A couple of problems with EU model

[chard]

Hello.


I am very interested in the EU model, but would like resident experts to help me understand a few things:


1. It is suggested that Arp's findings about quasar redshift quantization is a strong case against distance-velocity model of redshift. However, newer analysis on a vastly larger number of quasars have proven no quantization effects whatsoever, subscribing Arp's findings to chance or low sensitivity of measuring instruments at the time.

For example: http://adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-b ... 22c9c10466


2. Math-only models are very bad, I agree. However, math cannot be rejected completely and I am having hard time finding ANY mathematical support for the EU claims. For example, I am interested in equations and quantifiable predictions about, for example, amperage of (Birkeland) currents required to make stars glow.

Also, are there any empirical measurements of the Birkeland currents that are supposedly lighting our own Sun; are those measurements made/found where such currents should exist (for instance hourglass shapes of certain supernovae suggests the shape of currents near a star) and do the measurements fit mathematical predictions mentioned above?

3. If stars are in z-pinch of birkeland currents, why are they (perfectly) spherical and not hourglass shaped? Surely the strength of such currents and magnetic fields involved would diffuse the stellar material along the "incoming" and "outgoing" lines of such currents. Supernovae are different because those are explosive events and circumstances are radically different. So, how exactly does z-pinch confine matter into a sphere, and what is the mathematical equation that would describe the behavior of matter under such conditions?


Disclaimer: I am not negating or bashing EU, just want to learn more about it and resolve what I see as inconsistencies within EU, and for the questions I've made above, I am not interested in what ELSE does EU explain over mainstream, or where ELSE does mainstream fail. I am interested exactly in the two questions above.



Thank you very much for your time.

[jjohnson]

Those are fair questions. I ask them myself, and try to see what I can work out, but "I'm an architect, Jim; not an astrophysicist!"
FIrst, be sure you've read Thornhill and Scott carefully, and Peratt, if you can get hold of his book. Keep in mind that EU is still in fairly early days as far as getting mathematically-based descriptions and models, and it's difficult to get a broad overview of what sorts of data from the various space probes are showing over time that might support (or not support) EU concepts and hypotheses. Read through all the forums to keep up with anything interesting (I personally don't mess with FTL alien spaceships and what happened in the heavens a long time back, or whether or not those are valid subjects - just can't be into everything, know what I mean?

EU is not a full-blown theory yet; it's more an active set of ideas being refined prior to serious checking being able to be done - from what I can see so far, anyway. Don Scott is an engineer and knows the importance of good mathematical models, and points to circuit based models in his book. I asked him about the voltage drop estimated or needed from the Sun's collecting surface, guessed as being about 10^13m in radius, and he replied that no one knows what it is yet. Yes, we do need more numeric help, and I am doing my part-time best to get into the math and ragging on others to help. I like pursuing EU and plasma cosmology (PC) ideas because the Standard Model is not convincing me that they have it right, either, even though they have sophisticated mathematical models that they claim supports that view. Read Miles Mathis ( http://www.milesmathis.com ); he tears into their math with amazing grace and offers simple, mechanical alternatives to even very basic physics problems. We at EU need to keep his papers at hand and be well-read, not because he is right on everything (no one is) but because it may be helpful. His extension of his Inified Field invention to predicting planetary spacing and tilts in our solar system is very interesting and, if right, has some speculations worth thinking about. e-mail him with any good questions, but don't waste his time. He gets a large volume of questions to handle.

Second, you meant to write, "...ascribing Arp's findings..."; not "subscribing", in paragraph 1. Unfortunately I haven't jumped to your link here, yet; hope it's one of Harvard's rare PDF downloads for free, since abstracts aren't much use to us. I can't comment on what they say, although Burbidge and Arp seemed, back in the 90's, to have a fairly good sample set. Arp seems to have extraordinarily good skills in the probabilities department, unlike most astronomers, and that's indispensable when discussing accuracies and data set interpretation, etc. in their mindset of "math is proof".

Third, if you want more numbers,Peratt's text, Physics of the Plasma Universe, was my first go-to. It is NOT just magnetohydrodynamics, which is not apropos under most plasma conditions. If you need electron and ion counts, energies and directions, and current densities in the solar wind , etc. one spot is
http://space.rice.edu/ISTP/justdials.html and the link on this page of dials gives alphanumeric results and text. If you have a question or need a more specific answer, you can e-mail the site's manager (address on dials page at URL above). She responded in less than a day to a question of mine. The trouble is that NASA intentionally is not sending their satellites and probes out to to verify the conditions that the EU suggest exist, and they do not readily admit to electrical phenomena or highlight anything that points at it. Their solar research is starting to gingerly come around, as I have noted elsewhere here, but they have to compete for funds with every other department, so it isn't in their interest to start talking in terms of currents beyond those that incontrovertibly are energizing the auroras on Earth. Getting what we think we need is going to be an uphill battle. Most individual researchers at the Universities which have NASA programs (JPL at CalTech; astronomers at NRAO, the HiRISE program at U of Arizona; programs at Johns Hopkins U., and others will respond to e-mail requests surprisingly often. They do not want to, and will not, get into EU discussions directly, in my experience, but try to contact people about data you'd like to have, and you'll be a big help to the effort if you can get it to help with formulating a pragmatic math structure.. If we can get a working model of just solar phenomena that would be competitive with their FIB (Fusion In a Bottle) hypothesis, it would be outstanding. We could extend that to stars everywhere.

Fourth, keep asking, and think critically. Anyone who does anything mathematically is going to have the work looked at very carefully, by engineers, scientists, astronomers, and back-biters. Ignore the latter. Right now, over in FocusFusion.org's forum, there is a discussion going on about what the major differences between TWNBB (There Was No Big Bang, Eric Lerner's book) and EU predictions. Lerner even chimes in based on what he thinks he knows from his EU exposure. Join up and read that stuff - do not take it badly if someone exposes flaws or differences or even dumb mistakes in things - take it constructively, and be sure that they ARE right before blindly accepting others' opinions. That's the sort of collegial discourse we should push. I get helped to keep my eyes open nearly every time I write something in a forum. Some are off the mark; others nail it. It's intellectual fun. Take the honor system part of the Forum entry seriously - it permits the free speech we want, that is so missing in many peer-reviewed journals in physics subjects today. (This problem extends past just the astronomy/cosmology/ cosmogeny community, by the way.) Work hard! Good luck!

[Lloyd]

* The abstract sounds to me like the researchers who did the study intended to disprove Arp's claim of quantization of redshift at the outset, so I suspect that it was biased and ignored data that didn't fit the researchers' model. Have you read the evidence for redshift quantization? If not, you may be biased against it as well.
* Quantization is not an aspect of EU theory. But EU does claim that redshift is caused primarily by ionization, not by distance or velocity of objects. And this TPOD http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2004/ ... rs-god.htm certainly provides strong evidence. It shows that the "redshift equals distance" theory completely warps the shape of galaxy clusters in the universe, causing all of them to point to the Earth. How absurd is that? "Redshift does not equal distance" theory removes these distortions from the map of the universe.

[tayga]

Reading Arp's books is quite informative regarding the 'falsifications'. He contends that he and Burbidge already used the best data when they posited the quantised redshift idea and that subsequent studies, aimed at challenging them used poorer data and make no attempt to correct for real velocity-based components of the observed redshifts. I'm convinced the work behind those papers was carried out with falsification in mind.

Furthermore, the attempts to challenge Arp all seem to be founded on the quantisation aspect of his work. I've seen no-one challenging the statistical association of quasars with older galaxies, etc.

[flyingcloud]

I don't know anything, but the way I see it, it is all fluid dynamics. The current flows along, twists and gets pinched and the current gets restricted and starts to build up. Since it flows in both directions at the same time we see the hourglass shape of particle accumulation on either side of the pinch, this eventually will reach a tipping point whereby the inertia energy within the buildup of said particles expands beyond the confines of the strength of the magnetic field to contain and 'reflect' these particle flows back from whence they came and the flows overcome this restriction by going around the pinch in an expanded spherical shape whereby the current flows out the poles and into the equator in an attempt to continue its twisted 'linear' path. This current then flows again in a tremendous release instantly creating a classic toroidal figure 8 magnetic field confinement which we see in most spherical entities within the cosmos.

again, I don't know anything and this is just my unscientific opinion. take it for what it's worth

[earls]

I like your common sense explanation flying cloud.

As for "why are stars round" - because magnetic fields are. Even if you have a square magnet, the fields are still round.

[james weninger]

I'm surprized no one responded to Chard's first question by stating that quazar redshift quantization was perhaps Arp's weakest claim against the distance-velocity model of redshift. That fact that he observed high redshift objects connected to low redshift objects by a stream of gas,or saw a high redshift object in between us and an opaque low redshift object, are much more straight forward proofs that the distance-velocity model of redshift is wrong. When did EU theory ever become dependent on the quantization of redshift? Jim

[james weninger]

Also, Chard's point 3. The fact that the heliosphere is NOT turning out to be spherical, but elongated,is consistent with EU theory as well. I am not saying it is proof of EU theory,but it certainly is'nt predicted by the gravitational models of the solar system.

[junglelord]

I don't know anything, but the way I see it, it is all fluid dynamics. take it for what it's worth

I have learned all about the universe from time on the beach and watching the water, fast and slow river flows, waves of various forms, funnel shaped whirl pools, bubbles floating from waterfalls, half bubbles on the water.....throw in some Bucky Fuller, some time to contemplate and observe and soon the essentials become repeating observations....turn your direction from those revelations to the branching network of the trees which comes to light, the filamentary structures, the fluid dynamics...its repeatable over and over, fractal holographic, right back to spiral galaxies. As above, so below.

[The Great Dog]

The Great Dog has always been puzzled by this demand for "math" when it comes to Electric Universe concepts. It has been stated many times by most of the theory's advocates that the reason they accept its model is because it relies on time-tested formulae. In order to understand the Electric Universe, The Great Dog recommends reading Maxwell and Langmuir. All of the math that one could hope for is there.

TGD

[earls]

Mathematics is codified logic, I see no issue with such a request.

If the time-tested formuale is so well understood by the advocates of the theory, then it should be no issue to extend such concepts to the arena of the cosmos providing codified logical steps from "the beginning" to present day.

Unfortunately, because of its simplicity, this theory attracts many people without the mathematical skills to deliver logical proofs. It's not a catastrophe, because as I said, the concepts are very easily communicate and the observational evidence is easily to correlate. But it's still a weakness.

Math would also give us the ability to make quantitative predictions and then compare them against future measurements. Mainstream completely embraces this, even if they're wrong, hence dark energy and matter. But at least the math provides a testable basis of right and wrong versus waving your hand and flat out saying math should not be required.

[jjohnson]

Precisely, Earls. This (EU) is physics, as well as cosmology and cosmogeny and maybe paleoastronomy as well. We should not be thought of (nor be thinking of ourselves) as prophets, for whom no mathematical assistance is required to help bolster predictions, regardless of how often right EU predictions may be. Also, math may help, in formulating predictions, either getting them right instead of releasing "surprised again!" news releases, and in getting others of a more doctrinaire bent to see that it isn't difficult to see our logic in that familiar form. Also, like Peratt, with better math and todays better computers and programs, we should be able to see more clearly as well.

[MGmirkin]

Also, are there any empirical measurements of the Birkeland currents that are supposedly lighting our own Sun; are those measurements made/found where such currents should exist (for instance hourglass shapes of certain supernovae suggests the shape of currents near a star) and do the measurements fit mathematical predictions mentioned above?

Honest answer for honest question:

Empirical observations, I'd have to go with no, not yet. At least partly because probes have not yet ventured far enough from our star to get the "full picture" of what the particles and charged dust grains are doing beyond the heliosphere...

In another thread, I had tried roughly answering a couple questions on dimensions and shapes proffered by Thornhill (with pointers back to Thornhill's original articles). I think a newer article (site seems to be down temporarily, but hopefully it'll come back up soon?) was released since then too with a few more tidbits...

Ostensibly a spherical (very roughly; reality isn't "ideal" anything) heliosphere, with the sun as anode, interplanetary space as the positive column.

Don Scott is less "definitive" on the subject and has said that it could potentially be the cathode dark space (or perhaps Thornhill may be right about it being the positive column, but dark due to spherical geometry of the current increasing the volume through which the current flows, thus stepping down from the usual glow mode to dark mode current), if I recall the private conversation correctly; but again, without more extensive in situ measurements, it's hard to say anything "for certain." For now it's reasonable educated guesswork based upon known plasma processes in the lab scaled upward and extrapolated there from. Don Scott is candid / honest in this regard, as should any such scientist be:

Of course the Electric Sun model is speculative. But these speculations are reasonable extrapolations of the solid, experimentally verified properties of plasma. We are not positive that everything included in the ES hypothesis is 100% correct. We do not claim omnipotence or perfection for our early models.

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

The heliosphere, then is through the be a virtual cathode and the planets / asteroids minor physical cathodes within the spherical glow discharge that is the solar system. Many of which having plasma / Langmuir sheaths which act to insulate those bodies from the interplanetary plasma (or at least concentrate the electric field within the Double Layers generally intrinsic to such sheaths).

In any event, Thornhill states that the "Birkeland currents" feeding the solar system are external to it and quite large / diffuse (I think he says 0.3 parsecs wide? [Again a very rough number he has said is only a guesstimate based upon the size of known filaments observed near the galactic core. & not sure whether that's each or total.])

Essentially the heliospheric "bubble" is stuck somewhere between [two? in the simplest case] such Birkeland currents.

I believe that Don at some point put out some back-of-the-envelope calculations for the currents feeding the sun / solar system and found the requirements not unreasonable... Might have been in his rejoinder to Tim Thompson? I forget.
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.pdf

Could have been his response to Bridgman, though:
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/RebutTB.pdf

Trying to remember where I'd read it... Could have sworn it was one of those two. Not seeing it on a quick skim, though. Hmm. Might have to poke around a bit to find it. Sorry. I know it's around somewhere though... Might have been in one of the old Thoth newsletters? But, I could swear it was more recent than that and specifically in response to a question.

Best,
~Michael Gmirkin

[MGmirkin]

But at least the math provides a testable basis of right and wrong versus waving your hand and flat out saying math should not be required.

Not disagreeing. I know Don has on occasion done some basic back of the envelope calculations for things like how much incoming flux of electrons might be considered reasonable to "power" the sun and whether such a volume of electrons may exist outside the heliosphere or be supplied to it, finding the guesstimates not unreasonable. Still looking for the precise quotes... But have to hit the hay. Already 3AM and have to work in the morning. Not good. ;o]

But as Don has said, better to say "I don't know" or "there's insufficient data from probes to make a definitive call" and be honest than make something up on the spot that's likely to be wrong. And the simple fact is that in many cases there simply isn't definitive data yet on how particles behave and where or what he concentration of particles happens to be and where. We can make educated guesses and say "it would be reasonable to assume they're in this range, if such and such assumption holds; but there are no measurements from that region so any number given would just be an educate guess."

Again, in some instances, I think Don has extrapolated from the lab or from existing maths (Maxwell's equations, Lorentz forces) and whatever data is at hand or from similar known regions if a region in question has not been empirically examined in situ.

But again, being relatively new science, data has not been collected specifically from this vantage point or in many of the regions specifically under question, so answers are necessarily as-yet-unsettled.

~MG

[nick c]

hi Michael,
Welcome back,

I believe that Don at some point put out some back-of-the-envelope calculations for the currents feeding the sun / solar system and found the requirements not unreasonable... Might have been in his rejoinder to Tim Thompson? I forget.
http://www.electric-cosmos.org/Rejoinder.pdf

Could have been his response to Bridgman, though:
http://members.cox.net/dascott3/RebutTB.pdf

Trying to remember where I'd read it... Could have sworn it was one of those two. Not seeing it on a quick skim, though. Hmm. Might have to poke around a bit to find it. Sorry. I know it's around somewhere though... Might have been in one of the old Thoth newsletters? But, I could swear it was more recent than that and specifically in response to a question.

You might be looking for "Appendix C" Solar Electron Flux p235-236, The Electric Sky, Scott...though I am sure he has written this elsewhere as well.
Here the author shows some "back of the envelope" calculations of the amount of current needed to power the Sun compared to the amount that could be collected by the enormous sphere of the heliospheric boundary or interface with interstellar space.

Of course this calculation involves many estimated quantities, but the point is that it is not reasonable to conclude that there are not enough electrons to power the Sun. From the rough estimates of these important quantities that are presently the best available, we have determined that there most certainly are more than enough electrons available to power the Sun if indeed, that is what is occurring.

Nick