by Brigit » Tue Mar 31, 2026 11:40 pm
Ralph Juergens, cont'd
"As we shall note presently, there is compelling evidence to indicate
that the sun, the earth, and the moon, to name only a few major bodies in
the solar system, are electrically charged. Yet the very precision with
which gravitational theory accounts for the planetary motions seems to belie
this evidence. Perturbations due to repulsive electrical forces, for
example, are nowhere in evidence today --not even, I hasten to suggest, in
the strange behavior of comet tails, about which I shall have more to say
later.
This impasse between celestial mechanics and the notion of cosmic
electrical interactions was recognized long ago. A reconciliation seemed
so unlikely that physical scientists of half a dozen successive generations
felt compelled to devise all sorts of exotic theories to explain away the
most obvious evidence for electric charge on the earth.
An important clue to the vanity of all such ad hoc theorizing was
radioed back to earth in 1962 by Mariner 2.
Man's first successful Venus probe established once and for all that
the interplanetary medium is not a near-vacuum, as most astronomers had
always supposed, but is actually a plasma--a gas of dissociated positive
ions and electrons. This disclosure instantly invalidated the argument that
the planets, if electrically charged, would perturb one another in most
obvious ways.
According to the physics of electricity, a charged body isolated in
a vacuum, which is a dielectric medium, surrounds itself with an electric
field that reaches to infinity, with strength diminishing as the square of
the distance. Thus, in a vacuous interplanetary medium, or even in a
medium of neutral atomic or molecular gases, planetary charges must give
rise to electric fields detectable by their influences upon planetary
motions.
In an interplanetary medium consisting of ionized gas, however,
things are radically different.
One of the primary characteristics of a plasma has up to now
received little or no attention from astronomers. This is its ability to
shield itself from the electric field of any body in contact with it, or
contained within it, and charged to an electric potential different from
that of the plasma itself. The mechanism by which such shielding is
accomplished was named the space-charge sheath by those who first studied
the phenomenon.
In a space-charge sheath, positive and negative charges collect and
arrange themselves in such a way that the electric field of a body with
alien potential is contained within a limited region surrounding the body.
This does not mean that the total electric charge of the isolated body must
be compensated by equal and opposite charge in the sheath; rather, it means
only that enough charge must be assembled in the sheath to increase or
decrease the potential of the outer sheath boundary to match the potential
of the surrounding plasma.
As a laboratory phenomenon, the space-charge sheath was described,
studied, and given a measure of quantitative theoretical explanation half a
century ago. The most lucid accounts of this work are probably those to be
found in the papers of Irving Langmuir (2), the physicist who coined the
term "plasma" in reference to fully ionized gases.
Up to this point I have neglected to mention two most important
facts about space-charge sheaths and plasmas:
1. An isolated body whose alien potential is not continually
renewed by means of electric currents will quickly acquire the
potential of the surrounding plasma, and its sheath will
disappear; and
2. A plasma does not necessarily possess an intrinsic electric
potential.
Where plasmas form in electrical discharges, however--and this is
the connection in which Langmuir studied them--they do acquire non-zero
potentials. These are clearly matters of immense importance. I will return
to them later.
For now, we can say that in a solar system pervaded by plasma, each
charged planet with a potential unlike that of the local plasma must have
its electric field bound up in a space-charge sheath of limited volume.
When no orbital conflict exists, the system operates serenely under the
direction of forces accounted for in conventional celestial mechanics.
But let us imagine what might occur should two electrically charged
major bodies in this system find themselves on intersecting orbits.
Inevitably, as the two bodies pursued their separate paths on separate time
tables, the stage would be set eventually for a rendezvous at one or another
point of orbital contact. Since the spacecharge sheaths of the bodies would
occupy greater volumes than the bodies themselves, a collision between
sheaths would actually be more likely to take place than a direct, bodily
collision, and in any case it would occur first.
When the moment arrived for the inevitable encounter, sheaths would
make contact. Unleashed electric fields would clash. Almost instantly,
forces immeasurably greater than gravitation would be brought to bear on the
charged bodies. Cosmic thunderbolts would flash between the bodies in an
effort to equalize their electric potentials.
The list of unthinkably disastrous effects that would result could
go on and on. The point to be made, however, is that Worlds in
Collision--at least in my opinion--documents historical evidence to indicate
that phenomena associated with spacecharge-sheath destruction were actually
suffered and survived by peoples of antiquity."
1. I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (Doubleday, New York, 1950).
2. I. Langmuir, Collected Works (Pergammon Press, 1961), Vols. 3 & 4.
The late Ralph Juergens was a civil engineer living in Flagstaff, Arizona,
and was formerly associate editor of a McGraw-Hill technical publication.
---------------------------------------------
bold added
Ralph Juergens, cont'd
"As we shall note presently, there is compelling evidence to indicate
that the sun, the earth, and the moon, to name only a few major bodies in
the solar system, are electrically charged. Yet the very precision with
which gravitational theory accounts for the planetary motions seems to belie
this evidence. Perturbations due to repulsive electrical forces, for
example, are nowhere in evidence today --not even, I hasten to suggest, in
the strange behavior of comet tails, about which I shall have more to say
later.
This impasse between celestial mechanics and the notion of cosmic
electrical interactions was recognized long ago. A reconciliation seemed
so unlikely that physical scientists of half a dozen successive generations
felt compelled to devise all sorts of exotic theories to explain away the
most obvious evidence for electric charge on the earth.
An important clue to the vanity of all such ad hoc theorizing was
radioed back to earth in 1962 by Mariner 2.
Man's first successful Venus probe established once and for all that
the interplanetary medium is not a near-vacuum, as most astronomers had
always supposed, but is actually a plasma--a gas of dissociated positive
ions and electrons. This disclosure instantly invalidated the argument that
the planets, if electrically charged, would perturb one another in most
obvious ways.
According to the physics of electricity, a charged body isolated in
a vacuum, which is a dielectric medium, surrounds itself with an electric
field that reaches to infinity, with strength diminishing as the square of
the distance. Thus, in a vacuous interplanetary medium, or even in a
medium of neutral atomic or molecular gases, planetary charges must give
rise to electric fields detectable by their influences upon planetary
motions.
In an interplanetary medium consisting of ionized gas, however,
things are radically different.
[b]One of the primary characteristics of a plasma has up to now
received little or no attention from astronomers.[/b] This is its ability to
shield itself from the electric field of any body in contact with it, or
contained within it, and charged to an electric potential different from
that of the plasma itself. The mechanism by which such shielding is
accomplished was named the space-charge sheath by those who first studied
the phenomenon.
In a space-charge sheath, positive and negative charges collect and
arrange themselves in such a way that the electric field of a body with
alien potential is contained within a limited region surrounding the body.
This does not mean that the total electric charge of the isolated body must
be compensated by equal and opposite charge in the sheath; rather, it means
only that enough charge must be assembled in the sheath to increase or
decrease the potential of the outer sheath boundary to match the potential
of the surrounding plasma.
[b]As a laboratory phenomenon, the space-charge sheath was described,
studied, and given a measure of quantitative theoretical explanation half a
century ago.[/b] The most lucid accounts of this work are probably those to be
found in the papers of Irving Langmuir (2), the physicist who coined the
term "plasma" in reference to fully ionized gases.
Up to this point I have neglected to mention two most important
facts about space-charge sheaths and plasmas:
1. An isolated body whose alien potential is not continually
renewed by means of electric currents will quickly acquire the
potential of the surrounding plasma, and its sheath will
disappear; and
2. A plasma does not necessarily possess an intrinsic electric
potential.
Where plasmas form in electrical discharges, however--and this is
the connection in which Langmuir studied them--they do acquire non-zero
potentials. These are clearly matters of immense importance. I will return
to them later.
[b]For now, we can say that in a solar system pervaded by plasma, each
charged planet with a potential unlike that of the local plasma must have
its electric field bound up in a space-charge sheath of limited volume.
When no orbital conflict exists, the system operates serenely under the
direction of forces accounted for in conventional celestial mechanics.[/b]
But let us imagine what might occur should two electrically charged
major bodies in this system find themselves on intersecting orbits.
Inevitably, as the two bodies pursued their separate paths on separate time
tables, the stage would be set eventually for a rendezvous at one or another
point of orbital contact. Since the spacecharge sheaths of the bodies would
occupy greater volumes than the bodies themselves, a collision between
sheaths would actually be more likely to take place than a direct, bodily
collision, and in any case it would occur first.
When the moment arrived for the inevitable encounter, sheaths would
make contact. Unleashed electric fields would clash. Almost instantly,
forces immeasurably greater than gravitation would be brought to bear on the
charged bodies. Cosmic thunderbolts would flash between the bodies in an
effort to equalize their electric potentials.
The list of unthinkably disastrous effects that would result could
go on and on. The point to be made, however, is that Worlds in
Collision--at least in my opinion--documents historical evidence to indicate
that phenomena associated with spacecharge-sheath destruction were actually
suffered and survived by peoples of antiquity."
1. I. Velikovsky, Worlds in Collision (Doubleday, New York, 1950).
2. I. Langmuir, Collected Works (Pergammon Press, 1961), Vols. 3 & 4.
The late Ralph Juergens was a civil engineer living in Flagstaff, Arizona,
and was formerly associate editor of a McGraw-Hill technical publication.
---------------------------------------------
bold added