Plasma Universe paradigm is the way ahead.

In previous discussions I have had on this board, however, there are many who even refuse to acknowledge that electromagnetic phenomena exist on vast cosmic scales. Go figure.

Conventional cosmology, of course, relies on gravity with a little magnetism stirred into the equations now and again. Electric currents, aka Birkeland currents, are overlooked. Again, go figure.

There is a plethora of information available on Plasma Cosmology. Just Google A. Perratt for starters.

It should be noted, however, that Plasma Cosmology is a big and growing subject that acknoweldges the possibilty of Velikovskian style catastrophism, and the ongoing development of these ideas, without resting on them. It simply incorporates their possibility.

The paradigm is shifting, slowly but surely, but the implications of the work of geniuses like Birkeland and Alfven, and one or two others -- in laying the foundations of the new cosmology -- are yet to be fully understood and recognised by the mainstream. In many ways their ideas seem too simple to be true, especially as they do not rely on nonsense like Dark Matter and Dark Energy.

"In the beginning was The Plasma." Hannes Alfven

Have a look at this: Phys. Rev. D 70, 073014 (2004), "Prospects of accelerator and reactor neutrino oscillation experiments for the coming ten years".

(By the way, it is spelled astronomers, not "astronogers".)

__________________
papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

I just got through perusing the mission results of the Ulysses probe, which hasn't been updated in over two years, since January, 2003. This document makes no mention of attempted direct detection of electron flux, either into or out of the sun, so I don't know where you got the idea that Ulysses was looking for this kind of data. It does, however, make numerous mentions of charged particles accelerating away from the sun, which is of course clear indirect evidence of electric fields. Positively-charged particles don't accelerate themselves.

And we see once again, astronogers were baffled by observations from Ulysses, until they invented some new forces.

Observations don't fit expectations. This is all too common among professional astronogers. They expect the wrong things because their models aren't useful or predictive.

Magnetic fields of the sun don't agree with predicted condition, ergo there are "pressure forces near the sun" that are making the data contradict their models. Ultimate hubris and stubborn willful ignorance. Pressure forces pushing magnetic field lines around! Laughable.

Temperature boundaries are sharper than velocity boundaries. This is unexpected in the context of gravity-fusion stellar models, and in fact serves to help falsify such notions. Plasma cosmologists quickly recognize this as a cellular double layer. Clearly electromanetic forces are dominating the sun.

Again observations contradict beliefs. We are told in these passages that the magnetic field lines spew out of the sun like water from a lawn sprinkler. Astronogers were essentially in agreement that "spewing magnetic field lines" would obey Newtons laws of motion and therefore at the poles they should be weaker, thinner, however you want to word it, and thus the "cosmic ray" flux should be much higher at the poles. Ulysses discovered unexpected "large-amplitude magnetic waves" that were so shocking to their belief system they didn't even have time to draw pictures of before press time.

Magnetic fields can only be created by electric current in motion. Ergo, "spewing" magnetic field lines imply "spewing" electric current. Remember your "right hand rule"? If the magnetic field lines are circling the sun clockwise, which direction is the current moving? What other electromagnetic effects will this current have on the plasma environment of the surrounding space as it passes through it?

Yes, I'm sure there will be no end of philosophical, meandering waffle around this "neutrino problem". The fact is it's a mystery that doesn't exist. It's been summoned up by astronogers who place their faith in erroneous models and ignore evidence that falsifies their fanatical belief system.

Astronogers???

Did you miss the word "experiments" in the title?
By the way, is "astronogers" a deliberate mis-spelling?
If that is the case, why would you mispell it?

If there was an unaccounted flow of charge, the probe would charge up.
You do not need to look intentionally for it, in order to notice an unexpected charging of your eletcronic equipment.

By the way, it would be helpful if you addressed the other points I made in my posts.

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papageno


"Why waste time learning, when ignorance is instantaneous?" - Hobbes (Calvin and Hobbes)

"It's all about context!" - Vince Noir (The Mighty Boosh)

"I've never heard of such a brutal and shocking injustice that I cared so little about!" - Zapp Brannigan (Futurama)

"...because the logic of the lines traced from reality is as poor of aesthetic value as it is strict in consistency. " - Paolo Bozzi (Naive Physics - free translation)

Sounds like a play on "Astrologers" --> Astronomers + Astrologers --> Astronogers.

tick, tick, tick, tick, tick.... [-X

A hybridization perhaps?

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An open mind is like an open window...without a good screen you'll get all sorts of weird bugs!

I believe that it is a contraction of the word astronomer with astrologer, intended as a term of disparagement, similar to lyndonashmore's "codsmology", derived from codswollop and cosmology. Obviously similar intent.

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I now officially condemn CM's skits as smartaleck, ignorant, sophomoric, inflammatory and and a poor reflection on the level of discussion in BAUT. -- Bob Angstrom

That's another 10 points off. [-X

__________________
Microsoft is over if you want it.

The bar has been lowered for the promotion of ATM ideas; the bar for the acceptance of ATM ideas must remain high.

I now officially condemn CM's skits as smartaleck, ignorant, sophomoric, inflammatory and and a poor reflection on the level of discussion in BAUT. -- Bob Angstrom