Magnetic Reconnection

[verisimilitude]

My bad, Mozina. I thought you were equating "electric current" with "Birkeland Current," ie the sun, the locus of the z-pinch in an intergalactic Birkeland Current, was creating and emitting its own Birkeland Currents at it's surface. *That* would take some explaining...

My end of this conversation seems to have run it's course; I clearly have little to add beyond unfounded speculation.

Cheers.

[Michael Mozina]

My bad, Mozina. I thought you were equating "electric current" with "Birkeland Current," ie the sun, the locus of the z-pinch in an intergalactic Birkeland Current, was creating and emitting its own Birkeland Currents at it's surface. *That* would take some explaining...

My end of this conversation seems to have run it's course; I clearly have little to add beyond unfounded speculation.

Cheers.

Well, I should note that that there are *at least* three primary EU/PC solar models to choose from, Alfven's relatively standard "homopolar generator" fusion model, Birkeland's internally powered "cathode" sun, and Juergen's (semi) externally powered anode model. They can't all be correct of course, but one of them probably is correct.

Alfven's solar model is probably the most "standard" of the various models. It's pretty much the standard solar model in terms of it's internal composition, with Birkeland currents flowing in at the poles, and currents flowing outward along the "Parker Spiral". He uses circuit theory to describe coronal loops. The sun is wired together with every sun in the galaxy and galaxies are wired together as well. All the suns act as "homopolar generators" in his opinion and suns are ultimately "power supplies".

Birkeland's model is very similar in most respects, and it too would be wired together, and internally powered by a 'transmutation of elements" (fusion) according to Birkeland. It has a mostly cathode surface, with mostly positively charged cosmic rays bombarding it from all sides.

Juergen's anode model was first proposed during the "neutrino deficit' days of solar physics before neutrino oscillation was observed and only electron neutrinos were measured to be about 1/3 of the expected number. His anode model was originally designed to be mostly externally powered, but it too has the potential of generating it's own power through local fusion, both deep inside the sun, as well as near the surface. It's actually the most "flexible" model in terms of neutrino output. Presumably it draws current in at the poles as well, but the idea was that electrons flowed into in from all sides from the universe, and protons flowed from out from it.

FYI, I tend to prefer Birkeland's cathode model based on the solar wind, and high speed 'strahl' electrons that are observed flowing *from* the sun as Birkeland predicted they would. If you review his laboratory images, they most resemble the kinds of observations we see today in modern (SDO) solar satellite imagery. He tried both anode and cathode models in the lab, but he preferred an internally powered cathode model based on his series of experiments.

I don't believe that even the SAFIRE program has been able to duplicate the full range of his work (yet), and until they do, and publish some papers on their findings, I'm inclined to trust the man (he had a team) who actually tested all the various configurations for himself before making up his mind.

If you ever get a chance to review Season 1, Episode 3 of the TV series called "Strange Evidence", near the end of that episode they discuss "Steve", a "Birkeland current" that sometimes flows through the Earth's atmosphere. There's about 3 seconds of video that is similar to the youtube video that was published by the University of Leicester that shows the cathode surface as they start to crank up the voltage. In those few seconds you can see CME type events that occur along the surface of the sphere. In every respect they mirror CME events observed in satellite imagery. The youtube video shows similar (smaller) discharges on the cathode surface but they aren't as pronounced (as large) and not quite as close in terms of the images. It's worth a look.

The one thing that Birkeland "predicted" is that "cathode rays" (called strahl electrons by the mainstream) flowed from the sun, and they dragged protons along in their wake. The fact that both electrons and protons flow from the sun toward space would seem to favor his model over Juergen's anode model IMO, but Alfven's model would have a similar particle flow near the equator of the sun.

It's impossible for me to look at satellite images anymore and not see the effect of electrical current which sustains those high temperature coronal loops, and which generates large and massive CME events. These are electrically driven processes of an electric sun, regardless of which EU/PC solar model one happens to favor.

About the only aspect of solar physics which Birkeland didn't play with himself was the atmospheric layering that would be caused by having different types of elements in the chamber. In every other respect he nailed it IMO and he did so via active experimentation. He not only explained a hot and sustained full sphere corona, he explained coronal loops, CME events, polar jets, the solar wind content and flow direction, etc. I don't see how anyone can simply overlook his work, but they continue to do so. It's a pity IMO. He got so much right.

Anyway, I've enjoyed our discussions. I think you'll find as you do some of your own further research that Birkeland's work is well worth your investment in terms of time and effort. Few if any human beings knew more about solar physics than he did IMO.

I'd also urge you to play around with Helioviewer images on your own, specifically the HMI magnetogram, and continuum images, and AIA 1600A, 1700A and 131A images. Overlay them during sunspot activity and I think you'll see that everything that I've told you "works out" in terms of the physics of what you'll observe in those images. The coronal loops are the key. You'll observe them leaving their heat and magnetic field signatures on the surface of the photosphere in those 1600A and Magnetogram images in real time over whatever timeframe you wish to review.

In the lab we heat plasma and sustain plasma up to to millions of degrees using ordinary electrical current. We observe discharges in our own atmosphere that emit positrons and well as electrons and gamma rays. We observe Birkeland currents in the aurora too just as Birkeland predicted from his experiments with his cathode sun model.

We absolutely live in an *electro*magnetic universe, not just a "magnetic" universe. The mainstream attempts to dumb everything down to magnetism alone, but CME and large scale solar atmospheric events are driven by electric fields IMO not just magnetic fields.

[nick c]

...during the "neutrino deficit' days of solar physics before neutrino oscillation was observed and only electron neutrinos were measured to be about 1/3 of the expected number

But Don Scott disputes this explanation and maintains that the neutrino deficit problem still exists. Could you clarify what it is about Scott's refutation with which you disagree?
http://electric-cosmos.org/sudbury.htm

[Michael Mozina]

...during the "neutrino deficit' days of solar physics before neutrino oscillation was observed and only electron neutrinos were measured to be about 1/3 of the expected number

But Don Scott disputes this explanation and maintains that the neutrino deficit problem still exists. Could you clarify what it is about Scott's refutation with which you disagree?
http://electric-cosmos.org/sudbury.htm

As I understand Scott's position, he accepts that all three types of neutrinos come from the sun, but he believes that neutrinos do *not* oscillate from one type to another (tau., muon, electron), rather he believes that all three types are created and emitted by processes that occur inside the photosphere. That's possible IMO, but I simply accept the concept that neutrinos may in fact oscillate from one type to another like the mainstream, so IMO they could all be fusion related. I don't write off Scott's position on the issue of oscillation, nor do I write off the mainstream position, but I tend to lean in the direction of the mainstream on that issue.

I think we all agree that there are X number of neutrinos coming from the sun, we simply differ on why we see all three types. I don't actually know if Scott is correct or not, but I don't really have a problem with the concept of neutrino oscillation. AFAIK, that's the only difference between us.

As I understand Juergens position however, AFAIK Juergens was not aware at the time that he proposed his solar model that all three types of neutrinos were present to start with. He believed that the sun simply emitted fewer of them, and the inflow of current made up for the energy difference. I can't recall however reading his specific position on that topic, so that's more of a 'guess" on my part.

[mharratsc]

Been a while since I posted, but a paragraph from a recently posted TPOD got me thinking:

From Disconnected Theories:

Heliophysicists believe that Earth’s magnetic tail “stretches like a windsock”, becoming so “tension-filled” that it “snaps like a rubber band”, causing magnetic field lines to “reconnect”, releasing magnetic energy in the form of heat and light. They believe that such events cause the auroral phenomenon when they “fling” charged particles from the magnetotail back into the atmosphere. A recent publication attempts to justify magnetic reconnection with ARTEMIS data.

The argument against magnetic reconnection seems over-thought in my opinion. Wouldn't it be much simpler to ask that they demonstrate the "stretching", "snapping", and "flinging" of charged particles back into a source magnetic field in a laboratory experiment using a spherical magnet in an electric field to simulate the solar wind?
I would request to see the generation of "heat and light" at the pole of the field via kinetic motion of the particles in question, without electrical excitation of the particles in a current sheet at the poles of the magnet.

Show me. Demonstrate an aurora via kinetic excitation, then I will consider "magnetic reconnection" to be something more than a "fairy dust" argument.

Peace.

[verisimilitude]

The fact that both electrons and protons flow from the sun toward space...

It's not exactly on topic, but THAT is the thing that makes the least sense to me. Why are they not attracting each other according to the basic EM laws? Why are the like charges not repelling eachother? How are electrons even able to escape a positively charged sun? (Let alone the slow solar wind, which fails to reach escape velocity - even with the help of "MR".)

All models create the impression of doing a fantastic job selectively apply their laws... which only fosters confusion.

Anyway, I've enjoyed our discussions

No worries here, sir. I'm sure there are plenty of things over which we can agree to disagree.

Cheers

[nick c]

The fact that both electrons and protons flow from the sun toward space...

It's not exactly on topic, but THAT is the thing that makes the least sense to me. Why are they not attracting each other according to the basic EM laws?

No laws of physics are violated. You are dealing with a dynamic swirling plasma environment. Plasmas were given that name by Langmuir because of their seemingly life like behavior. The implication being that there is at least a superficial appearance of unpredictability. Plasma physics is still a relatively new branch of science and one would expect that progress toward understanding of plasmas is going to increase in the future.
Also, Alfven emphasized the importance of double layers in the cosmos. He even proposed that double layers be considered a separate class of celestial object.
As a side note, the Scott model postulates a net flow of electrons to the Sun, it does not preclude measurements from a localized area displaying movement of electrons away from the Sun. The key word is "net." The solar wind is an electric current moving away from the Sun. Currents move in circuits, therefore one would expect to find a corresponding flow, probably at the poles, to the Sun.
For more information check out Scott's site:
http://electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm

[Zyxzevn]

Why are they not attracting each other according to the basic EM laws?

They are, but the force between them is weaker due to the much larger distances.

In solids electrons are connected to the material. The electrons are
present in specific "bands". It is also hard to get the electrons move away from the material.
Even in gasses the electrons are connected to "bands", but now we see the
electron connected to the nucleus of each atom.

In plasmas some of the electrons are free from the nucleus. The nucleus is ionized.
That means that they move freely (in some way) between the atoms and ions.
Now just a little energy is needed to move electrons even further away from
the ions. The force between the ions and the electrons are much smaller,
because the distance is much larger.
This also means that we can have slightly positive or negative charged plasmas move
besides each other with just a little attraction to each other. If they move
through a magnetic field, the field will separate both charges. This will also
happen with the plasmas.

The birkeland currents, as I saw them modelled in some videos, the slightly positive
and slightly negative charged plasmas circle around each other. This means that the circular
movement of the plasma compensates for the attraction between them.
Maybe such a current first starts off as a normal electric current. But due to the magnetic field
that the electric current causes, it will separate the positive and negative charges and form a
different structure.

[neilwilkes]

...during the "neutrino deficit' days of solar physics before neutrino oscillation was observed and only electron neutrinos were measured to be about 1/3 of the expected number

But Don Scott disputes this explanation and maintains that the neutrino deficit problem still exists. Could you clarify what it is about Scott's refutation with which you disagree?
http://electric-cosmos.org/sudbury.htm

As I understand Scott's position, he accepts that all three types of neutrinos come from the sun, but he believes that neutrinos do *not* oscillate from one type to another (tau., muon, electron), rather he believes that all three types are created and emitted by processes that occur inside the photosphere. That's possible IMO, but I simply accept the concept that neutrinos may in fact oscillate from one type to another like the mainstream, so IMO they could all be fusion related. I don't write off Scott's position on the issue of oscillation, nor do I write off the mainstream position, but I tend to lean in the direction of the mainstream on that issue.

I think we all agree that there are X number of neutrinos coming from the sun, we simply differ on why we see all three types. I don't actually know if Scott is correct or not, but I don't really have a problem with the concept of neutrino oscillation. AFAIK, that's the only difference between us.

As I understand Juergens position however, AFAIK Juergens was not aware at the time that he proposed his solar model that all three types of neutrinos were present to start with. He believed that the sun simply emitted fewer of them, and the inflow of current made up for the energy difference. I can't recall however reading his specific position on that topic, so that's more of a 'guess" on my part.

Sorry Michael, but I am with Don on this one as to my mind saying Neutrinos "change type" (or oscillate if you like) without any evidence for this whatsoever apart from it being needed to prop up the fusion model. His train analogy is a very good one indeed, and as he says the official announcement is even saying they still see a deficit in Electron Neutrinos plus there is a rare moment of honesty when it states

The most popular model for fundamental particles, known as the Standard Model, did not predict such schizophrenic neutrinos

before it realises what has been implied here and starts to bang on about dark matter again which as we all know is absolutely 100% falsified now.

[Michael Mozina]

The fact that both electrons and protons flow from the sun toward space...

It's not exactly on topic, but THAT is the thing that makes the least sense to me. Why are they not attracting each other according to the basic EM laws? Why are the like charges not repelling eachother?

The plasma particles are doing all these things, and they are obeying the laws of physics, including influences related to temperature/velocity, the collective effects of current flow, magnetic field effects etc.

How are electrons even able to escape a positively charged sun?

Birkelands solar model is a "cathode" (negatively charged) sun model by the way, which I personally prefer. The sun is simply emitting "cathode rays" at a "space" that is bombarding it with mostly positively charged cosmic rays. The cathode rays "pull" protons and generate 'sputtering" types of effects which Birkeland wrote about when discovering 'soot" on the glass sides of his various experiments.

In Alfven's "homopolar generator' model, and I presume in Juergen's model, the sun is still a part of a larger circuit, where currents flow in near the poles and out near the equator. Juergen's however did tend to predict an inward flow of electrons around the sphere which we don't really observe, hence my preference for Birkeland's cathode model. It still could operate more like Alfven's homopolar model where the currents tend to flow in near the poles and out near the equator. All EU/PC solar models are part of larger "circuits" of energy.

(Let alone the slow solar wind, which fails to reach escape velocity - even with the help of "MR".)

IMO the "strahl" features of the sun are the key. That does imply that the strahl is carrying the bulk of the current and the slower speed "solar wind" tend to be secondary flow patterns that begin with the higher speed electron emissions. Electrons in the cathode rays strike various protons in the atmosphere, "pushing" them out into space, as well as 'pulling" them due to attraction, but the bulk of the current is occurring in the cathode rays/electron beams that have been observed coming from the sun.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sune ... trahl.html

This is a key prediction of Birkland's model and it' been confirmed by NASA.

All models create the impression of doing a fantastic job selectively apply their laws... which only fosters confusion.

I think it's only natural to attempt to "explain' various observations in sometimes 'creative" ways, depending on the model, but I wouldn't say it's so much "selective" as it is "practical". Somehow there has to be a logical explanation for what we observe in space, including the particle flow patterns from (and potential toward) the sun. I would argue that those flow patterns are more easily/readily explained by Birkeland's cathode model, particularly since he 'predicted" those flow patterns long before they were observed by satellites in space. I think Alfven's model does a decent job too, but it requires some 'finagling". I've never really sat down and tried to explain those same particle flow patterns with Juergen's model personally. Someone else here would be a better reference on that particular model as it relates to particle flow patterns from the sun.

You're right that it can be a bit 'confusing", especially to someone trying to 'learn' about EU/PC solar models (plural) and various "predictions' of those models. It's hardly any more confusing than the mainstream model, particularly since they can't seem to agree upon the heat source of the corona, whereas virtually everyone in the EU/PC community chalks that feature up to current flow. The mainstream model was falsified too in 2012 as it relates to the speed of convection, and that two order of magnitude problem hasn't even been fixed yet in the standard model. Let's face it, solar physics is confusing stuff. It's not simple, or we would already understand it.

No worries here, sir. I'm sure there are plenty of things over which we can agree to disagree.

Cheers

Your input at TBolts has been fantastic. I think we need some honest skepticism and more folks like you who are trying to understand the various models of EU/PC theory with an open mind. It forces us to articulate our points clearly and "think them through". Your questions are all honest and fair questions and the deserve equally honest and fair answers.

Keep in mind that Birkeland spent a long time studying these ideas in a lab, including various wiring options. IMO you can't find a "better" resource on EU/PC basics. His work is still second to none, and it's freely available on the internet.

[Michael Mozina]

Sorry Michael, but I am with Don on this one as to my mind saying Neutrinos "change type" (or oscillate if you like) without any evidence for this whatsoever apart from it being needed to prop up the fusion model. His train analogy is a very good one indeed, and as he says the official announcement is even saying they still see a deficit in Electron Neutrinos plus there is a rare moment of honesty when it states

The most popular model for fundamental particles, known as the Standard Model, did not predict such schizophrenic neutrinos

before it realises what has been implied here and starts to bang on about dark matter again which as we all know is absolutely 100% falsified now.

That's totally fine by me. Keep in mind that I'm definitely not "against" Scott's position either. I simply don't see the point of getting too caught up in it at this point in time. I have to admit that I find the oscillation evidence to be somewhat "tenuous" at best, but there are so many other issues to worry about that I'd rather focus on those issues rather than the neutrino part. The key concern I have with the 'evidence' is that it's mostly based on the concept of electron neutrinos "disappearing' on their way to a detector which could be due to scattering or absorption, etc.

http://news.psu.edu/story/495591/2017/1 ... locks-high

The neutrino issue could even end up being an important issue if electrical discharges can be directly tied back to tau and muon neutrino emissions. We all agree that electrical discharges are occurring in the solar atmosphere, so that would tend to support our model over the 'standard' model is such a link can be demonstrated empirically. I therefore appreciate Scott's position and your position, believe me. I'm just picking my battles at this point.

I'm also of the impression that a particle collisions inside plasma pinches and near the 'rigid surface' could very well indeed end up emitting other types of neutrinos. I just don't know yet.

Again, please understand that I'm certainly not 'against' Scott's position on this topic. It seems to me that we still have a lot to learn about neutrinos and we're just in the infancy stage of being able to detect them. We're only able to detect a *tiny* fraction of them at the moment and we don't understand them well at all. Even our best resolution images of the sun are far too low to be able to tell if they mostly come from the core, or mostly come from near the surface. The technology of neutrino detection is still quite primitive IMO.

[verisimilitude]

Great answers. They indicate I have leaned too heavily on the electromagnetism factor and have fused EU/PC into one core system. I will always own my mistakes, so that one is on me.

I still have concerns, but they are off topic. I gladly return you to a discussion on the poorly termed but theoretically interesting process of Magnetic Reconnection.

[Zyxzevn]

(On Birkeland's experiment)
..The filamentary features are a result of the flow of electrical current, and the coronal loops are following magnetic field lines from an electromagnet inside the sphere..

I think the wording might cause some confusion.
The flow of electrical current follows the path of least resistance.
They do not exactly follow the magnetic field lines, but the magnetic field causes resistance
because it causes curving of the currents when it is not aligned. So in places where the magnetic
field is strong they will tend to follow the magnetic field lines partially.

[Michael Mozina]

(On Birkeland's experiment)
..The filamentary features are a result of the flow of electrical current, and the coronal loops are following magnetic field lines from an electromagnet inside the sphere..

I think the wording might cause some confusion.
The flow of electrical current follows the path of least resistance.
They do not exactly follow the magnetic field lines, but the magnetic field causes resistance
because it causes curving of the currents when it is not aligned. So in places where the magnetic
field is strong they will tend to follow the magnetic field lines partially.

Ok.

Birkeland was however able to concentrate the discharges patterns into two distinct bands in the northern and southern hemispheres by adding a magnetic field in the sphere and cranking up the current to the electromagnet. I'm sure the sun's magnetic field has the same effect.

[Cargo]

Think about the inverse, when Space offers (near) zero resistance. And you can not have a mag field without an E current. So free flowing E through space is only effected by bodies with their own E output/input that participate in the free E of Space. All the Magnetic fields are a result.