Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Many Internet forums have carried discussion of the Electric Universe hypothesis. Much of that discussion has added more confusion than clarity, due to common misunderstandings of the electrical principles. Here we invite participants to discuss their experiences and to summarise questions that have yet to be answered.
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Brigit
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Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by Brigit » Mon Sep 12, 2022 11:49 pm

September is a wonderful and very busy time of year. Summer has come to a close and it's time for harvest, for new fall schedules, new curricula, perhaps some updated wardrobes, and all of this along with our usual enormous pile of work to do.

Scientifically it is an exciting time to be alive. Some of our best probes have been launched into space for new looks at our old solar system compadres -- like the sun, and the sun, and the sun! JWST, Parker, and the Solar Orbiter, for example, are each equipped with exciting instrumentation/missions that dreams are made of.

It is with apologies that I bring up this publication by "Dave" which targets our very own Electric Universe chief science advisor, physicist Wal Thornhill.

So here we go. We should try very hard to not waste any one's time. It is my hope that something informative could come out of this, although that will take some doing, since his speech has very little resemblance to any real person.

Mission: let's take his fictions in a series of short segments and get this done and dusted before the month is over.
Reward: Any one who finds a valid point in his video could be a winner. Prize TBD.
Guidelines: Respond to short and specific points, one per post, please.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

BeAChooser
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by BeAChooser » Wed Sep 14, 2022 10:23 pm

A link to whatever video you're talking about?

jackokie
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by jackokie » Thu Sep 15, 2022 2:12 am

@BeAChooser I think this must be the video she's talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNTu_pqmq2E

The comments are...well, you should see for yourself.
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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Brigit
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Let's Examine "Dave"

Unread post by Brigit » Thu Sep 15, 2022 11:35 pm

BeAChooser » Wed Sep 14, 2022 3:23 pm says,
"A link to whatever video you're talking about?"

Hi BeAChooser, I'm running a little late! I didn't leave the link.

Jackokie dialed it up for for us. Thanks jackokie. If any one is looking for spirited and intelligent challenges to the science of the Electric Universe, you won't find any in this video. IIRC it is mainly ad homs and appeals to authority but we'll see. So prepare yourself for something pretty tacky if you choose to click. And maybe one of us can find a valid criticism amongst his deliberate fallacies and fictions and win a prize (; . At any rate, there is nothing wrong with setting the record straight.

I'd actually like to break down and number the individual points in the video this evening so that forum members can drop in and respond easily.

Like I said, I don't like wasting any one's time but maybe we can get the Stable cleaned up before we know it !
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

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GaryN
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by GaryN » Fri Sep 16, 2022 6:05 am

@BeAChooser I think this must be the video she's talking about:
Skimmed through it, couldn't listen to his egotistical preaching for long. The number and nature of the comments though does not bode well for the future of the EU as a viable alternative to mainstream dogma. Although I am decideldy pro EU there are of course a couple of areas where my ideas fall foul of both camps, though neither can disprove my own basic tenets.
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.” -Albert Einstein

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spark
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by spark » Fri Sep 16, 2022 9:59 am

Electric Universe debunking videos are a meme when physicist Winston Bostick and electrical engineer Eric Dollard have literally created fractal galaxies and stars inside a vacuum chamber filled with various gases and metal vapors, experimentally confirming Electric Universe model.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtYVTGlHGAk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeoOJaPl4Oc
https://www.thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/ph ... f=11&t=195

Also there's Safire Project which has replicated Sun's environment more accurately, and more recently James Webb telescope discovered Plasma Double Layers around a Star which mainstream astronomers can never properly explain without properly understanding plasma physics. Safire Project has replicated Plasma Double Layers around a Star.
https://www.reddit.com/r/ElectricUniver ... _captures/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pAF_L_HH4M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t1aNqa0PZPI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L69ttX3kviw

jackokie
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by jackokie » Fri Sep 16, 2022 4:51 pm

@GaryN
...there are of course a couple of areas where my ideas fall foul of both camps, though neither can disprove my own basic tenets.
And are there experiments you can propose which would support your basic tenets?
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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GaryN
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by GaryN » Fri Sep 16, 2022 8:36 pm

And are there experiments you can propose which would support your basic tenets?
Yes, and they are very simple, quick and inexpensive, but require the unfettered access to LEO or preferably cislunar space. Experiments have been performed though that go back to the Apollo missions, and with comets the failure of the Apollo 13 crew to see or photograph the Comet Bennett was never explained or studied. It was visible from Earth so why not from deep space? The logical answer to me is that Bennett was emitting ionising radiation and not visible light, and that it must be Earths atmosphere that is creating the visible light in the atmosphere by photochemical processes.
If this is so then the proclamations of Dave the Professor are incorrect, but also call into question what might have been occurring in space at the time of the visual events referenced by Velikovsky. A solar event that caused an increase in the activity of the energetic neutrals around Venus, or that changed the state of Earths atmosphere could have caused it to appear much bigger or closer than it actually was.
I do believe though in the catastrophic events that Earth is subject to periodically, and on a scale far beyond that which most could ever accept.
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.” -Albert Einstein

jackokie
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by jackokie » Sat Sep 17, 2022 1:02 am

@GaryN Launches for microsats are getting pretty cheap, and there's a wealth of instrumentation available for microsats now. Rather than wait on NASA, I'll bet we could enlist enough community college physics departments to help fund and build the microsat. What say you?
Time is what prevents everything from happening all at once.

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Brigit
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Let's Examine "Dave"

Unread post by Brigit » Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:12 pm

Let's dive right in.

The central point of his video presentation is where I'd like to begin. In the structure of his arguments, such as they are, everything leads up to the subject of Einstein's General Relativity, and everything else slopes away from it. So that is the best place to begin our examination of Dave's discussion of the Electric Universe.

It begins with a very interesting segment of a publication from Wal Thornhill:
  • 25:00 "[Quote:] 'The mission of a theoretical physicist trying to work out the nature of substance and elementary particles is to get the maths to work out correctly, and consistent with what’s gone on before.' " [W.T.:] "So we’re discussing mathematics, not physics. And of course, what’s gone on before is that mathematicians raised Einstein’s general relativity to the status of scripture, while that theory ignores the substance of stars and planets that exhibit mass and gravity. So the theory has no physical basis whatsoever. It depends instead on a warped view of reality."
  • 25:38 It’s hard to know whether Wal really does know zero things about general relativity or if he just relies on his targets knowing zero things about general relativity, but anyone who says something like this about GR is a moron. Completely contrary to ignoring stars and planets, it is specifically observations of stars and planets that have firmly corroborated relativity countless times.
  • 26:04 The first was the famous observation with Eddington of a star’s apparent position bending around the sun during a solar eclipse. Then there was the flawless alignment with the perihelion precession of Mercury. The observation of gravitational lensing all over the universe. Modeling the paths of stars near galactic center as they rapidly orbit a supermassive black hole. All things having to do with stars and planets. And that doesn’t even include GPS, which literally would not work without mathematically adjusting the rates of clocks onboard satellites to account for relativistic effects. When people like Wal whine about how empty and scriptural relativity is, they publicly admit to knowing less than an undergraduate freshman about the topic.
  • 26:48 I have several astronomy tutorials regarding the myriad phenomena that confirm general relativity, so I won’t reiterate those any further here, but to put it simply, the majority of Wal’s rhetoric amounts to him outright stating that he doesn’t understand physics so it must be wrong. Also, Wal is just totally full of it with this quote. This was said by award-winning science author Jim Baggott. He wants the viewer to believe that all physics does is throw numbers around to validate Einsteinian dogma. This is stupid.
We need to understand that Dave's main argument is that anyone who questions General Relativity
    • 1. does not understand General Relativity ("knows zero things about general relativity")
    • 2. "targets" others who do not understand General Relativity ("relies on his targets knowing zero things about general relativity)
    • 3. is intellectually deficient in some way ("anyone who says something like this about GR is a moron")
And further, anyone who questions General Relativity
    • 4. has not completed a basic education (those who "whine about how empty...relativity is, they publicly admit to knowing less than an undergraduate freshman about the topic")
    • 5. is practicing a form of sneaky rhetoric ("the majority of Wal’s rhetoric amounts to...")
    • 6. calls GR wrong only because said person is not capable of understanding it ("doesn’t understand physics so it must be wrong")
    • 7. is not fit to be listened to because he or she has contradicted authorities ("Also, Wal is just totally full of it with this quote. This was said by award-winning science author Jim Baggott" who spoke these words and has not been properly quoted because if he had, he would be both believed and trusted as a proper authority on the subject, not critiqued)
And again, anyone who questions General Relativity
    • 8. has misled people by claiming there is a disconnect between the mathematical variables in the equations and the physical parameters it claims to represent ("wants the viewer to believe that all physics does is throw numbers around to validate Einsteinian dogma")
    • 9. and is open to the psychological diagnosis of willful ignorance ("This is stupid")
I and others would be perfectly willing to address the scientific evidence for GR, but first, the quality of arguments we are really dealing with in this video must be shown. And that was just 3 minutes.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

crawler
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by crawler » Sun Sep 18, 2022 10:40 pm

Re GPS. I wish to point out that (pre-launch)(or any other kind of) clock ticking adjustments are not needed for the GPS. There is no reason why GPS needs clocks that tick at the same rate -- or even at a uniform rate (they dont tick at a uniform rate). But, the GPS is easier for the computers (& staff) to handle (understand)(juggle) if the ticking rates are identical or almost.
GPS needs continual or continuous or at least periodic corrections for the times of every clock.
But, every clock could be a unique kind of clock, & tick at any rate -- as long as the ticking is uniform or nearly (ticking is never uniform) -- no mechanical adjustments are ever necessary -- but arithmetic corrections are always necessary.
Nextly -- the GPS doesnt need any STR or GTR theory (or any other kind of relativity theory) to function – not Voigt Cohn Searle FitzGerald Lorentz Poincare Einstein or Minkowski. Hence statements by the Einsteinian mafia that the GPS proves STR or GTR or something are false at more than one level.
STR is krapp -- & GTR is mostly krapp.
The present Einsteinian Dark Age of science will soon end – for the times they are a-changin'.
The aether will return – it never left.

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Brigit
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by Brigit » Tue Sep 20, 2022 8:53 pm

crawler says» Sun Sep 18, 2022 3:40 pm
"GPS needs continual or continuous or at least periodic corrections for the times of every clock. But, every clock could be a unique kind of clock, & tick at any rate -- as long as the ticking is uniform or nearly (ticking is never uniform) -- no mechanical adjustments are ever necessary -- but arithmetic corrections are always necessary."

Nice. A lot of us agree about this infinitessimal toggling between tools of measurement -- presented as evidence of GR -- and we'll go ahead and hit that point harder with some references. That is, references by brave souls who are willing to point out that GPS does not require adjustments for GR. Hang on for that.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

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Brigit
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Let's Examine "Dave"

Unread post by Brigit » Tue Sep 20, 2022 9:22 pm

It might help to explain to "Dave's" viewers that the people who find their way to the Electric Universe and the Plasma Universe already noticed how conjectural astronomy really was.

The astronomers lost our attention when they started bending space. And bending time. And bending both together, or dimpling them, or what have you.

For other observers of astronomical science, astronomers tipped us off when they introduced singularities. Singularities devolve into infinities, and that is neither good math, nor good science. A minority of people can't join everyone else in their celebration of Cosmic Eggs and Black Holes. When it comes to singularities, we start knocking along the walls, trying doors, and looking around corners to find something better, something more physical to explain the claimed signatures of singularities.

For other observers of astrophysics, introducing multiverses appears to be a mathematical trick which increases the likelihood of winning the lottery for the appearance of life and other statistical long shots.

And there are the field equations. Those are "just so", allowing for the emergence of the Cosmic Egg and its subsequent birthing of deep time and chance and gravity, which like the Great Old Ones assemble all things.

According to "Dave", this makes us "targets" and we start reverting back to our College Algebra and our Ohm's, capacitance, & frequency equations, which are utilized in every day life.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

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GaryN
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Re: Let's Examine Dave and See If He Has Any Valid Points

Unread post by GaryN » Wed Sep 21, 2022 5:35 am

@GaryN Launches for microsats are getting pretty cheap, and there's a wealth of instrumentation available for microsats now. Rather than wait on NASA, I'll bet we could enlist enough community college physics departments to help fund and build the microsat. What say you?
There have been proposals going back to 1983 to have a visible light telescope in orbit though Lyman Spitzer was calling for one since the 60's.It wasn't until Hubble that we had one, but that claim really is misleading, and empirical scientific experiments using a conventional setup would prove it. Which is why none have ever flown, IMO.

An Amateur Space Telescope
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1982S ... S/abstract

Testbed Paves Way for Amateur Space Telescope
https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-n ... telescope/

Be nice if Elon Musk would put a camera facing away from earth on one of his many satellites but he too has to abide by certain rules.
“I think 99 times and find nothing. I stop thinking, swim in silence, and the truth comes to me.” -Albert Einstein

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Brigit
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Let's Examine Dave

Unread post by Brigit » Wed Sep 21, 2022 4:21 pm

Does GPS validate GR and SR?

Here is a summary of the problem by Tom van Flandern:

"In LR [Lorentzian Relativity], one reference frame (the local gravity field) is preferred; and speed cannot affect time, but only the rate of ticking of mechanical, electromagnetic, or biological clocks.

However, just as we do not assume that time has been affected when the temperature rises and causes a pendulum clock to slow down, LR says that changes in clock rates are changes in the rates of physical processes, and do not affect space or time.

So by carrying an on-board GPS clock on the spacecraft, we are offered a clear choice between models: Earth time can be what SR infers it is, or it can be what the GPS clock says it is. In the former case, SR works, but leads to heavy-duty complexities and fantastic inferences about the nature of time at remote locations. Moreover, the proof that nothing can travel faster than light in forward time stands intact. In the latter case, LR works with great simplicity and in full accord with our intuitions about the universality of the instant "now". And the speed of light is no longer a universal speed limit because time itself is never affected either by motion or by gravity.

Aside from these practical difficulties with the use of SR in the GPS, Einstein's special relativity is also under challenge in a more serious way from the "speed of gravity" issue, because the proven existence of anything propagating faster than light in forward time (as all experiments indicate is the case for gravity) would falsify SR outright [6, 7]. So it is entirely possible that reality is Lorentzian, not Einsteinian, with respect to the relativity of motion. In that case, physics may have no speed limit when the driving forces are gravitational or electrodynamic rather than electromagnetic in nature. And that may be the most important thing that the GPS has helped us to appreciate."

ref: http://www.cartesio-episteme.net/episte ... -vanfl.htm

Here is an additional exploration of the claims that GPS validates Einstein's GR and SR:
RON HATCH: Relativity in the Light of GPS | EU 2013
Apr 6, 2013 ch: ThunderboltsProject
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGZ1GU_HDwY
Dur. 38 min

Note: there is diversity within the Electric Universe and Plasma Universe: for example, crawler does not see a need for even Lorentzian calculations in GPS, and Michael Mozina does not see any conflict between Plasma Cosmology and Einstein's GR.
“Oh for shame, how these mortals put the blame upon us gods, for they say evils come from us, when it is they rather who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given…”
~Homer

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