Wait a second... you criticize me first for my "lack of a thesis statement", and in the next sentence, for the fact that my "model did not predict what was discovered by Voyager 1"??? Ummm... how do you know what my model does and does not predict, since as far as you're concerned, I haven't stated it yet???Aristarchus wrote: You see, Charles, your lack of a thesis statement is not the only disqualifier, or the fact that you are unable to produce an abstract for your unmentioned thesis statement. The biggest component as to why you're not going to receive a PhD is that your model did not predict what was discovered by Voyager 1.
I will be happy to answer all of your questions concerning my model, and/or my criticisms of the EU model. But I will spend a very finite amount of time responding to senseless argumentativeness.
For starters, I don't even know what the topic is. We were on a thread that was discussing the Sun, but you didn't "engage in that discussion". Your posts seemed centered on the galactic circuit model of the EU, so I can guess that this is the topic you want to discuss. Is that correct?
Aristarchus wrote:Electric potential? What are you? Plato. Is this electric potential static or dynamic?Charles Chandler wrote:No, I'm saying that the Sun IS charged, and the HCS is the proof. (Can't have an electric current without an electric potential, which proves that the Sun has a net charge.) I've been saying for years that the Sun has a net negative charge, the heliosphere has a net positive charge, the outside of the heliopause is net negative, and the interstellar medium is quasi-neutral. But the field that drives the solar current is just within 10 AU. In the heliopause, the field flips polarity. So that's a different domain.
It's a relatively static potential, though I explain in greater detail below.
No, I'm just reporting the data. Inside 10 AU, the electrons are traveling faster than the +ions. Beyond 10 AU, the velocities are the same. If the velocities are the same, there is no net current.Aristarchus wrote:Your internal ignited sun - that "dies out" at 10 AU, failed.
This is a crucial question, and I'll be happy to supply a step-by-step process that explains it.Aristarchus wrote:What caused it to "die out?"
It doesn't start out sounding like a tough question to answer. Around high voltage wires we sometimes see corona discharges, but these don't go on out to infinity from there. Rather, they "die out" at some distance from the wire. Why? Because as the current radiates outward, the current density falls off by the inverse square law. When the current density is no longer sufficient for a corona, it steps down to a Townsend avalanche (i.e., a "dark discharge"). Thus the corona has "died out".
But that analogy isn't terribly relevant. It has a wire with current being supplied to it from the power plant. So there's a reason for the charge separation between the wire and the air surrounding it. If we disconnect the wire, we no longer have a reason for there to be a sustained discharge. Any potential between the wire and the air will get discharged fairly rapidly, limited only by the resistance of the insulation around the wire. Yet the Sun at its surface is composed of hydrogen & helium at 6000 K, which is an excellent conductor. Without any resistance, we have no reason to expect any capacitance, and whatever potential exists between the Sun and the heliosphere should get discharged in fairly short order. Even if you go with the Young Earth hypothesis, the Sun has been burning steadily for thousands of years, and it just doesn't have the capacitance to hold a charge that long. This means that there has to be an ongoing charge separation process.
In my model, the Sun is made up of 5 layers of alternating charges, starting with a positively charged core, and ending with a positively charged photosphere. (I will go into the explanation for what sets up those layers if asked.) Anyway, for the present purpose, we only need to consider that the top layer is positively charged. All other factors being the same, the net charges in these layers should balance out. But periodically, the Sun goes through its active phase, in which coronal mass ejections (CMEs) expel matter from the surface. If that layer is positively charged, the expelled matter leaves the Sun with a net negative charge, and generates an electrostatic potential between the Sun and the interplanetary medium (IPM). In response to that potential, there will be an electron drift. Electrons moving through the positively charged photosphere will generate ohmic heating, which in turn produces the heat & light that we get from the Sun.
Note that while CMEs are episodic, I'm contending that the equal-but-opposite drift of electrons is relatively steady, and continues through the quiet phase. So CMEs during the active phase generate the potential that drives the electric current throughout the rest of the solar cycle.
This raises another question: why don't the electrons discharge the potential immediately, just as soon as there is a net loss of +ions? In other words, just seconds after a CME, there should be a big flash, where the +ions get hit by electrons streaming out of the Sun, to neutralize the potential between the net negative Sun and the net positive CME.
Such flashes do occur, but I'm still contending that CMEs represent a net loss of positive charge for the Sun, and that the potential drives an electric current throughout the rest of the cycle.
There are several reasons for the absence of complete neutralization after a CME.
First, CMEs rapidly balloon outward after being ejected from the Sun. This makes sense if the matter is positively charged -- electrostatic repulsion between the particles results in a Coulomb explosion. The significance for the equal-but-opposite drift of electrons is that the Coulomb explosion reduces the field density. So just after a CME, there is a dense electric field between the ejected matter and the point on the Sun from which it is ejected. But the ballooning happens really fast, and thereafter, the charges in the IPM are well distributed, leaving a low field density.
Second, the electrons that are to drive outwards to neutralize the CME have to pass through the positive layer on the surface of the Sun to get into the IPM. This means that there is some resistance to the drift, discouraging full neutralization.
Third, and most importantly, the electrons are sitting on a current divider. Remember that I said that my model has 5 layers of alternating charges, starting and ending positive. So from the core to the surface, that's a P-N-P-N-P configuration. Now, if we deplete the strength of the last P layer, there will be an excess of electrons in the next-to-last layer, which is an N layer. But note that the N layer is sandwiched between two P layers. As a consequence, it has a tug in both directions. The first reaction to a depletion of the topmost P layer is not at all a drift of electrons in the same direction. Rather, the electrons are initially pulled inward (i.e., to the left in this illustration). This is because of the inverse square law. If we take our P-N-P-N-P configuration, and send the last positive layer outward, we get something like this: P-N-P-N------P. So what happens to the N layer? Does it go chasing after the P layer? No, it actually snaps back the other way, toward the closer P layer to its left (or to the inside with the Sun). If the charges were balanced, but now the N layer isn't getting tugged in two directions, it goes in the only direction that it IS getting tugged, which is to the left. So that's the initial response to the depletion of positive charges in a CME. Long-term, the excess electrons will drift away from the Sun, causing the sustained electric current during the quiet phase. But there isn't an instantaneous discharge right after the CME.
So if the excess electrons in the Negative layer are sitting on a current divider, and if the initial reaction after the CME is not for the electrons to chase after the +ions, and if the electrons encounter resistance as they do eventually drift outward through the outermost positive layer, there will be a sustained electric current out of the Sun throughout the cycle, even if the charge separation mechanism is episodic.
And moving out into the IPM, this current "dies out" as it gets further from the Sun. Both +ions and electrons are moving away from the Sun, in the solar wind. Nearer the Sun, the electrons are moving faster than the +ions. Further from the Sun, the velocities get closer, until at around 10 AU, the velocities are the same. This makes no sense at all, if we're thinking in terms of the Sun as one electrode, and the heliopause as another, with an electric field between them, and with a current responding to that field. But that's not the configuration. Rather, +ions are being expelled, and electrons are chasing after them. Once the electrons have caught up to the +ions, there is no longer any "current". But remember that this is a "current" in oppositely charged particles that are both traveling in the same direction, while one sign is traveling faster than the other. In any electric field, the +ions go one way, and the electrons go the other. What kind of field would make both of them travel in the same direction, but with one sign traveling faster? It isn't just an electric field at work. It's a solar flare that ejects +ions, endowing them with momenta, and the electrons are chasing after them. When the electrons have finally caught up, the current "dies out".
I'm saying that there is a steady stream of +ions and electrons away from the Sun, but that nearer the Sun, the electrons are traveling faster, because the Sun is net negative, and the heliosphere is net positive. So the electrons are pushed out of the Sun by repulsion, and pulled into the heliosphere by attraction. The origin of the +ions is CMEs, but after ballooning outward, they evenly distribute themselves in the heliosphere, and then continue expanding due to hydrostatic and electrostatic pressure. Where the stream of electrons has fully neutralized the net charge in the heliosphere, around 10 AU, there is no longer any net current past that point.
