Hello Michael,

Let me rephrase my point about the abundance of hydrogen but this time, I will refer to experiments I was involved in at the relativistic heavy ion collider :

what we do in these colliders is somehow to recreate a 'mini big bang'. When the heavy ions are accelerated at 99.9999 % of the speed of light, they collide. The 'fireball' created for a very short while contains almost pure energy (in fact, a quantum color field highly exited that wants badly to cool down). How does it cool down ? By producing new particles by energy mass conversion. Now, since we deal with a color field, particles created will be mainly hadrons (of course you get a lot of leptons as well but that's not the point here). What is the lightest hadron ? The pion. Then comes the kaon, the nucleon, the lambda, etc, etc in increasing mass order. What is the relative adundance between these particles ? Believe me, because the pion is the lightest, it is by far the most abundant. I know it because production of pions and kaons was the main subject of my PhD thesis.

The production of these particles follow roughly the statistical model prediction which I was referring briefly in my previous post. So, in the BB theory, element production follows the same line : the lightest element will be the most abundant element because the universe can be roughly seen as a statiscal ensemble. When a system cools off, that is what you get : creation of particles whose populations follow the statistical order if your system reaches thermal and chemical equilibration.

I demonstrated that in my research project. I can even provide you with a link to our article : Phys.Rev.Lett. 94 (2005) 162301

Note : I did not say that everything starts from a single point. I did not mention initial conditions. There is some evidence out there that the universe was once very dense in terms of energy and very hot. What ever the original condition, that does not remove the aformentioned state of high density that has existed in the past. The fact that we reproduce these conditions nowadays in heavy ion colliders tend to confirm such a picture. One can of source argue ad eternam about the origin of the universe, but now, we enter metaphysics. You absolute rejection of a single point universe at t = 0, is also more an act of faith. As long as you cannot prove it, you cannot reject it either.

I personaly think it is interesting that we came up with such weird concepts (time 0, singularity, big bang). They will certainly reveal themselves a mere or gross estimation of the true nature of the universe's origin, but it opens up one's mind. Whether it is true or not does not really matter, as we move along to a better description and understanding. If these concepts helped, cool If not, who cares at the end ?

http://www.thesurfaceofthesun.com/model.htm

We're working on that issue in a different thread just to keep things simple. It is also here on the ATM board.

What a really great job you have! I'm jealous.

So energy and heat is being really being moved into atoms and "condensed" in a way, correct? The energy was always present, it simply changed "form". It did not appear of out "nothing" nor return to "nothing". All energy was preserved in some way, if only in heat, correct?

I'm convinced you know your stuff.

Let me be clear here. I'm sure that *IF* the conditions existed as described the math and physics would work out just as you suggest. I don't question any of that. What I question is whether that focus of energy was ever that concentrated in the first place. You are using very sophisticated equipment that is structured and setup just right in order to be able to dupicate such conditions on a very small scale. What would it take to do something like this on a much large scale? Even if you mini-BB scenario, I will bet that there are some particles that never collide even if some of the materials did collide to create a mini-BB. The debate is really about whether or not all energy was ever concentrated to that degree in the first place.

I absolutely believe you and I do not doubt your results at all. I'm certain that the math and physics work out in collider experiments, but rarely if ever do all the materials get "consumed" or broken down, even in these very precise experiments.

Well, let me ask you this. Did you break down every atom you used in that experiment? In other words, I'm assuming that not all of your "target" material was completely destroyed, or was it? That's really my issue here. I have no beef with the basic concept. My question is whether it was "clean" in the sense that all energy was once "subatomic" and only subatomic. If some of that energy was already in the form of matter, and not all of it was destroyed, then these wonderful and important experiments may still shed no insight into our cosmic origins, even if they give us highly important insights into the atom. I do no question the validity of your work in any way. I want to be very clear about that. I simply question if it applies to the events at 0,0,0,0.

I care. I really do appreciate your time and effort and professionalism. I greatly respect the work you do. I am simply not certain that all the energy of the BB was concentrated enough to turn it all into subatomic energy. That is one possiblity among many possibilities. If however there was a "slam" type of an event rather than an all consuming "bang", then I think the gas model concept of our universe is in deep trouble. If our own solar system is nothing but the recycled materials from supernova's spanning back over eons before our own universe formed, then iron may also be more abundant than ever imagined. I think that's exactly what happened based on what I see in Hubble and Chandra and Spitzer images. I see no evidence to suggest that all matter was consumed in one "bang", or any evidence to suggest that iron did not predate our physical universe.

Just to emphasize a point made by Thorgal: Big Bang Cosmology (BBC), despite common perceptions to the contrary, has nothing to do with the origin of the universe. This is because general relativity is a classical theory, and it cannot handle the high energy conditions of the early universe. Therefore, the initial state of the universe is undefined, and the history within ~1 Planck time is inaccessible. So BBC in truth is only a theory (or more accurately, a family of theories) that deals with the evolution of the universe, after it has been created. The "creation' of the universe (if indeed it was created at all) remains to be explored by quantum physical theories of gravity, which remain as yet unknown. The true nature of the "bang" remains elusive, and it remains uncertain that there was a "bang" at all.

Michael,

Just a quick thought : let's say that the universe follows a cycle of contraction and expansion. When the universe gets 'old' during one cycle, you have more heavy elements than when it was younger, that seems reasonable. If the universe undergoes a contraction phase such that the density is high enough, all your elements will lose their chemical identity and return to a soup of quark-gluon plasma. Now let's say that expansion occurs again as a new cycle is initiated, you have then the same chemistry history repeating itself. Maybe, once the universe is smaller than the Plank scale, the least density of fluctuation makes it undergo a violent expansion, who knows ?

But the question of the origin of energy remains a mystery, as well in your proposal.

I hear you. I guess the biggest problem I have with the 'bang' concept is that is just a little "too convenient", and it has no parallel in the natural universe. The closest thing to it in energy concentration is a galaxy collision and a lot of iron is released in such events. I think the whole "bang" concept is just a little too convenient for my tastes. It is the kind of "final" answer you might light to come up with to make things tidy, but that may simply be wishful thinking on the part of a few. Life is pretty messy. It's hard to believe our origins are quite that "simple".

Like I said, I see an abundance of iron in early universe in Hubble images. Common methods of determining the relative composition of elements shows little change in all that time. That too is hard to believe if it all started as a bang. I would expect Hubble to be able to discern a significant difference in the amount of iron then compared to now, even assuming a few stars went supernova by then. We are not looking back to near the origins of our universe and there seems to be little sign of change in relative densities of heavy elements in all that time. Doesn't that sound suspiscious to you?

One very important thing to remember is that when we look at galaxies as far back as Hubble and other instruments can get good spectroscopy for, we are seeing systems that have been active for hundreds of millions of years, but it only takes a few million years for the largest stars to go through to become supernovae. Also, the only parts of these galactic masses that we are seeing directly are the parts that are going through active and vigorous star formation. This is exactly where the highest concentrations of Iron should be, and they should be showing modern mature levels of Iron even then.

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Forming opinions as we speak

Why? In fact, this is what I said of that "surface":

As for the details, we've covered that many times before (6000k black body temperature typical, etc.). If you have questions you would do just as well reading a text about solar physics. Let's get back to issues related to your argument:

Are you suggesting there are literal shadows in this image? If so, what is your contextual information that would indicate that this is a valid interpretation of the image?

What do you mean by "lines"? I'm not sure what you are referring to.

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Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

Exactly, the best explanation for heavy elements being present in the first few billion year is Population III stars. For anyone who doesn't know what these are in our own Galaxy stars like the Sun which have a similar metal content and live in Galactic disk are called Population I. Metal poor stars live in the Galactic halo (including globular clusters) these are Population II. However they are not entirely lacking in metals, hence there is a theoretical first generaton of stars known as Population III which were probably quite massive, formed, fused elements, went supernova and mixed their heavy elements back into the Galaxy.

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Its better tae meddle wi the deil............

I'll prop you up on that, definitely. Shadows on the sun? The brightest thing in our solar system?

I think we can rephrase an old saying. The one about snowballs in hell.

"Stands about as much chance as a shadow on the sun!"

LOL

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My son is my universe.

They ain't shadows, Mike. No way.

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My son is my universe.

y'all are keying on what it most likely nothing but a figure of speech, like referring to sunspots as "dark" spots on the sun - relatively speaking, they are dark; though, in absolute magnitude, they are quite bright.. I would suspect that keying on the word "shadows" would be like keying on "dark" in that context. Ultra-literalism is one of the characteristics of these debates that tends to distract strongly from what could otherwise be constructive, or at least less destructive than this.

I'm not even sure any longer what the actual fundamental debate is - it gets bumped up against often enough, but, as with many things in life, it is more than happy to move out of the way so people can instead focus on "details". I am reminded of the scene in "Oh, Brother, Where Are Thou?" where the two advisors are arguing over whether the Governor is going to get his butt "kicked" in the upcoming election or just "spanked"...

At least it has entertainment value, though, right?

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If I'm wrong, you probably asked me the wrong question.

Nope, after rereading Michael's quote and his subsequent answers, I'm still convinced this is not a figure of speech. He sees them as dark in an absolute sense, i.e. if you could see a sunspot without the glare of the surrounding sun, it would be (nearly) black to the eye. In reality, it would only become black to the eye after some thirty seconds or so, but it would then be permanently so...
I asked him again if he stood by this statement just to make certain that we weren't interpreting him the wrong way, but he has made it clear that the literal meanning of black was his intention.
I don't think a constructive debate is possible, but I do think that many people who have read or contributed have learned a lot about the Sun, the different satelites obeserving it, spectroscopy, and debating tactics.

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Knowledge is a curse, but ignorance is worse

No, image interpretation without context is a fundamental issue in this discussion. Here's what Michael said in a post in another thread:

*sigh*

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I say there is an invisible elf in my backyard. How do you prove that I am wrong?

Disclaimer: Avatar is not an official NASA image and does not imply any specific interplanetary or interstellar capability.

The Leif Ericson Cruiser

It's missing the neon layer component altother. I don't however know how I could have been any more up front about the fact that there are other kinds of photons present, both below the neon and above it that also emit in the visible spectrum. I get the feeling this is just one of those things someone latched onto that they thought they could make a point with. I've been clear all along that most of the heat is in the outer plasmas and they too would emit photons. I noted that many photons come through this "hole" as well. I fully understand the early confusion my "figure of speech" first caused, but I fail to understand the confusion now that I have epxlained myself fully. My point was that the light we see is "drastically" (not a little) altered in these areas.

I'll be happy to accept my role in the confusion, but some of the confusion seems to be externally driven at this point. I have been very clear about it.

Sigh what?

By your logic, you can't tell anything unless you know every detail. Life doesn't work like that. I can look at tree and know it's a tree without knowing how many leaves are on the tree. By your logic we can't even know there is a tree in that image because we don't know the pixel dimensions. Surely you've used a digital camera before and didn't know the pixel details of the image but could still make out the objects in the picture?

Ya, that actually did surprise me quite a bit. Now if you would be so kind as to locate that surface for us in relationship to the other surfaces like the surface of the photosphere and the surface of the chromosphere then we can proceed to discuss the layer. Where is it in your opinion in relationship to the other two layers I mentioned?

Once you figure out where it is located, how about taking a stab at what temperature it's at. I'll even let you be within 50% of the actual temperature . How does it keeps it's structure at this temperature?

I think you should do some reading on electrical activity and neon. You seem to have it stuck in your head that black body radiation explain these images. While I give Baloo great credit for at least attempting to address some of the details of this layer, I've yet to see you address any of these details. Why for instance is the umbra different from the penumbra and why is the penumbra lit all way down more than 500km before the umbra starts? Why the flare patterns?

You mean besides the fact that nearly all the shadows are related to all the ridged areas in the image? If you recall I said the light source was the arc. I would expect it to cast a shadow on the sides that were furthest away from the most intenst electrical activity, the sides that face away from moving plasma.

Explain any of the structure you see in the layer. Why is it there? How do you know that these are not ridges and shadow?