Global Eruption Rocks the Sun

The plural of separatrix ….”separatrices” words you don’t hear often.
Fascinating stuff.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Jimmy Haigh says:
December 14, 2010 at 8:48 pm
“Wow! We are clearly upsetting the Sun God with our use of fossil fuels.”
*Sigh*
There is no such thing as fossil fuels Jimmy.
http://www.gasresources.net/
http://www.thunderbolts.info/forum/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=2150
http://trilogymedia.com.au/Thomas_Gold

The “related posts” widget is no longer functioning, so it is worth noting that WUWT first covered this story back in August:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/08/03/earth-braces-for-solar-storm-tonite/

A peer-reviewed paper, Astronomy Letters, 2005:
ELECTRON ACCELERATION BY ELECTRIC FIELDS NEAR THE FOOTPRINTS
OF CURRENT-CARRYING CORONAL MAGNETIC LOOPS
V. V. ZAITSEV
Institute of Applied Physics, Russian Academy of Sciences
Abstract: “We analyze the electric fields that arise at the footpoints of a coronal magnetic loop from the interaction between a convective flow of partially ionized plasma and the magnetic field of the loop. Such a situation can take place when the loop footpoints are at the nodes of several supergranulation cells. In this case, the neutral component of the converging convective flows entrain electrons and ions in different ways, because these are magnetized differently. As a result, a charge separating electric field emerges at the loop footpoints, which can efficiently accelerate particles inside the magnetic loop under appropriate conditions. We consider two acceleration regimes: impulsive (as applied to simple loop flares) and pulsating (as applied to solar and stellar radio pulsations).We have calculated the fluxes of accelerated electrons and their characteristic energies. We discuss the role of the return current when dense beams of accelerated particles are injected into the corona. The results obtained are considered in light of the currently available data on the corpuscular radiation from solar flares.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/d32j212710843216/
“INTRODUCTION
Much of the energy in solar and stellar flares is released in the form of energetic particles. The bulk of the electrons and ions in impulsive solar flares are accelerated to energies of 100 keV and 100 MeV, respectively (Miller et al. 1997) and produce hard X-ray and gamma-ray line emission.”
Many of these “energetic particles” eventually interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere and potentially effect Earth’s energy balance, one expression of which is climate.
Another peer-reviewed paper published in Solar Physics (1991):
TOWARDS THE CIRCUIT THEORY OF SOLAR FLARES
V. V. ZAITSEV
Institute of Applied Physics, Nizhny Novgorod, U.S.S.R.
and
A. V. STEPANOV
Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, U.S.S.R.
“Abstract. It has been shown that the main problems of the circuit theory of solar flares – unlikely huge current growth time and the origin of the current interruption – have been resolved considering the case of magnetic loop emergence and the correct application of Ohm’s law. The generalized Ohm’s law for solar flares is obtained. The conditions for flare energy release are as follows: large current value, > 1011 A, nonsteady-state character of the process, and the existence of a neutral component in a flare plasma. As an example, the coalescence of a flare loop and a filament is considered. It has been shown that the current dissipation has increased drastically as compared with that in a completely ionized plasma. The current dissipation provides effective Joule heating of the pIasma and particle acceleration in a solar flare. The ion-atom collisions play the decisive role in the energy release process. As a result the flare loop resistance can grow by 8-10 orders of magnitude. For this we do not need the anomalous resistivity driven by small-scale plasma turbulence. The energy release emerging from the upper part of a flare loop stimulates powerful energy release from the chromospheric level.”
http://www.springerlink.com/content/nr8k36ln0w6525u1/
The introductory passage from the body of the paper:
“1. Introduction
The circuit model for solar flares proposed more than twenty years ago by Alfven and Carlqvist (1967) is still attractive among the numerous flare models. Following the idea of Alfven and Carlqvist the problem of flare energy release is equivalent to the problem of electric current interruption in the solar corona-photosphere circuit…”
Another passage from the body of the paper:
“2. The Current-Carrying Flare Loop: Circuit Analog
Consider an equivalent electric circuit composed of a coronal magnetic arch with resistance R c and inductance L and a photospheric section with resistance Rph and electromotive force (e.m.f.), o ~, (see, e.g., Alfven and Carlqvist, 1967; Henoux, 1987). The photospheric e.m.f., g, is caused by the Lorentz force (e/c) (v x H), which in turn is created by the photospheric material motion. For this dynamo mechanism to work, the plasma must not be frozen-in. Such conditions do exist in the photosphere where the ion-neutral collision frequency is much more than the ion gyrofrequency (Sen and White, 1972). A quite opposite relation is true for the electrons. Therefore the ions follow the neutral component of the photospheric plasma, a charge imbalance arises, and an e.m.f, sets up:”
And here is a more recent 2009 peer-reviewed paper published in the Central European Astrophysics Bulletin
GENERATION OF LARGE SCALE ELECTRIC FIELDS IN CORONAL FLARE CIRCUITS
Önel, H. & Mann, G.
Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
Abstract: “A large number of energetic electrons are generated during solar flares. They carry a substantial part of the flare released energy but how these electrons are created is not fully understood yet. This paper suggests that plasma motion in an active region in the photosphere is the source of large electric currents. These currents can be described by macroscopic circuits. Under special circumstances currents can establish in the corona along magnetic field lines. The energy released by these currents when moderate assumptions for the local conditions are made, is found be comparable to the flare energy.”
This paper presents the electric circuit theory championed by Hannes Alfven.
A passage from the body of the above paper:
“Currently several different electron acceleration mechanisms in the solar corona are known. All of these mechanisms have the principle of acceleration due to electric fields in common, but differ in the processes leading to the generation of the electric field. In the present paper the generation of a large scale DC electric field is discussed in terms of electric circuits, which is related to a current generated due to photopheric plasma motion (e.g., Alfven and Carlqvist, 1967; Sen and White, 1972; Martres et al., 1973; Heyvarts, 1974; Obayashi, 1975; Akasofu, 1979; Kan et al., 1983; Melrose, 1997; Zaitsev et al., 1998; Yang et al., 2004; Zaitsev, 2005). Motivated by these papers, the electric currents are investigated in order to obtain a mechanism for acceleration of electrons to high energies. The basic idea of this mechanism is to generate the flare energy by photopheric plasma motion in active regions. This is in contradiction to the reconnection model in which the magnetic field energy in the corona is taken for the flare.”
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2009CEAB…33..141O
Several peer-reviewed published papers discussing electric fields and electric currents in the solar environment.

Brian H says: “Lief will be frazzled defending the ramparts of fusion orthodoxy.”
Tonight, I was watching Cosmos, a series I enjoyed 30 years ago and found it to be just as intriguing now as then. Carl Sagan made a comment about Johannes Kepler that struck me as impossible to find in today’s scientific communities. Kepler could have glossed over the minor variations. He didn’t. Instead, Sagan said, “When he found that his long cherished beliefs did not agree with the most precise observations, he accepted the uncomfortable facts. He preferred the hard truth to his dearest allusions. That is the heart of science.”
Today, the heart of science is the federal grant, fame and the prideful ego, wound up into an ugly ball that prevents the service to humanity that it once did so well.

Brian H says: (December 14, 2010 at 9:31 pm) Lief will be frazzled defending the ramparts of fusion orthodoxy.
You know another Lief, Brian?

OK, I can’t help it. What of all this interconnectedness speaks to the phenomenon known colloquially as the ‘Livingston and Penn Effect’?
=======================

@Carr, @Brian H
Not Lief. LEIF.
There.

“Arguments in favor of cause and effect were statistical and often full of doubt.”
Climate science take heed.

I have a theory that the sun is suffering from global warming. Can I have a grant?

We need to clarify and provide some context for WUWT readers on electricity and the Sun …
1. Re: “… Several peer-reviewed published papers discussing electric fields and electric currents in the solar environment.”
Keep in mind that the conventional theories propose that electricity does not “do things of importance” in space. We are all told that E&M are second-order effects, rather than any sort of driving force. This assumption is driven by the Big Bang theory’s lack of need for E&M (the cosmology acts as a framework for problem-solving within most scientific disciplines). We basically train our physicists to accept assumptions proposing that electricity is not important in space, and then they subsequently vigorously defend this training. None of us should be surprised by their preferences for belief. We should, however, all be surprised by the widespread timidity in questioning these assumptions which they’ve been taught. They oftentimes appear to not even realize that these are actually assumptions.
Now, the thing about electric fields in plasmas is that the conventional theories generally propose that they cannot exist within plasmas because they propose that cosmic plasmas differ from laboratory plasmas. Whereas the textbook VI curve for a plasma demonstrates without any doubt that there is *always* a finite resistance (and hence an electric field), the cosmic plasma models propose that plasmas are basically superconductors which lack any electrical resistance. We are told to believe that the cosmic plasmas can instantaneously charge-neutralize over great distances.
There is a good reason for why Big Bang theorists tend to avoid the hypothesis that the solar wind is evidence for an E-field centered at the Sun, even as that would — without a doubt — be the simplest explanation for its failure to appreciably decelerate even as it passes the Earth’s orbit. An E-field basically occurs because like charges repel one another. So, in a general sense, it represents this collective repulsion radially outwards from an overabundance of charged particles. Clearly, if given a chance, an E-field will tend to create distance between these charged particles.
So, when somebody proposes that an E-field is centered at the Sun — which may or may not be the point of those papers (?) — the problem is that it naturally leads to one crucial question: What is replenishing the collection of charged particles which inspires the E-field? Thus, any assertion of an E-field centered at the Sun *very* quickly transitions into galactic-scale electric circuits.
This is why, although we see evidence for E-fields here on Earth and on the Sun (the acceleration of the solar wind is evidence for an E-field), theorists generally refuse to even discuss the subject in certain astrophysical journals. It’s worth noting that IEEE remains fearless in this regard.
Re: “As these papers demonstrate and as you have been told many times, all exciting stuff happens when electric currents are generated by movement of neutral plasma across a magnetic field.”
So, there is quite a bit of danger in using the word “neutral” in association with a plasma. Plasmas are instead designated as “quasi-neutral” in order to avoid confusion, and I highly recommend that people pay special attention to this other term within the context of plasmas. That’s because, unlike with solids, an equal number of + and – charges does not mean that the plasma cannot conduct electrical current. For more information, go here:
http://www.plasma-universe.com/index.php/Quasi-neutrality
The thing is this: Quasi-neutrality stops being helpful for understanding a plasma when there are double layers or charged particle beams present. And considering that we see these two types of structures frequently in the plasma laboratory, it’s really quite a stretch for conventional theorists to argue that — for whatever convenient reason they have latched onto — that these structures do not exist in cosmic plasmas. After all, what is the structure that comes out of a black hole? Don’t believe a word that they say if they’re trying to tell you that that is not a beam of charged particles.
As for double layers, plasma cosmology (or the electric universe) proposes that they would exist, for instance, at the surface of the Sun and at the heliopause (which is the edge of the heliosphere). Double layers are what separate plasmas in the laboratory which exhibit dramatically different characteristics. This is the underlying physical phenomenon which lends a cellular structure to laboratory plasmas. And to be 100% clear, we see strong evidence for cellular structures in cosmic plasmas, just like the laboratory kind. So, for conventional theorists to argue that double layers don’t exist in cosmic plasmas is really quite baseless. They should be asked: Based upon what premise are you tinkering with the laboratory models to formulate this assumption about cosmic plasmas?
I will re-iterate a point which I’ve been trying my hardest to make on these issues:
I *highly* recommend that the people of WUWT be very persistent in their attempts to understand how plasmas tend to behave in the laboratory. Anybody who goes the extra length to learn this set of behaviors will be rewarded with a newfound ability to interpret astronomical imagery and even structures which we see here within our own solar system. These facts have fundamental bearing upon the Earth’s climate for the reason that our planet is literally surrounded by plasmas in every direction, as far as our telescopes can see. And the magnetosphere is, in the plasma cosmology view, a plasma cell, complete with a double layer, which protects us from the interplanetary plasma. It exists — not because of some sort of invisible dynamo genie within the Earth — but rather because the Earth is electrically connected with all of the other planets, the solar system, etc.
The big picture for electricity in space is this: Mankind has tried his hardest to believe that everywhere he sees evidence for electricity in space, that this electricity must be confined to some small box. But, as anybody who works with electricity knows, that’s not how it works. Electrical currents move from one location to another.
We’ve known for decades now that intergalactic space is permeated by magnetic fields. Conventional theorists have no need for this observation, and so they attempt to propose “new physics” explanations which lack any laboratory backing for how those magnetic fields came to be. They do this specifically to avoid the hypothesis that electric currents are causing all of those magnetic fields — and they avoid this inference even as it is really the only “real physics” explanation for the observation.
Re: “the modern theory of energy generation of the Sun and the stars agrees very well with the ‘most precise observations’.”
That’s not exactly true. There exists a very controversial observation of an anti-correlation between neutrino generation and sunspots. This is a very big problem for the solar models because there is supposed to be one or two hundred thousand years of latency between these two events in the models. Theorists have tried their hardest to discount the underlying statistics for this observation.
Also, keep in mind that the very problem with fusion is that — although each of the individual steps of fusion have been re-created in the laboratory — scientists have never reproduced the entire chain all at once in a single laboratory experiment.
Electric universe proponents claim that fusion occurs near the surface of the Sun, where temperatures are high enough to cause it. After all, the temperature of the Sun’s entire surface is enigmatic to conventional solar theory. The Sun’s surface sits at around 5,000 Kelvin, while it’s corona (the Sun’s “atmosphere”) is around 100x – 500x hotter than its surface. To somebody who knew nothing about the conventional thermonuclear model, they could reasonably argue that the energy is arriving externally. And that’s indeed what plasma cosmologists propose.
They propose that an electron “drift current” powers the Sun. This drift current would be *very* difficult to observe because the electron movement on the small scale would seem random. It is only the large-scale view which would demonstrate a *net* movement of electrons. In this alternative view, as this net movement of electrons is funneled into an increasingly smaller volume of space, the plasma eventually enters into the glow, and then arc, modes in response to increased charge density.
Also, from where does the energy driving the solar wind’s acceleration come from? What is pushing these charged particles to move faster, the farther they get from the Sun? Conventional theorists pretend as though this is some question which can be shelved for future resolution. Don Scott and other EU proponents claim that this observation actually falsifies their model.
For anybody who wants to read excellent criticisms of conventional solar theory, I highly recommend Wal Thornhill’s holoscience.com site. He will show you exactly why the Sun is in fact a textbook case of a laboratory plasma glow discharge — no different from a high pressure sodium street lamp. He actually recommends that people read JD Cobine’s “Gaseous Conductors” in order to build the solar models based upon the observed behavior of a Crook’s tube, but with spherical geometry.

Evans stated: “Several peer-reviewed published papers discussing electric fields and electric currents in the solar environment.”
Dr. Svalgaard responded: “As these papers demonstrate and as you have been told many times, all exciting stuff happens when electric currents are generated by movement of neutral plasma across a magnetic field.”
Dr. Svalgaard is engaged in revisionism:
I, long ago, actually brought to Dr. Svalgaard’s attention statements to that effect on this website:
“The moving plasma, i.e., charged particles flows, are currents that produce self-magnetic fields, however weak.” — Dr. Anthony L. Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory
“An electromotive force [mathematical equation] giving rise to electrical currents in conducting media is produced wherever a relative perpendicular motion of plasma and magnetic fields exists.” — Dr. Anthony L. Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Dr. Svalgaard has repeatedly minimized the role that electric fields and electrical currents play in space plasmas, however, he has, now, acknowledged that electric fields and electrical currents do play an important role in space plasma dynamics, because I repeatedly presented peer-reviewed published papers, which discuss the importance of electric fields & electrical currents in space plasma dynamics (such as the papers linked in my previous comment in this post).
Dr. Svalgaard’s attempts to minimize the importance of electric fields and electrical currents was on full display in a post on this website, The Great Filament, February 24, 2010:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/02/24/the-great-filament/#comments
From the post, The Great Filament: Evans (February 26, 2010 at 9:26 am) responded to Dr. Svalgaard:
Evans had previously stated (01:33:47): “The author clearly identifies the filament as being an ‘electric current’.”
Dr. Svalgaard, then (07:02:09) responded: “This is a typical example of the twisting of science to conform to wrong physics. Such twisting occurs can occur when the physics is not understood. Nowhere does the author identify the filament as being an electric current. [one might ask for page and line number for such identification].”
Of course, I provided the relevant quote and the page and line number from the paper at issue.
Here is the quote:
“The filament temperature can take values ranging from a small fraction to a few times the coronal temperature, depending on the internal electric current of the filament.”
Of course, the above quote is consistent with the several papers I linked to in my previous comment in this post.
To further illustrate Dr. Svalgaard’s revisionism, here is another quote by Dr. Svalgaard from the post, The Great Filament:
Dr. Svalgaard claimed (February 25, 2010 at 2:07 pm): “A flow of plasma does NOT create a magnetic field.”
Of course, Dr. Svalgaard’s statement is contradicted by Dr. Anthony Peratt’s statements (which I had presented in the post, The Great filament):
“The moving plasma, i.e., charged particles flows, are currents that produce self-magnetic fields, however weak.” — Dr. Anthony L. Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory
“An electromotive force [mathematical equation] giving rise to electrical currents in conducting media is produced wherever a relative perpendicular motion of plasma and magnetic fields exists.” — Dr. Anthony L. Peratt, Los Alamos National Laboratory
Which brings to mind this famous quote:
“All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident.” — Arthur Schopenhauer
It seems Dr. Svalgaard is now in the third stage.

Commentaries of this post are becoming frankly apostates of the sacred belief in holy “settled science” 🙂

Are neutron stars and black holes allowed in an electric universe? How and why would they be formed? (general blog friendly answer is OK)

@James F. Evans
One of my favorite theories is that of magnetic reconnection. I think it goes to show just how absurd modern-day astrophysics has become. Astrophysicists decided to infer their own underlying mechanism for generating energy from magnetic fields. Why would they do that? Well, because they are proposing that the magnetic fields are not the result of electric currents.
So, they propose that magnetic field lines can release great amounts of energy when they “reconnect”. The first problem is that magnetic field lines are like lines on a topography map. They are *imaginary*. They are not real lines. It is just a way of envisioning what is going on with the field.
But, the true humor pertains to these magnetic reconnection experiments. These guys who perform these magnetic reconnection experiments start by flipping the power ON. Then, they study the reconnection events. And to be clear, when the electricity is shut off to the experiment, the experiment ends.
I honestly don’t know whether I should laugh or cry when I think about it.

@Zeke
Pay close attention to Eric Lerner’s research. He is a plasma cosmologist trying to achieve a fusion reactor. If a self-sustaining reaction can be created at all, I’d put my money on him pulling it off. If my memory serves me well, he’s been very open about the status of his research.
There is actually one way to figure out which side of the fence a person is sitting on this cosmological debate prior to investigating the *entire* debate:
Read the biographies for both Faraday and Maxwell. Then read up on various attempts online to understand what a magnetic field is. Now, after that research, ask yourself: What causes a magnetic field?
If, after that reading, you believe that cosmic magnetic fields must be the result of electric currents, then you favor plasma cosmology. If, on the other hand, you believe that theorists should be permitted to propose exotic “new physics” explanations for magnetic fields, then you lean more towards the Big Bang.
It’s really that simple. But, it took me 3-5 years to do all of the necessary reading to understand this debate. And I had to run ALL of the major arguments on both sides by the other first in an attempt to find good critiques of both sides. In the end, after all of that personal investigation, I came to personally realize that plasma cosmology wins, hands down. But, I encourage everybody to do their own personal investigation. It is a lot more worth the effort than people realize. The plasma-based cosmology is far more intriguing and predictive than the gravity-based theories.
Either way, I think it’s fair to say that we live in interesting times. The Sun is clearly misbehaving for the conventional theorists. Nobody can say where it will go from here, even as they pretend to know that humans are responsible for the warming. Within the context of plasma cosmology, there are truly no guarantees that the Sun will continue to shine as it does tomorrow. It could switch from arc mode down to glow mode, or it might become electrically stressed, and expel a new planet for our solar system to deal with right before our eyes (as some believe has already occurred …). But, more likely, if the past is any indicator, it will continue to shine the same as it has been for a while now.
One of the reasons I advocate for the electric universe online is because I believe that we can actually predict the behavior of the Sun if we pursue this line of investigation. However, we need to be studying our heliosphere’s electrical input(s) with dedicated satellites to do so. Gerrit Verschuur should be commended for the amazing work he’s done in mapping out these interstellar filaments, and confirming that they are emitting critical ionization velocities. He’s done all of this research knowing that he can lose his telescope time at any moment because of it (like Halton Arp …).

@ Chris Reeve:
So-called “magnetic reconnection” was a concept developed in the pre-space age (1946) to explain CME’s. The observations were limited to magnetic fields, as magnetic fields were the only thing that could be observed & measured from ground observatories. Observing & measuring electric fields and electric currents requires in situ satellite probes.
Today, it’s apparent that what was called “magnetic reconnection” (and still is by one school of thought) is actually an Electric Double Layer, an electromagnetic process.
There is a controversy between two rival points of view (contrary to what some from the “magnetic reconnection” camp would have you believe):
From Interspace News (February 27, 2008):
“There is a lot of excitement over this project [THEMIS] in the research community, [Dr. Vassillis] Angelopoulos [THEMIS principal investigator at University of California Berkeley’s Space Sciences Laboratory in Berkeley, Calf.] said. For more than three decades, scientists around the globe have been embattled about where these lights originate so brilliantly and suddenly. And like the two polar caps at opposite ends of the planet, there are also opposing viewpoints.”
“In the Reconnection Theory camp, members say the magnetosphere on the night side is like two rubber bands that stretch, snap and then reconnect into “U” shape bands that release their energy — much like a slingshot. That action would then accelerate the particles toward Earth causing the light show.”
“On the other side of the hypothesis is the Current Disruption Theory, which says at the onset of a substorm, higher frequency instabilities are excited so that the plasma and electromagnetic field form a turbulent state, which then short circuits the current that is now forced to go directly into the atmosphere. This current accelerates the electrons that in return cause the light show.”
http://www.interspacenews.com/FeatureArticle/tabid/130/Default.aspx?id=524
Current disruption encompasses the idea that Electric Double Layers can “explode”, thus, causing a disruption of current, which then releases energy expressed as kinetic acceleration of charged particles and radiation.
While “magnetic reconnection” seems to have the upper hand, nobody has been able to quantify the “magnetic reconnection” process, as opposed to the Electric Double Layer process, which has been fully resolved qualitatively & quantitatively and reduced to the formalism of mathematical equations.
In situ observations & meaurements have identified and mapped so-called “magnetic reconnection”, but the signature magnetic fields, electric fields, charged particle location, direction, velocity and points of charged particle acceleration are indistinguishable from the Electric Double Layer process, which, as you have pointed out about plasma physics, has been observed & measured in the laboratory.
There is tremendous resistence in some quarters to the Electric Double Layer process, likely, because it opens up the door to explaining astrophysical processes and objects with an electromagnetic analysis & interpretation.

Oops. Too late!

Chris Reeve says:
December 15, 2010 at 8:17 pm
============
Brilliant post. Well said.
Chris
Norfolk, VA, USA

Re: “And compare with: “Galactic Magnetic Field.” American Institute of Physics Handbook. 3rd Edition. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1972. “A comparison of the observed cosmic-ray electron spectrum with the non-thermal radio spectrum arising from galactic synchrotron radiation indicates that the magnetic field is 10 to 20 microgauss near the galactic center, 5 to 10 microgauss near the solar system and approximately 2.5 microgauss for the halo.” … Magnetic fields in space were first reported as far back as 1949 by Hall and Hiltner and has been part of mainstream science ever since … Getting your facts straight would be your first order of business. Lacking that, there is no challenge.”
I’m confident in that claim, as it is transcribed from a conversation with a plasma theorist who was there.
One of the things that I’ve learned in speaking with advocates for the conventional theories is that they are really quite liberal in their interpretation of history of science. They are frequently very quick to present something like a single paper as proof of a prior consensus. One of the things you learn, as you pick up on the debate over electricity in space, is that conventional theorists always strenuously argue against any suggestion that electricity can exceed the consensus box for this current era. But, once it is proven that they are wrong, they then subsequently claim credit that they came up with the idea all along. This has turned out to be a repeating pattern.
Amongst the EU theorists, they already know that conventional theorists will ultimately TRY to take credit for the discovery of electricity’s driving role in the universe’s dynamics. The problem for them is that we already know that it’s happening right now, today, with the data that we already have. And, their tortuous, argumentative path will instead waste another hundred years to get there, if it ever truly does.
As a species, we really need to take a look internally at what you’re doing here. What is the point of defending the consensus view on a forum? Are you actively trying to convince people to not educate themselves? You guys always claim on these forums that it is the burden of the critic to prove the theory. Is it really? Is it not true that at some point before “proof” that people might decide to read something because it is merely promising? What is really at stake in these conversations?
In my own view, what you’re really trying to do is to convince the public to remain ignorant of alternatives. You’re just trying to convince people to NOT read. You’re trying to convince them that it’s not worth their time to do something as simple and innocent as learning.

This August 2010 event is pretty small compared to the CMEs on Dec 12 2010
Check out the SOHO Movie Theatre – LASCO C2
http://sohodata.nascom.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/soho_movie_theater

“E pur si muove”
Galileo Galilei

Then….are these not “eruptions” of a healthy and strong Sun, but thermo-sphere disruptions of a weakening and feeble Sun?

Re: “I definately agree. But pure physics can be weired that way; quantum entanglement and the weired communication between the two; mass dissappearing(If the LHC is right) and so you tell us…….under what basis are they being so picky??? ”
If any of you permit anybody to convince you that common sense no longer has bearing upon the inferential step in physics, then you’ve just been had. The quest for simpler, more physical inferences never ends. Conventional theorists frequently imagine that they have “ruled everything else out,” when what they’ve actually done is artificially constricted their set of inferences to suit the “framework” within which they operate.
Jeff Schmidt’s book “Disciplined Minds” discusses this concept of a theoretical framework in great depth. He argues that our scientific institutions have decided to adopt a single set of theories and assumptions for reasons which have absolutely nothing to do with the scientific method. In a philosophical sense, theorists are supposed to be trying their hardest to maximize this set of inferences, as this represents one of the biggest philosophical problems in science. Conventional scientists typically do the opposite for reasons which are purely human in nature — to, for instance, prevent hierarchical challenges to their authority, and to maintain control over the funding channels.
For those who are asking, “how is this possible?”, Jeff Schmidt’s book is an excellent starting point.
Re: “Why, if the evidence is so…..obvious by the looks of it, does this EU thing lack……traction in the Main Stream Science?”
The evidence is only clear to those of us who have spent time trying to understand the behavior of plasmas within the laboratory. To all others, it is not. Consider that plasmas represent the universe’s preferred state for matter, and yet only a minute number of people in this world are familiar with their laboratory behavior. This is a major problem.
Electricity also has a history of being elusive because charged particles can clearly transfer in the absence of any emissions. Plasmas can conduct electricity and do things of great importance within this “dark mode” (it’s one of their three fundamental operating modes). This is why radio astronomers have to observe the 21-cm wavelength, subtle HI energy state transition in order to observe the behavior of the interstellar plasma “clouds” (which are really filaments).
Complicating things further, electrons can move in circles while still exhibiting an overall net movement. This is called an electron drift, and it is the principle within the EU by which the Sun is powered. Electron drift is not a “new physics” concept; it’s how electrons move along copper wire. And yet, conventional theorists behave as though they need not check for it in space.
Advocates for the conventional theories will oftentimes complain that this movement of electrons is not obvious, even as they argue that it’s not their responsibility to validate one way or another that it’s there. They appear to not realize that they work for us — the public — and that the public expects them to, when necessary, investigate ideas which they don’t actually prefer, and which they didn’t learn in school. When scientists and theorists exhibit obvious displeasure for a confirmed prediction — like Wal Thornhill’s successful Deep Impact predictions — this should raise red flags with the public that they are exhibiting preferences and prejudices in their scientific methodology which will have ultimately have a profound impact upon their findings.
Of those who do begrudgingly accept the challenge — like Tom Bridgman — they will ignore the plasma cosmology texts and laboratory plasma physics fundamentals in their analysis of plasma cosmology. And then, based upon an electrostatic or some other analysis which has little to do with plasma physics, they’ll claim that we should be seeing something like x-rays coming from coronal holes. In the process, they’ve made assumptions about what they *should* be seeing. What they’re doing is filling in the gaps that they created themselves with respect to the behavior plasmas.
The very notion that conventional astrophysicists see no problem with telling plasmas physicists what the plasma physics models should look like should alarm everybody. There is a complete disconnection between the models which they use for cosmic plasmas and observations of laboratory plasmas made by plasma physicists. We’ve permitted them to let the framework drive the plasma models.
I’m not convinced that there are really very many astrophysicists or cosmologists today who actually know what plasma cosmology or EU Theory actually states. There’s something that happens when people try to learn a theory which they already disagree with: They tend to obstruct their own educations.
When they learned the conventional theories, they did not argue against it as they were learning it. For those students who have completed their four-year training and are in the process of getting their PhD’s, this would have been sufficient reason to boot them from the program. This is what I mean when I say that we are all bound to philosophy of science as a means of removing our natural human tendencies from our scientific theories. When a person refuses to objectively learn a new paradigm on its own terms, we say that the person “knows too much.” They’ve abandoned all pretense of being objective and fair-minded. We are all susceptible to this. The difference is that the heretics are just more aware of the phenomenon, since they battle it every day.
Let’s say that a small child lives in a remote village next door to a little girl. This girl is not exactly the cutest of girls. In fact, she’s kind of ugly. But, to that boy, she’s the most beautiful girl in the world. It’s not until that boy goes into the city before he realizes what’s going on. When we obstruct our own educations, we deprive ourselves of an ability to make effective, meaningful decisions.
One need only spend a lot of time on forums to learn all of this. This process of discussing competing theories online is extremely educational on the topic of human psychology. It doesn’t take long to realize that logic and evidence oftentimes take a back seat to more human tendencies. Most of us will perhaps start out by imagining that the social phenomena we observe on the forums can’t possibly be representative of how professional scientists and theorists think. But, it’s just not true. What it means to be a professional scientist or theorist today is that they are fully educated in the conventional framework. We don’t train any of them to be experts in plasma cosmology, so why should we expect them to even have any need for philosophy of science?
The answers, if you ask me, to some of the greatest riddles in the universe are really right in front of our eyes. It’s these social phenomena that the people of the WUWT forums are already familiar with that are shaping the scientific views of the world. And there is no small irony in this fact: That we humans are our own worst enemies, and that we will not understand the truth of the universe until we are truthful with ourselves.
It may sound almost cheesy, but it’s true.

“Anybody who is telling you that the matter which you see around you is only 5% of the universe’s total matter might as well be admitting that they don’t know what’s happening. If only 5% of what they’re talking about is verifiable in the laboratory, then why, again, are we deciding to ignore competing cosmologies? Upon what basis are we being so … “picky”?”
Quite. “Dark Matter” may be the stupidest thing I ever heard of. Why not just call it what it really is – “There’s-a-truly-vast-gap-between-the-predictions-of-our-theories-and-our-observations”. It’s not such a sexy title as “Dark Matter”, but it’s a more accurate name.

If it’s not a black hole, what is it? I’m sorry if this is irritating EU proponents, but I simply want to understand this. I’ve only just got my head around black holes..
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=7qqsr17q
There’s a picture on this page of the “the plasmoid at the center of the galaxy” – what is creating it?
As an aside, there is a quote on this page from Martin Rees, I have heard him lecture on the subject of black holes. I take issue on the subject of the time line of understanding presented by majority scientists, presenting this a ‘we thought only a few centuries ago that …’. I think we’d be a lot further advanced if the “shoulders’ of giants” scientists stood on went back a lot further. The Vedas for example have easy familiarity with billions and trillions of years as time scales in our universe – a day and night of Brahma (the creator) is very exactly calculated, and the day of 4.32 billion years corresponds closely with the modern scientist’s take on the beginning of our solar world.

Chris Reeve, I should be grateful if you’d have a go at answering my question re what’s at the centre of our galaxy.
I’m not sure I’ve grasped the concept of plasma, (Leif please join in here if you want). I’m thinking of it as what used to be called the ether layer of matter, but it’s also used to describe it as affected by some other energy, as in our Ionosphere the plasma is acted on by the sun. Is ‘plasma’ used to describe this ‘neutral ether’ or ‘ionised’?
What is actually happening to the ‘ether/plasma’ in the centre of our galaxy?
Ancient texts say there is a connection between the centre of our galaxy and the centre of the universe we’re in, which is in the direction of Pleiades. Across ether/plasma does EU fit as energy source for the centre of our galaxy, (to create the plasmoid thingy at the centre)?

One, Chris Reeve, I really appreciate your posts.

“We live in an era where there are real and profound personal consequences for those who openly challenge the conventional framework.”

Two, as opposed to …?

Leif Svalgaard says: December17, 2010 at 4:30 am
Yes, I didn’t make that clear, I was assuming the current view that space itself was stretching, but that doesn’t preclude there being another space for it to be stretching itself in. Since the Big Bang theory begins with a beginning..
James F. Evans says: December 17, 20 at 9:26 am
I was sure I had read it described as such, from which my question, is the same word used as that concentrated in ionisation? If in our atmosphere the Ionosphere is charged plasma, what is it being charged?
You may have to take me step by step through this..
Ether may have got itself another name, I’ve just come across Quintessence to describe it. As the fifth essence or element beyond the standard earth, air, fire and water of ancient chemistry.
If plasma isn’t ether, what is ether?

Typo correction:
“into positively charged ions and negatively charged ions”
must be read:
“into positively charged ions and negatively charged electrons”
For that to be accurate and make sense.

Christof Dollis –
Ether is a hypothetical medium needed to transmit waves of electro-magnetic energy and in particular of photons (light).
Thank you. I think I got confused here because of reading that plasma was thought by some to make up 99% of the universe.
Einstein said that his special relativity theory allowed for there to be this of ether, but that mechanics may allow for yet another, to do with accelerating objects in space.
OK, I may also have misread, misunderstood what I read, but read that Einstein said that ether was essential for his theory of relativity, that it didn’t work without it. I’ve just found that others like Maxwell used it, but it seems to have become superceded by the idea of vacuum. Can’t yet find why.
Regardless of what ether is, it isn’t plasma. Plasma’s quite real and non-theoretical. ..
The Ionosphere is where it’s made by the action of UV light from the sun, so I’ve read, doesn’t this mean that it is also being made in the Troposphere or is the greater density and pressure lower down that precludes this happening?

“So there is an unknown process that draws energy to the Sun and that is the basis of EU?”
It is considered among the most aggressive, ambitious hypothesis in the EU cosmology, and not every EU supporter buys into it. The process speculated, however, is electricity flows within interstellar plasmas, with stars forming the foci (and that galaxy clusters themselves align along other electrically charged paths).
EU proponents also claim this accounts for the very large percentage of twin and tri star systems in the galaxy. They claim when the electrical stress on the star becomes too great, the star splits to increase the surface area, thus reducing the stress on it. They further claim gas giant planets can be ejected from stars in a similar process … and that coronal mass ejections, far from being unexplained, are a more minor form of the same process, albeit involving much less electrical stress on the star.
True?
I’m not willing to dismiss it out of hand just because it isn’t what I was taught as a kid.
It would, however, go a long way to explain the Sun’s, and other stars’, non-stop fluctuations, in a way that a nuclear fusion powered model doesn’t seem to so well.

Christoph – very many thanks for your post explaining plasma, especially for being able to work out what I meant.
I saw a programme recently on TV about EU, Thunderbolts Part I, and it, so to speak, sparked my interest in exploring further. As in all situations when one finds oneself in the middle of an argument between two people using terms familiar to them, they can both seem credible, but I was impressed by the scalability scenarios, does it actually work according to its known properties a touchstone for me in the AGW CO2 arguments.
Leif – on thinking again about Christoph’s post and now having explained the problem I have with understanding the arguments, would you look at this page and tell me if you think the reasons given for dismissal of the Big Bang theory are valid, credible? (Particularly re the red-shift)
http://davidpratt.info/cosmo.htm
Christoph –
As I said, I doubt the ether is a physical reality, as such, separate from space itself, but that has been a debate for some time, hasn’t it?
I’m only just catching up..
..glad it’s still going on and the science isn’t settled..

How does the EU explain ocean tides on Earth?

“We nev­er ex­pected to find an­y­thing like this,” said lead re­search­er Al­ex­an­der Kash­lin­sky of NASA’s God­dard Space Flight Cen­ter in Green­belt, Md.”

To their credit, earlier this year NASA Goddard invited EU proponent, Professor Emeritus in electrical engineering, Don Scott, to address some of their scientists. You can easily find that video on YouTube, however, I’ll say that in my opinion Scott is a much better writer than he is a speaker.
I agree with what you said that Big Bang cosmology has been tweaked far too many times for my liking. It doesn’t seem to predict much, really, except after the fact and following adjustments, which is not my definition of a prediction.
This is what I call a prediction:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=nq9zna2m
I also think it makes one heck of a lot more sense than than the incredibly visible cometary trails in the sky visible from umpteen miles away being ice perpetually melting into (mostly) water vapour along with dust.
This is more or less than standard astronomy theory of comets, and how it makes any sense at all, I don’t know.
Electrical discharge and a resulting plasma trail makes so much more sense. Not only would it be more visible, but it wouldn’t run out either.
Besides, we found out even our humble moon has an invisible sodium ion tail back in 89 or so, I believe. Venus has an ion tail too. It seems to be the norm rather than the exception, but comet tails are much more visible, EU proponents assert, because of their highly elliptical orbits rapidly bringing them from very far away to very close to the Sun, which is to say in regions of vastly different electric charge.
It’s an elegant explanation. Far more so than to think when I look in the night sky and see a massive comet tail I’m seeing water vapour.
What’s more, actual NASA probes impacting with comets don’t seem to bear that out. I wonder if that’s why they invited Professor Scott to speak?

Leif, thank for the link. It will take me a while to work through and compare… The page on estimating the age of the universe is interesting too.

Leif, I’ve seen from reading many of your posts that you reply from a working knowledge of your subject. However, I really find it difficult to engage with you as I do with anyone else who insists they are right when even a quick search shows there are conflicting views, as I mentioned, even from a page you gave me to read of basic science it said that different dates were given from different methods of measuring the age of the universe. You expect me to believe you because you say it’s true, that the science is settled without actually being able to give any proof, the very reason for my rejecting ‘religion’ as such, I am not looking for faith in science, I’m looking for facts.
http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/1999/ast22Feb99_1/
In 1999 those exploring the age of the Universe were saying: “In recent years astronomers have come to realize that the Universe is somewhere between 12 and 18 billion years old.” Which is what the site you linked to was also saying.
Following the Chandra link from the above via view site: http://chandra.harvard.edu/
from which Age of Universe typed into the search box takes us to articles of interesting history and to:
http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_stro/dark_energy/index2.html
which was the latest dated article on that search front page, Oct 2010, and which says:
Age of the Universe
Comparison of the age of the Universe deduced from the expansion rate of the Universe with independent age estimates also provides an important check on amount of dark energy driving the acceleration of the expansion. The ages of the oldest known stars constrain the age of the Universe to be in the range 12-15 billion years, which is again consistent with estimates of the amount of dark matter and dark energy.
I was taught that nature abhors a vacuum.
That was rather a long time ago and I don’t now recall what reasoning was given, if any, but from looking a the world around me I see how life fills all niches. We can create vacuums, but those I’ve used don’t keep my tea hot for very long, and the longer kept the more unpleasant to drink, and I don’t know if mankind has created a perfect one which is cut off entirely from the rest of the universe. I’ll have a look for it.

What I’ve found: Ether space time and cosmology: new insights into a key physical medium
http://www.sosotech.com/html-science-engineering/ether-space-time-and-cosmology-new-insights-into-a-key-physical-medium.html
“The necessity of ether is not questioned today even by those who pretend to do so but do not hesitate to attribute qualities to the vacuum. Ether theory plays a creative role, even if given different names: (vacuum, fundamental plenum or cosmic substratum).”
Which is the conclusion I reached above from the short discussion here and looking at links as advised.

Again, nothing on that page claims that is a definite figure, still requiring citation where first mentioned.
It’s vaguely a mean between 12 and 15 billion of the latest Chandra which is about all you can really say about it.
How about this?:
http://ldolphin.org/univ-age.html
Based on these considerations, his conclusion was that the thorium within stars has to be about 10 billion years old or less. Schramm believes the meteorite data is consistent with 15 billion year old globular cluster which contain the very old white dwarfs. ….
And the arguments continue, we still have stars older than the beginning of the Universe.
Hmm, when I was thinking about this re the ages in the Hindu cosmology I thought the Hindus might be talking about the beginning of our solar system as the figures were so close, but, now, I think I’m going to stick with them for the time being. Until I can see something from the research being done, and the science still being explored, a Day and Night of Brahma for timescale will do just fine (8.64 billion).
Thank you for your time.

?! Why junk? It’s merely a look at the different ways of measuring stars and stuff to estimate the age of the Universe, from pukkha research attempts.
I have forgotten what it was that bothered you.
Whether the hubble constant’s measurement of red shift was a viable method of measurement to establish age. I’ll add to what I’ve already posted that this is not proven, that if time is relative to the viewer as in Einstein’s, then all Hubble is measuring is time relative to Hubble..
I picked up somewhere that you had been arguing with some who thought the universe was created some 6,000 years ago ?, I’ve tried to reassure you that I’m not of their particular number and that my interest is in actually exploring the age from our current idea of the beginning of our universe from the ‘big bang’. Re young earth creationists, there are two immediate problems with their ‘biblical inerrancy’ claims: which Bible? and what is it actually saying in the ‘day and night’? The Septuagint has other numbers for the years of generations and calculates this to, don’t recall exact figures off hand, around 7 thousand, and from the Greek and Hebrew the ‘day and night’ are better read aeons, ages – the first three days the creation of time, space, life, the creation of day and night as we know it couldn’t have happened until later in the sequence when the sun was created, etc. Anyway, I also like the similarity with the Hindu in using ‘day and night’ as discrete measurements, and as it stands, I am far more comfortable with the Hindu concepts of this re age of our Universe, that it but one of many, counting in trillions + years in a linear scale of cyclical time, and also see no reason to suppose the concept of this universe as one of many co-existing with our space and time, as ‘mystic’ concepts have it and modern science explorations are touching upon now, does our universe only exist because we observe it, what is our vacuum leaking into?, sort of questions. What I have been fascinated with finding, is that there are still great contradictions with the ideas currently in play, and am getting as annoyed with those claiming their ideas ‘fact’ regardless of these contradictions, as I am with warmists who jettison actual measurements which contradict their science..
..and keep moving the goal posts. Now your ‘it is really irrelvant if the age is ..’ quite at odds with what you said earlier, from which based on what you said your arguments re Einstein and red shift. What is now bothering me, is the fundamentalist blocking out of information contrary to that belief, which makes exploring this subject, my interest, too much of a chore. It seems to me that the last decade has been made very dull by those taking an entrenched position with regard to age, as 13.67, and jettisoning solid work conflicting with fusion and relativity as they see it, and other ways of measuring which shows stars older. That’s my idea of junk science. The repetition of ‘consensus’ often found here, is telling.