The Universe Is Connected By Birkeland Currents

[BeAChooser]

I have told you many times that I accept the existence of Birkeland currents, and braided filaments in the cosmic context, but that I do not do physics by looking at pretty pictures and making up stories.

First, what you actually, initially did was deny there were helically wound filaments in the photos I posted to you. Like this one https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Nebula.jpg . You made comments like this: "You showed me images that you interpreted as helically wound filaments." I read that to say you did not accept there were braided filaments in that image ... when they are clear as day. In fact, I then pointed out to you that the web page that image came from ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula ) states: “When finely resolved, some parts of the image appear to be rope-like filaments.” Like I said back then, so not only does it mention “filaments” but calls them “rope-like”, which brings to mind the helically wound construction of an ordinary rope. You must have also missed the statement that another name for part of the Veil Nebula is the “Filamentary Nebula”. However, here you are now trying to pretend that wasn't ever your position ... so I guess we're making *some* progress.

Second, the idea that your side of this issue doesn't do physics by looking at pretty pictures and making up stories is OUTRIGHT LAUGHABLE. That's EXACTLY what the mainstream physics community has been doing for 40 years where ALL it's many gnomes are concerned. Consider the so-called picture of a black hole they recently created. What they didn't tell the public are all the assumptions and manipulations that went into that picture. The fact that they pre-supposed the image would look like that. And some so-called pictures your side of this debate uses to bolster the case for it's gnomes are images created by computer models that ASSUME things are nothing but gnomes. That pre-suppose the existence of the gnomes.

Several of the pretty pictures you presented have nothing to do with braided filaments produced by Birkeland currents. I explained why I thought that.

About that. You, for example, claimed that the Veil Nebula image above was from a Wikipedia page that “recites the standard explanation which is that they are not helically wound filaments (or filaments at all)”. But as I noted in my response to you, the page DOES NOT say that ... it says they are filaments and "rope-like" ... which is just another way of saying helically wound. So you were either illiterate or being dishonest in you're handwaving. As I think your current response here proves you continue to be, Higgsy.

Everyone should also know that you then said "I realised you have nothing. So I come here for a laugh. But I get bored." But as I said then and I'll say again,

"if I have 'nothing', then you should now have no problem explaining in a clear manner how that helically structured filament discussed above came to be … and do it without referencing gnomes.

You should also be able to explain the existence of the helically wound filaments that are quite obviously visible in the star forming filaments at the bottom of this image …

http://inspirehep.net/record/1255052/files/fig8.png

I find it hilarious that you said you don’t know what that is a picture of, yet almost as soon you wrote that, you cited a scientific article (https://arxiv.org/pdf/1312.6232.pdf) that contains a picture of that filament in the inset. That says it is a portion of the Herschel photographed B211/B213 filament in Taurus. And that article states that “filamentary structure is omnipresent in every cloud observed with Herschel, irrespective of its starforming content.” In fact, Philippe André, Principal Investigator for the Herschel Gould Belt Survey, who you later cited in your post as a good source, has written that “the greatest surprise was the ubiquity of filaments in these nearby clouds and their intimate connection with star formation.” Plus, I think I’ve pointed out on one or more occasions that the Herchel website at esa states (http://sci.esa.int/herschel/55942-hersc ... milky-way/ ) that “Observations with ESA's Herschel space observatory have revealed that our Galaxy is threaded with filamentary structures on every length scale. From nearby clouds hosting tangles of filaments a few light-years long to gigantic structures stretching hundreds of light-years across the Milky Way's spiral arms, they appear to be truly ubiquitous.”

And I wrote that at a time when you were still insisting that I haven’t proven these filaments are ubiquitous. But apparently you've changed your mind now. That is correct, isn't it, Higgsy? You are agreeing with your statement today that filaments are ubiquitous? Right? If so, then we've made a little more progress.

You might disagree, but there is no point in asking me the same question over and over again. You're not going to get a different answer.

I know. Which says a lot about you, not me, after all the evidence and examples I've provided you. The question still remains, how do YOU explain all those helically wound filaments ... without resorting to unproven gnomes that you dream up by looking at pretty pictures and making up stories?

Folks can go to this link (http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpB ... 05#p126211 ) starting at that post to see the last discussion you and and I had on this topic ... the one from which the above are excerpts. I think they'll walk away believing you learned NOTHING from it. And they'll notice that in the end you RAN.

[Higgsy]

I have told you many times that I accept the existence of Birkeland currents, and braided filaments in the cosmic context, but that I do not do physics by looking at pretty pictures and making up stories.

First, what you actually, initially did was deny there were helically wound filaments in the photos I posted to you. Like this one https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Nebula.jpg . You made comments like this: "You showed me images that you interpreted as helically wound filaments." I read that to say you did not accept there were braided filaments in that image ... when they are clear as day. In fact, I then pointed out to you that the web page that image came from ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebula ) states: “When finely resolved, some parts of the image appear to be rope-like filaments.” Like I said back then, so not only does it mention “filaments” but calls them “rope-like”, which brings to mind the helically wound construction of an ordinary rope. You must have also missed the statement that another name for part of the Veil Nebula is the “Filamentary Nebula”. However, here you are now trying to pretend that wasn't ever your position ... so I guess we're making *some* progress.

...

Several of the pretty pictures you presented have nothing to do with braided filaments produced by Birkeland currents. I explained why I thought that.

About that. You, for example, claimed that the Veil Nebula image above was from a Wikipedia page that “recites the standard explanation which is that they are not helically wound filaments (or filaments at all)”. But as I noted in my response to you, the page DOES NOT say that ... it says they are filaments and "rope-like" ... which is just another way of saying helically wound. So you were either illiterate or being dishonest in you're handwaving. As I think your current response here proves you continue to be, Higgsy.

I am going to address this question of the Veil Nebula because you have been misrepresenting my position on this egregiously and then I'm done with you. The Veil Nebula does not display braided filaments. Read my lips: the Veil Nebula does not display braided filaments. The structures which you interpret as braided filaments are shock fronts in the expanding envelope of the supernova seen edge on. This is a perfect example of the problems with looking at pretty pictures and making up stories about them.

Then you claim that the Wikipedia page "says they are filaments and "rope-like" ... which is just another way of saying helically wound". But what does the Wikipedia page actually say?

When finely resolved, some parts of the nebula appear to be rope-like filaments. The standard explanation is that the shock waves are so thin, less than one part in 50,000 of the radius,[15] that the shell is visible only when viewed exactly edge-on, giving the shell the appearance of a filament. At the estimated distance of 2400 light-years, the nebula has a radius of 65 light-years (a diameter of 130 light-years). The thickness of each filament is 1/50,000th of the radius, or about 4 billion miles, roughly the distance from Earth to Pluto. Undulations in the surface of the shell lead to multiple filamentary images, which appear to be intertwined.

My emphasis.

For someone with reasonable reading comprehension, this means that although the edge of the shell appears to be made up of rope-like filaments, it is in fact the edge of the undulating near-spherical shock-wave shell seen edge-on. I agree with that explanation because of the details of physics in supernova remnants. And you have the gall to accuse me of illiteracy and dishonesty, when it is you who have misrepresented or misunderstood the Wikipedia article.

Go here for a more detailed explanation: https://www.spacetelescope.org/news/heic1520/

The same sort of misrepresentation is evident in the rest of your long post, (eg Andre explains in some physical and mathematical detail that the structures in his paper are produced by self-gravitation and the turbulent cascade).

"Since the mid 1990s, simulations of supersonic turbulence have consistently shown that gas is rapidly compressed into a hierarchy of sheets and filaments (e.g., Porteret al.,1994; V ́azquez-Semadeni,1994; Padoan et al.,2001).
Furthermore, when gravity is added into turbulence simulations, the denser gas undergoes gravitational collapse to form stars (e.g. Ostriker et al.,1999; Ballesteros-Paredeset al.,1999; Klessen and Burkert,2000;Bonnell et al.,2003;MacLow and Klessen,2004; Tilley and Pudritz,2004; Krumholz et al.,2007). There are many sources of supersonic turbulent motions in the ISM out of which molecular clouds can arise, i.e., galactic spiral shocks in which most giant molecular clouds form, supernovae, stellar winds from massive stars, expanding HII regions, radiation pressure, cosmic ray streaming, Kelvin-Helmholtz and Rayleigh-Taylor instabilities, gravitational instabilities, and bipolar outflows from regions of star formation (Elmegreen and Scalo,2004)...Simulations of turbulence often employ a spectrum of plane waves that are random in direction and phase. As is well known, the crossing of two planar shock wave fronts is a line - the filament (e.g.,Pudritz and Kevlahan,
2013)...Li et al. (2010) have shown that filaments are formed preferentially perpendicular to the
magnetic field lines in strongly magnetized turbulent clouds"

That was a present I gave you last time with lots of references for you to follow up to learn the relevant science. Have you? Apparently not. Who's stuck now asking me about the same pictures over and over again when I have already given you my explanation?

But I am done now.

[JP Michael]

*snip*

Next, you can get him to explain pretty pictures of magnetically reconnecting 'flux ropes' emanating from planetary poles?

[Cargo]

From Higgsy proof linke:

Astronomers suspect that before the Veil Nebula’s source star exploded it expelled a strong stellar wind. This wind blew a large cavity into the surrounding interstellar gas. As the shock wave from the supernova expands outwards, it encounters the walls of this cavity — and forms the nebula’s distinctive structures.

Emphasis mine of course. So their proof is just guessing, and multiple guesses at that.
The suspect a strong stellar "wind". They suspect this "wind" created a 'cavity' in 'gas'. Then then assume a star explosion encountered the suspected cavity wall.

Which is all complete hand waving nonsense.

[Higgsy]

From Higgsy proof linke:

Astronomers suspect that before the Veil Nebula’s source star exploded it expelled a strong stellar wind. This wind blew a large cavity into the surrounding interstellar gas. As the shock wave from the supernova expands outwards, it encounters the walls of this cavity — and forms the nebula’s distinctive structures.

Emphasis mine of course. So their proof is just guessing, and multiple guesses at that.
The suspect a strong stellar "wind". They suspect this "wind" created a 'cavity' in 'gas'. Then then assume a star explosion encountered the suspected cavity wall.

Which is all complete hand waving nonsense.

Have you read the peer reviewed papers on which this conclusion is based? It's not just a spur-of-the-moment "assumption". But I get it that you don't read the actual science but rely on popular articles and youtube.

You do know that we have observed a similar process actually occurring in real time at a supernova? You might want to find some popular and scientific articles about SN1987A which blew part of its envelope before going supernova in the same way.

Finally, many supernova remnants are known and are being studied in detail so the astrophysics associated with the expanding shock wave is well known. There are literally hundreds of detailed papers in the literature investigating multiple aspects of these remnants. You can find a partial list of the more interesting remnants here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_s ... a_remnants

[Cargo]

Hmm, let's take this a bite at a time.
Stellar Wind: There is no Wind in Space
Gas in Space: There are no clouds of Gas in Space
Wind Creates a Cavity in Space: See above
Star Explodes: The theory of a star 'exploding' is questionable
Shock Waves: There is no such thing in Space

How's that?

[BeAChooser]

When finely resolved, some parts of the nebula appear to be rope-like filaments. The standard explanation is that the shock waves are so thin, less than one part in 50,000 of the radius,[15] that the shell is visible only when viewed exactly edge-on, giving the shell the appearance of a filament. At the estimated distance of 2400 light-years, the nebula has a radius of 65 light-years (a diameter of 130 light-years). The thickness of each filament is 1/50,000th of the radius, or about 4 billion miles, roughly the distance from Earth to Pluto. Undulations in the surface of the shell lead to multiple filamentary images, which appear to be intertwined.

For someone with reasonable reading comprehension, this means that although the edge of the shell appears to be made up of rope-like filaments, it is in fact the edge of the undulating near-spherical shock-wave shell seen edge-on. I agree with that explanation because of the details of physics in supernova remnants. And you have the gall to accuse me of illiteracy and dishonesty, when it is you who have misrepresented or misunderstood the Wikipedia article.

Higgsy, the Wikipedia section you quoted shows this image … https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veil_Nebu ... GC6960.jpg . But what about the image I asked you about … the upper right portion of this one … https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... Nebula.jpg , https://phys.org/newman/gfx/news/hires/ ... tingth.jpg , or at the size we can now show things on the forum …



Just how in the world does *shock* and “turbulence” create a helically wound structure like one can see there in the upper right?

Sure, I’ve seen images from the labs like this …



but nowhere in those do I see the sort of helically wound filaments that clearly exist in the image above.

So … just an optical illusion in this case? Is that what you’re claiming?