Debunking Dave

[Cargo]

Have you actually measured a piece of string?
How much carbon do you need before you have something physically material? Or is the Plank the minimum for your reality?

If the Big Bank source contained the Infinite, was it an external or internal force that contained it?

[Cargo]

I think most of the claims made by the SAFIRE team for the experiment are unsupported and reckless

This is really curious. How is it unsupported? What could their claims be wrecking?

you are suggesting that SAFIRE is some sort of viable alternative to the conventional stellar model

What prison have you been locked in? The 'conventional' model has NEVER been viable. Unicorns could replace it. SAFIRE is the one and ONLY completely viable experimentally proven formation of a Star.

which is ridiculous since a) SAFIRE is not in itself a solar model or representative of one and b) SAFIRE, deriving its energy from the local power station, does not provide any evidence for an alternative solar power source of the order of 4x10^26W, which is the solar output.

What is ridiculous is yourself. Pray tell what Solar Model is the only one you'll accept as proof.

[JP Michael]

SAFIRE is the one and ONLY completely viable experimentally proven formation of a Star.

Cmon Cargo, Birkeland's 1907 cathode model is also a fair contender. It just hasn't been reexamined recently, unlike SAFIRE.

The rest gave me a good laugh, though! Nearly sprayed my coffee on the screen when you rooted out hypocrite Higgsy's "viability" bait. He'd make Charles Lyell proud, for sure.

[Higgsy]

I think most of the claims made by the SAFIRE team for the experiment are unsupported and reckless...you are suggesting that SAFIRE is some sort of viable alternative to the conventional stellar model

What prison have you been locked in? The 'conventional' model has NEVER been viable. Unicorns could replace it. SAFIRE is the one and ONLY completely viable experimentally proven formation of a Star...Pray tell what Solar Model is the only one you'll accept as proof.

Cmon Cargo, Birkeland's 1907 cathode model is also a fair contender. It just hasn't been reexamined recently, unlike SAFIRE.

Children, children, do try to argue like adults not spoilt brats. The conventional model of stars can be found in many places including in a book I have already recommended to you (R J Tayler The Stars: their structure and evolution CUP). The model is detailed, highly quantified, verified by observation in many aspects and completely viable when tested against known physics. I am very happy to discuss details of this model, but first of all, you have to read and understand the book (or some similar detailed introduction to solar physics) and stop arguing from ignorance.

So far as SAFIRE goes, it doesn't in any respect resemble the Sun or any star except rather trivially in that it is spherical (but then so is a cannon ball).

Ways in which SAFIRE doesn't resemble the Sun:
1. It consists of an anode and a cathode with the circuit completed by a voltage generating power supply connected to the mains
2. It is miniscule being at least 28 orders of magnitude (!) less massive than the Sun
3. It doesn't emit a near-black body spectrum at 5800K
4. It is made of solid copper or steel or some such conductor
5. It is surrounded by a solid spherical cathode
6. Between the cathode and the anode is a plasma many orders of magnitude denser than the ISM
7. It does not emit neutrinos
8. Nor a solar wind of electrons and ions
9. It does not consist throughout of a plasma under gravitational compression
10. Its spectrum does not show the absorption lines that the Sun shows
11. It has a fundamentally different energy tansport mechanism from the core to the surface compared with the Sun
12. It has no viable means of being self-sustaining
13. There are many more, but you get the point.

Ways in which SAFIRE resembles the Sun:
1. It's spherical
2. There is no 2.

As for Birkeland's terrella, the clue is in the name. It was intended by Birkeland to model the flow of the solar wind in the Earth's magnetic field, which it did superbly well. Birkeland never claimed his terrella was a model of the Sun, because it wasn't, and he also believed that the Sun was powered by some sort of radioactivity, not by electricity. Did you know that? Check out his book "THE NORWEGIAN AURORA POLARIS EXPEDITION, 1902 - 1903".

[JHL]

Have you actually measured a piece of string?

How much carbon do you need before you have something physically material? Or is the Plank the minimum for your reality?

If the Big Bank source contained the Infinite, was it an external or internal force that contained it?

Heh.

Cargo, science has accepted that Special States violated thermodynamics to create everything, that Force holds everything together and motivates it, that Magic forms galaxies, and that Pressure sticks you and I to the earth.

We'll know all the hows and whys in due time. This is scientific because. And because this is where someone flies into a rage because that special science is irrefutable while alternates to it are official Crackpottery, that's also not a false dichotomy because.

It seems Because explains everything.

[Michael Mozina]

I think most of the claims made by the SAFIRE team for the experiment are unsupported and reckless...you are suggesting that SAFIRE is some sort of viable alternative to the conventional stellar model

What prison have you been locked in? The 'conventional' model has NEVER been viable. Unicorns could replace it. SAFIRE is the one and ONLY completely viable experimentally proven formation of a Star...Pray tell what Solar Model is the only one you'll accept as proof.

Cmon Cargo, Birkeland's 1907 cathode model is also a fair contender. It just hasn't been reexamined recently, unlike SAFIRE.

Children, children, do try to argue like adults not spoilt brats. The conventional model of stars can be found in many places including in a book I have already recommended to you (R J Tayler The Stars: their structure and evolution CUP). The model is detailed, highly quantified, verified by observation in many aspects and completely viable when tested against known physics. I am very happy to discuss details of this model, but first of all, you have to read and understand the book (or some similar detailed introduction to solar physics) and stop arguing from ignorance.

So far as SAFIRE goes, it doesn't in any respect resemble the Sun or any star except rather trivially in that it is spherical (but then so is a cannon ball).

Ways in which SAFIRE doesn't resemble the Sun:
1. It consists of an anode and a cathode with the circuit completed by a voltage generating power supply connected to the mains
2. It is miniscule being at least 28 orders of magnitude (!) less massive than the Sun
3. It doesn't emit a near-black body spectrum at 5800K
4. It is made of solid copper or steel or some such conductor
5. It is surrounded by a solid spherical cathode
6. Between the cathode and the anode is a plasma many orders of magnitude denser than the ISM
7. It does not emit neutrinos
8. Nor a solar wind of electrons and ions
9. It does not consist throughout of a plasma under gravitational compression
10. Its spectrum does not show the absorption lines that the Sun shows
11. It has a fundamentally different energy tansport mechanism from the core to the surface compared with the Sun
12. It has no viable means of being self-sustaining
13. There are many more, but you get the point.

Ways in which SAFIRE resembles the Sun:
1. It's spherical
2. There is no 2.

As for Birkeland's terrella, the clue is in the name. It was intended by Birkeland to model the flow of the solar wind in the Earth's magnetic field, which it did superbly well. Birkeland never claimed his terrella was a model of the Sun, because it wasn't, and he also believed that the Sun was powered by some sort of radioactivity, not by electricity. Did you know that? Check out his book "THE NORWEGIAN AURORA POLARIS EXPEDITION, 1902 - 1903".

But in what *important* ways does it resemble the sun Higgsy? Unlike your precious "magnetic reconnection" dogma, both anode and cathode models are capable of producing a hot (hotter than surrounding area) full sphere *sustained* corona. The cathode version even predicts all the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun.

Meanwhile your industry prattles on and on about how "magnetic reconnection" is involved in these processes, but you've yet to produce a full sphere *sustained* hot atmosphere around a "sun model" in the lab, whereas all that was done over a *full century* ago based on circuit theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m58-CfVrsN4

Where's your example of a sustained hot full sphere corona or a sustained planetary aurora based on MRx "pseudoscience"?

[Higgsy]

But in what *important* ways does it resemble the sun Higgsy?

It's spherical.

Unlike your precious "magnetic reconnection" dogma, both anode and cathode models are capable of producing a hot (hotter than surrounding area) full sphere *sustained* corona.

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode not like the Sun's corona
1. It's a thousand times cooler ( a few thousand K versus a million K plus)
2. It's many orders of magnitude more dense
3. It has a completely different emission spectrum particularly in short wavelengths
4. It is *sustained* by a power supply plugged into a mains socket
5. It has a nett current flow

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode like the Sun's corona:
1. It's spherical
2. There is no 2.

The cathode version even predicts all the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun.

No it doesn't. Every single claim here is incorrect. Flow patterns are not correct in either the Terrella (which was never a solar model in the first place) or in SAFIRE (there is no neutral solar wind in either model), no relativistic positive inbound ions, and the spectrum of energies is different. In both cases there is a nett current flow between the electrodes which is not observed in the case of the Sun (and is impossible to sustain over time, otherwise the Sun would become more and more charged unsustainably).

[Michael Mozina]

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode not like the Sun's corona
1. It's a thousand times cooler ( a few thousand K versus a million K plus)

LOL! That's nothing but a 'scaling' issue, and in fact that atmosphere around the sphere (in both models) is significantly hotter than the outside electrode surface just as the sun's atmosphere is separated by temperature with the *hotter* layers outside and above the surface.

You can't even produce *that* much with your precious MRx model, particularly *sustaining* anything at significantly higher temperatures over time!

2. It's many orders of magnitude more dense

Yet that's still a scaling issue as well. It's no big deal.

3. It has a completely different emission spectrum particularly in short wavelengths

Well, perhaps so, but it depends on precisely what elements we work with, at precisely what temperatures.

4. It is *sustained* by a power supply plugged into a mains socket

The sun is an electrical generator in two of the three "electric sun" models, and it interacts with the rest of the circuity of the universe in all EU cosmology models. Every sun is ultimately "plugged into" it's surrounding plasma environment.

5. It has a nett current flow

You don't actually know what the net flow of current around the sun might be. You'd have to include all cosmic rays, all "strahl" electrons and do it from every area around the sun simultaneously, out into the heliosphere, and compare it over time to boot.

The cathode version even predicts all the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun.

No it doesn't.

Actually, yes it does. In fact Birkeland specifically and intentionally predicted that the sun emits *both* types of charged particles. SAFIRE (any anode model) wouldn't necessarily predict the same particle flow patterns around the sun, but it too would generate particle flow patterns.

Every single claim here is incorrect.

Which claim(s) might those be? You've yet to demonstrate that MRx is even an empirical alternative to circuit theory, let alone that it produces similar results in terms of atmospheric simulations of aurora and a corona.

Flow patterns are not correct in either the Terrella (which was never a solar model in the first place)

That's utterly false. In fact Birkeland specifically predicted that the sun emits both types of charged particles, as well as faster 'rays" (beams) of electrons. Both things have since been observed in satellite images, and both predictions were verified by observation.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sune ... trahl.html

These kinds of ridiculously false statements are what *assure* me that astronomers are essentially professionally incompetent when it comes to *understanding* anything other than their own pet models. You guys are *clueless* about the predictions of all the EU/PC models.

or in SAFIRE (there is no neutral solar wind in either model),

False. There's a "slower" and well as a 'faster' component of particle movement. The slower speed solar wind doesn't carry all the current, rather it's done by "electron beams" and "cosmic rays" that move much faster than solar wind particles.

I have no idea exactly how an anode model would generate particle flow patterns around itself, but I suspect it generates a complicated movement of particles around it.

no relativistic positive inbound ions,

Horse pucky. Cosmic rays travel at nearly the speed of light, and they are *overwhelmingly* positively charged. The sun is a known emitter of electron 'beams".

and the spectrum of energies is different. In both cases there is a nett current flow between the electrodes which is not observed in the case of the Sun (and is impossible to sustain over time, otherwise the Sun would become more and more charged unsustainably).

I think you guys all parrot the same false statements from the same lame references, none of which are *published*.

Every sun is *electro*mangetically interacting with the rest of the circuity of the universe, individual suns are not an electrical island unto itself.

You guys do *not* understand even the most basic elements of any EU/PC solar model, not a single one. You're completely out of your depth with respect to plasma physics which is why your industry continues to promote "pseudoscience" which is *woefully* incapable of *sustaining* million degree plasma over time.

[Higgsy]

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode not like the Sun's corona
1. It's a thousand times cooler ( a few thousand K versus a million K plus)

LOL! That's nothing but a 'scaling' issue

What? Say again? The difference between 1,000K and 1,000,000K is a "scaling " issue? You can't scale temperature, simply because different physics happens at different temperatures (and temperatures that are that different arise from different physics). Temperature is absolutely not, in any way, shape or form, a "scaling issue". How do you "scale" the physics from 1,000K to 1,000,000K

2. It's many orders of magnitude more dense

Yet that's still a scaling issue as well. It's no big deal.

Really? So you claim that a laboratory model for a plasma at one density is a great model to understand what happens in another several orders of less dense? It's a good thing you're not designing physics experiments for a living.

3. It has a completely different emission spectrum particularly in short wavelengths

Well, perhaps so, but it depends on precisely what elements we work with, at precisely what temperatures.

Exactly, which makes it a poor model for the Sun

4. It is *sustained* by a power supply plugged into a mains socket

The sun is an electrical generator in two of the three "electric sun" models, and it interacts with the rest of the circuity of the universe in all EU cosmology models. Every sun is ultimately "plugged into" it's surrounding plasma environment.

So you say (in passing, perhaps you could point me to a model of the Sun that "interacts with the rest of the circuity of the universe" in a way that prevents us from measuring the currents in that circuit commensurate with the Sun's power of 10^26W). But the real sun is not plugged into a mains socket delivering 10^26W, is it? Or maybe you have a quantified model for how the "surrounding plasma environment" generates 10^26W over billions of years. Don't forget, when preparing your model, that we've been there and measured the currents in the solar environement.

5. It has a nett current flow

You don't actually know what the net flow of current around the sun might be.

Not around the Sun. Into and out of the Sun.

The cathode version even predicts all the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun.

No it doesn't.

Actually, yes it does. In fact Birkeland specifically and intentionally predicted that the sun emits *both* types of charged particles.SAFIRE (any anode model) wouldn't necessarily predict the same particle flow patterns around the sun, but it too would generate particle flow patterns.

Birkeland never worked much on the Sun, other than predicting the electrons and ions in the aurora were generated by the Sun, and speculating that the Sun is powered by some sort of radioactivity. His terrella was designed for and limited to exploring the Earth's aurora. If you know different produce the reference. But that is the extent of his claims in his magnum opus. Furthemore neither the terrella nor SAFIRE have any inbound cosmic rays and with regard to SAFIRE, which is what I was talking about, it's spherically symmetric so it obviously doesn't model the latitude variations in particle speed and number.

Every single claim here is incorrect.

Which claim(s) might those be?

All your claims above for the accuracy of SAFIRE's modelling of, in your words, "the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun." Or have you forgotten we are discussing how unlike the Sun's corona the SAFIRE experiment is?

Flow patterns are not correct in either the Terrella (which was never a solar model in the first place)

That's utterly false.

It's utterly true. Have you read Birkeland? Where does he claim the terrella is a model for the Sun?

In fact Birkeland specifically predicted that the sun emits both types of charged particles, as well as faster 'rays" (beams) of electrons. Both things have since been observed in satellite images, and both predictions were verified by observation.

https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/sune ... trahl.html

These kinds of ridiculously false statements are what *assure* me that astronomers are essentially professionally incompetent when it comes to *understanding* anything other than their own pet models. You guys are *clueless* about the predictions of all the EU/PC models.

But we're not talking about "the predictions of all the EU/PC models". We're talking about how good the physical laboratory models (Birkeland's actual physical terrella and the SAFIRE experiment) are at modelling your actual Sun (not at all really). You seem to be moving the goalposts as we go down this post.

or in SAFIRE (there is no neutral solar wind in either model),

False. There's a "slower" and well as a 'faster' component of particle movement. The slower speed solar wind doesn't carry all the current, rather it's done by "electron beams" and "cosmic rays" that move much faster than solar wind particles.

Not in the plasma chambers of the terrella or the SAFIRE experiment, there isn't.

I have no idea exactly how an anode model would generate particle flow patterns around itself, but I suspect it generates a complicated movement of particles around it.

Really?...

no relativistic positive inbound ions,

Horse pucky.

In the plasma experiments?

and the spectrum of energies is different. In both cases there is a nett current flow between the electrodes which is not observed in the case of the Sun (and is impossible to sustain over time, otherwise the Sun would become more and more charged unsustainably).

I think you guys all parrot the same false statements from the same lame references, none of which are *published*.

Every sun is *electro*mangetically interacting with the rest of the circuity of the universe, individual suns are not an electrical island unto itself.

How do they maintain quasi-neutrality over cosmic time then?

You guys do *not* understand even the most basic elements of any EU/PC solar model, not a single one. You're completely out of your depth with respect to plasma physics

We are talking here about the physical laboratory models of the Sun not about theoretical models, but you seem to have forgotten that halfway through your reply. As for the understanding of plasma physics, claiming that physicists don't understand it (and by implication you do, hah!) is almost but not quite as utterly inane as saying physicists don't understand electromagnetism (but you do).

[paladin17]

Really? So you claim that a laboratory model for a plasma at one density is a great model to understand what happens in another several orders of less dense? It's a good thing you're not designing physics experiments for a living.

When we're talking about plasma behavior, density indeed can (and should) be scaled according to the differences in size of the laboratory setup and the studied system. Though one has to be careful because strictly speaking plasma phenomena are not completely scalable, and sometimes one has to sacrifice some of their aspects in order to properly gauge the others.
However, in the case of SAFIRE the investigators didn't seem to be concerned with these issues at all (see point 4 of my post at the v2.0 forum). In this case, if we naively assume P ~ \rho*T and have the same T in the chamber (which we don't, but whatever), then density should obviously also be orders of magnitude higher than in the solar corona. Alfven confirms this too.

[Higgsy]

When we're talking about plasma behavior, density indeed can (and should) be scaled according to the differences in size of the laboratory setup and the studied system. Though one has to be careful because strictly speaking plasma phenomena are not completely scalable, and sometimes one has to sacrifice some of their aspects in order to properly gauge the others.
However, in the case of SAFIRE the investigators didn't seem to be concerned with these issues at all (see point 4 of my post at the v2.0 forum). In this case, if we naively assume P ~ \rho*T and have the same T in the chamber (which we don't, but whatever), then density should obviously also be orders of magnitude higher than in the solar corona. Alfven confirms this too.

Thank you, your point is well made and the post in v2.0, which I hadn't seen before, is an excellent one.

[Michael Mozina]

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode not like the Sun's corona
1. It's a thousand times cooler ( a few thousand K versus a million K plus)

LOL! That's nothing but a 'scaling' issue

What? Say again? The difference between 1,000K and 1,000,000K is a "scaling " issue? You can't scale temperature, simply because different physics happens at different temperatures (and temperatures that are that different arise from different physics). Temperature is absolutely not, in any way, shape or form, a "scaling issue". How do you "scale" the physics from 1,000K to 1,000,000K

Well, for starters we "measure" the spectral output of something like a coronal loop, and determine the temperature required to produce ions with those specific ionization states. How do you figure they determine the temperatures of the plasma in various SDO satellite images?

Really? So you claim that a laboratory model for a plasma at one density is a great model to understand what happens in another several orders of less dense? It's a good thing you're not designing physics experiments for a living.

You know, I have no idea why you keep hurling personal insults into the discussion, but it's not helpful. Birkeland was able to achieve *many* of the same kinds of events in his models based on *circuit theory*, which we find in aurora and corona around objects in a "near vacuum".

Now of course in *current carrying* plasma, the filamentary processes generate regions of plasma which are 'relatively dense" and regions which are not.

Exactly, which makes it a poor model for the Sun

This is *exactly* why I think your entire industry is stuck in the 'dark ages' of metaphysical physics. It's an *excellent* laboratory simulation of the atmospheric processes of the sun and of the Earth. In fact, that's what "laboratory physics" is all about! You guys have *completely lost touch* with physical reality because you're *afraid* of it.

So you say (in passing, perhaps you could point me to a model of the Sun that "interacts with the rest of the circuity of the universe" in a way that prevents us from measuring the currents in that circuit commensurate with the Sun's power of 10^26W).

First we're going to have to decide how much "current" you expect to see in the first place. Is the sun generating *most*, some, or none of it's own power in your opinion?

But the real sun is not plugged into a mains socket delivering 10^26W, is it?

Where do you think it's "mains" are located? Birkeland imagined them to be *mostly* internal, though he would certainly have included cosmic rays as an "external" source of energy.

Or maybe you have a quantified model for how the "surrounding plasma environment" generates 10^26W over billions of years. Don't forget, when preparing your model, that we've been there and measured the currents in the solar environement.

Alfven "assumed" that fusion was the primary power source of a sun, and Birkeland also assumed an internal "transmutation of elements" was responsible for most of the sun's energy. Even an anode model would/could generate at least *some* of it's own power "locally", as is within the sun's atmosphere.

How did you decide how much current we would expect to observe, and which particle flow patterns we should be looking for? I'm going by Birkeland's original work, including his particle movement calculations.

You don't actually know what the net flow of current around the sun might be.

Not around the Sun. Into and out of the Sun.

You don't know that either.

Birkeland never worked much on the Sun, other than predicting the electrons and ions in the aurora were generated by the Sun, and speculating that the Sun is powered by some sort of radioactivity.

His discussion of his experiments with respect to solar physics begins on 661, and goes on for quite some time. Have you read his work for yourself, yes or no?

His terrella was designed for and limited to exploring the Earth's aurora.

It doesn't sound like you actually read his work for yourself. How do you explain all the dialog from page 661 through 721? How would you characterize the content of those specific pages? What does that math describe?

If you know different produce the reference.

https://archive.org/download/norwegiana ... ririch.pdf

But that is the extent of his claims in his magnum opus.

Apparently, like most astronomers, you seem to know very *little* about Birkeland's actual work. Have you even read it for yourself? Did you notice all those particle trajectory calculation in chapter 6 starting on page 661?

All your claims above for the accuracy of SAFIRE's modelling of, in your words, "the correct particle flow patterns of space, including a constant inbound bombardment by a positively charged "cosmic ray" field traveling at close to the speed of light, and electron beams and various particles streaming off the sun." Or have you forgotten we are discussing how unlike the Sun's corona the SAFIRE experiment is?

You're not listening to my statements. I didn't claim that SAFIRE produced "the correct particle flow patterns of space", I said *Birkeland* did that. I also acknowledged that SAFIRE's *anode* model (different from Birkeland's cathode) model would also produce a specific particle flow pattern around the sphere, which we would could use to *test* their model.

Flow patterns are not correct in either the Terrella (which was never a solar model in the first place)

That's a false statement Higgsy. Either intentionally or unintentionally you have disregarded over a full *century* of mathematics related to this topic and the particle trajectory calculations related to "solar wind" from EU solar models.

Where does he claim the terrella is a model for the Sun?

Page 661 and on, and he's also been quoted by the New York times describing his "cathode sun" model of a solar system.

But we're not talking about "the predictions of all the EU/PC models". We're talking about how good the physical laboratory models (Birkeland's actual physical terrella and the SAFIRE experiment) are at modelling your actual Sun (not at all really). You seem to be moving the goalposts as we go down this post.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m58-CfVrsN4

It's not only a "good" model, it's a *fantastic* model which immediately produces *two* highly important atmospheric observations, solar corona, and planetary aurora. A full *century* later you *still* cannot produce either of those observations based on "magnetic reconnection" models! What the hell is the problem with your physical model Higgsy?

Birkeland even found by introducing an electromagnetic field inside the core of the cathode that he could produce two distinct 'bands' of concentrated areas of electrical discharges in the solar atmosphere, just as we see in SDO images today during the sun's solar cycle.

or in SAFIRE (there is no neutral solar wind in either model),

Um, well certainly in Birkeland's *theoretical model*, and probably there are also some ions being pushed away from the cathode in some areas too. In fact Birkeland writes about the "soot" that builds up on the walls of his experiments as a result of the breakdown of the cathode.

Not in the plasma chambers of the terrella or the SAFIRE experiment, there isn't.

Both the electron beams from the sun and the positively charged cosmic rays are in fact observed in space. Birkeland's whole simulation and his laboratory simulation and model was based on the existence of "strahl" electrons inside the solar system, and inside of his experiments. He produced the "strahl" electrons, and ions too.

Really?...

Really. I've never really seen something like the math related to chapter six of Birkeland's book applied to an anode model. Have you? I suppose I could try it myself, but I'm not that interested frankly.

We are talking here about the physical laboratory models of the Sun not about theoretical models, but you seem to have forgotten that halfway through your reply.

You falsely said that Birkeland never worked much on the sun, so apparently you know very little about his lab work or his theoretical model.

As for the understanding of plasma physics, claiming that physicists don't understand it (and by implication you do, hah!) is almost but not quite as utterly inane as saying physicists don't understand electromagnetism (but you do).

The fact of the matter is that your entire industry continues to promote a physical/mathematical concept that Hannes Alfven called "pseudoscience' till the day he died, and *he* understood the physics of plasma and MHD theory. Worse yet, your collective laboratory efforts on "magnetic reconnection" have failed to be useful to simulate something as simple and as *rudimentary* as a sustained planetary aurora, or a sustained solar corona a full *century* after such things were shown to be related to "circuit theory", not "magnetic reconnection".

How do you explain your *collective* dismal laboratory track record Higgsy?

[Michael Mozina]

Really? So you claim that a laboratory model for a plasma at one density is a great model to understand what happens in another several orders of less dense? It's a good thing you're not designing physics experiments for a living.

When we're talking about plasma behavior, density indeed can (and should) be scaled according to the differences in size of the laboratory setup and the studied system. Though one has to be careful because strictly speaking plasma phenomena are not completely scalable, and sometimes one has to sacrifice some of their aspects in order to properly gauge the others.
However, in the case of SAFIRE the investigators didn't seem to be concerned with these issues at all (see point 4 of my post at the v2.0 forum). In this case, if we naively assume P ~ \rho*T and have the same T in the chamber (which we don't, but whatever), then density should obviously also be orders of magnitude higher than in the solar corona. Alfven confirms this too.

It's worth noting that in a *current carrying* environment, we end up with "plasma threading" going on, with densely packed filaments flowing through a relatively thin "atmosphere" around them. The fact that the mainstream treats the whole corona as being related to a single density and a single temperature demonstrates the overly-simplistic nature of the mainstream model. Essentially we see gigantic electrical discharge "currents' flowing all throughout a highly electrically active surface and through the upper atmosphere of the sun. The resistance to that current heats and sustains the high temperatures of those coronal loops, and the surrounding atmosphere. Just as discharges in the Earth's atmosphere can be at vastly greater temperatures than the rest of the Earth's atmosphere, the sun's corona need not be anywhere near as hot as the "magnetic ropes' (AKA Bennett Pinches) that traverse the corona.

[paladin17]

It's worth noting that in a *current carrying* environment, we end up with "plasma threading" going on, with densely packed filaments flowing through a relatively thin "atmosphere" around them.

Generally a good point, but this is not the case in the solar wind. It indeed may be represented as a bunch of flux tubes rather than a homogeneous "atmosphere", yet the tubes are indeed "densely packed" - but with respect to each other (some studies suggest that they map onto photospheric granules), meaning there is no "free" space in between them at all. Moreover, the diameter of these tubes at 1 a.u. is about 10^5 km, which is more than enough to consider them as a homogeneous medium - at least for the type of evaluation we're talking about here (i.e. how SAFIRE setup should compare to the solar situation).

[Higgsy]

Eugene pointed me to Alfven's guidelines for scaling solar phenomena to laboartory models, so in what follows, I have taken account of that. It doesn't resolve the mismatch between the models and the solar corona.

Secondly, I was originally commenting specifically on how poor a model for the Sun the SAFIRE experiment, so that's what I shall concentrate on, although much of it also applies to Birkeland's terella.

How is the plasma discharge round the SAFIRE electrode not like the Sun's corona
1. It's a thousand times cooler ( a few thousand K versus a million K plus)

LOL! That's nothing but a 'scaling' issue

What? Say again? The difference between 1,000K and 1,000,000K is a "scaling " issue? You can't scale temperature, simply because different physics happens at different temperatures (and temperatures that are that different arise from different physics). Temperature is absolutely not, in any way, shape of form, a "scaling issue". How do you "scale" the physics from 1,000K to 1,000,000K

Well, for starters we "measure" the spectral output of something like a coronal loop, and determine the temperature required to produce ions with those specific ionization states. How do you figure they determine the temperatures of the plasma in various SDO satellite images?

Your comment doesn't address the issue that to model the plasma, the temperature (mean particle energy) should be the same.

Birkeland was able to achieve *many* of the same kinds of events in his models based on *circuit theory*, which we find in aurora and corona around objects in a "near vacuum".

But still, as Eugene pointed out, the density of the gas in the model should scale as L^-1. Across the transition region of the sun, from 1000 to afew thousand km above the photosphere, the number density is 10^14 /cubic cm to 10^9/cubic cm which, if properly modelled would give model densities of 10^23 /cubic cm to 10^18/cubic cm for correct scaling, and this (taking the temperature in the model chamber into account with respect to 20C) is roughly about 0.01 atm to 1000 atm, far away from the actual model pressures.

Exactly, which makes it a poor model for the Sun

This is *exactly* why I think your entire industry is stuck in the 'dark ages' of metaphysical physics. It's an *excellent* laboratory simulation of the atmospheric processes of the sun and of the Earth.

But you are begging the question. It's not a good model for the Sun if the conditions are not comparable or have been scaled incorrectly.

So you say (in passing, perhaps you could point me to a model of the Sun that "interacts with the rest of the circuity of the universe" in a way that prevents us from measuring the currents in that circuit commensurate with the Sun's power of 10^26W).

First we're going to have to decide how much "current" you expect to see in the first place.

It's not my model. You tell me.

Is the sun generating *most*, some, or none of it's own power in your opinion?

My opinion doesn't matter to this question. In the electric Sun model(s), how is it powered, what is the process, and what do we observe? That's not for me to answer, but the proponents of the model(s). In any case, the output has to be 10^26W of radiant power.

But the real sun is not plugged into a mains socket delivering 10^26W, is it?

Where do you think it's "mains" are located? Birkeland imagined them to be *mostly* internal, though he would certainly have included cosmic rays as an "external" source of energy.

Again - you tell me. This has all come about because I was responding to someone else's claim that "SAFIRE is the one and ONLY completely viable experimentally proven formation of a Star". You then asked me to say "in what *important* ways does it resemble the sun", and I'm pointing out that it doesn't. At all.

Or maybe you have a quantified model for how the "surrounding plasma environment" generates 10^26W over billions of years. Don't forget, when preparing your model, that we've been there and measured the currents in the solar environement.

Alfven "assumed" that fusion was the primary power source of a sun, and Birkeland also assumed an internal "transmutation of elements" was responsible for most of the sun's energy. Even an anode model would/could generate at least *some* of it's own power "locally", as is within the sun's atmosphere.

So the answer is no. You don't have such a quantified model

Birkeland never worked much on the Sun, other than predicting the electrons and ions in the aurora were generated by the Sun, and speculating that the Sun is powered by some sort of radioactivity.

His discussion of his experiments with respect to solar physics begins on 661, and goes on for quite some time. Have you read his work for yourself, yes or no?

Yes I have read it. However, you are right and I am wrong and there is an extended discussion about the processes in the Sun in those pages of the book.

His terrella was designed for and limited to exploring the Earth's aurora.

It doesn't sound like you actually read his work for yourself. How do you explain all the dialog from page 661 through 721?

I overlooked it, and the claims I made about him not using the terella for studying solar features and not studying the Sun much were wrong. I have no defence other than to say that I was concentrating when reading the book a few years ago on his work on the terrestrial aurora.

But we're not talking about "the predictions of all the EU/PC models". We're talking about how good the physical laboratory models (Birkeland's actual physical terrella and the SAFIRE experiment) are at modelling your actual Sun (not at all really). You seem to be moving the goalposts as we go down this post.

It's not only a "good" model, it's a *fantastic* model which immediately produces *two* highly important atmospheric observations, solar corona, and planetary aurora.

I give you the latter (planetary aurora). You'll have to justify the former (solar corona), as we have seen that these physical models do not scale well to solar conditions; but then Birkeland's work pre-dated Alfven's by a long time, so he wasn't to know that. Neither experiment, SAFIRE nor Birkeland's terrella, are good models for the Sun overall, lacking in many important solar features and being improperly scaled.

What exactly do you think today's solar physicists should learn about what solar features from Birkeland's terrella?