Phil Plait adds his noise to the filaments of NGC 1275...

[MGmirkin]

(The magnetic tendrils of NGC 1275)
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badas ... f-ngc-1275
http://digg.com/space/The_Magnetic_Tend ... t_is_Wrong

Other sources of the same story:

http://digg.com/space/Hubble_Sees_Magne ... g_Galaxy_3
http://digg.com/space/Hubble_Sees_Magne ... g_Galaxy_4
http://digg.com/space/Hubble_sees_magne ... g_galaxy_5
http://digg.com/space/Hubble_Sees_Magne ... g_Galaxy_6

I've commented on Phil's post to attempt a correction. I don't know if it will see the light of day or not... Might be moderated due to reference links. I've copied it here for posterity. And copied it to the digg.com entry I just made (above)...

What is so doggedly difficult about this Phil??

Magnetism is predicated on electric currents. Period. Look it up. Such silly statements about magnetism being a terribly difficult problem to understand should be embarrassing.

The only problem is that astronomers like yourself steadfastly refuse to acknowledge or talk about electric currents in space. Please get your scientific house in order in astronomy. Learn from a competent electrical engineer or a plasma physicist who knows what they're talking about, and stop showing your ignorance of the relationship between electricity and magnetism. Or, better yet, LOOK IT UP!

(Magnetic Field)
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... agfie.html

"Magnetic fields are produced by electric currents, which can be macroscopic currents in wires, or microscopic currents associated with electrons in atomic orbits."

(Magnetic Fields)
http://www-istp.gsfc.nasa.gov/Education/wmfield.html

"People not familiar with magnetism often view it as a somewhat mysterious property of specially treated iron or steel."

COMMENT: People not familiar with magnetism... Like astronomers? Phil Plait?

"It is all related to electricity

[...]

In 1821 Hans Christian Oersted in Denmark found, unexpectedly, that such an electric current caused a compass needle to move. An electric current produced a magnetic force!

Andre-Marie Ampere in France soon unraveled the meaning. The fundamental nature of magnetism was not associated with magnetic poles or iron magnets, but with electric currents. The magnetic force was basically a force between electric currents"

(What are electromagnetic fields?)
http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/

"Electric fields are created by differences in voltage: the higher the voltage, the stronger will be the resultant field. Magnetic fields are created when electric current flows: the greater the current, the stronger the magnetic field ... If current does flow, the strength of the magnetic field will vary with power consumption but the electric field strength will be constant."

(Electromagnetic field)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_field

"The electromagnetic field is a physical field produced by electrically charged objects. It affects the behaviour of charged objects in the vicinity of the field.

[...]

The field can be viewed as the combination of an electric field and a magnetic field. The electric field is produced by stationary charges, and the magnetic field by moving charges (currents); these two are often described as the sources of the field. The way in which charges and currents interact with the electromagnetic field is described by Maxwell's equations and the Lorentz force law."

(Electric current)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_c ... omagnetism

"Electric current produces a magnetic field. The magnetic field can be visualized as a pattern of circular field lines surrounding the wire.

Electric current can be directly measured with a galvanometer, but this method involves breaking the circuit, which is sometimes inconvenient. Current can also be measured without breaking the circuit by detecting the magnetic field associated with the current."

You are now informed. Please speak in correct terms from now on. Magnetic fields are diagnostic for electric currents. the strength of the magnetic field is directly dependent on the strength of the electric current. Statements to the contrary go against known laws of physics from Maxwell, Ampere, Lorentz, etc.

Your ignorance is showing, Phil. And it's ugly!

Like it or not, the magnetic fields observed ubiquitously in space track back BY DEFINITION to source electric currents. Deal or no deal? I suggest you take the deal and switch to the light side (puns vaguely intended)...

Regards,
~Michael

Thus far it has not shown up in the comment log. Don't know if it's moderated or not.

[earls]

He certainly does go out of his way to contradict himself.

[mague]

Whats the current "official" consensus on black and white holes please ?

[substance]

I wrote an article about this mysterious spaghetti monster, as NewScientist call NGC 1275 on my blog ("The Spaghetti Monster Mystery is solved"). I was pretty pissed at New Scientist`s article and explained in my blog post how their own explanations point clearly at electricity. For example a "stream of charged particles" is clearly and electric current and "a hot gas with charged particles" is generally called a PLASMA. I ended up suggesting that the astronomer that thought up this theory (some guy called Andrew Fabian from Cambridge University) and his colleges should all get a bowl of bolognesse spaghetti and celebrate the resolution of the spaghetti monster mystery. Just after that I saw Phil Plait`s blog about this and commented, but it`s still not posted.
By the way, don`t try to translate Bulgarian > English with Google Translate! It is horrific, trust me!

[rcglinsk]

Cheer up folks, this is a huge step forward for astronomers. I'm quoting http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80bea ... ls-intact/.

"In the heart of the Perseus galaxy cluster lies a remarkable galaxy known as NGC 1275, which has long “filaments”of glowing gas that snake out from its center... given that the filaments reach out from their home galaxy into the Perseus cluster..."

This is huge. Astronomers have never before admitted that what looked like a filament was actually a filament - by the argument that a filament could not extend between galaxies. Perhaps thousands of filaments, previously thought to be smudges resulting from gravitational lensing, will be added to the star maps.

"Magnetic fields are keeping the filaments together"

Who among us didn't smile reading that?

OK, so then there's some meaningless gibberish...

"NGC 1275 is a galaxy built around a massive black hole, which helps explain its unusual structure: The filaments may represent the most visible effect of the galaxy’s central black hole on its gaseous surroundings. The black hole’s high-energy jets have heated up the gas to about 70 million degrees Fahrenheit (40 million Kelvin), which in turn produces glowing bubbles that float outward from the galaxy center. The bubbles pull colder gas outward behind them in the form of the trailing filaments."

Think about it this way, lots of Catholics long ago stopped believing they really drank some guy's blood every week, but they still utter in a dead language phrases that might suggest otherwise if any Catholic understood what they meant. There's a process of hanging on to tradition. We might just have to live with Birkland currents having their name changed to magnetic rope; recognize that semantics aren't so important.

'The study, reported in the journal Nature [subscription required], shows that the filaments are up to 20,000 light-years long, yet only 200 light-years wide. Lead researcher Andy Fabian calculates that the magnetic fields holding them together are only 0.01% as strong as the field on the Earth’s surface, yet says that’s enough to insure the “survival and integrity” of the filaments: “Without them, these beautiful structures would be unable to withstand their surroundings and would collapse into stars”'

If you were born on Saturn in the dead of winter and knew nothing but darkness your whole life, you could not imagine the humble change yet beautiful spectacle of the sunrise. It is such a simple thing to go from that weak field and a rope to a strong field collapsing gas into a star; from a jet of charged particles to an electric current; from a gravitationally bound cluster to a neuron in the mind of god. Every winter the sun dies on the Crux for three days and Orion's three kings follow the star of the east to where the sun is reborn. All winters end. Soon astronomers will see the light.

[MGmirkin]

Cheer up folks, this is a huge step forward for astronomers. I'm quoting http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80bea ... ls-intact/.

For some astronomers, apparently.

That's a pretty good article! Unlike the pitiably polemic Plait piece.

I like alliteration! Say that one 10x fast!

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

Astronomers have never before admitted that what looked like a filament was actually a filament - by the argument that a filament could not extend between galaxies. Perhaps thousands of filaments, previously thought to be smudges resulting from gravitational lensing, will be added to the star maps.

Ohh, I don't know about that... There have been articles talking about filaments, strands, spider webs or tendrils of "hot gas." Also the universe's fractal distribution in filaments, sheets and voids...

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... ebula.html
http://www.livescience.com/space/scienc ... inger.html
http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... found.html
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... edium.html
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/hubbl ... 80520.html
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap020820.html
http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg16322004.500
http://space.newscientist.com/article/dn14200

Good times...
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

"Magnetic fields are keeping the filaments together"

Who among us didn't smile reading that?

I didn't smile, I laughed. Well, okay, it's hard to laugh without smiling, but you get the idea.

Amusingly, although the primary thing to consider is that electric currents are REQUIRED in order to sustain magnetic fields, the secondary thing to consider is that magnetic fields can in fact help keep things together, it's called the "pinch" effect, or a Z-pinch!

It's a secondary feedback effect of currents in plasma.

(Pinch)
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Pinch

Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[Sinister Rouge]

I occasionally visit http://www.space.com and read some of the articles and such and stumbled upon this one today.
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/0 ... ament.html
I like how they call them "ropes" all the time.
(FMV 8-22-08: Merged with existing thread.)

[Solar]

"Magnetism is a very important topic in astrophysics (despite some pseudoscientists lying and saying this force is ignored), but it’s not well-understood. It’s fiendishly complex, so much so that it’s a joke in astronomy: when giving a colloquium about an astronomical object’s weird features, saying it’s due to magnetism will always get a chuckle out of an audience. And it’s a standard joke that if you want to derail a talk, ask the speaker about the effects of magnetism. In three dimensions, magnetism is ferociously difficult to model."

If it can't be "modeled" then they don't understand it. If no "model" exist; then they don't understand it. If they can't "model" it to their satisfaction; then it gets written off as "weird features" and the butt of their "standard jokes". Even when they do "model" it and the "model" is erroneous (black holes); so much "faith" is placed into the "model" that reality slips away and along with it common sense. This paragraph is a very sad commentary with regard to one of the primary forces observationally identified regarding these Birkeland current filaments, and they don't even know what it is.

On top of it, to then link the phrase "pseudoscientist lying" to an Electric Universe thread on the physics forum one witnesses the death of any trace of objectivity whatsoever. This is not an "article" by an "astronomer" by any stretch of the imagination. It is the regurgitation of the inadequacies of a failed theory by an automaton partial to said failed theory. Nothing new, nothing unique, nothing revelatory.

Also, still unanswered is the rather important question posed by SJC with regard to Ric=0.

[substance]

Wouldn`t it be a total joke if they gradually accept EU phenomena, just calling them with different names (like "magnetic ropes") and act as if they discovered these things alone and just now and no credit is given to any of the PC advocates? I wouldn`t be very surprised if that happens.

[Solar]

I'm sure you're going to be proven correct Substance.

I think Plait and Schroeder have done more to expose people the EU theory than paid advertising on Google ever could

[MGmirkin]

I'm sure you're going to be proven correct Substance.

I think Plait and Schroeder have done more to expose people the EU theory than paid advertising on Google ever could

I'm vaguely recalling a quote to the effect:

"There's no such thing as bad publicity..."



Regards,
~Michael Gmirkin

[robinson]

I'm vaguely recalling a quote to the effect:

"There's no such thing as bad publicity..."

That maxim only applies if you are selling something, in which case any exposure increases your chance of profit, with out paying advertising fees.

In regards to science and knowledge, bad publicity is bad publicity.

[Michael Goodspeed]

I'm not sure it's registered with the folks here just how numbingly ignorant Plait's above comments actually are. Lets look at them again. Plait writes: “Magnetism is a very important topic in astrophysics (despite some pseudoscientists lying and saying this force is ignored), but it's not well-understood." As Mr. Gmirkin notes, the "lying pseudoscientists" snipe is hyperlinked to a forum thread about the Electric Universe.

Again, what did this self-described "skeptic" just say? In the midst of his typically misanthropic ad hominem attack against Electric Universe proponents, he is making a flat assertion about our/their position. He is claiming it's the EU stance that "astrophysicists ignore magnetism."

Say WHAT now?

Has any EU proponent anywhere, ever, claimed that "magnetism" is ignored in astrophysics? (Certainly none in the Thunderbolts group have.)

Can Plait really be that ignorant?

A few statements from today's TPOD (by Mel Acheson), which discusses the filamentary structure of the galaxy NGC 1275, quite nicely sums up the EU's position on "magnetism" in astrophysics:

As has become usual when confronted by such filamentary structures, astrophysicists meet the challenge by dropping onto the explanatory stage the deus ex machina of magnetism – without acknowledging that electric currents generate magnetic fields. (Such an acknowledgement, of course, would undermine the consensus dogma that Gravity is God.) Link: http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/ ... ubbles.htm

Not only is Plait revealing his ignorance about the undeniable cause and effect relationship of electricity and magnetism, he is demonstrating that he is totally, utterly unread and willfully ignorant on the Electric Universe and Plasma Cosmology published materials. Marcello Truzzi defined a pseudoskeptic as "one who shouts his objects without taking proper note of what is going on." I choose not to sink to Plait's sorrowful depths of name-calling and personal derision, but if he has not proved himself the absolute cover-child for pseudoskepticism, I don't know who is.