James F. Evans (09:07:57) :

Bob,

Part of the problem is that there are so many agenda’s running around we don’t know who is qualified to review the science or not.

James: Welcome to the club.

You might start by acknowledging that there are a lot of physics neophytes out here (like me, for instance) who are just trying to learn something.

Why not make a distinction between what you know (and giving attribution), what is theoretical, and your pet theories (whicy you may identify as “my pet theories.”)

Hope this helps.

No chance!”

Actually I’ve designed and implemented the electronics, DSP firmware, drivers and process control software on a number of temperature apps over the years-beginning with a 500 degree C ceramic circuitboard firing furnace- variously running CPM, thru PSOS/Unix to Windows.

If I don’t know what I’m talking about a programmer(see Brinch Hansen, Scherrer or Straka), sometime “scientist” certainly does not. Scientists write the grants but engineers(often the same individual in other disciplines) do the work and the abstract need bear no certain relation to the reality.

Spare us the vaudeville act, please.

It is also sensible (& efficient) to let a matter go to avert dissonance.

Reiterating: You misunderstand.

Perhaps there will be future opportunities to discuss this fruitfully – for example if new & important information comes to our attention.

Back to research …

Research takes priority over fruitless online exchanges. (Fruitful online exchanges, by sharp contrast, spark creativity.)

I hope your research is going well. (Society is depending on you – I wish you efficiency.)

Here is a laboratory experiment showing the existence of frozen-in field and magnetic reconnection:
http://www.cfn.ist.utl.pt/EPS2001/fin/pdf/OR.07.pdf and I quote: “Fig. 2, in which the density evolution is represented as a function of magnetic flux Ψ and time. The density contours follow the evolution of Ψ, demonstrating that the plasma is frozen-in to the magnetic field.”
One of the issues with real plasmas is a phenomenon called ‘anomalous resistivity’ that allows reconnection to occur at a much faster rate than in an MHD formulation. In the ideal MHD case [which is not realized in Nature] reconnection cannot occur.

What Alfven was rejecting were some misuses of the concept, not the concept itself.

But again, all of this is just fluff serving to obscure the wrong idea of there somehow being much more energy flowing to us that we can observe [but that somehow, nevertheless, influences the climate].

Dr. Eugene Parker: “In the laboratory we create static magnetic fields by driving an electric current through a coil of wire. The emf [electromotive force] and the current are clearly the cause of the magnetic field.” (p. 25, Conversations)

Please, your understanding of physics is so rudimentary that it is better for you to begin to learn something, instead of parroting things you do not understand. The very next paragraph of Parker’s is what you need to understand. But perhaps a simpler case: that of a dynamo: http://www.explainthatstuff.com/generators.html
where the mechanical energy that rotates a magnetic generates a current.

You misunderstand.

No.

The movement of the plasma generates the magnetic fields.

As Alfven clearly explained “frozen in” magnetic field lines are an artefact of mathematical theorizing that has no basis in reality.

anna v asked: “So you have abandoned Maxwell’s equations?”

No.

You address, “The direction of energy propagation in electromagnetic waves…”

For the second time, that is not what I’m refering to.

I’m referring to electric current (the flow of electrons and ions via the electromotive force), not electromagnetic waves,i.e., visible light, X-rays, and so on.

Dr. Eugene Parker: “In the laboratory we create static magnetic fields by driving an electric current through a coil of wire. The emf [electromotive force] and the current are clearly the cause of the magnetic field.” (p. 25, Conversations)

So, anna v, your issue isn’t with me, it’s with Dr. Eugene Parker.

Dr. Parker’s distinction is that in space things are different due to MHD.

The problem is that Dr. Parker derives his proposition not through experiment or in situ observation, but by mathematical thought experiment (a priori mathematical equations) and the original developer of MHD (and “frozen in” magnetic field lines), Hannes Alfven, later unequivocally rejected this approach as contradicting empirical results he achieved in the laboratory.

anna v, you are entitled to your own opinions, but not to your own facts.

Investigating relationships possibly involving SIM is worthwhile, in part since future SIM can be accurately predicted.

I apologize, particularly after trying to end on a conciliatory note, but I forgot to address one issue:

I note you failed to list one experiment or in situ observation (formalized reporting of an in situ oboservation ) that supports the proposition that magnetic fields cause electric currents.

To my way of thinking this speaks volumes, while I didn’t ask you that question, surely, if there was an experiment or in situ observation that supports that proposition you would link it or at least mention it.

That there apparently isn’t one, just reaffirms my conviction that empiricism is the way forward in scientific investigation.

It is better to state: “Science doesn’t know” or the current empirical knowledge is “this”, than to engage in mathematical theorizing that just as likely as not will end up being wrong because it was a priori instead of post observation & measurment analysis and quantification of physical relationships established by prediction and testing and replication.

When scientists want you to “imagine” that is not a good sign, as it probably means there is no empirical observations to back up the claim.

Yes, the colloquial use is okay, but seeing what has happened to science when imagination has overpowered empirical rigor, it is useful to add a note of caution when one see the word.

A bar magnet generates a magnetic field because of “electron movement”, either the electrons orbit their repective nucleus in a synchronized fashion or they are synchronized in their “spin” or possibly even valence electrons “flow” around the ferreous lattice. In any event, a bar magnet still has a magnetic field because of vector electron movement.

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “So we have in one region of space magnetic fields without any currents in that region, right?”

As my explanation, above, illustrates, there is still electron movement that propagates the magnetic field.

The magnetic field extends beyond the the generating electric current (including the bar magnet example). In fact, with dipole processes the magnetic field can extend radially quite some distance from the generating electric current.

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “Are there any currents in my office or at the Earth in the first example?”

The currents are within the bar magnet (as explained above) or within the Earth (the Van Allen radiation belts are a torus of chaged particles that flow around the Earth, so while it is, in deed, assumed that the electric current that causes the Earth’s magnetic field is based strictly within the interior of the Earth, the Van Allen torus of flowing charged particles may contribute (as an electric current) to either the Earth’s magnetic field and/or to the Earth’s magnetosphere.

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “the question is not whether the magnetic field is caused by currents somewhere, it is whether there are currents everywhere the field is and those currents are causing the field locally.”

I don’t accept the proposition of the first phrase of the sentence:

“the question is not whether the magnetic field is caused by currents somewhere,”

That is exactly the question at issue (and can not be rhetorically avoided).

The second phrase of the sentence:

“it is whether there are currents everywhere the field is and those currents are causing the field locally.”

This phrase essentially asserts the derivative secondary current idea. I do acknowledge that magnetic currents can, as a seondary derivative, cause electric currents, but the error is to place the derivative secondary current idea as a “first cause” or predominate in the chain of logic, instead of in the subordinate position.

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “The answer to that is experimentally “no”. Quite the opposite: if I move a conductor [e.g. the iron key] in the magnetic field, that induces a current in the key. If the magnetic field came form an electromagnet, switching off the magnet would kill the current induced in the key.”

This is an elaboration on the secondary derivative current idea with the fallacy of presenting it as a first cause instead of a derivative cause.

The first cause in the example your present is the electron movement in the bar magnet (whatever way that electron movement works in actuality) that generates the magnetic field that radiates around the bar magnet (the classic magnetic field lines around a bar magnet and interestingly enough, similar to the field lines exhibited by the Earth), the secondary derivative cause is the mechanical (your moving the key constitutes a mechanical action) action.

“If the magnetic field came form an electromagnet, switching off the magnet would kill the current induced in the key.”

Yes, that is true, but let’s look at what actually happens:

An electromagnet is a magnet where an electric current causes the magnetic field in the magnet, thus it is called an electromagnet.

So, this illustrates the classic pattern: An electric current causes a magnetic field in the magnet which in turn causes an electric current in the key (incidently, the key would then in turn have it’s own magnetic field).

This is a good example that illustrates the factal nature of electromagnetism.

Of course, when the electric current is shut off from the electromagnet, it ceases to have a magnetic field.

Dr. Svalgaard wrote: “But all this is just a straw man.”

Yes, it is incidental to the solar question in one sense, but in another sense, it goes to the heart of the matter.

Incidental, in that your proposition and my objection are about whether ” the radiant energy is millions of times larger and allows us to ignore the electric and magnetic energy.”

But it goes to the heart of the matter because electrical energy on the Sun is the cause of radiant energy from the Sun. It is the electrical interaction that leads to radiant energy release as opposed to “heat” per se.

The resistence on the Sun causes electrical energy to be converted to radiant energy (electrons and ions meeting resistence give up energy), this energy is given up in the form of radiant energy.

With all due respect this question hasn’t been zeroed-out yet, by any means, and the fact that you would, “ignore the electric and magnetic energy,” so early in the scientific investigation means that your basic assumptions have not changed and because of your basic assumptions you are blind to the possibility of electrical energy having an effect.

Your basic assumptions have not changed in a long time.

Science is learning at an accelerating rate just in the last couple of years about Sun — Earth dyanamics and physical elationships including electomagnetic relationships.

My hypothesis is that Science still does not account for the full measure of electrical energy that comes from the Sun to the Earth.

How can you measure something accurately if only recently you have acknowledged it exists at all.

Science does not know all the channels and ways that electromagnetic energy comes from the Sun to the Earth, in fact, we are just beginning to find out.

Your figures are at best provisional, and likely under reporting.

To come to a preemptory conclusion would only repeat the misstakes of the past.

Let’s do it differently this time.

(I do want to take time to say I appreciate your time and energy to addressing my concerns. That is curteous and generous and I want to recognize that gesture. While we obviously don’t agree on some basic questions, your willingness to explain and discuss in an extended format does exhibit your generous and polite nature.

I respect your offering a hand in understanding, please don’t consider my failure to agree with you as a failure to recognize the generousity of your time.)