The Sun's Density Gradient

[Lloyd]

Electric Sun Discussion: Thur. 8 PM Eastern, 5 PM Pacific time
* Charles and Michael Mozina have agreed to start the discussion at this link: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_wU ... GS2fQ/edit.
* That's tomorrow evening.
* Anyone may go there to watch the discussion. You can also leave comments by clicking on the Comments box. But I don't know how long the comments will remain there.
* If anyone wants to participate in a future discussion, let me know, and please post a summary of your theory.
* Some of us may be cautiously optimistic that such discussion will advance science and prosperity for all.

[Lloyd]

* We had a good discussion last night. You can go to the link in my previous message to read it. We plan to do it again next Thur. I hope to start a thread for the discussion soon. And I'll try a similar Google Doc discussion on similar topics soon, if I get some volunteers. I have one volunteer so far.

[JeffreyW]

Somewhere on the short list of inexplicable properties of the Sun, there is the question of what causes the distinctive density gradient. Only taking gravity and hydrostatic pressure into account, the density of a gas in space should fall off with the square of the distance from the center of gravity, producing a (more or less) straight line on a log graph. From the center of the Sun out to the edge of the photosphere, this is precisely what happens. But the fall-off should continue on that straight line to infinity, which is not what happens. At the surface, the density drops off sharply, as if the plasma is inside a sealed container.

Density_wbg.png

Clearly, powerful forces are at work, to maintain the higher-than-expected density out to the edge, and then for the density to drop off suddenly to almost nothing. Obviously, the gravitational model cannot explain this, and calling the Sun a nuclear furnace doesn't help, because no heat source (nuclear or otherwise) creates containment in free space.

There is really only one possibility here, that this is (somehow) a manifestation of EM forces. But what kind of forces could contain plasma in free space? Put in the simplest of terms, the Sun is obviously a bunch of plasma that is attracted to itself -- far more so than gravity can explain -- and there is a drop-off point, which defies the inverse square law of gravity. So what is the attractive force?

Since the hydrogen and helium in the Sun do not have strong magnetic dipoles, we can rule out magnetostatics. In other words, it isn't like a bunch of iron filings clumped together because of magnetic polarization frozen into the solids -- it's plasma, so nothing is frozen in.

This leaves electrostatics as the attractive force. In other words, a charge separation has occurred, and the opposite charges are attracted to each other by the electric force.

Yet now our intuitions are complaining -- how can a charge separation be preserved in the near-perfect conductivity of extremely hot plasma?

There is only one answer to that question -- the only force that can compete with the electric force in free space is magnetic pressure. So how does that work?

We're all familiar with Ampere's Law: an electric current produces a magnetic field around it. At relativistic speeds, the magnetic force becomes as powerful as the electric force, and can influence the current. If it's current flowing through a wire, we won't see much difference, but if the "current" is charged particles shooting through space, the magnetic field exerts back-pressure on the charged particles, consolidating them in what is known as the magnetic pinch effect.

The corollary to the magnetic pinch effect is what we might call the "magnetic push effect." If like charges are consolidated by their superimposed magnetic fields, then opposite charges are separated. Positive charges generate fields by the right-hand rule, where the fingers represent the force on a magnetized particle with the thumb pointing in the direction of the charge stream. Negative charges generate left-hand fields. Thus the fields generated by positive and negative charges moving in the same direction oppose each other. And this, of course, generates magnetic pressure between them -- just like the opposing magnetic fields that drive electric motors. The result is a charge-separated plasma jet. In spite of the enormous electric force between the opposite charges, and without anything else to keep them separate, positive and negative charges form a "twisted pair" of charge streams known as a Birkeland current (in its generalized form). The discovery of the principles controlling plasma jets in space made it possible to understand how CMEs could stay organized through 93 million miles of space and slam into the Earth with full force. (It also sparked the imaginations of science fiction writers who were quick to equip all of their superheros with plasma guns.) Hence persistent charge separations are possible, even in the presence of near-perfect conductivity, if the charges are moving at relativistic speeds, and are therefore generating opposing magnetic fields.

Ampere's Corollary.png

If this much is true about linear plasma jets, then it is also true about circular jets. In other words, if we could get plasma spinning around in a circle fast enough, the magnetic forces would separate the charges into two distinct streams, one positive and the other negative, and where the electric force would keep them organized, while the magnetic force would keep them separate.

Here it is useful to think of these circular plasma jets as a sort of open-air tokamak. The first difference is that the magnetic fields are not artificially applied from the outside to create the plasma confinement, but rather, are simple artifacts of the speed of the plasma jets themselves. The other difference is that for the purposes of understanding the Sun, it isn't a tokamak generating so much confinement that nuclear fusion is occurring. At the speeds in question (~3 km/s), the electric force is still far more powerful than the magnetic force, and the plasma isn't going to be pinched down to a singularity. But we're not trying to explain the Sun as an infinitesimal twisted pair of circular jets -- we're trying to understand some plasma confinement well beyond the capabilities of gravity. So it's not an all-or-nothing issue, wherein either you have enough confinement for nuclear fusion, or you don't have anything worth mentioning. Rather, 3 km/s plasma jets very definitely generate powerful magnetic fields. (The magnetic fields in electric motors come from electrons moving at roughly 3 x 10^-7 m/s, which is 10 orders of magnitude slower than plasma rotating at 3 x 10^3 m/s in the Sun.) So yes, there will be powerful magnetic fields -- not more powerful than the electric fields, but sufficient to do some magnetic pinching and pushing, and that's all we need to account for some plasma confinement in the Sun, beyond what can be explained by gravity.

To build a model out of these principles, we will start with the core of the Sun. It is known that the core rotates as a solid body, at a faster revolution rate than the overlying layers. In other words, its angular velocity might be the same as the radiative and convective zones, but at a smaller radius it makes more revolutions in the same period. Nominally, we'll say that the angular velocity in the core is 3 km/s. At such speeds, magnetic fields 10 orders of magnitude greater than those in electric motors will generate a magnetic pinch effect that will accomplish some consolidation of like charges, and separation of opposite charges. Just guessing, let's say that the core is positively charged.

This means that outside of the core, there will be a negatively charged double-layer. This double-layer will be attracted to the core by the electric force, but repelled from it by the magnetic force. This layer would be the radiative zone.

Outside of the negative layer, we will then expect there to be yet another oppositely charged layer, this time positive. It will likewise be attracted to the negative layer by the electric force, but repelled from it by the magnetic force, and also repelled by the underlying positive charges in the core. (After the initial charge separation between the core and the radiative zone, it would actually be possible for an infinite number of alternating layers to develop, though in a spherical configuration, the charge densities will diminish with distance from the center. And the successive layers need not have their own charge separation mechanisms. They will form simply by attraction to opposite charges and repulsion from like charges.) The outer positive layer we will presume to be the so-called convective zone.

So we have 3 basic layers: the positively charged core, the negatively charged radiative zone, and the positively charged convective zone. The angular velocities in the core generate magnetic fields that accomplish the primary like-charge consolidation and opposite-charge separation, establishing the radiative zone as a negative double-layer, which goes on to support the convective zone as a positive double-layer around the outside. We will then expect the chromosphere to be yet another charged double-layer, this time negative. But with the extreme heat being released by the photosphere, the density of the chromosphere is extremely slight, and this is the last organized layer.

In this fashion, it becomes possible for a ball of plasma at extreme temperatures to stick to itself in free space. And while this model is extremely rough-cut, it does directly address the issue of non-gravitational density in the Sun, which to my (extremely limited) knowledge has not been resolved by any other model.

Note that this model, as presented so far, does not identify the energy source(s) in the Sun, nor does it speak to the actually complexity of behaviors in the photosphere (granules, spicules, sunspots, prominences, etc.). I "think" that the model can venture well into such territory, and I'll discuss the finer-grain photospheric details on demand. But first, I'd like to get feedback on the central assertions of this model. Does this, in fact, establish a plausible mechanism for spherical plasma confinement in free space? Is it, in fact, the only possible mechanism? Or is there another way of solving this problem?

Mr. Chandler, the Sun possesses no nuclear burning core. It is a hollow shell of plasma. It is ball lightning. http://vixra.org/pdf/1301.0109v2.pdf

The nuclear core model is mathematical mythology.

[CharlesChandler]

Hey Jeff!

I totally agree that there is no fusion in the core.

But I'm not sold on the Hollow Sun Hypothesis.

• A thin shell containing a vacuum would only be possible if the shell was an absolutely perfect shape, which would distribute the stresses perfectly without buckling, and if the shell had the compression strength to handle the loading. Since you're talking about a star, there is a vacuum inside and outside, so the compression loading would come simply from the gravity acting on the shell itself. And in the shell configuration, most of the gravity is actually tangential, not centripetal. So you don't start out with as big of a problem as it would seem at first. But I still think that it's intractable. Under any compression at all, what is going to keep the shell organized, so that it doesn't buckle? Or just balloon outward? In other words, under any force at all, what would maintain the thinness of the shell? One answer is to go with a solid iron shell, where the crystal lattice give it the strength that it needs. Then you can go with a plasma atmosphere. But then you have hot plasma over a cool iron shell that never heats up and melts. So what insulates the cool iron shell from the hot plasma? All of these questions have to be answered to have a complete model.
• The average density of the Sun is 1408 kg/m3. A vacuum with a thin shell is going to have the average density of the vacuum. So your only way out is to challenge the way the mass of the Sun is estimated, or even redefine gravity. But that begs a lot of tough questions. For example, how did we send a man to the moon, and get him back, using calculations of the force of gravity given the measured mass of the craft here on Earth, when gravity out in space acts so differently?

I'm not saying that these problems absolutely could not be solved, but I'm pretty convinced that you'd have to rewrite all of the physics textbooks, start to finish, to work around these problems.

BTW, the OP in this thread is really old, and I have since walked away from the hypothesis that I presented. It was basically the "toroidal plasmoid" idea, which others are still considering, but which I no longer consider tenable. To get the required magnetic fields, it would take relativistic angular velocities. In some of the exotic stars (e.g., white dwarfs, magnetars, etc.), with unbelievable magnetic fields (over a million Gauss!), the "toroidal plasmoid" model works, and that's what I use for those. But in the Sun, with non-relativistic angular velocities, and with a weak average magnetic field (i.e., 1 Gauss), it doesn't work. So I'm going with a different charge separation mechanism (i.e., electron degeneracy pressure).

[JeffreyW]

Hey Jeff!

I totally agree that there is no fusion in the core.

But I'm not sold on the Hollow Sun Hypothesis.

• A thin shell containing a vacuum would only be possible if the shell was an absolutely perfect shape, which would distribute the stresses perfectly without buckling, and if the shell had the compression strength to handle the loading. Since you're talking about a star, there is a vacuum inside and outside, so the compression loading would come simply from the gravity acting on the shell itself. And in the shell configuration, most of the gravity is actually tangential, not centripetal. So you don't start out with as big of a problem as it would seem at first. But I still think that it's intractable. Under any compression at all, what is going to keep the shell organized, so that it doesn't buckle? Or just balloon outward? In other words, under any force at all, what would maintain the thinness of the shell? One answer is to go with a solid iron shell, where the crystal lattice give it the strength that it needs. Then you can go with a plasma atmosphere. But then you have hot plasma over a cool iron shell that never heats up and melts. So what insulates the cool iron shell from the hot plasma? All of these questions have to be answered to have a complete model.
• The average density of the Sun is 1408 kg/m3. A vacuum with a thin shell is going to have the average density of the vacuum. So your only way out is to challenge the way the mass of the Sun is estimated, or even redefine gravity. But that begs a lot of tough questions. For example, how did we send a man to the moon, and get him back, using calculations of the force of gravity given the measured mass of the craft here on Earth, when gravity out in space acts so differently?

I'm not saying that these problems absolutely could not be solved, but I'm pretty convinced that you'd have to rewrite all of the physics textbooks, start to finish, to work around these problems.

BTW, the OP in this thread is really old, and I have since walked away from the hypothesis that I presented. It was basically the "toroidal plasmoid" idea, which others are still considering, but which I no longer consider tenable. To get the required magnetic fields, it would take relativistic angular velocities. In some of the exotic stars (e.g., white dwarfs, magnetars, etc.), with unbelievable magnetic fields (over a million Gauss!), the "toroidal plasmoid" model works, and that's what I use for those. But in the Sun, with non-relativistic angular velocities, and with a weak average magnetic field (i.e., 1 Gauss), it doesn't work. So I'm going with a different charge separation mechanism (i.e., electron degeneracy pressure).

Unfortunately you understand the dilemma more than most "scientists". The theory of gravitation needs to be written to put gravitation/mass as effectively reliant on a new concept called "radiative work", and when I mean radiative work I literally mean that the only way to transfer work in the vacuum of outer space is via radiation. There is no gas and certainty no steel cables holding the Earth to the Sun.

I am currently working on this radiative work concept in as it pertains to objects that are "massive". In short, objects in space that exhibit more radiative work are inverse to their actual "mass". Thus objects that exert more radiative work in the form of plasma (ionized material) mimic the effect known as inertia. If I could write up a quick math formula to show this inverse relationship. As it pertains to objects with inertia on cooler scales all that needs to be taken into account is the reality that mass is NOT intrinsic. Mass is emergent. For instance, how does one measure mass against nothing? That is only useful in math, not reality. In order to measure somethings "mass" you have to compare it to something else. Which is why there is no two body solution to Einsteins field equations. He thought mass was intrinsic! So common sense has it, general relativity is circular, it puts a gravitational field around nothing! lol

Rewriting the physics books can be done. It just takes lots of time and energy.

Besides, hasn't mainstream science already admitted failure? They don't understand the mechanisms behind gravitation. So the idea of "rewriting" the textbooks isn't exactly as difficult as people make it out to be. For instance, I have already determined actual star evolution. Most of the problems in physics are believe it or not rooted in basic inconsistencies in language.

Sorry for jumping around:

Certainty the sun is a hollow shell. The iron is right below the surface and gives structure to the plasma photosphere. Places where the iron starts clumping together is called 'sunspot'.

Oh and for number 1, concerning the sun being an absolutely perfect shape. Yes, it is absolutely perfect. It is the most round object ever measured by humanity. http://io9.com/5935742/its-official-the ... r-measured

This means it does not contain the "mass" believed by the Einstein/Newton followers. It is vastly less massive.
http://vixra.org/pdf/1209.0008v1.pdf

[JeffreyW]

The iron collecting in the "sunspot" act as step down transformers. These are used in basic electrical components in power transmission lines so that high voltage that runs through 3 phase lines at 10,000 volts can become much, much lower around 220-240. The current increases, but the voltage decreases. Thus with higher current, there is higher magnetic field around the "spot" on the Sun. The iron helps to step down the voltage allowing the magnetic field to become really, really strong, thus sunspots magnetic fields are much more powerful than the surrounding surface plasma.

[CharlesChandler]

@Jeff: you should collaborate with Brant Callahan, who has been championing a Hollow Sun model for close to 10 years now, and is an active aetherometrist. Why don't you register on my site and try to strike up a conversation with him on it? I think that the two of you bouncing ideas back and forth might benefit both of you -- half the work and twice the fun!

[JeffreyW]

@Jeff: you should collaborate with Brant Callahan, who has been championing a Hollow Sun model for close to 10 years now, and is an active aetherometrist. Why don't you register on my site and try to strike up a conversation with him on it? I think that the two of you bouncing ideas back and forth might benefit both of you -- half the work and twice the fun!

10 years? Well it's about time I show up because I need the Sun to be hollow for my own theory of stellar metamorphosis. I'll sign up when I get to work. comp is much faster there.