Debunking Dave

[Michael Mozina]

Fine. We agree there is current. So does Alfven. So this isn't really one of those conditions which invalidate the scaling laws. Are there others, or can we agree the scaling laws are correct?

Scaling things like size, voltage, amperage and temperature might be relatively easy for us to agree on, but not necessarily "duration".

Why not?

Well for starters you were lumping coronal loop duration into the exact same category as a "solar flare". They aren't the same duration. The coronal loops can and do last for days and weeks on end above "active regions", whereas solar flares are typically associated with short duration "electrical discharges" in the solar atmosphere as James Dungey first described it.

I didn't say his life's work is of little or no value, and I don't think it. I said, and it's still there above for you to check, that "so far as Birkeland's solar lab model is concerned, any resemblance between it and actual observations is purely coincidental and of little or no value", and I stand by that.

You seem like an intelligent individual, but when you say things like this, it's quite clear that you don't have a lick of common sense.

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

Before you is a *working simulation* of not only *sustained* high speed (strahl) solar wind particles from the sun, but a planetary aurora, a solar corona, short bust "electrical discharges", in the solar atmosphere, cathode rays, etc. When you blow it off with nothing but a handwave, I can't help but realize that you've completely detached from what I would describe as "physical reality". Here's a particle flow pattern before you that *highly* resembles the solar atmosphere, and you're not even willing to put in any real time and effort into understanding it properly, and seeing how it applies to solar atmospheric physics today.

You can't even produce a *sustained* particle flow pattern of any sort with "magnetic reconnection" *without* sustaining the process with "electrical current". You can't simulate any of this based on what Alfven describes as MHD "pseudoscience' till the day he died. It doesn't seem to bother you one iota that your physically incapable of replicating of this with magnetism and MHD theory in a *real lab experiment*.

How do you figure he came up with various values (like solar voltage) that he posited?

He calculated it on p665, using an oversimplified idea and making an ill-justified assumption about the Sun's magnetic field. It is not a consequence at all of his lab model so far as I can see.

It is a 'ballpark figure' that is a direct consequence of pretty much everything he learned in the lab, and from the various in-situ measurements he took of the course of his lifetime. It's essentially the culmination of his lifetime's worth of hard, and often dangerous physical work and his lifetime of mathematical work.

What makes you think duration is any different from the other parameters. Either you are saying only steady state phenomena are of relevance, in which case we can ignore all transient phenomena; or you are saying transient phenomena are relevant in which case you can't say anything about them from observations of the model, because you haven't observed the model over the correct timescales.

I'm saying that you cannot begin such a discussion by proclaiming that coronal loops and solar flares are similar duration events! They're not.

]No they absolutely haven't. No-one has ever in the history of the Universe ever modelled an entire Sun in the lab to any degree of accuracy.

Without simulating fusion ("transmutation of elements") in the lab, Birkeland simulated every other relevant feature of solar physics and planetary physics, right down to the whole cause of things like aurora and "sprites" and such. You're *at least* a full century behind in the lab with MRx, compared to circuit theory. When are you going to embrace circuit theory Higgsy? You do realize it's an *equally* mathematically viable way to do physics, and it *works* in the lab?

Well first of all you have repeated the claim that being bombarded by positively charged particles causes the Sun to be negatively charged at the surface (I have bolded your words above, so that people can see exactly what you wrote, so you can't accuse me yet again of making strawmen); and secondly, you are still obfuscating - I do not know, and no-one knows, what this "electrical interaction" between the Sun and the so-called positively charged space actually means in practice, whether it is significant or not, until you quantify it. Until then, you are handwaving.

Pure deflection and nonsense. My personal beliefs, and/or any calculations that I might personally whip up for you on command are *purely inconsequential* scientifically speaking. You can (and should) calculate them for yourself, *properly*. By properly I mean to figure out how much positive "current" we have flowing into the sun from the universe via cosmic rays, you'd have to calculate the *total flux* through the *heliosphere* (not at the solar surface) over time. The average speed and energy state of the cosmic rays as they enter the heliosphere would have to be considered.

Assuming the sun *is* gravitationally separated at the negatively charged surface as the mainstream assumes, you might be able to figure out how that positively charged current at the heliosphere is offset by "cathode rays"/electron beams (as NASA describes them) streaming away from the surface toward the heliosphere.

If you won't be bothered to do the work for yourself, don't expect me to be your personal math mommy on command.

Because this business of the cosmic rays is your claim, not theirs and this is about your claim, not theirs.

No, it's not 'my' claim. Comic rays are *measured*, both here near the Earth, *and* out by both Voyager spacecraft, and the amount of cosmic rays *entering* the solar atmosphere has to be offset by the electron "strahl* electrons that rush out to meet them in the upper solar atmosphere. The cosmic ray flux is significantly higher in the 'upper solar atmosphere" (out by the heliosphere).

Still obfuscating. You have made a claim. Birkeland didn't make the claim.

False. Birkeland made all sorts of "claims" and he made all sorts of "key assumptions" in his model, starting with a 'positively charged space" surrounding a "cathode" solar surface. His predictions are absolutely relevant, not mine. Why are you trying to *personalize* the conversation in the first place? I'm simply noting what we've learned from satellites in space over the last century.

Alfven didn't make the claim. It is your claim, and you should justify it. You keep bleating that "our whole solar system is being constantly bombarded by positively charged cosmic rays, traveling at near the speed of light.", and you also claim that means that space is positively charged wrt the Sun. I'm asking for your calculation to support your claim. Put numbers on the electric field generated at the Sun by the cosmic ray flux or by the charge density of cosmic rays near the Sun. The question is whether that flux leads to anything that is physically significant, or whether the absence of cosmic rays would make any difference at all to the Sun - until you quantify it, no-one knows. And if you can't quantify it, we can assume you're just blustering.

Er, assuming even all of that were actually true, why would *my* beliefs and or math skills make a rat's ass of difference to you from a "scientific curiosity' perspective? Mathematically speaking, wouldn't you be more qualified to do that in the first place? What numbers do *you* come up with?

I see that you copped to your error with respect to my previous statements so I simply skipped that part.

Here's what blows me away Higgsy. *None* of your mathematical beliefs actually "work in the lab" to generate even so much as a sustained planetary aurora. Your 'dark matter' nonsense is about as metaphysical (unfalsifiable) mumbo-jumbo as it gets, and none of it is compatible with the standard model of particle physics, *the* single most successful physical model in the history of particle physics today.

Instead of lifting finger to educate yourself on these topics, you expect me to do it all for you. Why? Have you even read Birklend's *entirely* two set volume yet? Yes or no? Have you read Alfven's book "Cosmic Plasma"? Yes or no? Have you read Peratt's book "physics of the plasma universe" yet? Yes or no?

*These* are the best mathematical references I can think of Higgsy, so if the answer to any of those questions is 'no', you aren't really interested in the math in the first place.

[Michael Mozina]

I understand your point, and I can understand that currents in a planetary bow shock might preferentially flow parallel to the shock front (and the magnetic field drapes around the front), but is this true for plasma shock fronts in general? Planetary bow shocks are relatively local disruptions of the solar wind by the planet. Surprisingly, the magnetic field at the heliopause does not seem to drape according to Pioneer measurements, and the flow becomes turbulent and stalled near the heliopause. An SNR shock on the other hand involves fast radial outflows of matter which encounter ISM gases on a large scale. Certainly, young SNRs display radial magnetic fields. I suppose the post-shock turbulence might be expected to give rise to some tangential currents, but I don't expect strong tangential currents pre-shock or at the shock itself, which is what is being imaged here.

However, like you, I haven't studied plasma shock in detail, and I can't rule out tangential currents, but I still think that what we are seeing in that small area is an artefact not a current filament, especially as it has the same properties as the surrounding material.

Indeed it is a really curious anomaly that V's have found - the toroidal character of the field even beyond the heliopause. I am reminded that there are at least 3 different models of the heliosphere's shape in the first place (1 - "comet-like", 2 - "spherical", 3 - "croissant"), and we have little idea of what goes on with it in a large scheme of things (there is an often overlooked question of "open magnetic field lines" from coronal holes - where and how exactly do they close? etc.). I also remember recent PSP finding of a higher angular momentum (~ tangential plasma velocity) being detected closer to the Sun than previously assumed - people are very worried that it is not viable on Byr timescales (too much angular momentum would be lost). Perhaps it is somehow related to this extra toroidal-ness a bit beyond our bubble, though at this point it's anybody's guess.

Regarding shocks, I can only repeat what I said previously (also, the link I took from the neighboring topic shows that Martian bow shock's sheet behaves in a similar manner - see Fig. 4). And maybe add that in general current sheets arise between regions of different magnetization (I would expect SN cavity and surrounding medium to fit here) and/or temperature (same) and maybe something else too. And simply by definition I can't really envision a "sheet" where the current would be flowing perpendicular to the "sheet" itself - it doesn't really make sense to me. But that's more on a rhetorical side, perhaps.

It's all "rhetorical" in the sense that all if it is specifically designed to eliminate any and all discussion of *electro*magnetic events in space. "Shocks", "sheets", shapes and such are all related to the flow of current through plasma double layers. Essentially astronomers are about as "electrophobic" as humanly possible when it comes to using circuit theory in space.

[Higgsy]

Fine. We agree there is current. So does Alfven. So this isn't really one of those conditions which invalidate the scaling laws. Are there others, or can we agree the scaling laws are correct?

Scaling things like size, voltage, amperage and temperature might be relatively easy for us to agree on, but not necessarily "duration".

Why not?

Well for starters you were lumping coronal loop duration into the exact same category as a "solar flare". They aren't the same duration. The coronal loops can and do last for days and weeks on end above "active regions", whereas solar flares are typically associated with short duration "electrical discharges" in the solar atmosphere as James Dungey first described it.

Whatever the duration of event on the Sun the model demands that we scale it down by a factor of a billion plus and they have simply not interogated the lab models at those timescales.

I didn't say his life's work is of little or no value, and I don't think it. I said, and it's still there above for you to check, that "so far as Birkeland's solar lab model is concerned, any resemblance between it and actual observations is purely coincidental and of little or no value", and I stand by that.

Before you is a *working simulation* of not only *sustained* high speed (strahl) solar wind particles from the sun, but a planetary aurora, a solar corona, short bust "electrical discharges", in the solar atmosphere, cathode rays, etc.

No, none of those things are analogous to processes on the Sun in such a way that we can derive quantitative insight from them. They are plasma phenomena appearing on the surface of a metal globe artificially magnetised and energised by a voltage supply, which is totally unlike the Sun in almost every respect (in addition to the scaling issues) and any similarity between the phenomena qualitatively observed by Birkeland (and SAFIRE and anyone else's lab solar model to date) and the actual phenomena at the Sun is purely coincidental. So far as the Sun goes, Birkeland's work is of mild historical interest and no more (this is not true of his work on the aurorae which is genuinely insightful).

You can't simulate any of this based on what Alfven describes as MHD "pseudoscience' till the day he died.

The Blessed Alfven fallacy.

How do you figure he came up with various values (like solar voltage) that he posited?

He calculated it on p665, using an oversimplified idea and making an ill-justified assumption about the Sun's magnetic field. It is not a consequence at all of his lab model so far as I can see.

It is a 'ballpark figure' that is a direct consequence of pretty much everything he learned in the lab, and from the various in-situ measurements he took of the course of his lifetime. It's essentially the culmination of his lifetime's worth of hard, and often dangerous physical work and his lifetime of mathematical work.

How can you possibly claim that. The ONLY justification of his assumption for the voltage at the Sun is on that page and is disposed of in less than five lines of text, without reference to any other consideration.

Well first of all you have repeated the claim that being bombarded by positively charged particles causes the Sun to be negatively charged at the surface (I have bolded your words above, so that people can see exactly what you wrote, so you can't accuse me yet again of making strawmen); and secondly, you are still obfuscating - I do not know, and no-one knows, what this "electrical interaction" between the Sun and the so-called positively charged space actually means in practice, whether it is significant or not, until you quantify it. Until then, you are handwaving.

My personal beliefs, and/or any calculations that I might personally whip up for you on command are *purely inconsequential* scientifically speaking.

Of course your beliefs about science are purely inconsequential. Nevertheless, you keep making a claim about the importance of cosmic rays to the operation of the Sun, and I am simply asking you to quantify your claim to see whether it is, indeed, significant. I am not asking for anything different from what I would ask a collegue if he or she made the same claim. That's how science is done. If you just want to tell stories about how you'd like the Universe to be, do carry on.

You can (and should) calculate them for yourself, *properly*. By properly I mean to figure out how much positive "current" we have flowing into the sun from the universe via cosmic rays, you'd have to calculate the *total flux* through the *heliosphere* (not at the solar surface) over time. The average speed and energy state of the cosmic rays as they enter the heliosphere would have to be considered.

Of course, those considerations in making the calculation are important. But it is your claim so it is for you to make the calculation, not for me. That's what physicists do - they check whether their claims make any quantitative sense before they go public with them. Why would I do the quantitative sanity check for your claim?

Because this business of the cosmic rays is your claim, not theirs and this is about your claim, not theirs.

No, it's not 'my' claim.

Yes it is. It is your unique claim that cosmic rays do something (I don't know what exactly because you have been incoherent about it so far) esssential to the Sun's processes. I don't know anyone else who thinks that. It is your unique idea, and yours to defend.

Comic rays are *measured*, both here near the Earth, *and* out by both Voyager spacecraft, and the amount of cosmic rays *entering* the solar atmosphere has to be offset by the electron "strahl* electrons that rush out to meet them in the upper solar atmosphere.

And so what?

The cosmic ray flux is significantly higher in the 'upper solar atmosphere" (out by the heliosphere).

It's higher outside the heliopause.

Still obfuscating. You have made a claim. Birkeland didn't make the claim. Alfven didn't make the claim. It is your claim, and you should justify it. You keep bleating that "our whole solar system is being constantly bombarded by positively charged cosmic rays, traveling at near the speed of light.", and you also claim that means that space is positively charged wrt the Sun. I'm asking for your calculation to support your claim. Put numbers on the electric field generated at the Sun by the cosmic ray flux or by the charge density of cosmic rays near the Sun. The question is whether that flux leads to anything that is physically significant, or whether the absence of cosmic rays would make any difference at all to the Sun - until you quantify it, no-one knows. And if you can't quantify it, we can assume you're just blustering.

Er, assuming even all of that were actually true, why would *my* beliefs and or math skills make a rat's ass of difference to you from a "scientific curiosity' perspective? Mathematically speaking, wouldn't you be more qualified to do that in the first place? What numbers do *you* come up with?

It hasn't got anything to do with math skills - I can't see you'd need anything other than adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. This is a claim you make over and over, and you won't or can't justify it. If you hadn't made and repeated the claim many times, I wouldn't press you on it, but as you have, I am pressing you.

If you decline to do the work to see whether cosmic rays are significant in the Sun's processes (ie would it make any difference to the Sun if the cosmic rays were switched off), that's fine, but then stop making the claim.

ETA:

the amount of cosmic rays *entering* the solar atmosphere has to be offset by the electron "strahl* electrons that rush out to meet them in the upper solar atmosphere

Can you say definitively that it is the solar wind electron flux that is the cause for the reduction in cosmic ray flux across the heliopause?

[Cargo]

There is no Wind in space.

[JHL]

It's all "rhetorical" in the sense that all if it is specifically designed to eliminate any and all discussion of *electro* magnetic events in space.

It's worth pointing out, especially in times like these, that various forms of intellectual dishonesty are fundamentally different than passive mistakes or incorrect theory. Squelching speech, especially with personal attacks, deserves - demands - to be called out for what it is.

[paladin17]

It's all "rhetorical" in the sense that all if it is specifically designed to eliminate any and all discussion of *electro*magnetic events in space. "Shocks", "sheets", shapes and such are all related to the flow of current through plasma double layers.

This is wrong. Current sheets and double layers are unrelated phenomena and arise for different reasons under different conditions.
(There may be double layers in a current sheet though - which only reinforces my point).

[Michael Mozina]

Whatever the duration of event on the Sun the model demands that we scale it down by a factor of a billion plus and they have simply not interogated the lab models at those timescales.

They certainly *have* been scaled to size for *circuit* theory, and working circuit theory based models have been studied in real laboratory experiments for more than a full century. What's your lame excuse?

In fact we can see quite a few important solar and planetary particle flow patterns produced by circuit theory in the lab, including solar "strahl" electron flow (a *huge* deal), *sustained* planetary aurora (another important simulation), a sustained full sphere solar corona, and short duration "electrical discharges" in the plasma at the surface just like the electrical discharges described by James Dungey in relationship to solar flares. I have no idea what lame excuse you're hiding behind with respect to MRx theory, but circuit theory is *easily* scalable and can and has been studied quite successfully in the lab for more than a full century Higgsy. It's produced plasma to temperatures in labs in Earth which rival or exceed temperatures and densities seen in solar flares, at least for short periods of time.

Before you is a *working simulation* of not only *sustained* high speed (strahl) solar wind particles from the sun, but a planetary aurora, a solar corona, short bust "electrical discharges", in the solar atmosphere, cathode rays, etc.

No, none of those things are analogous to processes on the Sun in such a way that we can derive quantitative insight from them.

This statement is absolutely false, unbelievably false, and physically demonstrated *to be false* in the lab experiments themselves. Not only are they analogous, they are *physically related* phenomenon. The lab experiments are simply a "small scale space". They are based on circuit theory and they produce sustained high speed solar strahl electrons *right out of the box*. You can't even do that much with "magnetic reconnection".

They are plasma phenomena appearing on the surface of a metal globe

In terms of the application of circuit theory, the makeup of the electrode conductor is pretty much irrelevant. It simply has to conduct current, be it a plasma or a solid.

artificially magnetised

What does the phrase "artificially" mean to you exactly, and how did you intend to produce magnetic fields in plasma exactly?

and energised by a voltage supply,

The "supply" in Birkeland's cathode solar model is essentially a continuous "transmuation of elements" occurring inside the sun, or what we'd call "fusion" today.

which is totally unlike the Sun in almost every respect

It's virtually *exactly* like the sun in every important theoretical respect.

(in addition to the scaling issues) and any similarity between the phenomena qualitatively observed by Birkeland (and SAFIRE and anyone else's lab solar model to date) and the actual phenomena at the Sun is purely coincidental.

This is simply flat out personal denial as far as I can tell. You don't have a single working simulation of *any* important physical solar system particle flow process based on "magnetic reconnection", yet you ignorantly and trivially thumb your nose at a *working* laboratory model!

So far as the Sun goes, Birkeland's work is of mild historical interest and no more (this is not true of his work on the aurorae which is genuinely insightful).

It's extremely clear from our discussions that you understand almost *nothing* about Birkeland's model.

You can't simulate any of this based on what Alfven describes as MHD "pseudoscience' till the day he died.

The Blessed Alfven fallacy.

You missed the whole point. If Alfven was wrong about MRx being 'pseudoscience', you'd already have *working simulations* of your claims which produce these same solar system features based on your beloved MRx models already. The fact that you cannot physically replicate *any* of these important *sustained* solar physics and planetary phenomenon based on "magnetic reconnection" in a lab experiment today only reinforces Alfven's position on this topic. When can I expect to see you rectify that problem Higgsy?

How can you possibly claim that.

Well, because I've actually read Birkeland's book pretty much cover to cover, including his descriptions of the Herculean efforts that he made to actually measure the Earth's magnetic fields near the surface during solar storms, and how he compares those measurements to his experiments. I think you skimmed too much of his work. You missed a lot of the important physical details related to his model.

The ONLY justification of his assumption for the voltage at the Sun is on that page and is disposed of in less than five lines of text, without reference to any other consideration.

Which specific five lines of text are you fixated on exactly?

Of course your beliefs about science are purely inconsequential. Nevertheless, you keep making a claim about the importance of cosmic rays to the operation of the Sun,.....

You keep ignoring (actually misrepresenting) the fact that It's not *my* prediction to start with!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Birkeland

It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. — Kristian Birkeland 1913[7]:720

What exactly does that statement mean to you Higgsy? What do you think he meant by this quote with respect to flying ions in space when combined with the prediction that he made that the vast majority of the mass of the universe was not located in stars, but rather most of the physical mass of the universe located in those "flying electric ions" in space he described? His *entire physical model* is based on the concept of a cathode sun which is electrically interacting with a positively charged "space" which is literally filled with flying electric ions. His model not only "predicts" the existence of flying electric cosmic ray ions in space, it *requires* them.

Stop claiming this is *my* idea! Either you don't understand his model, or you're intentionally misrepresenting it and his own published statements to boot.

and I am simply asking you to quantify your claim to see whether it is, indeed, significant.

It's evidently significant enough to produce the expected results in space that mirror exactly what we see in the lab.

I am not asking for anything different from what I would ask a collegue if he or she made the same claim. That's how science is done. If you just want to tell stories about how you'd like the Universe to be, do carry on.

Pfft. No "science", as it real *working physical science* is done in the lab, and the math is an added bonus, which Birkeland actually produced in terms of particle flow patterns from the sun in his volume of work on this topic. All the key elements are found in his book.

Of course, those considerations in making the calculation are important. But it is your claim so it is for you to make the calculation, not for me. That's what physicists do - they check whether their claims make any quantitative sense before they go public with them. Why would I do the quantitative sanity check for your claim?

I don't need a mathematical 'sanity check' for my claim in the first place because I can see that the model actually works in the lab and produces the key physical features that I see in solar system physics, starting with continuous strahl electron flow from the sun. You can't do a "sanity" check on MRx theory because you can't produce *any* of those key features with your MRx model in any actual lab experiment on Earth.

It hasn't got anything to do with math skills - I can't see you'd need anything other than adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. This is a claim you make over and over, and you won't or can't justify it. If you hadn't made and repeated the claim many times, I wouldn't press you on it, but as you have, I am pressing you.

Dude, you aren't even close to being in the right mathematical ballpark yet if you *honestly* believe that this is a simple MDSA math problem. You'll need to be looking at the surface integrals over time to estimate the amount of positive ions which are continuously passing through the solar heliosphere at the distances that we've "measured" them with Voyager.

http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/ma ... /flux.html

If you decline to do the work to see whether cosmic rays are significant in the Sun's processes (ie would it make any difference to the Sun if the cosmic rays were switched off), that's fine, but then stop making the claim.

I can see for myself that it's a significant enough number to drive all the predicted electrical processes that we see in solar coronas, solar discharges in solar flares (Dungey), solar strahl, etc. I really don't care that much about the figure at the moment. If you do, go right ahead and calculate it for yourself and show your work, but you're *definitely* going to need a *minimum* of calculus to describe it, and you'll need to describe it in terms of electrical flux across the surface of the solar heliosphere. Furthermore, it's actual physical shape is not even perfectly round to begin with. It's a *much* more complicated mathematical and physical problem than you ignorantly imagine it to be I'm afraid.

the amount of cosmic rays *entering* the solar atmosphere has to be offset by the electron "strahl* electrons that rush out to meet them in the upper solar atmosphere

Can you say definitively that it is the solar wind electron flux that is the cause for the reduction in cosmic ray flux across the heliopause?

Ultimately if you intend to argue that the solar atmospheric environment is essentially "quasi-neutral" on whole, then you'll need to offset those inbound high speed positively charged ions with something!

The fact you are so blissfully unaware of the *complexities* of the issue simply demonstrates the extreme ignorance of the actual physics problem you're asking for. You clearly don't understand the first thing about his cathode solar model Higgsy.

[Michael Mozina]

It's all "rhetorical" in the sense that all if it is specifically designed to eliminate any and all discussion of *electro*magnetic events in space. "Shocks", "sheets", shapes and such are all related to the flow of current through plasma double layers.

This is wrong. Current sheets and double layers are unrelated phenomena and arise for different reasons under different conditions.
(There may be double layers in a current sheet though - which only reinforces my point).

Alfven's ultimate objection to MRx theory is the fact that induction inside of a conductor (like a plasma) as a result of magnetic field/flux changes over time already adequately and scientifically/mathematically explain the particle movement changes that occur as a result of those magnetic topology changes to a conductor. Anywhere and everywhere that the mainstream uses MRx to describe various high energy plasma in space, Alfven used circuit theory and explosive double layers in plasma to explain things like solar flares, without any need to "invent' a whole new concept like 'magnetic reconnection" out of whole clothe.

From my talks with astronomers on the internet, I don't believe but save perhaps for a very small handful of them, could correctly publicly explain a solar flare according to Hannes Alfven, or a whole solar model like Alfven's solar model based on circuit theory. I don't think but a handful of them have ever read Birkeland's volume of work for themselves, and I've yet to meet one that understood Birkeland's solar model properly. That's a sad fact I'm afraid.

The other "dead give away" and the most important scientific inadequacy of "magnetic reconnection theory" is it's inability to *sustain* any high temperature plasma for reasonably long periods of time, like over hours and days, in a real lab experiment and, produce solar atmospheric "discharge" flares based on MRx models. If their MRx ideas won't physically work in any plausible manner in a real lab experiment to reproduce what circuit theory has already beautifully explained and simulated for more than a century with respect to solar system particle physics, then it has little or no practical value to events on the sun, or anywhere else for that matter.

Show me that their MRx ideas work in the lab to produce *sustained* high temperature plasma and *then* I'll be interested in looking at their mathematical 3D models of "reconnection" . Until then, it's a big fat mathematical disaster IMO, much like 'dark matter'. I have no use for shy in the lab metaphysical fudge factors if it can't replicate something that circuit theory has done for more than a full century.

Having said that, "assuming" that 'magneto" dynamics ever fully incorporate "electricity" into it's models, and evolves in something like 'electromagnetohydrodynamics", it might evolve into a field of particle physics research that could switch back and forth and live congruently and happily with 'circuit" theory. The math might be very useful in predicting some particle interactions in light plasma like we see in the solar corona.

[paladin17]

The "supply" in Birkeland's cathode solar model is essentially a continuous "transmuation of elements" occurring inside the sun, or what we'd call "fusion" today.

Just curious: how would that happen? You assume that fusion breaks charge conservation?
Or why else would there be a potential difference generated by it?

[Higgsy]

The "supply" in Birkeland's cathode solar model is essentially a continuous "transmuation of elements" occurring inside the sun, or what we'd call "fusion" today.

Just curious: how would that happen? You assume that fusion breaks charge conservation?
Or why else would there be a potential difference generated by it?

Birkeland wondered that too:

"It seems a natural thing, however, to connect the creation of this tension [600MV] with the sun's radiation
of light and heat. But as MAXWELL'S electro-magnetic light theory at present stands, there is no direct opportunity of assuming that light-energy is carried over into electric energy, and that for that reason the rays of light are absorbed into space.

It is thought by several that Maxwell's equations require a correcting term."

Needless to say, no such correcting term which allows the conversion of electromagnetic energy into the breaking of charge conservation has been found to be required.

[Cargo]

The Higgs still grasping at straws I see. I think it's clear that the vast majority of energy in the universe is not of the 'light' variety. Try reading it again.

Maybe it's just Dark Energy!! DahDUmmm. Pfftt

[Higgsy]

Whatever the duration of event on the Sun the model demands that we scale it down by a factor of a billion plus and they have simply not interogated the lab models at those timescales.

They certainly *have* been scaled to size for *circuit* theory, and working circuit theory based models have been studied in real laboratory experiments for more than a full century.

Lab models of the Sun produced by Birkeland and SAFIRE are both woefully inadequate to represent any phenomena in the Sun in a way that gives us any quantitative information or insight at all. None of the critical parameters, timescale, magnetic field, temperature, plasma density, pressure, total current, current density and so on are properly scaled according to Alfven's clearly stated rules for scaling plasmas. The sun is represented by a metal electrode which cannot behave in any way representative of material flow in the convective zone or the photosphere. Birkeland's model is artificially magnetised, not magnetised by the naturally occurring flow of plasma, and SAFIRE is not magnetised at all. In both cases there is a net current which is totally unlike the net neutral solar wind. In both cases the experiment is powered by a DC potential between the electrode representing the Sun and the walls of the chamber, which creates an electric field when no such electric field has been shown to exist in the vicinity of the Sun, and no viable process has been suggested for creating and maintaining such a potential. Both models lack the effect of a central gravitational force, which is important to understanding the kinematics of electrons and positive ions escaping the corona to form the solar wind.

Birkeland's model, while of some historical interest has nothing to tell us quantitatively although it might have some superficial resemblance to limited aspects of the Sun. SAFIRE was a complete disaster and really has nothing at all to say about the Sun. In both cases, the obvious differences between the lab models and the reality, along with the improper scaling invalidate the models as predictors of anything quantitative.

They are plasma phenomena appearing on the surface of a metal globe

In terms of the application of circuit theory, the makeup of the electrode conductor is pretty much irrelevant. It simply has to conduct current, be it a plasma or a solid.

Yes, which demonstrates the inadequacy of circuit theory on its own to properly explain and predict solar processes.

You can't simulate any of this based on what Alfven describes as MHD "pseudoscience' till the day he died.

The Blessed Alfven fallacy.

You missed the whole point. If Alfven was wrong about MRx being 'pseudoscience', you'd already have *working simulations* of your claims which produce these same solar system features based on your beloved MRx models already.

That's a fallacy. Alfven himself pointed out that lab models of complete cosmic phenomena cannot be achieved and should not be pursued.

The ONLY justification of his assumption for the voltage at the Sun is on that page and is disposed of in less than five lines of text, without reference to any other consideration.

Which specific five lines of text are you fixated on exactly?

I am not fixated, and it's the five lines of text on p665 where he justifies his proposal for a voltage of 600MV by reference to a formula in M Abrahams Theory of Electricity. Although he tries to explain how this 600MV could arise, there is no other justification for suggesting 600MV.

Of course your beliefs about science are purely inconsequential. Nevertheless, you keep making a claim about the importance of cosmic rays to the operation of the Sun,.....

You keep ignoring (actually misrepresenting) the fact that It's not *my* prediction to start with!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kristian_Birkeland

It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. — Kristian Birkeland 1913[7]:720

What exactly does that statement mean to you Higgsy? What do you think he meant by this quote with respect to flying ions in space when combined with the prediction that he made that the vast majority of the mass of the universe was not located in stars, but rather most of the physical mass of the universe located in those "flying electric ions" in space he described? His *entire physical model* is based on the concept of a cathode sun which is electrically interacting with a positively charged "space" which is literally filled with flying electric ions. His model not only "predicts" the existence of flying electric cosmic ray ions in space, it *requires* them.

That's yout post-hoc interpretation of Birkeland's position (which references both electrons and ions). Birkeland never referenced the existence of cosmic rays, and you cannot show me a single quote from him which would justify your implication that he ever held your idea that cosmic rays have some important role in the Sun's processes. For example he talks about the negative charge on the Sun being created by an excess of electron (negative!) current flowing into the Sun, or an excess of a positive ion current flowing out of the Sun. At no point does he suggest that energetic postive ions arising from outside the solar system are important to the Sun's processes. No it's your idea, pure and simple, and yours to defend or abandon.

and I am simply asking you to quantify your claim to see whether it is, indeed, significant.

It's evidently significant enough to produce the expected results in space that mirror exactly what we see in the lab.

It's quite clear from this that you don't understand the results of Birkeland's model. Perhaps you should read his book. What we see in Birkeland's model is a net current from the cathode, which is hardly an exact mirror for the neutral solar wind. It tells us absolutely nothing about the significance of the cosmic rays, because it doesn't model them.

I am not asking for anything different from what I would ask a colleague if he or she made the same claim. That's how science is done. If you just want to tell stories about how you'd like the Universe to be, do carry on.

Pfft. No "science", as it real *working physical science* is done in the lab,

No. You as a non-physicist, don't get to dictate to physicists how physics is done.

...and the math is an added bonus,

Quantification and mathematical descriptions are never "added bonuses" in physics. They are essential in every case as physics is a science which quantifies natural phenomena. Perhaps you were thinking of stamp collecting. You have made a unique claim, which is yours and yours alone, that cosmic rays are important to solar processes. I say you are wrong, and I challenge you to do the sanity check calculations that any physicist worth his salt would already have done before making the claim.

Of course, those considerations in making the calculation are important. But it is your claim so it is for you to make the calculation, not for me. That's what physicists do - they check whether their claims make any quantitative sense before they go public with them. Why would I do the quantitative sanity check for your claim?

I don't need a mathematical 'sanity check' for my claim in the first place because I can see that the model actually works in the lab and produces the key physical features that I see in solar system physics, starting with continuous strahl electron flow from the sun.

The lab model does not contain any analogue of cosmic rays so it has nothing to say about your claim that cosmic rays are important to the Sun's processes.

It hasn't got anything to do with math skills - I can't see you'd need anything other than adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. This is a claim you make over and over, and you won't or can't justify it. If you hadn't made and repeated the claim many times, I wouldn't press you on it, but as you have, I am pressing you.

Dude, you aren't even close to being in the right mathematical ballpark yet if you *honestly* believe that this is a simple MDSA math problem. You'll need to be looking at the surface integrals over time to estimate the amount of positive ions which are continuously passing through the solar heliosphere at the distances that we've "measured" them with Voyager.

Why do you need to do a surface integral to calculate a total flux over a given area from a flux density? But anyway, whatever it is you need to calculate whatever it is you think is important, it's your job to do it as it's your claim. I'm not asking for anything precise or exact - just a reasonable quantified ball-park estimate. You like to pretend you're a physicist, but you're not really acting like one.

http://sites.science.oregonstate.edu/ma ... /flux.html

As I said, do whatever it is you need to do, but you're not starting with a vector field so that link is irrelevant. You can start with a flux density of cosmic rays in units of particles m^-2 sr^-1 GeV^-1 which has been measured.

If you decline to do the work to see whether cosmic rays are significant in the Sun's processes (ie would it make any difference to the Sun if the cosmic rays were switched off), that's fine, but then stop making the claim.

I can see for myself that it's a significant enough number to drive all the predicted electrical processes that we see in solar coronas, solar discharges in solar flares (Dungey), solar strahl, etc. I really don't care that much about the figure at the moment.

You already know it's relevant without showing that it's relevant? Pah! I say that cosmic rays have a vanishingly small influence on the Sun's processes, and if you could turn them off, so far as the Sun goes, we wouldn't notice it.

If you do, go right ahead and calculate it for yourself and show your work,

Not my job.

...but you're *definitely* going to need a *minimum* of calculus to describe it, and you'll need to describe it in terms of electrical flux across the surface of the solar heliosphere. Furthermore, it's actual physical shape is not even perfectly round to begin with. It's a *much* more complicated mathematical and physical problem than you ignorantly imagine it to be I'm afraid.

You have never clearly articulated what important effect you expect cosmic rays to have on the Sun's processes so I don't know what complicated thing is going on in your head, but cosmic ray flux is determined by a scalar quantity (particles m^-2 sr^-1 GeV^-1) not by a vector. But, whatever, do what you need to do to give us some idea that cosmic rays are actually significant to the Sun at all - a little high school calculus surely isn't too much to ask if that's what you need? It's not gauge theory.

Ultimately if you intend to argue that the solar atmospheric environment is essentially "quasi-neutral" on whole, then you'll need to offset those inbound high speed positively charged ions with something!

Equivalently less positive ions than electrons in the solar wind would do it.

[Cargo]

The search for a true analogy of the Higgs eventually leads me to a card game between little kids. You ask one to pick a card, then shuffle that back in the deck, the next 'move' in the game is to throw the deck against the wall, scattering the cards everywhere, and until they find the card they picked, you get to punch them in the arm repeatedly. It's the Higgs Black Neutron Gravity.

[Michael Mozina]

Whatever the duration of event on the Sun the model demands that we scale it down by a factor of a billion plus and they have simply not interogated the lab models at those timescales.

They certainly *have* been scaled to size for *circuit* theory, and working circuit theory based models have been studied in real laboratory experiments for more than a full century.

Lab models of the Sun produced by Birkeland and SAFIRE are both woefully inadequate to represent any phenomena in the Sun in a way that gives us any quantitative information or insight at all.

It's essentially this completely irrational aversion to the lab when it works physically against you that makes me believe that then *entire industry of astronomy* has become completely detached from physical reality as we understand it. Nothing in your mythical dark magnetic universe is "tangible" in the lab, nor does it produce any of the necessary observational particle movement patterns over *any scale whatsoever* in a laboratory experiment. Not one.

No dark matter. No dark energy. No inflation, or even anything MRx related that shows any promise whatsoever of producing anything like "solar strahl (cathode rays), *sustained* planetary aurora, *sustained* high temperatures in the solar atmosphere, etc. Nothing of your mythical magical bag of tricks actually *works in a real laboratory experiment*.

When the physical explanations for particle movement patterns in the solar atmosphere and planetary atmospheres is literally staring you in the face, producing "solar strahl', coronal loops, polar jets, electrical discharges (Dungey) in the solar atmosphere, etc, you turn your head away from the physical truth and bury your head in the mathematical dark sand universe you've created for yourself.

The moment mainstream astronomy wakes up and smells the electrical coffee, it's whole 'emperor has no clothes" routine comes to a laughing stock end. So you all blindly hide yourselves from the truth. A few 'evangelists" like yourself even take it upon themselves to try to twist history like pretzel to attempt to deter others from discovering the horrible truth in astronomy today.

The only *possible* way one could hope to produce useful phenomenon related to solar physics is to *turn on the electricity* with respect to solar physics. Circuit theory has "explained' each and ever core solar and atmospheric physics phenonomon for more than an *entire century*, complete with ''solar strahl", planetary aurora, etc, none of which have been replicated in the lab with 'magnetic reconnection' and never will.

None of the critical parameters, timescale, magnetic field, temperature, plasma density, pressure, total current, current density and so on are properly scaled according to Alfven's clearly stated rules for scaling plasmas.

I just *love* how you try to hold up Alfven as the "be-all-end-all" of experimental solar physics, in *spite* of the fact that you're peddling what Alfven called "pseudoscience' and in spite of the fact that Birkeland and his team beat Alfven to the whole concept by a half century. Wow. What a rationalization that must be.

Some timescales are applicable and we've conducted *many* experiments in plasma physics, virtually all of it sustained by or caused by "electricity", particularly any *sustained* high temperature plasma.

You refuse to embrace physical reality when it comes to applying what we've learned in the lab for the last century and what we've learned from satellites in space for the last century to the work that Birkeland (not Alfven) first started, even *before* the term "plasma" even existed or "fusion' ever existed. Birkeland first proposed a cathode solar model with 'strahl/cathode' rays coming from the sun. Your model doesn't even actually "predict" any such physical thing.

The sun is represented by a metal electrode which cannot behave in any way representative of material flow in the convective zone or the photosphere.

That's actually not even correct, but it can certainly represent materials flows *under* the surface of the photosphere. The "circuit" would need to close somewhere deep inside the photosphere. There's ample physical evidence that 'cooler' plasma can exist underneath the surface of the photosphere, including cooler plasma found inside sunspots, which are typically experiencing high amounts of electrical discharge events in "active regions" around/inside the sunspot.

Birkeland's model is artificially magnetised, not magnetised by the naturally occurring flow of plasma,

It is *completely irrelevant* that the process be *exactly* identical, but the reality is that "electrical current" is the cause of all magnetic fields, "naturally', not "artificially". The only "artificial" thing going on in plasma physics today is "magnetic reconnection', as evidenced by the fact that it's utterly useless at replicating sustained high energy processes in plasma in real lab experiments today.

and SAFIRE is not magnetised at all.

So what? They also replicate at least a "sustained" hot atmosphere around the sun, electrical discharges, double layers, etc. You've achieved none of that with "magnetic reconnection" and you never will.

In both cases there is a net current which is totally unlike the net neutral solar wind.

You have never fully (nor could you) ever demonstrate that the solar wind (including strahl) is necessarily "net neutral" everywhere, all the time. It doesn't even need to be anything other than "net neutral" at the largest scale (full) to still be a fully functionally "electric sun" model.

You have solar strahl streaming *away* from the sun, with positively charged cosmic rays *beaming* into the sun at nearly the speed of light in some cases.

In both cases the experiment is powered by a DC potential between the electrode representing the Sun and the walls of the chamber, which creates an electric field when no such electric field has been shown to exist in the vicinity of the Sun,

You will never find what you refuse to see. You're euphemistically referring to Birkeland's 'cathode rays" as "solar strahl'. You're blatantly and intentionally ignoring the constant bombardment of the solar system with positively charged ions. You won't see that current because you *refuse* to acknowledge it. Even when the magnetic fields switch directions in the solar atmosphere, you try to ignore the change in current flow patterns by calling them 'magnetic switchbacks' without a *shred* of laboratory physical evidence that any such thing occurs in *net neutral" plasma.

and no viable process has been suggested for creating and maintaining such a potential.

False. You don't personally get to decide what is a "viable" process, when *none* of your core claims works in the lab to produce *anything* related to *sustained* solar physical processes.

Both models lack the effect of a central gravitational force, which is important to understanding the kinematics of electrons and positive ions escaping the corona to form the solar wind.

That would only be true if you had some rational *agreed upon* and physically demonstrated explanation for sustained full sphere high temperature corona. You don't. You certainly don't have a working model in the lab. SAFIRE easily produced a high temperature plasma around their electrode surface, and Birkeland did it with both an electrode and a cathode a century before SAFIRE was ever fired up. To this day SAFIRE hasn't replicated his work with a cathode model.

Birkeland's model, while of some historical interest has nothing to tell us quantitatively although it might have some superficial resemblance to limited aspects of the Sun.

That statement is essentially what makes you scientifically bankrupt at every level. You don't even show any scientific curiosity, nor do you show any common sense whatsoever. A century ago Birkeland tangibly and physically achieved more in his lab with respect to charged particle movement pattern predictions, and solar system physics in general, than all the "astrophysical scientists"t have achieved in the lab *combined*. That's a sad, but true fact.

SAFIRE was a complete disaster and really has nothing at all to say about the Sun.

Disaster for who? It's more than a tad irrational of you to talk about "complete disasters" when all of your "dark" yada, yada, yada, "experiments" have all been dismal failures to date in providing any clear evidence of anything beyond the standard particle physics model.

SAFIRE could have easily evolved into something more akin to a typical "scientific study", with more research in cathode experiments too, but alas that wasn't their goal when they started a for profit company and they ultimately opted to look at less than *half* of Birkeland's full set of lab work.

That's why pure scientific research needs to be *government funded* without respect to "profit" in the short term.

In both cases, the obvious differences between the lab models and the reality, along with the improper scaling invalidate the models as predictors of anything quantitative.

This is ultimately just you personally trying to bury your head in the dark sand, and drag everyone along with you. You won't do the work at all because you're too busy squandering our research money on dark mythical nonsense.

Yes, which demonstrates the inadequacy of circuit theory on its own to properly explain and predict solar processes.

Eh? More pure denial. The exact composition of the electrode isn't even scientifically relevant in terms of anything *above* the electrode surface, which *does not* have to be the surface of the photosphere.

That's a fallacy. Alfven himself pointed out that lab models of complete cosmic phenomena cannot be achieved and should not be pursued.

That's pure and utter nonsense. You're simply twisting a few of his sentences *out of their historical contexts* no less, to misrepresent Alfven's beliefs. You should be ASHAMED of yourself Higgsy. You owe him and his entire family an apology.

Although he tries to explain how this 600MV could arise, there is no other justification for suggesting 600MV.

You are again twisting the historical facts. There's *every* justification, including the scaling process he's proposing based on what he learned from his own experiments in the lab. You simply don't want to hear it.

I'll try to slog through the rest of your post as I get time, but suffice to say Higgsy, I think you're entire industry has forgotten what a *successful* lab experiment even looks like. You can't produce a model that generates a *sustained* solar wind, solar "strahl", planetary aurora, etc, yet you refuse to even experiment with a model that *does* produce them all, and has done so for more than an entire century. Wow. This is why I believe that the entire field of astronomy has become scientifically incompetent, particularly as it relates to solar system physics and cosmology. They can't produce "magnetic switchbacks" from a single solar surface in the lab in *non current carrying* plasma. They can't produce anything like "solar strahl" based on "magnetic reconnection', nor sustained high temperature plasma processes at *all*.

Astronomy today is essentially no better than astrology in terms of it's predictive usefulness in the lab.

Your whole industry does *not even understand* how to properly apply circuit theory to objects in space.

I guess it shouldn't "shock" me that you would take a couple of Alfven's sentences completely out of their historical context to try to suggest no one should *ever* try to experiment with astrophysical processes in the lab. Sheesh. What a crock that was. How low could you go anyway?

Whatever concerns Alfven may have had about trying to scale astrophysical processes, it's entirely clear from *all* of his writings that he belied that plasma scales *very* nicely up and down the energy spectrum. Birkeland beat him to *trying* by more than 50 years too.

The problem is that you all only want to embrace 1/2 of Alfven's work (MHD), and ignore circuit theory entirely, even though circuit theory was producing solar strahl, aurora and coronas, for fifty years before MHD theory was created, and in spite of the fact that Alfven called MRx theory 'pseudoscience' till the day he died.

[Michael Mozina]

It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. — Kristian Birkeland 1913[7]:720

What exactly does that statement mean to you Higgsy? What do you think he meant by this quote with respect to flying ions in space when combined with the prediction that he made that the vast majority of the mass of the universe was not located in stars, but rather most of the physical mass of the universe located in those "flying electric ions" in space he described? His *entire physical model* is based on the concept of a cathode sun which is electrically interacting with a positively charged "space" which is literally filled with flying electric ions. His model not only "predicts" the existence of flying electric cosmic ray ions in space, it *requires* them.

That's yout post-hoc interpretation of Birkeland's position (which references both electrons and ions). Birkeland never referenced the existence of cosmic rays,.....

He describes them as "flying electric ions" HIggsy. It's not my "post-hoc" anything. Birkeland even describes the 'soot' that built up on the walls of his experiments over time as parts of his terella were ripped off the surface and flung toward "space" and hit sides of the the walls.

and you cannot show me a single quote from him which would justify your implication that he ever held your idea that cosmic rays have some important role in the Sun's processes.

What exactly do you think he meant by suggesting that "space" has a "positive charge"? When did Birkeland ever limit all ions from the sun to solar wind speeds?

For example he talks about the negative charge on the Sun being created by an excess of electron (negative!) current flowing into the Sun, or an excess of a positive ion current flowing out of the Sun. At no point does he suggest that energetic postive ions arising from outside the solar system are important to the Sun's processes. No it's your idea, pure and simple, and yours to defend or abandon.

Nope not my idea originally, nor it my idea to defend. Birkeland beat me to the concept of a positively charged space filled with flying electric ions by more than a century.

No. You as a non-physicist, don't get to dictate to physicists how physics is done.

I'm not dictating how it's done, I'm simply noting the results, or in your case, lack thereof. To date, not a damn thing that you're claiming to be true actually *produces* anything *sustained* in the lab *at all*!

You can't produce a simulation of a planetary aurora based on magnetic reconnection. You can't produce a simple example of a sustained full sphere corona. You can't produce a simple *sustained* high temperature plasma based on MRx either, certainly not without "electricity" being the ultimate power source.

The fact of the matter is that "astrophysicists" are about as inept in the lab as it gets. No "dark" stuff shows up. Nothing useful related to 'magnetic reconnection" that simulates anything related to solar physics.

Quantification and mathematical descriptions are never "added bonuses" in physics. They are essential in every case as physics is a science which quantifies natural phenomena.

We observe lots of 'phenomenon" in physical reality, many of which we cannot quantify or that we cannot explain mathematically yet. To this day in fact your precious LCDM model has a five plus sigma problem with determining the Hubble constant between SN-1A data and Planck data, and none of you know how to fix it yet.

You have made a unique claim, which is yours and yours alone, that cosmic rays are important to solar processes.

I do not even agree that it's my claim to begin with. Birkeland talked about space being filled with flying electric ions before I was born. What does that mean to you Higgsy?

The lab model does not contain any analogue of cosmic rays so it has nothing to say about your claim that cosmic rays are important to the Sun's processes.

Sure it does. The experiment has 'sides of the box" that remain at a relatively constant charge, even while being bombarded by cathode rays from the sun. Something has to offset the cathode rays somewhere.

You like to pretend you're a physicist, but you're not really acting like one.

Oh please! You *pretend* to be a physicist but absolutely *none* of your important metaphysical mathematical phony-baloney shows up in a real lab experiment. Don't even get me started. When you can generate a *sustained* solar wind based on MRx, then whine to me about what I "pretend" to be.

It ultimately doesn't matter to me *how much* if any current might be coming into the sun from the galaxy since I assume that the sun is internally powered to start with. You're making sound as though the number that I come up with must have some great relevance to powering the sun. I didn't even suggest such a thing to start with, so whatever the number might be, it's not that important to me personally in reference to my preference for Birkeland's solar model.

Equivalently less positive ions than electrons in the solar wind would do it.

In other words, a solar 'strahl" that isn't actually 'net neutral".