Discussion of Scott - On the Sun's Electric Field

[Physicist]

I've seen this article recommended in a few places here, so I figured I'd take the time to have a close look. It turned out to be a fairly bizarre read.

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/SunsEfield92210.pdf

The first page consists essentially of the claim that the sun and its surroundings are analogous to a "Crooke's tube" (in fact I believe it was Mr Crookes rather than Mr Crooke). No motivation is offered to support this assertion. No quantitative description is provided. No empirical evidence is offered as support. But perhaps those issues are not the main thrust of the article.

The main thrust of the article appears to be dedicated to the calculation of the electric field due to various spherically symmetric charge distributions - for those readers that didn't take physics at college (or have forgotten it), I should point out that this is a fairly basic problem that might be assigned in the first week or so of a standard undergraduate course on electromagnetism.

Mr Scott actually manages to solve the problem in question incorrectly - because his differential equation (9) has been solved subject to the wrong boundary conditions. The solution (10) and the comments that follow it are not correct.

And that's about it. No references are provided.

Comments?

[Lloyd]

* Yeah, here's a comment.
* You'll have to explain what you're talking about a lot better before many of us will understand what you're talking about. Until it's well enough explained, it won't interest most of us.

[mharratsc]

About the author (from the Electric Sky site):

The author earned his Bachelor's and Master's degrees in Electrical Engineering at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT. Following graduation he worked for General Electric in Schenectady, NY, and Pittsfield, MA. He earned a Doctorate in Electrical Engineering at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, Worcester, Massachusetts, and was a member of the faculty of the Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering at the University of Massachusetts/Amherst from 1959 until his retirement in 1998. During that time he was the recipient of several good-teaching awards. He was, at various times, Assistant Department Head, Director of the undergraduate program, Graduate admissions coordinator, and Director of the College of Engineering’s Video Instructional Program.

In 1987, the McGraw-Hill Book Company published his 730-page textbook, An Introduction To Circuit Analysis – A Systems Approach. He has authored numerous scientific papers and chapters including Real Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and Plasmas in the Cosmos, published in the Special Issue of the IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science 8/2007.

Looking at the Professors credentials, vs. your anonymity, hmm... I'm gonna side with Prof. Scott, mkay?

[Siggy_G]

First of all, Physicist, you're referring to one of Don Scott's articles - related to his book The Electric Sun. An article is not equivalent of a scientific paper, so as with most other articles, there's not a reference list and an acknowledgements section. The article is, however, based on either established formulas and/or other published papers. One of the IEEE papers he refers to in the same list as The Sun's Electric Field article is taken from (http://www.electric-cosmos.org/indexOLD.htm), is an IEEE published paper:

http://members.cox.net/dascott3/IEEE-Tr ... ug2007.pdf
Real Properties of Electromagnetic Fields and Plasma in the Cosmos 2007

Not to mention, in the same list, he states this:

These pages are designed to be read through in order, starting with the Introduction. If you do this, the background information needed for understanding any given page will have been presented in an earlier page.

Secondary, the claim you find bizzare is his analogous view, and he explains how the Sun and its environment could be understood in light of this. What's wrong with that? He even explains, introductionary:

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the consequences of that spherical geometry especially in regard to the possible electric field strength distributions within the solar plasma (inside the plasmasphere).

... followed by a list of assumptions used.

As to the mathematical errors, I need to have a closer look, but perhaps you can specify/elaborate on the errors?

The notion that the Sun and stars must have an electric field is not unsupported. Here's a peer reviewed paper (that's not related to the Electric Sun):

http://www.aanda.org/index.php?option=a ... ah2649.pdf
On the Electrostatic Charge of Stars, 2001

In conclusion, it seems to be desirable to remember the global electrostatic charge is a significant physical property of every star in various stellar studies and in teaching.

[solrey]

Good comment SiggyG.

Assumption 3 of Dr. Scott's article states:

The Sun is not an isolated point charge within a vacuum. So the application of classical electrostatic analyses to the solar plasma is inappropriate, Maxwell’s equations can be used productively in limited and well-defined ways – especially in regions of non-quasi-neutrality.

The conclusion of Dr. Scott's article:

The application of Maxwell’s equations to the correct spherical geometry of the Sun’s environment suggests a set of self-consistent, non-zero-valued electric-field functions and space-charge distributions that EU theorists have long felt existed, but have not previously been described quantitatively. These variations in the electric field suggest a possible explanatory mechanism for the here-to-fore ‘inexplicable, anomalous behavior’ of space probes in the vicinity of the heliopause.

I think physicist missed the point of the article.

physicist wrote:
Mr Scott actually manages to solve the problem in question incorrectly - because his differential equation (9) has been solved subject to the wrong boundary conditions. The solution (10) and the comments that follow it are not correct.

Which boundary conditions are wrong and why? Are you talking about the charge density of the anode dark space pads?

cheers

[tayga]

Mr Scott actually manages to solve the problem in question incorrectly - because his differential equation (9) has been solved subject to the wrong boundary conditions. The solution (10) and the comments that follow it are not correct.

I'll repeat the earlier request for you to be more specfic about this. Could you please explain?

[Physicist]

So here by request is today's college physics lesson

Laws of physics are often summarized as differential equations. These differential equations have lots of solutions - in fact infinitely many solutions. To decide which solution is the right one for a given physical situation, one must impose boundary conditions.

For example - we know that the trajectory of a cannon ball is a parabola. But without knowing the initial speed and direction - the boundary conditions - we don't know exactly which parabola.

Back to Mr Scott - the differential equation of interest is his equation (9). This should be solved subject to the boundary conditions appropriate to his spherically symmetric layer of charge - namely that the electric field should be zero on the inside surface, in accordance with Gauss's law. Or even better, that the electric field on the inside surface matches up with whatever it would be without the layer of charge.

When this is done correctly (it's actually easier to just use Gauss's law in the first place rather than follow the differential equation route), one obtains a 1/r^2 term in addition to Mr Scott's linear term (10), immediately rendering the following claim false:

Thus, within a layer of uniform positive space charge density, the electric field strength will increase linearly with increasing altitude (distance from the Sun).

[Aristarchus]

From the article posted by Dr. D. E. Scott, it states in conclusion (viz) -

Conclusion

The application of Maxwell’s equations to the correct spherical geometry of the Sun’s environment suggests a set of self-consistent, non-zero-valued electric-field functions and space-charge distributions that EU theorists have long felt existed, but have not previously been described quantitatively. These variations in the electric field suggest a possible explanatory mechanism for the here-to-fore ‘inexplicable, anomalous behavior’ of space probes in the vicinity of the heliopause.

I would be interested from the TB forum members any thoughts about the following article.

A Problem in Plasma Science

Plasma Electrodynamics

Maxwell was concerned that Ampere's law of electrodynamics might not be a validinterpretation of experimental fact because it relied partly on empirical data and partly on assumption. He addressed the options available. The key point was that it was known how electric currents interact where one of the currents flows though wire around a closed circuit but it was not known how two discrete electric charges in motion might interact as a function of their motion. To define the law of force there had to be an assumption. Ampere had assumed total balance of action and reaction but one can have total balance of action and reaction for that closed circuit current condition without satisfying the precise formulation specified by Ampere. In today's terminology the Lorentz force law suffices and meets the necessary balance criteria for such closed current circuit conditions, but an additional term, as formulated by Maxwell, is needed to cover the general case and that still depends upon an assumption. That additional term, expressed in vector form is simply:

(v.r)v' times ee'/r3, where a charge e in motion at velocity v acts on a charge e' distant r from e and moving at velocity v'. The effect of this term integrates to zero for the closed circuit current condition Maxwell realized that this additional term could have any factor, positive or negative, large or small, and still comply with the empirical conditions. He opted for the factor being +1 because he knew that this would give an overall formulation for which the two charges in motion could interact without giving rise to an anomalous unidirectional net linear force that might suggest the interaction induced a linear push on something. Instead, though it was not mentioned, that would lead to the two-charge interaction itself developing a turning couple as if it were exerting a twist action on that same something. Ampere's law had avoided both of these possibilities. Given the belief in the existence of an aether in Maxwell's time and the fact that the motion of those charges is referenced on a frame of reference ignifying a property of the aether, that 'something' did have a basis, one that could provide the balancing force along with the associated energy.

Maxwell, in being concerned with formulating force action, was addressing a problem that had important energy implications, but that seemingly escaped notice. What I realized when I came onto the scene was that it would have been preferable for Maxwell to opt for the version with the minus sign preceding that (v.r)v' term, simply because that would avoid the twisting problem. Also, though introducing that out-ofbalance net linear force, I could see that such a formulation, for v parallel with v', would, in combination with the Lorentz component, result in a law for which mutual force action between the charges was of the simple inverse square of distance form acting along the line joining the charges. Such a law made more sense especially as, at the time I discovered this, my thoughts were on linking electromagnetism and gravity.

The formal analysis, however, then had to take account of the possible interaction of charges of different mass, such as heavy ions interacting with electrons, and that added the factor (m'/m), where m' is the mass of charge e' and m is the mass of charge e, these charges being, of course, expressed in electromagnetic units. My paper on this duly appeared in the library archives of universities in Journal of the Franklin Institute, 287, 179 (1969) and there it sits gathering dust and serving no purpose unless whoever reads this decides to check what I am saying in this web item. Given that, just as Clerk Maxwell saw reason to question the law of electrodynamics proposed by Ampere, I had good reason for going one step further and completing that task, I cannot understand why physicists interested in plasma experiments have not embraced what is surely the correct law.

Why is it that relevant? Well, just consider that term: !(ee'/r3)(m'/m)(v.r)v' and imagine m' is the mass of a heavy positive ion and m is the mass of an electron sitting in an ionized plasma, be it that of the sun or that of a nuclear fusion reactor. Consider the collective results of four types of interaction.

(1) Slow moving ion with electron moving closer: Ion gains speed slightly because ee'
negative, v' small and v.r positive.
(2) Slow moving ion with electron moving away: Ion slows to even lower speed because
ee' negative, v' small and v.r negative.
(3) Fast moving ion with electron moving closer: Ion speed escalates because ee' negative,
v' large and v.r positive.
(4) Fast moving ion with electron moving away: Ion loses speed rapidly because ee'
negative, v' large and v.r negative.

The net effect of such charge interaction electrodynamically in a plasma must therefore be to cause each positive heavy ion on average to have kinetic energy far in excess of that of the average electron. It would be an interesting, though quite complicated mathematical task to evaluate statistically the mean energy apportionment between ions and electrons, one which I trust some enthusiastic mathematician might undertake. For my part it suffices to point to the experimental evidence that supports what I am saying.

J. Reece Roth, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, PS-6, No. 2, June 1978, studied the effect of radial electric fields in stabilizing a plasma discharge, but found that something was causing the heavy ions in the plasma to have a much higher temperature than the free electrons. The paper is entitled: ‘Effects of Applied DC Radial Electric Fields on Particle Transport in a Bumpy Torus Plasma’. Note that notion of 'temperature' as a sufficient measure of energy. What was meant was that the heavy ions have acquired a much greater energy than the electrons, whereas, seen as a kind of gas, they were supposed to have the same mean energy and so the same temperature. This was a report arising from reasearch aimed at nuclear fusion and here was energy gain by the heavy ions that are supposedly going to fuse and so deliver energy once containment and higher temperatures are reached. That observed energy gain surely warranted full investigation.In that same year I saw a paper by J. D. Sethian, D. A. Hammer and C. B. Wharton in Physical Review Letters, 40, 451 (1978) and quote the following words from that paper saying that they have found:

“Experimental evidence for an anomalous electron-ion energy transfer in a relativistic-electron-beam-heated plasma that is 1,000 times faster than can be predicted by classical processes.”

Now I have stated that my writings on this matter, and particularly my 1969 paper in the Journal of the Franklin Institute, have not been heeded. I must correct that statement. There is just one instance, a quite important instance, where a researcher in Canada, Dr. Paulo Correa, somehow discovered that paper and saw its relevance to what he had discovered experimentally in his plasma discharge research. He and his wife, Alexandra Correa, in their laboratory research had discovered an anomalous inflow of energy that justified seeking patent protection for their project. My paper was a supporting reference mentioned by the Corrrea's in the patent description of their appatratus.The relevant U.S. patents are numbered 5,416,391 (issued May 16, 1995), 5,449,989 (issuedSeptember 12, 1995) and 5,502,354 (issued March 26, 1996).

Indeed, owing to the significance of that research, I did myself in 1996 write and publish a 35 page Report entitled Power from Space: The Correa Invention, which is now of record in the Report section of my website http://www.aspden.org.

[Nereid]

Back to Mr Scott - the differential equation of interest is his equation (9). This should be solved subject to the boundary conditions appropriate to his spherically symmetric layer of charge - namely that the electric field should be zero on the inside surface, in accordance with Gauss's law. Or even better, that the electric field on the inside surface matches up with whatever it would be without the layer of charge.

When this is done correctly (it's actually easier to just use Gauss's law in the first place rather than follow the differential equation route), one obtains a 1/r^2 term in addition to Mr Scott's linear term (10), immediately rendering the following claim false:

(bold added)

I think a fair number of readers may be unfamiliar with Gauss's law, and distrustful of Wikipedia when it comes to things electric (or electromagnetic).

Perhaps you could say a few words about this law, Physicist, and explain how the different laws - all with the same, or similar names - differ (and what is similar about them)?

[DustyDevil]

I've seen this article recommended in a few places here, so I figured I'd take the time to have a close look. It turned out to be a fairly bizarre read.

http://www.electric-cosmos.org/SunsEfield92210.pdf

The first page consists essentially of the claim that the sun and its surroundings are analogous to a "Crooke's tube" (in fact I believe it was Mr Crookes rather than Mr Crooke). No motivation is offered to support this assertion. No quantitative description is provided. No empirical evidence is offered as support. But perhaps those issues are not the main thrust of the article.

The main thrust of the article appears to be dedicated to the calculation of the electric field due to various spherically symmetric charge distributions - for those readers that didn't take physics at college (or have forgotten it), I should point out that this is a fairly basic problem that might be assigned in the first week or so of a standard undergraduate course on electromagnetism.

Mr Scott actually manages to solve the problem in question incorrectly - because his differential equation (9) has been solved subject to the wrong boundary conditions. The solution (10) and the comments that follow it are not correct.

And that's about it. No references are provided.

Comments?

Physicist, are you really a physicist? Or did you actually read Scott's article? You managed to get the answer wrong -- twice! -- to the question you raised about Scott's solution of equation 9. Your first mistake was your critique that I quoted above; your second mistake is given in your comment which I've quoted below.

So here by request is today's college physics lesson

Laws of physics are often summarized as differential equations. These differential equations have lots of solutions - in fact infinitely many solutions. To decide which solution is the right one for a given physical situation, one must impose boundary conditions.

For example - we know that the trajectory of a cannon ball is a parabola. But without knowing the initial speed and direction - the boundary conditions - we don't know exactly which parabola.

Back to Mr Scott - the differential equation of interest is his equation (9). This should be solved subject to the boundary conditions appropriate to his spherically symmetric layer of charge - namely that the electric field should be zero on the inside surface, in accordance with Gauss's law. Or even better, that the electric field on the inside surface matches up with whatever it would be without the layer of charge.

When this is done correctly (it's actually easier to just use Gauss's law in the first place rather than follow the differential equation route), one obtains a 1/r^2 term in addition to Mr Scott's linear term (10), immediately rendering the following claim false:

Thus, within a layer of uniform positive space charge density, the electric field strength will increase linearly with increasing altitude (distance from the Sun).

From your second comment, it appears that you made exactly the assumption that Scott argued was a mistake, ie that the Sun is an isolated point charge within a vacuum. For Scott's equations 9 and 10, Scott clearly states that he is solving for the electric field WITHIN a layer of constant charge density, what he calls the anode dark space. WITHIN a spherically symmetric charge distribution, the electric field does indeed increase linearly as Scott stated. I refer you to Figure 6 on page 8 of the following reference entitled "GAUSS'S LAW FOR SPHERICAL SYMMETRY":

http://physnet2.pa.msu.edu/home/modules ... s/m132.pdf

If Scott got it wrong, then so did Peter Signell of Project PHYSNET.

I suggest you reread Scott's article and pay attention to the words he actually wrote.

DD

[tayga]

WITHIN a spherically symmetric charge distribution, the electric field does indeed increase linearly as Scott stated. I refer you to Figure 6 on page 8 of the following reference entitled "GAUSS'S LAW FOR SPHERICAL SYMMETRY":

http://physnet2.pa.msu.edu/home/modules ... s/m132.pdf

Many, many thanks for this, DD. Exactly the sort of material needed for people like me who are just getting to grips with the maths.

[Physicist]

I think a fair number of readers may be unfamiliar with Gauss's law, and distrustful of Wikipedia when it comes to things electric (or electromagnetic).

Perhaps you could say a few words about this law, Physicist, and explain how the different laws - all with the same, or similar names - differ (and what is similar about them)?

Well Mr Gauss was responsible for a great many things, but the law in question is essentially just a geometric way of looking at Coulomb's law, with which EUers may be more familiar.

I suspect my explanation of Gauss's law would not be significantly different from Wikipedia's - I guess we're both part of that evil consensus science conspiracy machine...

Physicist, are you really a physicist? Or did you actually read Scott's article? You managed to get the answer wrong -- twice! -- to the question you raised about Scott's solution of equation 9. Your first mistake was your critique that I quoted above; your second mistake is given in your comment which I've quoted below.

From your second comment, it appears that you made exactly the assumption that Scott argued was a mistake, ie that the Sun is an isolated point charge within a vacuum. For Scott's equations 9 and 10, Scott clearly states that he is solving for the electric field WITHIN a layer of constant charge density, what he calls the anode dark space. WITHIN a spherically symmetric charge distribution, the electric field does indeed increase linearly as Scott stated. I refer you to Figure 6 on page 8 of the following reference entitled "GAUSS'S LAW FOR SPHERICAL SYMMETRY":

http://physnet2.pa.msu.edu/home/modules ... s/m132.pdf

If Scott got it wrong, then so did Peter Signell of Project PHYSNET.

I suggest you reread Scott's article and pay attention to the words he actually wrote.

DD

Dusty Devil - figure 6 of your reference refers to a solid sphere of charge - not a layer.

However, as fate would have it, Mr Scott's layer appears in problem 2 on page 13. The correct answer is listed on page 15. You will find that the E-field in the layer involves a 1/r^2 term in addition to Mr Scott's linear term - exactly as I pointed out earlier.

[tayga]

Mr Scott's layer appears in problem 2 on page 13. The correct answer is listed on page 15. You will find that the E-field in the layer involves a 1/r^2 term in addition to Mr Scott's linear term - exactly as I pointed out earlier.

Physicist. As you can probably gather from my previous posts I'm a newcomer to Maxwell, Gauss, et al. and I'd appreciate your opinion on the solution above.

Per the Physorg project leafelt, the relationship between E and r would tend to straight line with increasing r. The greatest deviation would be at the inside edge of the layer (Sun's surface in Don Scott's model), the least at the heliopause. Do you think that inclusion of the term in r^2 would significantly affect Scott's model?

[fosborn]

I was watching the;

Caltech: The Mechanical Universe - 10 - Fundamental Forces
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5648&ei=en

Into about 21 min of the presentation, they discuss the Cal Tech accelerator and the use of the Hi Voltage supply at both ends of the accelerator with the anode in between. It was explained the neg ion accelerates to the anode and strips an electron ( gas collision) creating pos ion which then accelerates toward the other neg electrode at the other end. (tandem accelerator, using the hi voltage supply twice, twofers )

I would like some help interpreting the oscilloscope trace. They only displayed it and didn't give any explanation. But if its a voltage trace, I would like to make some sense of it. Its kind of exciting, I think it gives me a conceptual tool to understand the solar wind acceleration from the sun.

In the Trace, it seems like the first spike on the left, is the initial acceleration away from the High Voltage supply toward the anode in the middle of the accelerator.
And the slope in between major spikes, is this the stripping of the negative ions as they encounter gas molecules?

And then the second spike, would that be the acceleration towards the cathode at the other end of the accelerator?

CalTechAccel2.JPG

This is out of Dr. Scotts book, showing the votage level graph for the Sun and Chromosphere ;

DScottElectSunChromoFlip.jpg

Am I all wrong or is the same sequence of potentials at work here? Chromosphere positive potential stripping electrons through collisions and positive ions accelerating toward the more negative regions of the solar system? Or am I reading Dr. Scott's graph wrong? If not then it makes sense, why you could have electrons flowing one way toward the sun and positive ions the opposite, to me anyway.

Dr. Scott said to invert this graph to see the electrons incoming from the solar system;

DScottElectSunChromo.JPG

So in this one, the Chromosphere shows more positive potential than the Photosphere.
Then making it the apparent anode for negative ions to get striped, then the positive ions accelerated toward the more negative potentials outward bound?
And how many negative ions are available in Photosphere plasma and how much neutral plasma would be drawn up with it? I probably lost my way, long be for these assumptions.

[allynh]

Don't you hate when links get truncated. Ha!

Caltech: The Mechanical Universe - 10 - Fundamental Forces
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 5648&ei=en

See if this Wolfram Demonstration Project* helps.

Virtual Oscilloscope
http://demonstrations.wolfram.com/VirtualOscilloscope/

This Demonstration generates Lissajous curves, with the look and feel of an oscilloscope as used in electrical engineering. You can choose from various waveforms and control the amplitude, phase, and frequency for both and components. You can also hear how the respective functions sound by clicking the speaker buttons. Trace the curves using the slider "fraction of cycle". Animate the phase to get the feel of independent time bases that are not locked in.

Just looking at the related list on the right side, there are a huge number of Projects that I'm going to harvest. Who knows what they do. Ha!

* Just download the free Mathematica Player so you can download and run the demonstrations.