nick c wrote:I don't have anywhere nears as big of a problem with a fusion powered sun as I have with the LCDM cosmology model. At least *some* of the energy of the sun is produced locally in fusion processes regardless of which EU/PC solar model you prefer.
But aren't they both based on the same thing? The gravity only paradigm. Why would a plasma collapse under the force of gravity?
It's not clear (to me at least) that the sun has to be *just* plasma. It obviously has a plasma atmosphere of course, but we can't really 'see' underneath of the surface of the photosphere other than perhaps using heliosciesmology techniques.
https://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510111
Dr. Kosovichev's heliosiesmology research shows that somewhere around 4800 KM below the surface of the photosphere, the plasma flows which are near and around sunspots tend to "flatten out" and move horizontally rather than vertically. IMO that's probably the location of the electrode. It could simply be a more dense layer of plasma or a solid surface IMO.
I would say that the effect of gravity depends on many factors, including the elements that are present as the sun is forming. I'd assume that heavy elements like Iron and Nickel would tend to sink and form a dense core. SAFIRE experiments have confirmed that the electrode can be significantly cooler than the surrounding plasma atmosphere so I wouldn't automatically 'assume" that the sun must be made entirely of plasma. It probably has a hot plasma core and a hot double layered plasma atmosphere, bit it may have a solid layer near the surface of the electrode too IMO.
Alfven seemed to be quite happy with the standard solar model from the core to the surface of the photosphere, so apparently he also assumed that gravity would pull the sun together, and generate fusion in the core, regardless of it being strictly made of plasma or not.
All the calculations of the workings of a fusion furnace in stellar cores are based on the a priori assumption that the molecular gas cloud behaves as an ideal gas. Reality is quite different and plasmas themselves do not know that they are supposed to behave in accordance to that assumption.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0aPMc32Snxw
Gravity would tend to pull the elements together once they're "pinched" into a big enough bundle. If you watch some of Don Petitt's experiments on the space station, Don found that electrostatic forces tended to cause things in space to "stick together' and become clumpy. It also and causes them to move around in space which may help explain how things started to become 'clumpy" in the first place. With a large mass body present, gravity will eventually have a significant effect on even plasma.
The working assumption must be that molecular gas clouds behave as plasmas and start over from there.
True, but I wouldn't assume that all of the elements present were necessarily ionized. There likely would be dust present in the plasma since all plasma tend to be 'dusty'. I also think Don is correct about electrostatic forces playing a significant role in the early formation of objects in space.
Regardless of which model might be correct, I think we would all assume that plasma pinches due to electrical current would act to "pinch' the plasma and could lead to fusion. Jeurgen's original anode solar model must have included some fusion, at least in the upper atmosphere since his model was intended to create about 1/3rd of the neutrinos of the standard solar model. I'm assuming he presumed they were due to fusion in the upper atmosphere inside of plasma pinches. I don't see why the plasma pinch process couldn't occur all throughout the sun, including in the core.
A key predictive difference between any EU/PC model and the standard model relates to the location of fusion and the source of neutrinos. If we had high enough neutrino resolution images to determine exactly where the neutrinos originate, it might be possible to demonstrate that they originate in the upper atmosphere during solar flare events, not just in the core as predicted by the standard solar model.