Questions, Comments for Steve Smith

[Lloyd]

- Steve, in today's TPOD at http://thunderbolts.info/tpod/2008/arch ... ercury.htm I noticed that at the end of the article you refer to Ralph Juergens as a physicist. I don't think I heard him called that before. I think I always heard electrical engineer. Did he have a physics degree? Or do you regard him as a theoretical physicist?
- Besides those questions I have a comment. I'm more impressed with a lot of the TPODs lately than I was a year ago or more. They get a bit repetitive, but not too much, I think. I appreciate that there are few TPOD reruns these days. I complained last year about that. I thought it would be better to have no TPOD at all sometimes, rather than a rerun. And I still think that way, I think. It doesn't seem to bother me to rerun a picture, as long as the article accompanying it is new or improved.
- I don't know if our main theorists have made any breakthroughs in this area lately, but it seems to me that the rate of advancement in this EU group makes one likely with regard to sedimentary rock. It might be nice to have a TPOD comparing sedimentary rock laid down by water sedimentation and by electrical deposition. I'm wondering if water sedimentation is realistic. We know water lays down sediment, but do we know that the sediment turns to rock just from the weight of more and more sediment piling on top of the lower layers? My guess is that electrical forces or stresses are what solidify it mostly. The EU idea that mesas are electrically deposited uplifts is very intriguing to me. It seems it would be simple to get pretty convincing proof. Just dig under them and see if the rock layers there are continuous with the rock layers surrounding the mesa. I'm curious if there are more than one way to get electrical deposition. I think Wal has said that Meteor Crater in AZ has some upside-down sedimentary layers around the crater. I gather that those layers would have been deposited somewhat differently than the layers constituting mesas and the like. Am I wrong?
- I had a question about hexagonal craters and other hexagonal formations in a thread I started recently here I think about one of Mercury's hex craters. I just wanted to see if I understood your explanation.
- Cheerings

[Steve Smith]

Lloyd,

The Picture of the Day is new three times a week, which is practically all my feeble brain can manage. As far as the repetition I can do very little about my conclusions being repeated. The concepts embodied by EU physics are not infinite, nor do they change each time I write about some new ironic revelation that comes out of the mainstream. Therefore, black holes, neutron stars, GRBs and other phenomena are not explained by theories unique to each observation, they are all under the umbrella of electrically charged plasma.

Regarding hexagons, I can only repeat a previous observation from "Saturn's Thermogenic Vertex" Picture of the Day:

Hexagonal formations are the result of how plasma filaments propogate around the main discharge channel(s).

One of the most bizarre configurations discovered on Saturn is the hexagon that dominates its north pole. The formation was originally seen by cameras onboard the twin Voyager spacecraft that flew by Saturn in November 1980 and then again in August 1981. NASA researchers continue to refer to the structure as “unexplained”, since the convective interpretations of Saturnian weather do not include mechanisms by which clouds can organize themselves into polygonal shapes.

For many years researchers studying the issue have known that beams of electricity flowing through plasma produce a central column surrounded by concentric cylinders. The cylindrical current filaments exhibit long-range attraction and short-range repulsion braiding that result in evenly spaced vortices surrounding the column. As the filaments rotate around one another, a preferred hexagonal cross-section forms within the innermost column. Hexagonal craters can be seen etched into the surfaces of planets and moons. Weather patterns, such as hurricanes on Earth, also exhibit hexagonal “eyes” that defy conventional explanation.

It would indeed be interesting to "dig under" one of those big mesas in Arizona, but I doubt anyone in the Thunderbolts project will ever be wealthy enough to undertake the expense of equipment, transportation and time. The consensus scientific community will not be interested.

[Steve Smith]

It might be nice to have a TPOD comparing sedimentary rock laid down by water sedimentation and by electrical deposition. I'm wondering if water sedimentation is realistic. We know water lays down sediment, but do we know that the sediment turns to rock just from the weight of more and more sediment piling on top of the lower layers?

I'm not sure that sedimentary rock layers are created by weight and time. There are too many ambiguities in their morphology. I don't know how one would compare the differences and similarities between sedimentary formations created by water and those due to cathode sputtering and electric discharge machining. Sputtering chambers lay down thin layer after thin layer -- almost atomically thin -- so the multiply layered beds, especially those with alternating bands of silicon dioxide and magnetite, could have been formed in seconds or minutes.

Older sediments might be impossible to identify at this juncture. Since the surface of the Earth has been excavated down to the deepest bedrock in nearly every location (and I can't find one that doesn't exhibit EDM activity), then distinguishing the new surfaces from the old is most likely impossible.

[MEVA]

Hello. This is the first time I have ever posted anything on the internet so please forgive all the awkwardness that may ensue. I am a complete science neophyte but TPOD has been my home page for two years because I love it and the EU theory, even though I don't understand it. My question is (if this is the right place to ask) when I am looking at a picture of say, the Christmas Tree Nebula, how has that photo been produced and reproduced to look as it does on the screen? The nebula is not red in space, is it? Since we can never see these cosmic events from space (unless we get there someday) does it matter? But what does the Hubble actually see? What does the photo taken from that telescope actually look like? It isn't colored or defined the way the photo today looks on my screen, is it? Is this a non-issue? I guess there is a part of me that can't accept that anything can be so beautiful; so meaningful, somehow, in its very appearance. Thank you all for all the work you do for all of us.

[Solar]

...when I am looking at a picture of say, the Christmas Tree Nebula, how has that photo been produced and reproduced to look as it does on the screen?

Hi MEVA. The first thing that you'll probably notice is that I'm not really Steve Smith.

Out of curiosity I Googled "Christmas Tree Nebula" and looked under the Google "Images" tab. Nice photos there.

Depending upon which telescope is being used different filters are implemented in order to bring out the variety of details and colors. Like these photos of the Sombrero Galaxy over at Plasma Resources.com

One really good photo turned up at the NOAO and their CCD MOSAIC IMAGER (here is the USER MANUAL in case they let us in there one day) which took the following photo of NGC2264, Cone Nebula, Fox Fur Nebula.

Thank you for my new desktop background.

[Steve Smith]

The Hubble Space Telescope uses detectors that are sensitive to various frequencies of light. Just like video cameras that have "3 CCDs" that are senstive to red, blue, and green, the Hubble uses somthing similar.

The colors observed in the images are not what you would see if you were floating in space in front of the nebula. You would most likely be hard-pressed to even see the thing, since your eyes are not "tuned" to specific frequencies, nor are they immersed in the ultra-cold of space that makes Hubble's instrumentation even more sensitive.

The data collected by Hubble is stored in digital format and then transmitted to Earth in batches. The computers on Earth analyze the digital signatures in the data stream and then use software algorithms to assign various colors, contrast, brightness, etc. The image is then displayed or sent to a digital printer.

The Hubble images are not "real" versions of the objects, they are interpretations based in preconceived ideas that designed the devices used to collect the data. They are enhanced views of space -- or maybe even metaphors of what exists out there.