Physicist wrote:Thanks to all for most interesting replies!
I think astrophysics and cosmology are fascinating things - but I started the thread in the hope that its scope would be restricted to fundamental physics. After all, if we don't know the rules of the game, how do we know how to construct astrophysical and cosmological models?
I agree, and I also think that asking such questions is useful for weeding out the parts of a theory (not just EU, but in general) that are weak, and seeing where more work is needed.
Physicist wrote:Seb - I thought your post above was particularly insightful.
Would it be fair to say that my summary of fundamental physics in EU is significantly more controversial than, say, its various astrophysical assertions?
Thanks. Are you asking whether your summary is controversial amongst EU supporters, or that EU's physics is controversial amongst others? EU's fundamental physics is electricity, for which there is very little controversy in the world, but it's application to astronomy is certainly controversial to outsiders.
There is also another controversial side of EU - nomenclature. Astronomers talk of winds, clouds, shockwaves, and use words more in keeping with weather or acoustics. It seems obvious that the solar wind is a plasma, contains currents, has separated charge, and exhibits magnetic fields; yet somehow EU is vilified by astrophysicists for saying such things. The question here is why is the presence of free charge and currents in space so taboo that to merely say "protons" instead of "ionised hydrogen gas" invites scorn from mainstream proponents?
Physicist wrote:Others will know more about this than me as I'm observing from the sidelines, but it seems to me that EU theories lack quantitative predictions because the basic quantities have not yet been adequately measured.
What in your opinion are these basic quantities that have not been adequately measured?
I suppose the most basic would be the distribution and magnitude of electric currents in space. We have good measurements of the solar wind in our vicinity, and we have some measurements along single paths from the Voyagers and Pioneers, but beyond that it is very limited. It seems like a kind of paradox for the EU theory - its claims about electricity in space are easily testable in principle, but the logistics of doing it are quite impractical.
However, the limited measurements are not only a problem for EU, but also for standard astronomy. Dust levitation on the moon and the spokes in Saturn's rings are now acknowledged to be electrical phenomena, yet we have not taken any direct measurements of the charges, currents, and fields involved. Even mainstream astronomers with all of their resources are restricted to qualitative explanations and indirect guesses as to the forces involved.
Physicist wrote:I notice that no-one responded to this question of mine:
I wrote:What in your opinion would be the greatest quantitative achievements of EU theorists?
In "mainstream" physics we are kind of proud of things like blackbody radiation, the hydrogen energy spectrum, the gyromagnetic ratio for the electron, elementary particle scattering cross sections, the precession of Mercury, the bending of light rays, etc etc etc. All these things are in quantitative agreement with our theories, sometimes to an astonishing number of significant figures.
Which quantitative predictions are EU theorists most proud of? To how many significant figures do these predictions agree with experiment?
Does anyone want to chip in on that one? Surely there must be at least a couple of quantitative successes for fundamental EU theory to brag about?
I'm not aware of any unexpected quantitative successes that match the depth and scope of mainstream astronomy, but that is only where the current state of theoretical development currently is.
If electricity and plasma are as pervasive as believed by EU/PC then the quantitative analysis will become developed, as indeed it must. Discoveries often come in spurts, and recently there have been many observational vindications of the qualitative expectations of EU/PC which are the first steps towards quantitative analysis.
One quantitative "success" that springs to mind is the rotation velocity curves of galaxies. That matches well with the mathematics of plasma, but very badly with the gravity of observed mass. However, it still lacks the fundamental measurement of whether the necessary currents are really there.
It would not surprise me if quantitative support for EU comes from mainstream theorists before it comes from EU followers. If EU is correct then eventually mainstream science has to adopt its ideas and we should all become one big happy family.
However, the EU theory covers so much of astronomy that there are bound to be some failures along the way and that makes it easy for outsiders to take pot-shots at it; care must be taken to avoid discrediting the right through association with the wrong. If it turns out that electrogravity is wrong, does that invalidate the electric comet? More to the point - would it make comets icy? I think that a lot of bad logic arises in arguments over competing theories, even by well-educated scientists.
There is a general theme of "no new physics if old physics will work" in EU, and so its theories should respect the fundamental physics of electricity. As long as that is adhered to then, by definition, the basics of the EU theory are at least as successful as the physics of the electron. However, because theories of electricity are so well established, it should be possible to use the formulae to describe effects like supernovae. Maybe we need some - dare I say it - computer simulations to show that the formulae work.
This is what Peratt is doing with plasma cosmology, along with people like Ransom doing practical experiments; maybe EU should be seen as the qualitative cousin of the quantitative PC and electrical engineering. Maybe EU is the thought-experiment domain, PC is the maths/simulation domain, and electrical engineering is the experimental domain.
Can anyone fill me in?
