(source)David Talbott wrote:Just imagine a proponent of standard theory in 1950 standing alongside a proponent of the electric universe. Of these two imaginary figures, which one will have had to change his mind a thousand times? At some point it's going to register with folks that almost all of the surprises of the space involve the signature of electric currents and magnetic fields, associated with electromagnetic radiation across the entire spectrum--the one thing that standard theory, prior to the space age, consistently overlooked.
There are, what, dozens of departments, laboratories, labs, etc, throughout the world, just like the Space and Plasma Physics Laboratory (from which this quote comes); there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of graduates of such places, engaged in full-time research into space physics (a branch of plasma physics).KTH wrote:Our research deals with plasmas in space as well as in the laboratory. The vast majority of our universe is plasma. The only (although important) exception is cold solid bodies like planets, comets, and asteroids. Thus, plasma physics has universal applications.
The research benefits from a fruitful combination of laboratory experiments and space experiments as well as theory and numerical simulation. We play an active role in a number of international space missions, building instruments, planning instrument operations, and analysing data.
We participate in the education programme both at the MSc and PhD level. At the MSc level a number of courses are given and MSc thesis projects are offered, often closely related to on-going research activities. We also participate in a Master's Programme in Electrophysics. At the PhD level we offer thesis projects in space and laboratory plasma physics.
But, curiously, (almost?) none of those people are electrical theorists; why?
(source; highlight added)seb wrote:We have sent several space probes to comets and planets, some of which were sent to land or crash. I think a few more of this kind would be useful.
For example, when comet nuclei have been photographed they commonly show bright white spots which are interpreted as ice (or other volatiles) in the dirty snowball theory and as a form of St Elmo's Fire in electric comet theory. If we sent a probe to descend slowly towards the nucleus (for a soft landing, not like Deep Impact) then should we not find that electrical discharges would return quite different data to ice? Are mainstream astronomers sufficiently interested in what their ice may or may not look like to make such a mission? Probably not;
I think you're right ... but that's because we seem to be talking past each other. Today, most astronomers have little direct role to play in the planning, development, launch, management, etc of these sorts of space probe missions. As you correctly point out, most expect that significant advances in our understanding of the inner planets of our solar system, the moons in it, the asteroids, and comets, etc will come from dedicated missions such as Cassini, not millions of seconds of dedicated observations of those objects by XMM-Newton or the Hubble Space Telescope.
So what's the leading ten, say, things that could be done? Concrete, specific, feasible proposals for implementable projects.There are lots to be quantitatively tested, but we need measurements to know what those quantities are and not only can some not be made remotely, many cannot be made simultaneously. Knowing what orders of magnitude one variable is could affect the details of a model, or even the entire choice of which model to use. We still don't really know how many electrons and protons are in the various regions of the solar system, what speed they're travelling at, and in what direction. Some measurements have been made, maybe enough to sway some details of some models, but not enough to decide whether which model is most likely to be right.
Gravity-related models are simple: mass is mass, gravity relates directly to it; gravity only behaves one way; the function of gravity over space is consistent; you can map the gravitational field according to the obviously big, bright lumps of matter floating about; all mass behaves consistently within a gravitational field; and two gravitational objects interact in simple ways. Electricity is not so simple; even if you know that two bodies are highly charged, and even if you know what those charges are, how that manifests itself in an interaction between them depends on a lot more than just their charges and distance. How do you go about measuring their internal charge distribution or their conductivity, no matter how much maths you have your disposal? With gravity, a misjudgement of mass only affects the magnitude of an effect; with electricity a misjudgement of the characteristics can give a completely different effect.
Since resources are scarce (and since I'm far more interested in astronomy, preferrably extra-galactic astronomy, than anything else), how about a half-dozen observing proposals, for XMM-Newton, or Spitzer?
You've hit on something that's been nagging at me for quite a while now; well done!Why does something need to be quantitative to be falsifiable? To use James Randi's popular quote, if I said that I had a unicorn in my garden then would be that a quantitative claim? Would it not be falsifiable by simply looking and seeing that my garden does not contain a unicorn?
Which part of the EU theory would you like to falsify?
There are at least three different ways to express this ('falsify' paradigm, 'consistency' paradigm, and 'fact' paradigm; details later); but here's one: there's a difference between a 'mystery' - an observation or set of phenomena for which there is no explanation (the observations of the 'rotation curve' of the stars in a galaxy, say; Peratt's model is silent on that) - and a 'counter-example' (or 'contrary fact'). And both are different from an internal inconsistency (though I guess that could be a contrary fact).
In the case of the Electric Sun hypothesis (ESh), for example, the Sun's observed power output (in the form of electromagnetic radiation) is a mystery; the observed lack of gamma-rays (both numbers and specific lines) from the Sun is a contrary fact (at least it is for Scott's version of the ESh, see the Fusion in the Double Layer section); and the simultaneous use of both 'the Sun is an anode' and Alfvén's solar circuit model is an internal inconsistency.
Being (completely?) non-quantitative, mysteries are legion, contrary facts are nigh on impossible, and internal inconsistencies both easy and hard (it depends on how much textbook physics is permitted).
(source)Siggy_G wrote:Not to mention, if one observes way stronger "gravity" effects than the observed and probable mass for the given region, one just adds proportionally more mass - even if it is of the undetectable type or the hypothesized ultra-dense type. Now the model is consistent...
You meant this as a parody, right?
Although it is a good example of why it is so hard to falsify (using that paradigm) a purely qualitative model ... the CDM models that are published in the literature are quantitative, so consistency is far, far, far harder to achieve (and it's truly astonishing that such a simple hypothesis has such broad explanatory power, and so few inconsistencies). The rest of this post is best addressed back in its original thread.
(source)David Talbott wrote:Wow. I'm glad I found this post of yours, Nereid, because I almost missed it. So let's see if we can communicate. Where should the new telescopes be pointed, you ask. If we live in an electric universe, why not let each telescope go where its targeted slice of the electromagnetic spectrum is most abundantly exhibited? That's what they're all doing anyway, and it's amongst the primary reasons for the growing interest in the Electric Universe. Why would we complain about the direction telescopes have been pointed, for heaven's sake? Everything revealed about hourglass discharge formations of nebulas and galaxies, or polar jets of Herbig Haro objects, or synchrotron radiation sources, or dozens of other electromagnetic phenomena are of spectacular interest. This is the universe that caught astronomers by surprise in the space age. Why would we need to be selective?
So what do proponents of EU theory need then, other than a couple of PCs, a good broadband internet connection, a few mathematics software packages (or just one), and a few weeks of spare time?
No, I'm serious.
There are dozens of good astronomy, astrophysics, and plasma physics codes, many available for free (from here, for example); why spend hundreds of hours on slick marketing material when you could be downloading the (quantitative) data, analysing it, developing (quantitative) models, testing them (quantitatively), writing up the results, and publishing them?
(I don't mean you personally Dave, but anyone bitten by the EU theory bug could do this).
Perhaps it might be interesting to do a bit of research into the incidence, in the historical literature, of application of plasma physics (say) published in ApJ (say)?But in your rhetorical response you imply the reverse of the truth, effectively denying what has occurred as a matter of historic fact.
I suspect that we have very different understandings of what any historical facts here might be.
We may quibble over "high energy electric discharge", but doing a PhD on synchrotron radiation from the jets and lobes of FRII sources, say, would make a young researcher a proponent of "the EU", by your argument. However, few, if any, such researchers would think it a productive use of their time to read more than an hour's worth of material published by electrical theorists (I suspect Physicist's response would by typical), much less join your circle.When you find a corner of the universe that is not dominated by the signature of electromagnetic emissions and high energy electric discharge, you will have a foothold for a counterargument to the EU.
If what you write were true Dave, then given this (to take just one example) you can declare the Thunderbolts Project now moot, can't you?
(And that's going to have to do for today; about a half-dozen posts in the 'Peratt' thread to go, before I start on the more recent ones in this.)