Debunking Dave

[JHL]

What is dark matter? I don't know, nor does anyone else at the moment, but I think it is there based on many independent observations, some of which are listed above. But you knew that already.
When will we know what it is? When it is identified in the lab.
How does it physically constitute the great majority of the universe? Meaningless question.

Hardly meaningless, Higgs. Utterly essential. Your scientific model hinges on the largest fudge factor, literally, in the universe. I demand you expand on this magic.

When will we have your physical evidence? Pots and kettles, Higgs. When?

Your handwaving indicates intellectual dishonesty, as does the habitual anger and contempt. Hardly the stuff of mature science.

But you have persuaded me [...] Oh wait... You didn't.

I'm afraid you sound like a petulant child. When will we have your physical evidence?

You think the existence of dark matter is predicated entirely on structure evolution modelling? You need to learn some more science.

You need to accompany your magic science with some elemental logic: I think you have no physical evidence. When will we have it?

Perhaps one of these days some actual science might smuggle itself into your posts in place of the relentless content-free rhetoric and posturing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Your schoolyard rhetoric compliments your science, Higgs. How old are you?

When will we have your physical evidence of the magic matter that turns the universe?

[Michael Mozina]

What is dark matter? I don't know, nor does anyone else at the moment, but I think it is there based on many independent observations, some of which are listed above. But you knew that already.
When will we know what it is? When it is identified in the lab.
How does it physically constitute the great majority of the universe? Meaningless question.

Hardly meaningless, Higgs. Utterly essential. Your scientific model hinges on the largest fudge factor, literally, in the universe. I demand you expand on this magic.

When will we have your physical evidence? Pots and kettles, Higgs. When?

Your handwaving indicates intellectual dishonesty, as does the habitual anger and contempt. Hardly the stuff of mature science.

But you have persuaded me [...] Oh wait... You didn't.

I'm afraid you sound like a petulant child. When will we have your physical evidence?

You think the existence of dark matter is predicated entirely on structure evolution modelling? You need to learn some more science.

You need to accompany your magic science with some elemental logic: I think you have no physical evidence. When will we have it?

Perhaps one of these days some actual science might smuggle itself into your posts in place of the relentless content-free rhetoric and posturing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Your schoolyard rhetoric compliments your science, Higgs. How old are you?

When will we have your physical evidence of the magic matter that turns the universe?

I think most of them are content to go to their graves without ever having any such evidence. "Magic' matter and energy do whatever they claim it to do, and therefore math with magic is a lot more fun and exhilarating since you don't have to demonstrate any of it. They can create an infinite number of multiverses out of whole mathematical cloth with 'magic'!

Actually all their so called 'evidence' of DM is directly related to whether or not they can *properly* measure the amount of *ordinary* matter in distant galaxies based on light intensity. It's been demonstrated *numerous* times since their now infamous bullet cluster fiasco study that they have been *grossly* (by over an order of magnitude with respect to some stellar estimates) the entire time they've been estimating the amount of ordinary mass in a given galaxy.

http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpBB3/v ... =3&t=15850

The so called "other" support of DM in terms of Planck data cannot be used to actually support the existence of DM because it's Hubble constant estimate is five+ sigma off compared to SN1A estimates. No help there at all, so the whole thing is one big affirming the consequent fallacy that begins with a falsified premise, and falsified *repeatedly* in virtually every conceivable way. It turns out that they've been grossly underestimating the amount of red dwarfs by a factor of up to 20. They've been underestimating the number of stars the size of our own sun in distant galaxy by a factor of 4. They've been underestimating the amount of light lost due to dust in space by *at least* a factor of 2, and that's really just the tip of the iceberg. They also underestimated the number of stars between galaxies as well, and they've since (the bullet cluster study) found two new 'halos' of ordinary plasma around our own galaxy that contain more mass than all the stars combined.

So really the *whole* evidence for exotic forms of matter is based upon a consistently falsified estimation technique they've been using for *decades* and one they *refuse* to update, and absolutely nothing else.

Their inability to even demonstrate in a lab experiment that 'magnetic reconnection' can sustain and produce a planetary aurora tell us all that we need to know about the tangible usefulness of their "new and improved" 3D models of 'magnetic reconnection".

Their whole concept of 'flux tubes' is essentially absurd since they steadfastly refuse to accept the fact that they're 100 percent dependent upon *current*, and *sustained* electric fields.

Their "dark energy" they dreamed up most recently is actually their greatest magic of all, particularly when they combine it with 'space expansion'. They simply toss out the laws of conservation of energy entirely, with new and massive amounts of 'dark energy" being created constantly out of thin air.

I think astronomers are *deathly afraid* of the lab in terms of the empirical butt-kicking it's given them for *decades*. Not a shred of support for exotic matter and energy was seen at LHC or anywhere else. They can't even simulate a sustained aurora in a lab with magnetic reconnection. Their magic math has absolutely no predictive usefulness in the lab, and none of their claims as to cause can be verified in any physical experiment, because it's all smoke and mirrors and pseudoscientific "magic".

[Higgsy]

You need to accompany your magic science with some elemental logic: I think you have no physical evidence.=

Any neutral observer reading this thread will see that, in this exchange, the person presenting observational evidence is me and the person arguing by epithet is you. If you think that the observational evidence does not support the conclusion then you need to explain why, because just jeering is of no value.

It will you do you no good for me to list again the multiple independent lines of evidence that persuade almost all knowledgeable physicists of the existence of weakly interacting matter, because if you weren't prepared to engage with them last time, it's unlikely you'll do so this time. They are there, if you want to consider them. Rhetoric and posturing are all you have to bring to this "discussion". If you were actually interested in the subject, if you were actually interested in physics at all, you'd engage with the evidence. As it is, there is no point in continuing to dialogue with someone whose only argument is of the "boo-sucks" variety.

Now, jog on.

[JHL]

You need to accompany your magic science with some elemental logic: I think you have no physical evidence.=

Any neutral observer reading this thread will see that, in this exchange, the person presenting observational evidence is me and the person arguing by epithet is you.

Jiggsy, since your grasp of fundamental logic seems no better than your rather diminished ability to cope with losing on points so often, allow me to educate you on it and on reasoning.

First, invoking the crowd is a fallacious appeal.

Second, misrepresenting the preceding conversation is just that - you've been caught out so many times either by your plainly obvious pot-and-kettle fallacies or your missing science that I've been meaning to post a new thread documenting all the times you left just a scientific supposition dangling. I wouldn't dream of cataloging your faulty reasoning and various brow-beatings and called names. We all know true and upright scientists never do that.

We call invoking convention hand waving, among other things. I'm afraid that's three strikes. You're invoking convention my good Yigglie. Do you know how we know you invoke convention? It's simple. Because you stop exactly where it does when pressed on how it works. As its spokesman, you cannot solve the problems it cannot, while you use the same patchwork, magical stopgaps it does to continue to operate as it has and does. I just want to see your demonstrable, material proofs. I'll remind you that magic is not science, at least not typically.

The consistency of all this is of a piece, and ironically it constitutes a pattern of evidence of its own. That should occur to you. However, you seem quite reluctant to accept that and completely powerless to overturn it. But claims are not evidence, Higgie, not per se. The fallacy is disallowed. For shame.

If you think that the observational evidence does not support the conclusion then you need to explain why, because just jeering is of no value.

Well, no. Jeering would be jeering; I'm just concentrating on two things: The missing proofs and the great abusive hubris that side of the conversation commonly brings to the table. That's another of the related patterns of evidence. You ask me to prove a negative, which your classmates will recognize as your fourth fallacy. It is not incumbent on anyone to validate your missing proof just because, obviously.

I've said this. You pass it by. This is for a reason.

It will you do you no good for me to list again the multiple independent lines of evidence that persuade almost all knowledgeable physicists of the existence of weakly interacting matter...

...another appeal to externalities, Jiggly, this time to supposed peers. Yet science as a defined procedure allows no such pat hand conclusion, especially in the present case when and where you hand wave away (your 6th fallacy) your missing physical magic dark matter, the Stuff that operates at distance, unprovably, simple because it was shoved into the math.

..because if you weren't prepared to engage with them last time, it's unlikely you'll do so this time.

I'll actually give you that one: I wasn't "prepared" to either prove your negative or accept your missing magic science, so there we still are.

Rhetoric and posturing are all you have to bring to this "discussion".

False. (And a little ironic I think even you'll have to admit.) What I bring to this discussion is your endless abuses; first of science, then of reason and logic, and eventually - as has happened so often here - abuse of your interlocutors who simply ask you to demonstrate some consistency and intellectual honesty. I strongly suspect there's a reason for this and I strongly suspect the three are related.

If you were actually interested in the subject...

I'm quite interested in the subject; I can only wish you had the integrity herein to cease racing goalposts all over. Strike number seven, Jiggy, and in one comment!

if you were actually interested in physics at all...

Wouldn't be here if I wasn't, Jiggy. Projecting intent is your eighth fallacy. Are you an intentionalist or can't you prove your magic material?

you'd engage with the evidence.

Evidence is an interesting word, Higgy. The evidence of magic invisible matter and energy and whole stars that spin a rotation a second and a key boson that outlaws both conventional universal models? I already have "engaged" the evidence, such as you cannot explain it, and that is the very point. The point is not that you can cite chapter and verse, which we've already dispensed with as not just a circular scientific argument, but now also a circular logical problem.

Yours, Higgley. Not mine. I asked when we could expect your concrete evidence and you deferred. Then you deflected and then you avoided, and at some points in the past, you became less than civil.

When shall we have your concrete proofs of these architectures, Jiggsey? When. When is the road you took in here so when. I would not have asked the question before you reminded me to. Seems quite fair.

When, then?

As it is, there is no point in continuing to dialogue with someone whose only argument is of the "boo-sucks" variety.

Au contraire, and I shall have to correct your elementary diversion, Jiggie, number nine I believe. My argument is precisely yours. It asks when supporting evidence shall be presented. Can you find your original demand or shall I have to refresh your memory?

When shall we have your show of the physical constructs that demonstrate the overwhelming primacy and overwhelming superiority of the wholly scientific, rational - and decidedly not fallacious raised to the tenth power - scientific LCDM construct of which you are so fond while leaving it fundamentally in the abstract during your forays into haranguing alternates to it in their conversations?

[Michael Mozina]

In such a case, you should describe exactly what Birkeland found, referencing the page number on which we find the description, and setting out what that means quantitatively at the scale of the Sun (so setting out voltages, currents, magnetic fields, temperatures etc, whatever is relevant to the specific insight you are claiming.)

I already pointed out to you that he estimated the voltage (based any scaling his lab experiments) at about 600 million volts. You trivially handwaved at that issue, along with all the quantified figures in his entire book.

Well, that hasn't turned out very well for Birkeland, has it, seeing as there is absolutely no evidence for there being a voltage of 600MV at the Sun, and neither he nor anyone else can propose a viable mechansim for maintaining this 600MV.

Are you kidding me? You mean *besides all the physical* evidence, like those observed *strahl* electron "beams" from the sun which we now measure with satellites in space, which Birkeland "predicted* (and simulated in the lab), and that his model is *based on*? You mean *besides* the physical evidence that the fastest charge carriers of our universe are *overwhelmingly* positively charged particles, and space is full of them? You mean *besides* the fact that even the mainstream solar model predicts the sun to have a cathode surface? How can you even say that kind of thing with a straight face?

How do you propose that either the sun "internally creates the majority of the "electrical tension"" or "cosmic rays cause the majority of the tension between the surface of the sun and "space""? With regard to the first, are you suggesting that nuclear fusion violates charge conservation?

No, I wasn't suggesting that. Ultimately I'd guess it's a combo effect of mass and charge separation. Not only is gravity likely to draw/move/separate the electrons in the solar plasma toward the surface, the charge of the cosmic rays of "space" itself are likely to attract them. Fusion could provide particle acceleration, heat and sustained internal current however. I'd assume that the closing of the necessary circuits takes place way out near the heliosphere for the most part.

With regard to the latter, this plays to the very point I've been making, which is that you haven't shown (nor has anyone else, because no-one else is even suggesting it) how the known cosmic ray flux could possibly create 600MV at the Sun.

Frankly, who cares what anyone *else* (particularly in your industry) is suggesting? What effect does it have? Ignoring it isn't a scientific option.

Both of your mechanisms are broken.

Um, no. Neither option is "broken", even if it remains a bit enigmatic and complex because it's potentially at least a "partially" externally powered process. Compared to the lack of answers in any of your claims, it's a *minor* issue IMO.

Of course most of the baryonic mass in the ISM is in nucleons, some of which are positive. That's a trivial observation. We weren't talking about mass, we're talking about charge.

It's all positively charged by the time it reaches our solar system. The few fast electrons are *overwhelmed* the number of positive ions and positrons.

You do ignore them in terms of explaining solar system processes. Your model treats "space" as being electrically neutral, when in fact it's high speed positively charged environment at the *fastest* scales.

a) you refuse to show that the cosmic ray flux makes space "positively" charged.

That's not true. I have certainly cited links that show that the *vast* majority of all the fastest particles in space are *positively* charged ions, and most of the research we have has been close to the Earth, with only have pretty recent access to measurements *outside* of the heliosphere. The small number of lighter particles like positrons and electrons are pretty evenly split, and they represent but a *tiny fraction* of the actual number of high speed positively charged particles entering our solar system at close to the speed of light. What fast moving *negative* particle offsets all of that positive charge slamming into the solar system? If you expect to claim the plasma of the solar system is 'net neutral', you'll have to explain where the fast electron movements are coming from. A cathode solar surface perhaps, in the form of "strahl" electrons?

because you refuse to compare the magnitude of the cosmic ray flux with the density of all the ions and electrons present in the solar system, which is what matters here

I wouldn't even agree that the particle density *inside* of the heliosphere is even all that relevant to the actual "charge" of space. The electrons and ions *inside* the heliosphere are typically moving at much slower speeds than cosmic rays, and they are the *reaction* to the charge separation between "space" and the surface of the sun. Their density is likely to vary over time with the density of the cosmic rays.

and b) you keep referring to the speed of these particles, which is utterly irrelevant if what you are concerned about is the space charge they create. The charge is totally indepencent of the particle k.e..

Their speed determines the total number of them which are passing through the heliosphere. Their kinetic energy ensures that they aren't likely to be slowed down much by minor field variations out in space.

Well, duh.

I hate this expression but it's the only that'll do here.

That comment wouldn't sound so childish and so absurd if you were able to demonstrate the same *sustained* particle physics movement patterns with "magnetic reconnection" in real experiments. Since you cannot even sustain a planetary aurora in a lab experiment, it's safe to say that you're also incapable of sustaining the movement of any high speed particles. At best you'll get a "discharge" type of event in plasma due to rapid magnetic topology changes inside a conductor like a plasma.

Well, duh? Higgsy, your "alternative model" can't generate sustained particle acceleration *at all* in any actual laboratory experiment!

"Fastest scales"? Speed is irrelevant to charge.

The particle speed and ionization states of each elements present in the cosmic ray data is not irrelevant to the total current flowing into the solar system, or in estimating how many total charges are passing into the heliosphere per second. You'd have to know a lot more than I currently understand about their overall ionization patterns and percentages to fully estimate the total "current" entering the heliosphere.

I will have to start poking around the data sets of the Voyager spacecraft to see what I can learn from them. I'm sure there are also quite few good papers on the topic which should keep me busy for awhile. I'm not without curiosity, but it's not a huge priority at the moment.

I don't believe that cosmic rays are at all efficacious in making the Sun negative (the density of cosmic rays in the Sun's environment is a minute proportion of the particles in the Sun's vicinity, but there is another reason why any spherical cloud of positive charged particles around the Sun, even it it were to be a gazillion times denser than the cosmic rays, would not contribute to the electric field at the Sun's surface one jot.

You're wrong, but I'm far more interested in the electric fields interacting at the surface of the heliosphere, and the surface of the photosphere with respect to the chromosphere.

Hmm - look up radio synchotron astronomy - there are lots of relativistic electrons in the ISM.

I love how you'll embrace relativistic electrons out in space *without* the necessary current and electric fields to make it happen. "Lot's of"? Where can I see the measurements of the relativistic electrons beyond the heliosphere from Voyager data in comparison to the number of ions?

I think I'll stop here for the time being and address the rest when I have more time. Some of it looks rather repetitive and I've got a few things to wrap up before I take off for the weekend.

[Michael Mozina]

You need to accompany your magic science with some elemental logic: I think you have no physical evidence.=

Any neutral observer reading this thread will see that, in this exchange, the person presenting observational evidence is me and the person arguing by epithet is you. If you think that the observational evidence does not support the conclusion then you need to explain why, because just jeering is of no value.

It will you do you no good for me to list again the multiple independent lines of evidence that persuade almost all knowledgeable physicists of the existence of weakly interacting matter, because if you weren't prepared to engage with them last time, it's unlikely you'll do so this time. They are there, if you want to consider them. Rhetoric and posturing are all you have to bring to this "discussion". If you were actually interested in the subject, if you were actually interested in physics at all, you'd engage with the evidence. As it is, there is no point in continuing to dialogue with someone whose only argument is of the "boo-sucks" variety.

Now, jog on.

The problem Higgsy is that all of your so called "multiple independent lines of evidence" are no such thing. They're *all* related to a *single* otherwise falsified cosmology model that *requires* 95 percent metaphysics to make it work mathematically, and it's got a huge five plus sigma problem with estimating it's Hubble constant, and nobody knows how to fix it so it remains *internally self conflicted*.

Your "best" evidence is all based on the premise that your baryonic mass estimates of galaxies have been accurate, and yet we see study after study demonstrating that you've been seriously underestimating the number of entire *stars* in distant galaxies, and we've found two halos of ordinary mass around our own galaxy in the last decade or so that we knew nothing about prior to 2012.

You'd first have to convince me that your baryonic mass estimates aren't the *real* problem in your math.

http://thunderbolts.info/wp/forum3/phpBB3/v ... =3&t=15850

Your evidence isn't actually "observational" evidence, it's anything *but* observational evidence because all your magic is 'dark', and none of it can be controlled in any actual lab experiment. Face it Higgsy, after LHC, "dark matter" is total disaster. None of your mathematical models worked correctly, whereas the standard particle physics model passed every possible test.

All the other "evidence" is pretty much based on an affirming the consequent fallacy. It goes something to the effect that "Our beloved and sacred LCDM model won't produce the correct figure for "observation of choice in space", therefore magic dark matter/energy did it.

The bottom line is that LHC wiped out all the math related to particle physics models which were designed to replace the standard particle physics model, and all the data they have collected has supported the standard particle physics model. Your astronomy beliefs are incompatible with every possible laboratory experiment to date, including the ones that Birkeland did himself over a century ago, and including those done at LHC today.

[JHL]

The bottom line is that LHC wiped out all the math related to particle physics models which were designed to replace the standard particle physics model, and all the data they have collected has supported the standard particle physics model. Your astronomy beliefs are incompatible with every possible laboratory experiment to date, including the ones that Birkeland did himself over a century ago, and including those done at LHC today.

The LHC reveal stunned me. I'll never forget it. Apparently G-d hid a profoundly humorous checkmate in the very deepest place, so to put it. As we say, you couldn't make it up if you tried.

The operating premises of both metaphysical models were perhaps canceled forever. To gift one of them magic substances anyway isn't science, it's a tenuous conjecture.

Or has that finding been since reconciled? How?

[Higgsy]

Well, that hasn't turned out very well for Birkeland, has it, seeing as there is absolutely no evidence for there being a voltage of 600MV at the Sun, and neither he nor anyone else can propose a viable mechansim for maintaining this 600MV.

Are you kidding me? You mean *besides all the physical* evidence, like those observed *strahl* electron "beams" from the sun which we now measure with satellites in space, which Birkeland "predicted* (and simulated in the lab), and that his model is *based on*?

So, you are using the strahl as evidence for the 600MV and the 600MV as a mechanism for the strahl. But the negative part of the solar wind (including the slow and fast wind and the strahl) is nothing like what we would see if the Sun was charged to 600MV. The potential at any distance r from the centre of a charged sphere goes as 1/r. If the potential at the top of the photosphere is 600MV (at 1 solar radius), the potential at 4 solar radii would be 150MV, a drop of 450MV and the potential at at 1AU would be 2.8MV, a potential drop of ~597MV. Therefore the electrons emitted by the Sun should all have an energy of hundreds of MeV which is truely huge. But even the fastest strahl electrons are only a few hundred eV. Furthermore, at 600MV, how do you propose that the observed positive ion wind could ever leave the Sun? The solar wind, including the strahl, is powerful evidence against Birkeland's suggestion that the Sun has a 600MV potential.

You mean *besides* the physical evidence that the fastest charge carriers of our universe are *overwhelmingly* positively charged particles, and space is full of them?

You keep talking about speed, but speed is not relevant at all to the space charge of the cosmic rays, and moreover the charge density, which you refuse to calculate is small. But it doesn't matter what the charge density of cosmic rays is, the electric field at the Sun where the particle acceleration takes place would be zero from the cosmic rays. See below where I point out the consequence of the shell theorem.

You mean *besides* the fact that even the mainstream solar model predicts the sun to have a cathode surface?

Hmm, the gravitational segregation of electrons and protons is proposed to give a positive charge to the Sun of tens of coulombs (since an excess of electrons reach escape velocity until the static positive charge equilibrates the negative and positive charge flux leaving the Sun).

How can you even say that kind of thing with a straight face?

Not only can I say it with a straight face, I have just demonstrated it. The evidence militates entirely against Birkeland's estimate. It hasn't turned out well for his idea, in that the evidence does not support a potential of 600MV at the Sun and there is no mechanism for producing it. See below where we talk about mechanisms.

How do you propose that either the sun "internally creates the majority of the "electrical tension"" or "cosmic rays cause the majority of the tension between the surface of the sun and "space""? With regard to the first, are you suggesting that nuclear fusion violates charge conservation?

No, I wasn't suggesting that. Ultimately I'd guess it's a combo effect of mass and charge separation. Not only is gravity likely to draw/move/separate the electrons in the solar plasma toward the surface, the charge of the cosmic rays of "space" itself are likely to attract them.

With regard to the former, the gravitational segregation of electrons and protons by the differential escape of electrons would result in a small positive charge of some tens of coulombs. With regard to the latter, the electric field arising from 'the cosmic rays of "space" itself' at the Sun is zero (by the shell theorem), no matter how big the space charge density of cosmic rays is (and it isn't very big - you can calculate it yourself if you like).

Fusion could provide particle acceleration, heat and sustained internal current however.

I agree that fusion ultimately is the cause of all of these things in the Sun, but how do these things lead to 600MV potential at the Sun's surface?

a) you refuse to show that the cosmic ray flux makes space "positively" charged.

That's not true. I have certainly cited links that show that the *vast* majority of all the fastest particles in space are *positively* charged ions, and most of the research we have has been close to the Earth, with only have pretty recent access to measurements *outside* of the heliosphere. The small number of lighter particles like positrons and electrons are pretty evenly split, and they represent but a *tiny fraction* of the actual number of high speed positively charged particles entering our solar system at close to the speed of light. What fast moving *negative* particle offsets all of that positive charge slamming into the solar system? If you expect to claim the plasma of the solar system is 'net neutral', you'll have to explain where the fast electron movements are coming from. A cathode solar surface perhaps, in the form of "strahl" electrons?

You keep talking about speed, as though you think that for a net neutral space charge you have to offset high energy positive charges with high energy negative charges, and low energy postive charges with low energy negative charges. It's not like that. For a volume of space to be neutral it just needs to contain the same number of positive and negative charges. That's why I keep asking you to quantify the cosmic ray flux - you'll find that the density of cosmic rays is a tiny proportion of the total of charged particles in the Sun's vicinity. You can stop saying that cosmic rays are fast moving particles - it's irrelevant to the question of the 600MV.

"Fastest scales"? Speed is irrelevant to charge.

The particle speed and ionization states of each elements present in the cosmic ray data is not irrelevant to the total current flowing into the solar system,or in estimating how many total charges are passing into the heliosphere per second. You'd have to know a lot more than I currently understand about their overall ionization patterns and percentages to fully estimate the total "current" entering the heliosphere.

You'll have to set out how you think the cosmic ray current rather than the cosmic ray space charge is relevant to maintaining 600MV at the Sun. IF you calculate the cosmic ray flux flowing into the Sun it is vanishingly small compared to the outflowing solar wind. Cosmic rays flowing through the solar system and out again (the vast majority of them) have no relevance apart from their space charge.

I don't believe that cosmic rays are at all efficacious in making the Sun negative (the density of cosmic rays in the Sun's environment is a minute proportion of the particles in the Sun's vicinity, but there is another reason why any spherical cloud of positive charged particles around the Sun, even it it were to be a gazillion times denser than the cosmic rays, would not contribute to the electric field at the Sun's surface one jot.

You're wrong,

I'm right. It's time for you to look up and understand the shell theorem. For any inverse square law effect, such as charge or gravity, the electric or gravitational field at any point within a spherical shell of charge or mass is zero. The field at any point within the space charge of cosmic rays is therefore zero at the Sun's surface, no matter how great the charge density in the sphere of charge surrounding it (and actually the charge density of cosmic rays is very low). Isaac Newton proved the shell theorem for gravity in the 17th century, and you can look up the proof, but I have to warn you that it does use (simple) calculus.

[Michael Mozina]

The bottom line is that LHC wiped out all the math related to particle physics models which were designed to replace the standard particle physics model, and all the data they have collected has supported the standard particle physics model. Your astronomy beliefs are incompatible with every possible laboratory experiment to date, including the ones that Birkeland did himself over a century ago, and including those done at LHC today.

The LHC reveal stunned me. I'll never forget it. Apparently G-d hid a profoundly humorous checkmate in the very deepest place, so to put it. As we say, you couldn't make it up if you tried.

I recall numerous conversations before LHC was fired up, where astronomers *assured* me that LHC would find evidence of exotic matter. I recall even asking them what they might accept as "evidence" against exotic DM, and what happens if LHC didn't find anything. All I ever got were non-answers and a lot of insisting that LHC would find evidence. Here we are however, exactly where I expected us to be. Billions spent on supposedly "testing" all their cute little mathematical models for "dark matter", and nothing to undermine the standard particle physics model has ever been observed.

The operating premises of both metaphysical models were perhaps canceled forever. To gift one of them magic substances anyway isn't science, it's a tenuous conjecture.

Or has that finding been since reconciled? How?

Till now the "assumption" in particle physics research, and in astronomy has been that that standard particle physics model would give way to something new. Now however, it's a lot more scientifically likely that the LCDM cosmology model will give way to something new, specifically a cosmology model that is compatible with the standard particle physics model. Gee, I wonder what that might be?

[Michael Mozina]

Well, that hasn't turned out very well for Birkeland, has it, seeing as there is absolutely no evidence for there being a voltage of 600MV at the Sun, and neither he nor anyone else can propose a viable mechansim for maintaining this 600MV.

Are you kidding me? You mean *besides all the physical* evidence, like those observed *strahl* electron "beams" from the sun which we now measure with satellites in space, which Birkeland "predicted* (and simulated in the lab), and that his model is *based on*?

So, you are using the strahl as evidence for the 600MV and the 600MV as a mechanism for the strahl.

Actually I'm citing the "observed physical evidence" of strahl electrons as evidence that "circuit theory" and a cathode solar model correctly explains and describes solar system particle physics movement patterns in and around the solar atmosphere. The *core* prediction of Birkeland's model is that the sun *must* emit fast *strahl" (ray/beam) electrons out toward space. If that outbound strahl was not observed, it would *falsify* Birkeland's model, whereas it's presence *supports* his circuit theory model. The voltage is likely to be a figure that's difficult to measure *inside* the solar system. Without being caught up on the actual voltage, the mere presence of strahl electron flow away from the sun is *overwhelming* physical evidence to *support* his cathode solar model.

But the negative part of the solar wind (including the slow and fast wind and the strahl) is nothing like what we would see if the Sun was charged to 600MV.

You have a *very* bad habit of handwaving in your own personal beliefs as "fact", when in "fact", your beliefs have logic standing on it's head, such as in this case.

How do you know what we should expect to "see", if you won't accept the fact that we would expect to "see" cathode rays streaming from the sun in his model? In fact, your logic is so convoluted that even the mere observation of all the *right* particle movement patterns which he predicts are found, are somehow in your convoluted mind evidence *against* the model. Sheesh. Only you could create a rationalization like that!

The potential at any distance r from the centre of a charged sphere goes as 1/r. If the potential at the top of the photosphere is 600MV (at 1 solar radius), the potential at 4 solar radii would be 150MV, a drop of 450MV and the potential at at 1AU would be 2.8MV, a potential drop of ~597MV.

Well, already you began with a *highly dubious* "assumption", one that's easily falsified in satellite images in fact. You have *assumed* that the surface of the photosphere is the same location as the electrode "surface". Based on what I observe in satellite images, I would say that the electrode surface sits *well underneath* of the surface of the photosphere. Some of the sun's coronal loops rise up and through that surface, but they *obviously* begin and originate *far below* that surface. We know this observationally because we see their physical effect on the surface of the photosphere, not only their higher heat signatures as they traverse the surface of the photosphere, but also their magnetic field signatures as they leave magnetic field "footprints" on that surface which we also observe in magnetogram images.

This is a great example of why your primitive "armchair math" attempts at "debunking" *working physical models* is patently absurd.

Therefore the electrons emitted by the Sun should all have an energy of hundreds of MeV which is truely huge.

It all depends on how much of the kinetic energy of the electron "beams" from the electrode surface gets transformed into/used to heat the photosphere, heat the chromosphere, heat the corona, and push other particles out into space and transform themselves into "core" and "halo" electrons. Your primitive little math doesn't demonstrate anything. In fact, it begins with an obvious *error*.

But even the fastest strahl electrons are only a few hundred eV.

Meh. Electron speeds in from solar flares can actually *exceed* 30Kev.

Furthermore, at 600MV, how do you propose that the observed positive ion wind could ever leave the Sun?

"Sputtering", and scattering off the corona, just as they did in Birkeland's experiments. Remember that whole section on the fat he placed on the walls of the experiments? How do you supposed it caught pieces of the cathode in the fat?

The solar wind, including the strahl, is powerful evidence against Birkeland's suggestion that the Sun has a 600MV potential.

Here you've simply 'lost it" IMO. You've gone into *pure denial*. The fact we see the *very same kinetic energy patterns* that we would expect to observe *completely supports* his cathode model, even *if* the actual voltage ends up being less than he estimated. You've literally got logic standing on it's head.

You mean *besides* the physical evidence that the fastest charge carriers of our universe are *overwhelmingly* positively charged particles, and space is full of them?

You keep talking about speed, but speed is not relevant at all to the space charge of the cosmic rays,

You keep ignoring the fact that their speed *does* effect the overall number of positive charges which enter the solar system over time. I'm not *just* interested in charge, I'm interested in current flow patterns too.

and moreover the charge density, which you refuse to calculate is small.

It doesn't have to be significantly large at small scales to have a major impact over a large enough volume. We're talking about the number of positive charges passing through the sun's heliosphere, a surface area which is actually quite *massive*.

But it doesn't matter what the charge density of cosmic rays is,

Of course it does in terms of what we expect to observe inside the heliosphere.

the electric field at the Sun where the particle acceleration takes place would be zero from the cosmic rays. See below where I point out the consequence of the shell theorem.

Ya, I'm sure that's going to begin with dubious assumptions too.

You mean *besides* the fact that even the mainstream solar model predicts the sun to have a cathode surface?

Hmm, the gravitational segregation of electrons and protons is proposed to give a positive charge to the Sun of tens of coulombs (since an excess of electrons reach escape velocity until the static positive charge equilibrates the negative and positive charge flux leaving the Sun).

In other words, the outside surface emits electrons toward "space".

Not only can I say it with a straight face, I have just demonstrated it.

You do *not* even know what an actual "demonstration" is! This is an actual physical "demonstration" of a model:

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

It doesn't require any math at all. It's a physical demonstration of concept, which is something you *consistently fail* and *refuse* to do with MRx.

What you did is "whip up some primitive math nonsense" in the hope of misrepresenting the physically "demonstrated" facts.

The evidence militates entirely against Birkeland's estimate.

Even if we *assumed* that all of your math was correctly estimated, the very *worst* that you could claim is that Birkeland may have *overestimated* the voltage. So what? Your so called "demonstration" amounts to *absolutely nothing* in terms of falsifying *all* cathode solar models and all voltages.

It hasn't turned out well for his idea, in that the evidence does not support a potential of 600MV at the Sun and there is no mechanism for producing it. See below where we talk about mechanisms.

Again, you don't have any "evidence" at all to dismiss a generic cathode model. The very *worst* you could logically assume is that Birkeland may have overestimated the voltage. That's the absolute worst that you can say based on that tiny bit of math you whipped up, complete with dubious assumptions galore. Instead you try to write off *all* cathode models based on *one* flimsy set of napkin calculations which *begin with an obvious error* no less. Sheesh. Your rationalizations aren't just ridiculous, they're utterly absurd. You ultimately shot yourself it the foot actually.

You keep talking about speed, as though you think that for a net neutral space charge you have to offset high energy positive charges with high energy negative charges, and low energy postive charges with low energy negative charges. It's not like that.

No, you're missing the point. We observe *high speed* ions *entering* the solar atmosphere, and we observe *fast* strahl/beam electrons *leaving* the sun. You're taking the whole thing, adding up all the charges over some random volume (inside the heliosphere no less), and claiming it's "charge neutral' and erroneously claiming that "non current carrying" plasma to boot! What a crock.

Not only does the number of charged particles *alone* (inside our solar system) not determine that all plasma in space is "neutral", it also says *absolutely nothing* about how much current might be passing through the plasma. Furthermore, the charge of "space" that I'm ultimately interested it, is the "charge of space that exists outside of the heliosphere*. The heliosphere ends up being the "double layer" where the electrical exchanges take place between our sun and the rest of the physical universe.

For a volume of space to be neutral it just needs to contain the same number of positive and negative charges.

I'm not interested in whether or not the plasma is "neutral" with respect to the number of positive and negative charges *inside* of the solar system's heliosphere! That says *nothing* at all about the "charge" of space itself. Furthermore your use of the term "neutral" implies and says *nothing* about the actual current flow patterns in that volume of area.

That's why I keep asking you to quantify the cosmic ray flux - you'll find that the density of cosmic rays is a tiny proportion of the total of charged particles in the Sun's vicinity. You can stop saying that cosmic rays are fast moving particles - it's irrelevant to the question of the 600MV.

You have started again with a dubious assumption that you have not demonstrated. Where in the current Voyager data will I find an equal number of negative charges flowing into the solar system that offsets the cosmic rays *outside* of the heliosphere?

You'll have to set out how you think the cosmic ray current rather than the cosmic ray space charge is relevant to maintaining 600MV at the Sun.

All electrical activity is a result of, and described by both voltage *and* current. How exactly are you intending to come up with a "cosmic rays space charge" which exists outside of the sun's heliosphere?

IF you calculate the cosmic ray flux flowing into the Sun it is vanishingly small compared to the outflowing solar wind.

Vanishingly small? Where? At the solar *surface* or at the outside edge of the solar heliosphere?

Cosmic rays flowing through the solar system and out again (the vast majority of them) have no relevance apart from their space charge.

So what's the "space charge" of an average cosmic ray particle *outside* of the heliosphere?

I'm right. It's time for you to look up and understand the shell theorem.

This should be fun watching you inappropriately try to apply a shell theorem to an *inbound particle flow pattern*. Hoy Vey. This sounds like a train wreck of a logical argument from the start.

For any inverse square law effect, such as charge or gravity, the electric or gravitational field at any point within a spherical shell of charge or mass is zero.

Within? Who even cares about the fields *inside* of the sun itself? We're talking about the net effect on a charged particle *outside* of the sun's electrode surface, which is *not* necessarily the sun's surface of the photosphere.

The field at any point within the space charge of cosmic rays is therefore zero at the Sun's surface,

No! You don't even understand the concept properly! Sheesh.

[Michael Mozina]

Your attitude Higgsy is pretty surreal and anything *other than* "scientific" when we look at it objectively.

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

This is a "physical demonstration" of a *sustained particle physical process* which has been demonstrated in the lab. This circuit theory experiment *sustains* a planetary aurora, it *sustains* a full sphere hot(er than the cathode surface) corona, it produces *sustained* "strahl" electrons which are flowing from the sun and into planets, and which also results in positive ions coming away from the sun, and which "naturally" produces short duration electrical discharges in around the solar sphere like we observe in solar flares.

You can produce exactly *none* of these *sustained* particle physical processes in a real lab experiment using 'magnetic reconnection", a mathematical concept which Alfven flatly rejected as "pseudoscience" throughout his career and lifetime, and Alfven certainly understood math, physics and MHD theory. Instead of "magnetic reconnection", Alfven consistently elected to use *circuit* theory to explain all high energy events in space plasma. In *spite* of Alfven calling magnetic reconnection theory "pseudoscience", and *in spite* of the fact that you can't even replicate a simple working aurora in a lab, you *still* try to use his work in MHD theory to support your pseudscientific claims! Wow. What absolute gall.

Not a *single* one of your metaphysical or pseudoscientific claims actually *works* or even shows up in a real laboratory experiment. You can't produce *anything* that happens in space in a real lab experiment. Your various popular mathematical models of "dark matter" quite literally and publicly failed billions of dollars worth of "scientific tests" over the last couple of decades. You can't even explain where dark energy comes from, let alone explain how it could retain a constant density throughout expansion, and it blatantly violates all known conservation of energy laws. Together those things make up about 95 percent of your model, and the other 5 percent of your "new and improved" 3D models of "magnetic reconnection" don't do a damn thing toward explaining a *sustained* particle acceleration process in a real laboratory experiment.

Your math is *absolutely useless* at "predicting" anything or "simulating" anything correctly in any laboratory experiment on Earth! It's epicycle math all over again!

And by the way, you made a "big deal" before about the fact that you're a so called "professional" astronomer/scientist, but the reality is that your mathematical models related to plasma particle physics were referred to by Alfven as "pseudoscience". It might be easy enough to choose to believe a "professional" over an amateur, but in this case I have to choose between the Nobel Prize winning author of the actual MHD theory, who called the whole concept of "magnetic reconnection" pseudoscience, and a bunch of guys misusing his math to this day, who *still* cannot produce a working solar aurora, cathode rays, *any* sustained particle physics acceleration process in a real lab experiment based on "magnetic reconnection", certainly not one that doesn't begin and end with electric fields and *current*.

Honestly Higgsy, this is just sad to watch now. Your whole industry is scientific wasteland, completely incapable of producing *any* of their key claims in a real laboratory experiment, and who's claims have already failed *billions* of dollars worth of "tests".

I'll stick with circuit theory thanks. It produces *tangible laboratory results*, starting with solar "strahl" electrons. Whatever the ultimate voltage might be, it doesn't matter to me one iota. It's clear from the particle physics trajectory *evidence* in space, that the sun's outer surface acts as a cathode with respect a positively charged "space", just as Birkeland predicted and simulated over a century ago.

To this day I can't get you to provide so much as a *sustained planetary aurora* based on "magnetic reconnection". As Alfven noted, your new and improved 3D models have absolutely no value whatsoever in terms of explaining astrophysical particle trajectory patterns in space. None. It's bad enough your "dark" stuff has failed billions of dollars worth of lab tests, but the only thing that even *can* have hope to produce with you claim it does in a real lab experiment has been incapable of producing *sustained* particle acceleration in plasma, whereas circuit theory has produced this feature for more than an entire *century*!

[Earl Sinclair]

To a somewhat less-informed science observer watching this conversation, it certainly seems like Higgsy is hung-up on a single number - 600MV or whatever and by-golly if Birkeland didn't get that right on the nose ( over 100 years ago ) then we can certainly ignore everything else he postulated or observed.

Higgsy requires that his opponents have a 100% full-fleshed-out theory, with all proofs in place, and tied in a neat package with bow attached. Whereas his own position cannot under any circumstances be questioned, since 'everybody knows....'

The lack of scientific curiosity - much less rigor - is sorely lacking here.

Are you sure Higgsy isn't actually "Professor" Mike in disguise?



Earl

[Michael Mozina]

To a somewhat less-informed science observer watching this conversation, it certainly seems like Higgsy is hung-up on a single number - 600MV or whatever and by-golly if Birkeland didn't get that right on the nose ( over 100 years ago ) then we can certainly ignore everything else he postulated or observed.

Higgsy requires that his opponents have a 100% full-fleshed-out theory, with all proofs in place, and tied in a neat package with bow attached. Whereas his own position cannot under any circumstances be questioned, since 'everybody knows....'

The lack of scientific curiosity - much less rigor - is sorely lacking here.

Are you sure Higgsy isn't actually "Professor" Mike in disguise?



Earl

The saddest part all is that this conversation with Higgsy is pretty much "par for the course" when it comes to talking to mainstream astronomers. They expect any and every *other* model or concept about the universe to be a fully flushed out theory, yet they give their LCDM model a "completely free pass" as it relates to all the various and important scientific questions which they cannot answer or explain in the LCDM model, and in spite of the LCDM model being an *internally self conflicted* theory with respect to the Hubble constant, even *with* 95 percent dark magic fudge factor to play with.

Can they explain where dark energy even comes from? Of course not. Can they explain how to control it in a real lab experiment? Nah. Can they explain how it manages to continuously violate the conservation of energy laws by remaining constant throughout expansion? Nope. They can't collectively explain anything important about nearly 70 percent of their model to start with!

Can they explain why their exotic matter mathematical models have all been falsified and fallen like dominoes at LHC and every other laboratory experiment on Earth for the last several decades? Nope. Can they explain why the standard particle physics model has passed every possible test to date? Nope. They insist it's wrong anyway.

Can they explain why the distant universe looks virtually identical to our local universe in *direct defiance* of their galaxy evolutionary models, with mature and massive galaxies, and huge quasars as far back in time as we can currently see? Nope.

Can they even agree on how to fix the LCDM model's internal inconsistencies with respect to the five sigma Hubble constant problem in their model? Nope.

The LCMD expansion model is probably *the* wildest, craziest "bedtime story" ever conconted by man. It violates the known laws of physics. It's 95 percent dark magic in terms of the math and most of the rest of it is "pseudo-science" with math. It's at odds with *itself* with respect to the Hubble constant. None of it makes any sense and absolutely *none* of it shows up in a real laboratory experiment on planet Earth, or anywhere in our solar system or galaxy. They cannot even provide a laboratory demonstration of a *sustained* particle acceleration process by "magnetic reconnection' that could *possibly* demonstrate (in a real lab experiment) a sustained full sphere solar corona, sustained planetary aurora, electrical discharges in solar and planetary atmospheres, etc.

On the other hand, just like with Higgsy here, should Birkeland's voltage even be off by a small margin, astronomers are ready and willing to throw away a working solar system physical model simply because they believed that it had *one* mathematical mistake. Higgsy's concerns could *easily* be remedied simply by recognizing (and with satellite imagery support galore), that the cathode surface *must* sit *underneath* of the surface of the photosphere. The actual "footprints" of the coronal loops are on the cathode surface. We can see the physical effects of coronal loops on the surface of the photosphere in terms of their heat signatures, as well as their magnetic field signatures on that same surface as current flows up *and* down though that surface inside massive coronal loops reaching far out into the surrounding solar atmosphere.

Unfortunately, most astronomers haven't even bothered to read Birkeland's work for themselves and they have no understanding of it in the first place.

Birkeland simulated solar strahl, and a sustained plasma corona that was hotter than the cathode surface. He simulated a *sustained* planetary aurora with circuit theory. He even provided physical laboratory evidence that positive ions would also flow from a cathode sun. He simulated polar jets, coronal loops, electrical discharges, and every other important particle movement and heating pattern in the entire solar atmosphere. All of these charged particle movement patterns have since been verified by various and numerous satellites in space. Birkeland was even the first one to try to mathematically model those particle movement patterns in and through the solar atmosphere.

Magnetic reconnection has not, nor will it ever physically (in a real lab experiment) simulate these *numerous* sustained solar atmospheric events, and various particle movement patterns, not even a sustained planetary aurora.

Yet Higgsy and the very few of his fellow astronomers who even profess to understand Birkeland's work would irrationally toss out virtually Birkeland's entire life's work on a whim, based on the flimsiest and most foolish use of math that I can think of, and some twisted and bogus belief that that if Birkeland missed the voltage estimate, the whole cathode surface model is *utterly worthless*. It's just sad to watch this irrational and unscientific behavior. I've watched it, debated it, and listened to it now for at least the last 15 years, and not a single *shed* of physical laboratory evidence has ever been presented to me to support any mainstream claims, not even their claim about "magnetic reconnection" producing *sustained* high temperature plasma and sustained particle acceleration. Never!

It terms of the physical lab results and 'empirical testablity" in a real laboratory experiment, there is no statistical or empirical physical difference between astrology and "mainstream astronomy" today, none! The LCMD cosmology model is invisible metaphysical nonsense on a stick with a smidgen of mathematical MHD pseudoscience to give it an air of scientific credibility. Collectively, none it can produce so much as a sustained planetary aurora in a real lab experiment.

The mental gymnastics that astronomers have to go though to deny the scientific validity of a *full laboratory demonstration of a circuit theory model* has become so extreme and so irrational, that such behavior can only be "explained" by pure fear. They're deathly afraid to come out of their dark metaphysical closet, and finally embrace empirical laboratory physics, and admit to making any mistakes at all over the last century.

They've all been thumbing their collective noses of Birkeland's life's work on circuit theory applied to the topic of space for more than a century, in spite of the fact that his cathode solar model produces *all of the correct and important particle movement patterns* in the solar system, and in spite of the fact that they cannot do so in a real laboratory experiment even to this very day based upon "magnetic reconnection".

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

That is *pretty much* how a solar system works. It's an electrical universe that we live in, from the positively charged cosmic rays that bombard us from the universe itself, to the solar electron strahl/rays/beams and the slower solar wind that is streaming out toward the heliosphere.

Astronomers cannot even explain and simulate the particle flow patterns of our own solar system, so it's certainly no surprise that they can't explain the other 95 percent of their mythical dark universe either.

It's really worth considering how much we might learn about our physical universe simply by replicating Birkeland's *entire set* of original laboratory work, updating it technologically in terms of using modern direct measuring equipment, and updating it terms of adding neon, and helium and hydrogen to the atmosphere.

Sadly, the astronomy community seems intent on burying it's collective heads in the dark, pseudo-scientific mathematical sand of an internally self conflicted metaphysical model of the universe which is incapable of even producing a *sustained planetary aurora* in a real laboratory experiment. Hoy Vey.

[Higgsy]

The voltage is likely to be a figure that's difficult to measure *inside* the solar system.

Why is that? The 600MV is the potential that Birkeland predicted at the Sun, and since your model purports to explain the heating of the corona and the solar wind including the strahl, then the effect of the potential has to operate right out of the Sun because that is where the solar wind incluing the strahl arises. If the 600MV is doing anything at the Sun, then its effect can be detected and measured inside the solar system, in fact right at the Sun.

But the negative part of the solar wind (including the slow and fast wind and the strahl) is nothing like what we would see if the Sun was charged to 600MV.

How do you know what we should expect to "see", if you won't accept the fact that we would expect to "see" cathode rays streaming from the sun in his model?

Because if the Sun were to be charged to a potential of 600MV, which was Birkeland's esitmate, then we know from Coulomb's law what the potential will be at any distance from the Sun, and 600MV would result in outgoing electrons with energy orders of magnitude higher than we see, and positive ions would be unable to escape from the Sun at all. It is obvious that the Sun cannot have a 600MV charge.

The potential at any distance r from the centre of a charged sphere goes as 1/r. If the potential at the top of the photosphere is 600MV (at 1 solar radius), the potential at 4 solar radii would be 150MV, a drop of 450MV and the potential at at 1AU would be 2.8MV, a potential drop of ~597MV.

Well, already you began with a *highly dubious* "assumption", one that's easily falsified in satellite images in fact. You have *assumed* that the surface of the photosphere is the same location as the electrode "surface". Based on what I observe in satellite images, I would say that the electrode surface sits *well underneath* of the surface of the photosphere. Some of the sun's coronal loops rise up and through that surface, but they *obviously* begin and originate *far below* that surface. We know this observationally because we see their physical effect on the surface of the photosphere, not only their higher heat signatures as they traverse the surface of the photosphere, but also their magnetic field signatures as they leave magnetic field "footprints" on that surface which we also observe in magnetogram images.

This is a great example of why your primitive "armchair math" attempts at "debunking" *working physical models* is patently absurd.

There is nothing wrong with simple numerical estimates, and nothing more sophisticated is required, if, as is the case here, your idea is completely blown out of the water by fundamental considerations. Note that I am only using your concept of an "electrode surface" for the purposes of this argument. You have suggested no mechanism by which an "electrode surface" could exist at the Sun, or what would produce it, and it's a silly idea. Since you don't actually say how far below the photosphere this "electrode surface" resides, let's, for the sake of argument, say that Birkeland's 600MV is at a surface halfway between the centre and the photosphere. Well as a consequence of that and Coulomb's law the potential at the top of the corona would be 200MV and the potentials and potential drops I calculate above are just reduced by a factor of three. You'd still have to explain the absence of electrons in the 100s of MeV energy in the solar wind.

Therefore the electrons emitted by the Sun should all have an energy of hundreds of MeV which is truely huge.But even the fastest strahl electrons are only a few hundred eV.

Meh. Electron speeds in from solar flares can actually *exceed* 30Kev.

I'm not even going to ask you for a reference for that because it is still four orders of magnitude less than we would see if the "electrode surface" were half a solar radius below the top of the photosphere.

Furthermore, at 600MV, how do you propose that the observed positive ion wind could ever leave the Sun?

"Sputtering", and scattering off the corona, just as they did in Birkeland's experiments. Remember that whole section on the fat he placed on the walls of the experiments? How do you supposed it caught pieces of the cathode in the fat?

Sputtering? You do realise that sputtering is caused by incoming energetic positive ions removing (neutral) atomic and molecular particles off a solid surface not outgoing positive ions as we see in the solar wind? It is incontrovertible that positive ions could not escape a Sun that has a potential of hundreds of MV at the surface. And don't start with the cosmic rays, because a) we haven't got a solid surface, so no sputtering and b) the cosmic ray flux into the Sun is too small, by many orders of magnitude, to cause the positive ion flux in the solar wind.

The solar wind, including the strahl, is powerful evidence against Birkeland's suggestion that the Sun has a 600MV potential.

You keep talking about speed, but speed is not relevant at all to the space charge of the cosmic rays,

You keep ignoring the fact that their speed *does* effect the overall number of positive charges which enter the solar system over time. I'm not *just* interested in charge, I'm interested in current flow patterns too.

Well, you'll have to explain how "current flow patterns" of the cosmic rays, whatever they look like(what do you think they look like?), explain a static charge of 600MV or X volts at the Sun. The cosmic ray flux is generally measured as a flux (particles passing through a point per unit area per solid angle per unit time). Ironically, contrary to your assertion above, for a given measured flux, the higher the speed, the lower the density per unit volume.

and moreover the charge density, which you refuse to calculate is small.

It doesn't have to be significantly large at small scales to have a major impact over a large enough volume. We're talking about the number of positive charges passing through the sun's heliosphere, a surface area which is actually quite *massive*.

But the "passing" doesn't matter. All that matters is the effect of the instantaneous space charge of cosmic rays, and actually that doesn't matter either, because the shell theorem states that the electric field from a spherical space charge around the Sun is zero at the Sun.

But it doesn't matter what the charge density of cosmic rays is,

Of course it does in terms of what we expect to observe inside the heliosphere.

It doesn't. You don't understand the consequences of the shell theorem.

You mean *besides* the fact that even the mainstream solar model predicts the sun to have a cathode surface?

Hmm, the gravitational segregation of electrons and protons is proposed to give a positive charge to the Sun of tens of coulombs (since an excess of electrons reach escape velocity until the static positive charge equilibrates the negative and positive charge flux leaving the Sun).

In other words, the outside surface emits electrons toward "space".

Well it emits electrons and positive ions, but the gravitational effect is to make a small positive charge at the Sun.

The evidence militates entirely against Birkeland's estimate.

Even if we *assumed* that all of your math was correctly estimated, the very *worst* that you could claim is that Birkeland may have *overestimated* the voltage. So what? Your so called "demonstration" amounts to *absolutely nothing* in terms of falsifying *all* cathode solar models and all voltages.

Indeed. We were talking about Birkeland's estimates. But we can talk about your electric Sun model if you prefer. So what is the voltage? You are the one saying Birkeland is absolutely correct in his predictions and you were the one who brought up his voltage estimates i the first place. If you think the Sun is negatively charged, surely you have a hypothesis which predicts the actual potential and the effect of that potential? Surely?

Anyway, it hasn't turned out well for his idea, in that the evidence does not support a potential of 600MV at the Sun and there is no mechanism for producing it. See below where we talk about mechanisms

Not only does the number of charged particles *alone* (inside our solar system) not determine that all plasma in space is "neutral",

Do you actually think that there is charge imbalance in the Universe?

Furthermore, the charge of "space" that I'm ultimately interested it, is the "charge of space that exists outside of the heliosphere*. The heliosphere ends up being the "double layer" where the electrical exchanges take place between our sun and the rest of the physical universe.

Really??!! I thought your model was that the Sun had a negative charge which explains something or other (acceleration of strahl electrons perhaps). But you seem to be saying now that you think the solar system at the heliopause is negatively charged with 600MV (or some other voltage). I'm sure that's not what Birkeland was suggesting. I think he was talking specifically about the Sun's charge. What has a charged solar system got to do with, say, the acceleration of electrons at the Sun? If the solar system is charged say to 600MV or X volts, what is the potential at the Sun?

For a volume of space to be neutral it just needs to contain the same number of positive and negative charges.

I'm not interested in whether or not the plasma is "neutral" with respect to the number of positive and negative charges *inside* of the solar system's heliosphere! That says *nothing* at all about the "charge" of space itself. Furthermore your use of the term "neutral" implies and says *nothing* about the actual current flow patterns in that volume of area.

"That volume of area"? What are you talking about - that doesn't even make sense. Again, you'll have to explain how the cosmic ray flux ("actual current flow patterns" in your words) contributes to a static charge on the sun (or the solar system?)

That's why I keep asking you to quantify the cosmic ray flux - you'll find that the density of cosmic rays is a tiny proportion of the total of charged particles in the Sun's vicinity. You can stop saying that cosmic rays are fast moving particles - it's irrelevant to the question of the 600MV.

You have started again with a dubious assumption that you have not demonstrated. Where in the current Voyager data will I find an equal number of negative charges flowing into the solar system that offsets the cosmic rays *outside* of the heliosphere?

Why are you fixated on Voyager? We are trying to explain solar effects, things which happen in or very close to the Sun. If an electric potential is an important explanation, then the potential has to be at the Sun, not 120AU away at the heliopause.

You'll have to set out how you think the cosmic ray current rather than the cosmic ray space charge is relevant to maintaining 600MV at the Sun.

All electrical activity is a result of, and described by both voltage *and* current.

That is a very generic statement. What current creates what potetial at the Sun, and how?

How exactly are you intending to come up with a "cosmic rays space charge" which exists outside of the sun's heliosphere?

Well, the density of cosmic rays seems to be about 3 - 10 times that in the heliosphere, so the density of of charge is about the same factor. But why single out the tiny density of cosmic rays from all the other particles making up the ISM? The cosmic rays outside the heliosphere are awfully far away from the Sun - inverse square law applies. Amd moreover, the shell theorem says that the electric field from any spherical charge around the heliosphere is zero within the heliosphere, so even if there is charge imbalance in the ISM, which I doubt, it'll have no effect within the heliosphere.

IF you calculate the cosmic ray flux flowing into the Sun it is vanishingly small compared to the outflowing solar wind.

Vanishingly small? Where? At the solar *surface* or at the outside edge of the solar heliosphere?

At the solar surface - why would it matter anywhere else? But also the cosmic ray flux at the heliopause is a vanishingly small part of the ISM. Check out Voyager data. Electron density just after the heliopause is 39 x 10^3/m^3. The density of cosmic rays within the heliopause is 0.00084/m^3. Ten times that outside is 0.0084/m^3. 4 million ISM electrons for every cosmic ray particle. The electron density of the solar wind just inside the heliopause is ~300/m^3, 35,000 solar wind electrons for every cosmic ray particle. I don't think you realise how sparse cosmic rays are.

Cosmic rays flowing through the solar system and out again (the vast majority of them) have no relevance apart from their space charge.

So what's the "space charge" of an average cosmic ray particle *outside* of the heliosphere?

Huh? The charge of a proton (the vast majority of cosmic rays) is 1.6 x 10^-19 coulombs. An alpha particle is twice that. The electric field can be calculated from the normal Coulomb formula. Would you like me to calculate the electric field from a cosmic ray particle beyond the heliopause? Really?

I'm right. It's time for you to look up and understand the shell theorem.

This should be fun watching you inappropriately try to apply a shell theorem to an *inbound particle flow pattern*.

A shell theorem? The shell theorem. It is perfectly applicable in this case, as you are attempting to explain the potential at the Sun by reference to the charge surrounding the Sun (replace Sun with solar system if you prefer).

Hoy Vey. This sounds like a train wreck of a logical argument from the start.

That must be because you don't understand the shell theorem.

For any inverse square law effect, such as charge or gravity, the electric or gravitational field at any point within a spherical shell of charge or mass is zero.

Within? Who even cares about the fields *inside* of the sun itself? We're talking about the net effect on a charged particle *outside* of the sun's electrode surface, which is *not* necessarily the sun's surface of the photosphere.

You're the one who keeps claiming that a) the cosmic rays somehow justify your claim that the Sun is negatively charged, and b) that "electrode surface" whatever that disaster of an idea is, is below the Sun's photosphere surface. The shell theorem shows that there can be no electric field arising from any spherical space charge of cosmic rays outside whatever effect it is you are trying to explain.

The field at any point within the space charge of cosmic rays is therefore zero at the Sun's surface,

No! You don't even understand the concept properly! Sheesh.

I don't understand the shell theorem? Wow. That's desperate.

[Higgsy]

To a somewhat less-informed science observer watching this conversation, it certainly seems like Higgsy is hung-up on a single number - 600MV or whatever and by-golly if Birkeland didn't get that right on the nose ( over 100 years ago ) then we can certainly ignore everything else he postulated or observed.
Earl

No - the 600MV came about because Michael brought it up and insisted that the potential at the Sun must be about that magnitude because Birkeland proposed it. I would be delighted to hear about any electric Sun model where people propose a) the current, or the potential or whatever steady state property they think is important, b) the phenomena in the Sun that that potential or current or whatever explains, c) the mechanism by which the current, potential, whatever, does what it is claimed it does and d) the mechanism by which the current, potential, whatever is generated in the first place.

As for Birkeland - he did outstanding work on the aurorae. His lab model of the Sun, while it might have some superficial resemblance to some isolated solar phenomena, does not represent the Sun well generally speaking, and has nothing quantitative to tell us about solar phenomena that we don't already know. His main solar hypothesis, that there is a large negative potential at the Sun's surface, has not fared well.