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In a manner somewhat like the formation of an alliance to defeat Darth Vader’s Death Star, more than a decade ago astronomers formed the Whole Earth Blazar Telescope consortium to understand Nature’s Death Ray Gun (a.k.a. blazars). And contrary to its at-death’s-door sounding name, the GASP has proved crucial to unraveling the secrets of how Nature’s “LHC” works.
“As the universe’s biggest accelerators, blazar jets are important to understand,” said Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology (KIPAC) Research Fellow Masaaki Hayashida, corresponding author on the recent paper presenting the new results with KIPAC Astrophysicist Greg Madejski. “But how they are produced and how they are structured is not well understood. We’re still looking to understand the basics.”
Blazars dominate the gamma-ray sky, discrete spots on the dark backdrop of the universe. As nearby matter falls into the supermassive black hole at the center of a blazar, “feeding” the black hole, it sprays some of this energy back out into the universe as a jet of particles.
Researchers had previously theorized that such jets are held together by strong magnetic field tendrils, while the jet’s light is created by particles spiraling around these wisp-thin magnetic field “lines”.
Yet, until now, the details have been relatively poorly understood. The recent study upsets the prevailing understanding of the jet’s structure, revealing new insight into these mysterious yet mighty beasts.
“This work is a significant step toward understanding the physics of these jets,” said KIPAC Director Roger Blandford. “It’s this type of observation that is going to make it possible for us to figure out their anatomy.”
Over a full year of observations, the researchers focused on one particular blazar jet, 3C279, located in the constellation Virgo, monitoring it in many different wavebands: gamma-ray, X-ray, optical, infrared and radio. Blazars flicker continuously, and researchers expected continual changes in all wavebands. Midway through the year, however, researchers observed a spectacular change in the jet’s optical and gamma-ray emission: a 20-day-long flare in gamma rays was accompanied by a dramatic change in the jet’s optical light.
Although most optical light is unpolarized – consisting of light with an equal mix of all polarizations – the extreme bending of energetic particles around a magnetic field line can polarize light. During the 20-day gamma-ray flare, optical light from the jet changed its polarization. This temporal connection between changes in the gamma-ray light and changes in the optical polarization suggests that light in both wavebands is created in the same part of the jet; during those 20 days, something in the local environment changed to cause both the optical and gamma-ray light to vary.
“We have a fairly good idea of where in the jet optical light is created; now that we know the gamma rays and optical light are created in the same place, we can for the first time determine where the gamma rays come from,” said Hayashida.
This knowledge has far-reaching implications about how a supermassive black hole produces polar jets. The great majority of energy released in a jet escapes in the form of gamma rays, and researchers previously thought that all of this energy must be released near the black hole, close to where the matter flowing into the black hole gives up its energy in the first place. Yet the new results suggest that – like optical light – the gamma rays are emitted relatively far from the black hole. This, Hayashida and Madejski said, in turn suggests that the magnetic field lines must somehow help the energy travel far from the black hole before it is released in the form of gamma rays.
“What we found was very different from what we were expecting,” said Madejski. “The data suggest that gamma rays are produced not one or two light days from the black hole [as was expected] but closer to one light year. That’s surprising.”
In addition to revealing where in the jet light is produced, the gradual change of the optical light’s polarization also reveals something unexpected about the overall shape of the jet: the jet appears to curve as it travels away from the black hole.
“At one point during a gamma-ray flare, the polarization rotated about 180 degrees as the intensity of the light changed,” said Hayashida. “This suggests that the whole jet curves.”
This new understanding of the inner workings and construction of a blazar jet requires a new working model of the jet’s structure, one in which the jet curves dramatically and the most energetic light originates far from the black hole. This, Madejski said, is where theorists come in. “Our study poses a very important challenge to theorists: how would you construct a jet that could potentially be carrying energy so far from the black hole? And how could we then detect that? Taking the magnetic field lines into account is not simple. Related calculations are difficult to do analytically, and must be solved with extremely complex numerical schemes.”
Theorist Jonathan McKinney, a Stanford University Einstein Fellow and expert on the formation of magnetized jets, agrees that the results pose as many questions as they answer. “There’s been a long-time controversy about these jets – about exactly where the gamma-ray emission is coming from. This work constrains the types of jet models that are possible,” said McKinney, who is unassociated with the recent study. “From a theoretician’s point of view, I’m excited because it means we need to rethink our models.”
As theorists consider how the new observations fit models of how jets work, Hayashida, Madejski and other members of the research team will continue to gather more data. “There’s a clear need to conduct such observations across all types of light to understand this better,” said Madejski. “It takes a massive amount of coordination to accomplish this type of study, which included more than 250 scientists and data from about 20 telescopes. But it’s worth it.”
With this and future multi-wavelength studies, theorists will have new insight with which to craft models of how the universe’s biggest accelerators work. Darth Vader has been denied all access to these research results.
Sources: DOE/SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory Press Release, a paper in the 18 February, 2010 issue of Nature.
Wow – that is a very interesting result indeed. Ball’s in your court, theorists!
Oh Dear. Now we will be again bombarded by all those EU weirdos, and hear their claptrap of irrelevant rubblish. Since black holes don’t exist in the minds of these jackasses, then I suppose whatever they say really doesn’t matter.
One important point though. This phenomena likely only occurs in extreme circumstances, where material is dragged into the vicinity of an accretion disk, accelerated, and expelled through the poles. This forms the strong magnetic field. The black hole itself only acts as the gravitation source vacuuming up the material.
Let the “personal theories” begin, I suppose.
It is curious that the gamma rays are produced so far from the BH. I might conjecture that these result from Bremmstrahlung, or the relativistic case of synchrotron radiation as the highly relativistic charge particles accelerated through the jet interact with a gas cloud.
LC
The picture of detailed simulation accompanying the story is rather misleading! The observations are of 20 days of gamma ray flare and optical polarization changes during this flare. Detailed simulations are hardly warranted unless one has mapped the flare in detail (perhaps in radio band). Occam’s razor indicates that a rough model like Scheuer’s dentist’s drill should suffice to explain the observations. In this mdel, the jet changes direction erratically due to bouncing repeatedly on somewhat asymmetric surrounding medium, rather like a dentist’s drill.
¨Huh, I had the same reaction as HSBC. Isn’t it awful how the first reaction is “wow, amazing” and the second “wow, wonder what those amazing idjits the [insert pertinent crackpot species here] make of this”. They do train us well with their persistent habituation, don’t they?
– “Sit up, roll over, please play intellectually dead. Good reader!”
As far as this, again truly amazing, data goes all my personal ideas just failed testing. No twisted jets would have come out of that mess. So good riddance!
And now for some new mess. 😀 It will be pitiful for the experts, but hey, I must make a passing for now mental model or play as dead as those crackpots would like me to be, right?
Another mechanism that could overlay the steady stream of synchrotron radiation of LBC (which nicely explains the polarization, I guess), is that those bunched up magnetic fields have to relax. When they do, it could be by passing a volume where reconnection happens more often.
I don’t know much about these things, but at a passing glance dynamic reconnection seems to be able to add a lot of “oomph” to particles caught up in them. Relative to the surrounding media (of other particles if not else) which in this case can be dilute at a guess.
This would apply for particles still in synchrotron mode, I believe. But perhaps not as directional as the jet should be.
Still, such mechanisms could be part of the explanation of why the light source is situated light years away and not nearby (relatively speaking). The gas cloud explanation likely need to somehow balance the cloud at this distance over a range of black holes masses and activities, which is of course possible but more precarious.
Torbjorn, I like the reconnection idea, from what little I know of Gamma Ray bursts magnetic fields seem to be strongly implicated. The sheer strength of the fields in these cases would result in an almighty release of energy from any reconnection events.
Ah, my favorite topic of astrophysics. Great read, very interesting article, thanks Jean!!
Reconnection is likely involved, since it is a nice mechanism to transform magnetic energy into kinetic energy. However the field strength are not that “high” in a jet. IIRC, normally one talks about a few Gauss or less. That’s far less than what you need for the LHC (~5 Tesla). In fact, if the particles in the jet are fast enough, they can collimate themselves quite nicely due to relativistic effects.
I have read a nice review recently by H. Spruit. It deals with jets, the launching mechanism and the problems involved. Very interesting:
http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.3096
If the jets really kink and bend rather quickly, I wonder how the relativistic particles would react to such a behavior. Electrons (producing the synchrotron radiation) would likely follow the field lines, since they are relatively lightweight.
But since the jet (as everything in the universe) is quasi-neutral, we need a positive counterpart. That could be positrons, but protons are also possible. However, protons are about 2000x more massive than electrons. I wonder if they would follow such rapid kinks and bends so easily, particularly since they are highly relativistic. One needs a magnetic field with the strength of the LHC to keep them “in line”.
And the final question: What causes the kinks and bends of the jet?
Because I really want to believe (really badly)not only can massless particles exceed the sped of light, but things with mass can as well… I’m going to speculate we cannot see/detect the gamma rays until they are so far out, because they are exceeding the speed of light!
…however as a realist, there is something in my gut telling me not to be shocked if it isn’t due to the massive gravity around a black hole which is bending space time. Since it would be opposite the principle of something falling into it.
@ Aodhhan:
What exactly do you want to say?
1) NOTHING can exceed the speed of light. It’s really that simple.
2) It is not simple for a black hole (no matter how massive it is) to suck down matter. Every piece of matter approaching a black hole has angular momentum with respect to the black hole. In order to fall into the BH, the angular momentum must be taken away, which is a VERY hard task! Friction alone in an accretion disk does not do the job! You need other things. Jets are a possibility. So, a jet and highly relativistic particles streaming away from a black hole is natural and necessary. People have a hard time believing this, because they think the particles come “out” of the black hole. This is not the case. The particles come from the accretion disk and are collimated into the jets.
Great to hear of worldwide co-operation of any sort!
Ahh So… model also represents the nucleus of an atom? or center of a star? or center of a globular cluster? or center of a galaxy? or center of? NOW I’m starting to see ….fractal cosmology?
There is experimental evidence of superluminal speed.
An ultrawideband electromagnetic pulse transmitter initiated by a picosecond laser
And this:
Superluminal pulse transmission through a phase-conjugating mirror
As for astrophysical jets, the dense plasma focus has been used in z-pinch experiments for several years to study various properties of astrophysical plasmas. Here’s one example with an emphasis on jets.
Laboratory Astrophysics Experiments with Z-Pinches
And an overview paper:
Dense plasma focus for laboratory astrophysics
The dense plasma focus as a particle accelerator.
Dense plasma focus Z-pinches for high gradient particle acceleration
😉
DrFlimmer Says:
“1) NOTHING can exceed the speed of light. It’s really that simple.”
—
Are you positive? .. Perhaps the math is incomplete. Not saying it is, just saying “perhaps”.. E = mc² … 🙂
@Aodhan
Quote: “I’m going to speculate we cannot see/detect the gamma rays until they are so far out, because they are exceeding the speed of ligh
Cannot see/detect [the] gammarays until they are so far out ?? Something tells me you have a completely wrong idea about how electromagnetic fenomenon are detected. They are detected when they reach our detectors, the detectors here close to the earth, not close to the black hole…
@ Al Hall:
Yes! 😉
For all we have seen, measured and checked, GR and SR are correct.
@ solrey:
About your quote/first link: As I see it, the pulse is maybe only faster than the speed of light in the air (which would also be superluminal). This would not be faster than the speed of light in vacuum. Such things have been observed quite often, and we use this effect to measure high-energy-radiation by their Cerenkov light emission (HESS e.g.). This is how interpret the first page of your source — more is not available to me.
About your second link: A few lines down on the first page, one can read this:
So, “particles” do not move faster than c, nor does any information. The quote is quite clear about it.
However, it mentions group velocities and wave packages. In quantum mechanics particles can be described as waves. But one wave is not enough. You need a package of waves (a wave package, duh!). It is possible that single waves of the package exceed the speed of light. But this is no problem, because the INFORMATION is transferred with the whole package, and the velocity of the package (the group velocity) is always lower than c. The math to derive this is quite simple, btw.
About your other links:
I knew they would come, and I only want to say that you should note that z-pinches (as any other pinch) are highly unstable! They are subject to many different forms of instabilities (kink instability, e.g.). Therefore, such short-living things are no good explanation for a rather long-living jet!
That’s also a reason, why plasma physicists didn’t find a way to produce a stable fusion plasma so far….
@DrFlimmer:
You have excellent reasoning, but as long you do not know the nature of gravity and matter your conclusion:
“People have a hard time believing this, because they think the particles come “out” of the black hole. This is not the case. The particles come from the accretion disk and are collimated into the jets.”
.. might be faulty.
Explain this: the earth is accelerating at 1 G since the beginning of her existance.
Einstein’s Equivalence Principle shows that there is no difference between constant acceleration of a rocket and gravity.
We are moving now compared to the beginning of a young Earth with a relative speed of 99,99999999E % lightspeed. We are a dangerous black hole now if set back in time!
If there was not a mechanism in this universe making possible differences between entropy/enthalpy, those forces would not exist.
If a black hole would only exists as a point-like source without more then 1 dimension, how would this 1-dimensional source produce 3- dimensional gravity? Why would would it have any influence at all? If matter would shrink to infinity its influence would be neglitable.
All other matter is showing dynamic thermo-dynamic properties. Why should a black hole be completely without dynamics? It is just an assumption based on ignorance that a black hole does only react with this universe on the event horizon, which is a purely mathematical solution for a black holes very obvious influence on this same universe.
An electron should not escape from any atomic black hole by comparison 😉
DrFlimmer –
True, so true.. The math looks pretty solid based on what we know at the moment… And I stress “…on what we know at the moment..” 🙂
@ Aodhhan: From now on stop making flame comments. Your statement above about faster than light particles can only be replied to with a real “face palm” comment.
The event horizon does not causally influence the outside universe. In fact it is just the opposite.
The magneto-hydrodynamics of jets occurs from the huge heating of material falling onto a black hole. The nucleon and electron have different masses which results in charge separations. This is the source of currents and the whole MHD physics behind jets.
LC
@ Hannes:
Yeah, Gedankenexperiments are a nice tool…
Well, the earth would possibly move with the speed you said, but that is no problem. Maybe the earth would have gained enough mass due to its speed that for an external observer, the earth should have become a black hole. However, for a human being on the surface of the earth, the earth would still be like it ever was, because in his frame of rest the other things are approaching light speed, not the earth. So, the earth would not be a real black hole (there was another discussion about this very topic somewhere on Universe Today not long ago….).
Well, a point has dimension zero, doesn’t it? And this point-like source creates a curvature in 3+1-dimensional space-time, which we experience as gravity. But it is the mass which is the most-important thing for the curvature of space-time, it doesn’t matter what dimension the object has. A two-dimensional object does also curve space-time, so does a one-dimensional object. Why shouldn’t also a zero-dimensional object be able to do it?
If the sun collapses instantly to a black hole now, the earth would feel nothing, the gravity would still be the same, because it only depends on the mass that is “inside” of earth’s orbit. The only problem would be that we would face a never-ending darkness leading to freezing of the planet.
Btw: You meant “if matter would shrink to zero”, right? It’s influence would NOT be negligible. For example: In every experiment conducted so far, an electron always behaves as a point-like object. AFAIK the electron is a point down to 10^-18m or so. However, its influence is extraordinary. Not through gravity, but through the electromagnetic charge it carries.
A black hole is very dynamic. However, it has only a few properties: mass, spin, and maybe charge. That’s it.
The spin of a black hole is quite important. It creates an ergo-sphere where space-time is pulled along with the spin of the black hole, and so is every piece of matter.
An electron escaping an atomic black hole? That depends. If only the nucleus turns into a black hole, nothing really changes for the electron. Also are the masses involved so low that the black holes would be really small, probably evaporating quickly due to Hawking radiation.
If you want to turn the whole atom into a black hole, I am not quite sure how one could achieve this, since an atom is mostly vacuum. Could be tricky 😉
Hawking radiation…. or ….Black Hole Evaporation…. Another one that the LHC is supposed to “prove”…… Hmmm.,,. I don’t know…. Time will tell…
@DrFlimmer
Jar Jar Binks was send with a rocket to space. He doesn’t know why, but he will do the job – testing the equivalence principle with a massive ball in his hand.
He is in a big rocket with much fuel. He is accelerating with 1G . He also knows without looking out of a window that at the end of the trip there will be more mass in the ceiling than below him. Jar Jar drops the ball.
Will it drop to the ceiling or on his foot?
His brother Einstein look to the ship and sees the ceiling has more mass.
Jar jar Binks is afraid he will hurt his feet.
What will Einstein say?
He is thinking of throwing out the ball outside. He might have a speed close to lightspeed now, accelerating to LS compared to his brother. Will he be able to thow the ball outside, now the rocket is behaving like a black hole to the ouside world?
He is also very afraid he might evaporate due to Hawking radiation.
Einstein wrote a note to him “when you are ready and afraid – read this”.
What will the note say?
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/15/can-a-really-really-fast-spacecraft-turn-into-a-black-hole/
Why would there be more mass in the ceiling than below him?
As long as the rocket accelerates, everything will “fall” to the floor. I wonder, how massive your ceiling should be in order to have enough gravity to overcome the acceleration at the bottom of the rocket.
But go, read the link above, and also take a look at the comments. There are not too much of them, and they are also quite interesting….
Einstein designed and constructed the rocket so that all fuel and mass below would have been used during the trip.
When all is gone below Jar Jar is standing on a thin floor. But above him is still the same rest of his ship (his living quarters).
At rest it does not matter that below the ship there was more mass then at the top. The difference in gravity was not of any meaning, too weak for a difference to be detected.
But during the trip the configuration changed. The rocket was designed with that change in mind. Einstein wanted to know whether the balance in gravitational forces would change in a dynamic way.
Will it now be as if Jar Jar is standing at a floor with mass earth and above a mass like Jupiter from Einstein’s point of view?
And thanks for the link!
@Hannes
You do realize that you are mixing different science stuff and put in some old style conspiracy logic in between in your explanation.
I think you are referring to the increase of mass when an object moves faster and faster. You believe that the mass in front of the rocket will become denser faster than the back end so at one point it will attract anything to the front. Sounds logical but sadly for you the universe does not work like this.
Also Earth does not move at 99.999999% light speed because it expands at a constant 9.81 m/s^2
I think you have problems understanding the “Relativity” in the “Relativity theory” A bit like some people are confused how it is possible to come “down” on the Moon if you go “up” on earth. For them if you come down then it means you land on Earth not the Moon. (This is no joke, I know people like that!)
Relativity can be confusing.
Relax, this is just a teaser. I expected someone to react like this 🙂
The situation is not as easy to understand as on first sight.
The strong equivalence principle states that in a free falling situation (our ball) only on small distance and timescales gravitational fields are not having any influence.
On the link above it is already shown that fast spaceships can behave like a black hole, but are apparently not the same. Einstein based his entire equivalence principle on Mach’s work. If Mach missed someting – you guess.
Nevertheless there is also a breach in equivalence in the situation as described in the link above where it says the situation with a black hole and a fast ship is not equivalent. That is worrying to me.
It usually means, like in dark matter/energy issues that we are missing something crucial.
So will Jar Jar hurt his feet? You tell me.
No.. there’s nothing faster than light.. in this space-time anyway. AND any mass attempting to go FASTER that light, turns into INFINITE energy?
I would say he would hurt his feet, like if he would let fall the ball here on earth. I have no good explanation at hand, but that’s what I think, because the rocket is accelerating just with 1G, so that’s what you feel – it doesn’t matter how fast you are. It’s similar to the case when you shut down the engines. You become weightless, because there is no acceleration any more.
Experiments tell us (so far) that GR is right, as is SR. That’s a fact, and it’s a good one. When our mind gets twisted with such Gedankenexperiments like the one here, it’s due to our limited imagination, not to the physics. 😉
I am sure, there is a solution to the “paradox”, but I don’t have it. There are others around here that are much better experts than me on this topic.
Since GR predicts its own breakdown and does not include quantum effects, it is obviously incomplete. But so far it work out VERY well and withstood every test we conducted.
@ solrey
After the last encounter, I thought you spat the dummy and said you weren’t returning. Guess you can’t be taken seriously.
But what is it with you. Nearly everything you write is full of distortions, half-truth, out and out fabrications, or absolutely wrong. Your links, for example, do not support what you say.
As DrFlimmer points out, the reference you allege faster than light actually says the complete opposite!
Another, of course, is your statement;
Well that is quite true either, is it?. Isn’t dense plasma focus (DPF) a separate and different kind of pinch than the z-pinch?
Also the file you link has forgotten on thing – that the experiments in the lab last for nanoseconds, and yet, according to EU proponents this same effect can be extended up year in astrophysical phenomena. It is a pretty fine stretch of the imagination to carte-blanch suggest they explain the observed phenomena. It may look like it, but where is the evidence to support it? You know, as I do, there is little to support your view – even as formal citations in the current astrophysical papers.
(Q: Are magnetic fields and the EU explanations of phenomena all so universally scaleable? We already know the range of gravitational phenomena ARE NOT scaleable. I.e. Galaxies behave different than say most nebulae. So how do you draw such a conclusion that something done on a earthbound experiment works on the larger scale.)
And yet this behaviour is not the first time. For starters, how can we forget your now classic and utterly ridiculous explanation of an stellar evolution’s H-R Diagram. You knew it was totally wrong, but you still dragged it out as some “convincing” argument against nucleosynthesis and fusion in stars.
What it comes down to is you will do anything, say anything – even if you know it is not true – in the hope that someone reading it might consider you view is “common knowledge.” Now, as exampled here, and yet again, give links to support some statement, when the link actually says the exact opposite!
I actually think you just do this on a regular basis, just to get around the Universe Today personal theory policy; and still give the illusion your claims are actually true and are credible science.
In the end it comes down to one thing; your just a habitual con artist with an agenda. Frankly, even compulsive liars have better credibility! Pathetic.
It is clear there is considerable confusion over special relativity! I strongly recommend that people take a day or two and read a reasonably well written book, popularization or otherwise, on this subject. It is not possible for me to correct the damage here. I wrote a book “Can Star Systems be Explored,” which gives a sohpmore-junior college level introduction to special relativity. For those not willing to cut their teeth on that, Hawking wrote “Brief History of Time,” and Pal Davies wrote some popularizations as well.
There is an obvious confusion over a mass becoming “infinite” as the velocity of something approaches the speed of light. First of the mass does not become infinite. The momentum and energy (the 4th component of a 4 dimensional momentum vector) transform by Lorentz boosts so as to become huge. The actuall mass remains the same, for it is the momentum space invariant of the Lorentz group of spacetime.
This in part answers the question concerning an observer on an accelerated reference frame. The rocket (say a Bussard ramject) does not become so massive (in fact its mass remains the same) so as to create the funny ideas about gravity suggested above. I wrote some on the nature of the equivalence principle, gravity and so forth on the UT blog post:
http://www.universetoday.com/2010/02/28/astronomy-without-a-telescope-%e2%80%93-gravity-schmavity/
As for the EU stuff, I ain’t even going there — I am sick of that rubbish. There is of course plasma physics involved here, but the gravitational potential of the black hole is what powers the plasma and generates these huge and spectacular events.
LC
Lawrence B. Crowell, said;
I don’t disagree with you that nearly all of the EU stuff is rubbish, but ignoring completely them is not the answer. The problem they are desperately seeking credibility, and they hope in their heart of hearts that everyone will become just become sick and tired of standing up to them.
Sadly most of the sciences are under attack. The main problem and main weakness comes down the necessary rigid methods of observation and then draw conclusions by the scientific method. There is little room for speculation or alternative views – especially outside their field of study or exposed experiences. Here we see time and again, often in responses in Universe Today (for example), where if the blogger doesn’t understand it or that the idea is not “intuitive”, then it must be wrong and be attacked. This is where individuals like Solrey drive the wedge, pretending there views are on equal footing with accepted theory and knowledge, and produce arguments that sound right but is at heart, is either flawed or just completely ignores the available evidence.
Also when replying to such individuals with questions, it often hard to assess if they are genuine curious, acting as trolls, or that they have an organised agenda to inflict on others their personal doctrines.
For me, both solrey and Anaconda are dangerous in the sense that the deliberate distorted words just become part of the overall lie. They are deliberately causing more dissent and are shunning those genuine curiosity. If there is no one to stand up and challenge their half-truth or out and out fabrications, those whose know no better are just sucked into their same agenda.
IMO, being sick of the rubbish is exactly what they are after. Pointing out their flaws and their modus operandi needs to be said – if only so the truth is balanced and express mainstream science. If we lose that, I believe science and technology is in real trouble. (Along with properly understanding just how things work and the principles behind it.)
Just look at the influence astrology still has on the population. It only survives because everyone got tired of challenging the same old lies and failures of what it predicts.
In one part I agree with you, but I think we need to step back and take a larger view. The proliferation of “alt-science,” or so called bible-science, creationism, conspiracy theories and the rest have grown like a population of bunnies. This stuff is all over the place and in myriad different forms. This extends into politically hot button issues as well, such as environmental science and global warming. In the latter case, this faux science is being promoted by many cable news anchors, particularly on Faux News. Glen Beck has half the US population convinced on how he has scooped the entire climate science community, as he gets up there and draws elaborate and ridiculous charts of things — linking global warming claims to Lenin and so forth.
For topics not so politically charged I suspect that what is happening is people are searching for some sort of “cosmic connection,” to use Sagan’s book title. They want some sort of sense they have a handle on the foundations of existence. Yet most of these people lack either the time, patience or basic intelligence to ask the right questions and to search out the appropriate sources. So I suspect they quickly latch on to something that is easily absorbed, which can include religious ideations or beliefs as well. This is clearly the case with the EU/PU types, for in these discussions it is clear they have a weak understanding of electromagnetism, but yet claim to know the ultimate foundations of the universe. So this matter is really more of a sociological issue than it is scientific. Arguing the science seems to do little good, for most of these people are not convinced of their error and the same nonsense they raised “last month” reappears again “this month.” So over and over again this goes like a skipped vinyl record on a phonograph.
It does seem to be a case of surrendering ground if one gives up. I know that biologists and evolutionary-genetics researchers often throw up their hands over the creationism issue, finding the debates to be a waste of time. There are a few who seem to relish these debates and enjoy thrusting their foil at these faux-science types. Yet I must confess I think there is some deeper subtle issue of a societal and psychological nature here. I think to really blunt these trends the matter might be better addressed fundamentally on that level. Otherwise we are in a situation of endlessly fighting off barbarians trying to scale the city walls.
LC
Let’s have a look into the possible differences between “schwere masse” and “träge masse”.
Mach and Einstein state that they are equivalent. We will look into that now.
We will simulate on earth a situation so we can reduce the influence of “träge masse”.
In our experiment we balance out the forces in the equatorial plane to look solely to the vertical forces which are as we know produced by gravity.
We will need a trick to rule out the influence of the rest of the universe, which according to Mach is the cause for “träge masse”. In our local experiment we cancel out the degree of that influence by measuring solely the extend of “schwere masse”, which is the pure vertical y-axis in a gravitational field.
The problem with matter is that it has dimensions and that the particles are not exactly on the same distance along the curvilinear abscissa within the gravitational field. we will try to mimic a situation where there is no influence on this horizontal plane.
When, here on earth, you would have a stick with the same curvature as the earth gravitational field and you would balance that stick perfectly (like a pencil upon a pencil) there is just pure “schwere masse”.
When you would exert a force on the equatorial plane you can check whether “schwere masse” is the same as “träge masse”. If it shows that (in the perfect situation with no friction) there is no inertia then we prove Einstein and Mach wrong. Any horizontal force F can be translated into a vertical force F, because there is no mass. In my opinion a Black hole represents this situation almost perfectly. Local gravity outweighs universal gravity almost completely. A black hole is flat on the horizontal axis so any change of force on the horizontal plane (which we would describe as momentum) would exert an equal force along the vertical plane. Momentum would be translated to gravity, so to say. The jet of the black hole represents in this situation the “release valve” of momentum from infalling matter.
I personally think that “träge masse” is ALMOST the same as “schwere masse”. “Träge masse” is in normal circumstances not different from schwere masse. “Träge masse” is the result of the split-up of the different vectors within all the atoms involved. Mass is just an expression of those tensors.
And I totally gree with DrFlimmer , Jar Jar will hurt is feet (again).
And I totally agree with DrFlimmer , Jar Jar will hurt his feet (again). Sorry!
Rarely do I get a response from my naive questions but, I am somewhat of a pest so I’ll keep trying.
What exactly is spewing from “Natures LHC” jets and where does it end up?
jings, yous are awfy feart o any alternative theories. Bright as ye may be Alfvens might have somethin fur ye. How aboot mebe lookin intae some o his gear, ye’s ken it’s no aw wrang. So fur crivvens sake hae a look at it an try an plug the electrical an magnetic in tae yer theories. It might help
Seven blind men describe an elephant..
One of the seven has his toe stepped on and forever thinks of elephants as powerful gravitational beings…
wjwbudro,
The jets are particles, mostly likely a mixture of electrons and protons, with a sprinkling of positrons, antiprotons, and perhaps some helium nuclei (alpha particles). Close in to the origin of the jets, there will also be all manner of unstable particles, of which the muons (and antimuons) will travel the furthest. Of course, there will likely be lots of neutrinos too!
Broadly speaking, most of the jets’ (particle) energy will go to heating the intra-cluster (inter-galactic) medium, blowing giant bubbles that are clearly seen in x-ray images of rich clusters (such as Perseus A). However, some will remain with the ultra-relativistic particles, which will travel across the universe, and be recorded by as ultra-high energy cosmic rays in detectors such as the Pierre Auger Observatory
@LC and others.
What is mass and speed when there is no equivalence?
It can be translated as probability/possibility tensors within spacetime. It describes the probability/possibility that an object is here or there within the space-time matrix. In fact we’ll see we can describe gravity as the same expression. There is no difference between matter and gravity in our grid, and we can explain that the speed of light can in fact be limitless, but the probability for that is nearly zero. So you can be pretty sure that matter is “moving” along a certain track. A single atom is a representation of a probability cloud of tensors. Forces represent dynamic tensors in the grid. But the total of entropic forces in this universe are zero in the dynamic space-time grid. In this probabilitygrid you do not have to increase mass. You just stretch possibilities over a bigger area.
So Jar Jar will hurt his feet.
Thank you Jean for your reply. I try to limit my naive questions but, sometimes my curiosity gets the best of me. I was just considering that if we weren’t “exactly” sure of the makeup of the jets, that some portion of it could be the exotic/unseen missing “dark” matter.
I do enjoy reading UT and it’s posters. Thank you.
Hi again Jean You don’t have to reply. You say the jets are particles, as in barionic, but, looking back at the article;
“shows a black hole pulling in nearby matter (yellow) and spraying energy back out into the universe in a jet (blue and red) that is held together by magnetic field lines (green).”
This is why I say some articles can be somewhat confusing to “me”.
If it is pure >gamma photon “energy” that is being sprayed then no mass is involved and my conjecture that it might be some part of the missing dark matter is kaput. Unless of course a transformation occurs per e=mc^2 and after escaping the jets magnetic field influence it nestles into the gravitational playing field. Then again, if no transformation occurs, it might simply escape into the continuum as a bunch of strings. lol
I don’t have long but, I sure hope some of this comes to light (pun) before I check out or maybe I’ll see the light after I check out. lol
Thanks again for your indulgence.
@Hannes, I don’t know what you mean by things not being equivalent. However, there seems to be some confusion over mass changing. If you accelerate to a velocity close to the speed of light relative to the sun, there will be no extra gravitation from the mass of the rocket or frame due to a Lorentz factor.
Again, I am sensing considerable confusion on this subject, which is pretty canonical these days. The obligation is upon people to seak out credible sources on this. By credible I means a book title you might find at a reputable book store with a science section or something you might find in a college bookstore. What is not credible is something you might find on an alt-science website, such as “plasma universe” rubbish.
LC
iantresman said:
Boy, it must be desperate for you to reply – especially when most of the readers of the thread has been and gone. What is sad though, is biased individuals like you make ridiculous claims.
It is very interesting that the assumed “scaleable nature” of EU is based on really old EU stuff – doctrines of those with delusions that EU is some cosmic solution to everything. Let’s see Alfven paper of 1978, IEEE is not a paper on astrophysics, and claims “can contribute”, and finally, the table from Alfven book talks about “similar” to “some” astrophysical plasma. So where exactly does it say / prove / give the astronomical proof that all EU phenomena is “scaleable.”
That the exactly the reason why EU is basically quackery – you make claims that are not true. I.e. Solrey and the jackass we known as Anaconda..
I suppose a half the truth is better than a lie.
So;
This is pure sophistry that I’ve ever heard. You want “peer-reviewed citation” when what you yourself produce is out-off date insignificant rubbish – that has been mostly rejected by astrophysics.
No. You state this crap that all/ most EU is always “scaleable” to argue
Where is the exact proof that “EU is always scaleable” then?
You can’t can you.Why, because there is little to no evidence to prove it. (That’s why all you fools keep saying some EU phenomena looks like some laboratory plasmas – but you (and no one else, for that matter, can actually prove it.) Why. Because it is near impossible to get observational any evidence – by inference!
You know as well as I that electric fields in space are weak compared to the significant influence of gravitation. In the laboratory, the circumstances can be significantly ramped up.
Gravitational sources are predictable, electric/ magnetic fields are not so easy nor measurable.
Let’s take one example z-pinches on large scales are in most circumstances are not stable or sustainable, while in the laboratory they are. I.e. z-pinches are not scaleable. End of story.
There is no contradiction.
I have nothing to prove, because it is the EU jackasses are making the claims.
….and I thought Anaconda was silly!
Hon. Salacious B. Crumb,
Please tone down the language.
iantresman,
“EU” has come up several times in comments on my Universe Today stories, so I have done some research on it. Here’s what I found.
Plasma physics is a part of astronomy today, just as much as is nuclear physics, atomic physics, general relativity, etc. However, those who post comments with an EU flavor (so to speak) seem to not mean any of this huge body of research.
There are several old papers by Alfven (and others) with ideas on the application of plasma physics to astronomy. For the most part, these ideas are now of largely historical interest only, having had their day (just like thousands of other, now out-dated, ideas).
There is a fringe element, with Lerner and Peratt as the leading proponents (so it seems), with rather wild and borderline non-scientific ideas about astronomy (though they have published little in the last decade or so).
And there are cranks and crackpots, promoting nonsense ideas such as the Sun being powered by giant intergalactic currents (sorry, there is really no polite word to describe them).
“Plasma Cosmology” seems to be used in two respects: the specific cosmological theories associated with Alfven (now thoroughly outdated), and fringe ideas concerning the application of plasma physics to cosmology (and astrophysics in general). This is the middle two above.
“Electric Universe” seems to apply exclusively to the last, the cranks and crackpots. As such, it seems to be a clear example of exactly what should not be written in the comments on Universe Today stories (“Don’t promote your personal theories”).
Let me conclude by saying that Fraser Cain seems to be a big fan of people coming up with new ideas, and developing them to the point where they become part of mainstream astronomy. Not only is there an Against the Mainstream section of his BAUT forum, but also there’s an Astronomy Cast episode devoted to sound advice on this topic: How To Be Taken Seriously By Scientists.
wjwbudro, and others interested,
Astronomy Cast has an episode you might be interested in, to learn more about jets. Or you could ask a question or two in the Bad Astronomy and Universe Today Forum’s Q&A section, there are lots of knowledgeable people there who’d be only too pleased to help you understand better.
Hannes, and others interested,
In addition to the BAUT Forum’s Q&A section, as a resource, Physics Forums has a section devoted exclusively to Special & General Relativity.
@iantresman
You can do an experiment in which you check whether gravitional fields influence the shape of a magnetical field. You can do it right here on Earth. If it’s perfectly round you will prove gravity is not a result of bending space.
It will prove that “träge masse” or inertia, is not the same as “schwere masse” or heavy mass. Exacly like my example, thanks this might be easier to prove.
@LBC:
You’re great, but take a look at the other possibilities. Lorentz transformations are counterintuitive with QM! You will never be able to unite those two if you do not question one or the other.
QM predicts that with greater speed you will have bigger problems defining an objects position. Lorentz’ transformations declare the opposite.
I think Einstein did not have a clue about the nature of matter and gravity. I am trying to overcome this problem. I say you don’t need Lorentz transformations if you can prove there is no violation of the second law of thermodynamics.
Lorentz’ equations are just a step back to “absolute movement” and “absolute position” and ether.
Anyone can see that and Einstein knew but was not capable of solving that issue at the moment.
Sorry,
” If it’s perfectly round you will prove gravity is not a result of bending space”
.. is not an option. But you can turn any object with any electromagnetical field within a gravittational field. It might have any shape [form].
When you prove that the gravitational force is in not in any way influencing the shape of the field then you will have proof.
@iantresman:
I am quite a fan of Hannes Alfvén, no thought about it – see the resemblance?
I am in no way against plasma physics.
@Hannes: You can’t naively quantize gravity that is true. You have to think in different modes. You can preserve quantum information with modular (or Mobius) functions and forms. This is the key, and the physical connection lies with the problem of a time operator in quantum mechanics. The Pauli theorem indicates that a “naive” quantum operator does not exist.
LC
iantresman said;
“@Jean Tate
I was also complaining about some of the language, and just because plasmas are mentioned, does not make the discussion “EU”. I agree that much has passed since Alfvén’s original papers, but age does not invalidate them, nor automatically make recent theories right. The trick is to find the right balance.”
@Jean Tate
The trick actually is to delete all EU, as much of what is said is “personal theory”. These paper are invaild and not accepted by the astrophysical community because either they have been proven wrong I.e. Plasma Cosmology, or highly unllikely..
The “right balance” crap is the spin of a smoke screen. Much of Electric Universe is crap because of the deliberate campaign away from accepted astronomy and astrophysics by deception and out and out falsehoods.
Let’s see. The “Thunderbolts.info” group, a central proponents of these fools, says;
“In your communications, please be sure that, unless you have developed specific strategies with Thunderbolts management, you not identify yourself as a member of the Thunderbolts group, but as a curious or interested observer.”
Clearly they have an agenda, and are not the precious diminutive little souls they claim to be. I.e. As in “The trick is to find the right balance.” Give me a break!
Frankly. The trick is to ignore them altogether!
The cult of EU should be exposed at every opportunity.
Who else but a cult would suggest, for example, as it says on the “Thunderbolts.Info” site, that;
Never trust a site that is recruiting people. Science is a discipline based on deduction and reasoning to draw reproduceable scientific conclusions from the available observed data. It is not some moralistic “democratic process” where the majority dictates accepted theory.
Read the language of the astrophysicist’s conclusions carefully here in this story. The conclusions are drafted and stated in such a way to interpret the data. EU isn’t really mentioned? Why? There are no happen to few (or none) observations to conclude
To clarify. The last reply here should read;
“Read the language of the astrophysicist’s conclusions carefully here in this story. The conclusions are drafted and stated in such a way to interpret the data. EU isn’t really mentioned? Why? There are few (or no) observations to make such a conclusion“
@ iantresman said;
Blah Blah Blah.Yet another silly EU irrelevant response. You can always weasel out of discussions by just stating continuous “half-truths.” Let’s see.
You say here ;
“Electromagnetic fields are the dominant force in some space plasmas. Gravity is the dominant force in others. Electric fields specifically, are common in space plasmas, and may be significant. ”
Nice little deception, and avoiding the question at hand. What specific “space plasmas” eh? On what scale? Clearly if we are talking about the Sun and Earth the fields are significant. They are clear not on a galactic scales no across intergalactic space, and or only significant in extreme phenomena.
Also. If these electric fields are so “commonly in space plasma”, where are all the detailed observations of them, eh?
Isn’t this why, the EU proponent’s prattle on about the unfounded assumption that various laboratory experiments are always “scaleable.” It has not be proven on galactic scales, for example, has it! You know, as well as I, that the foundation of your EU storyline hinges on the ‘electric fields’ throughout space needs to being true from the smallest to the largest scale. If not, the whole EU proposition collapses.
This also clearly explains why you have jumped out in this during this storyline by Jean the moment you saw the word “scaleable” written by me to Sorley. I.e., precisely as I said;
Also two lines written by you proves my argument in a nutshell. You said; “I have provided peer reviewed citations above.” and “I quoted peer reviewed, plasma astrophysicists throughout.”
As to these referenced books as you quote are not astrophysical peer-reviewed are they? I.e. IEEE is not an astrophysical organisation is it?
The only one is the near ancient Alfven paper of 1978 has been reject and proven as mostly wrong. (Only EU’s still quote it, using it as the pivot for the imaginative expansion of the electricians mostly rejected and dismissed EU mantra.)
So your claim ” quoted peer reviewed, plasma astrophysicists throughout.” is FALSE then, isn’t it.
Bingo! You are caught out yet again!
As I said, your words are of a sophist, where everything is said under the precept; “I suppose a half the truth is better than a lie.”
Note: I’m pleased you have finally and boldly came out here at Universe Today instead of your usual minions. I.e. Sorley and Anaconda. This plasma dragon needs to be finally slain!
iantresman said;
You comments as usual are so totally laughable and clearly bordering on very delusional behaviour.
Now let’s see. Wasn’t it you who got banned from Wikipeadia on “Plasma Cosmology”, which I believe was for using sock-puppetry to back-up their contribution of contended fact when citations were lacking?
Why are you so sensitive to me having protect my identity, eh?
Let’s see, basic phycology. Ah! From this, I assume you are also Solrey, as well. is that right?
[NOTE: It is very good to see that you have finally learned to use search engine on the web now. Just type “crumb moron”, and bingo!]
But the real craziness here is you are asking for me now to producing “citations”, what the hell are you on about? Your and your EU cronies are making all these ridiculous claims, which time after time have been shown to to have a scrap of evidence!
As for the rest of your claptrap, none of it is the slightest bit relevant to distant astrophysical phenomena.
In the end, “jackass, an idiot, a moron, a liar” applies so perfectly to YOU!. Funny isn’t it, I think I just proved it!
Salacious, there’s no need to call people jackasses. That was a kneejerk reaction towards Hannes. I completely sympathize with how you feel towards the games these guys are playing. iantresman’s sock-popetry says a lot about his personality and as someone that can’t be trusted but I think you’re starting to lose it. It’s their delusion.
Just an assumption here : I like EU. So I go on.
I will describe another experiment which can prove or disprove the origin of inertia. The meaning of this experiment is to determine whether the gravitational field itself is responsible for the slowing down of an atomic clock, or just the movement in a gravitational field is creating chaotic tensors at an atomic scale.
Put an atomic clock [on batteries] on a horizontal stick and of course a counterweight on the other side. Now carefully balance the stick on a small ridge till it stays horizontal. It is very difficult, almost impossible – I know.
It’s the same problem as when you try to balance a pair of pencils on top of each other.
Now compare it with another atomic clock just standing somewhere else in the room.
If you will notice that time on the balanced clock goes faster as the one on the floor then you have proven that inertia (“träge Masse”) is the cause of the time dilation. Thus “träge Masse” is NOT equivalent to “schwere Masse”.
Anyone here who is willing to put Einstein to the test?
But wouldn’t both clocks experience the same earth gravitational acceleration being stationary in the same frame of reference?
An easy way to see is is that near Earth’s surface the gravitational potential difference between two clocks at a height difference x is V = mgx, g = 10m/s^2. A photon which “climbs” this height loses energy which is E = h*f, h = h = 6.6e^{-27}erg-s Planck constant. so the change in energy is
h(f – f’) = mgx.
This is off by a factor of two, but this is an approximate source of the time drift for two atomic clocks a difference in height.
LC
Hey guys. Don’t get suckered in by this EUJ.
If he wants to talk relative, why no here?
This is Getting Boring: General Relativity Passes Yet another Big Test!
This plasma dragon needs to be finally slain!
I believe I understand your math but, for one that didn’t have an opportunity for higher learning, what I think you are telling me is the clock on the surface is further down the space/time curvature of earths gravitational well than the clock on the balancing stick above it and therefore ticking faster. Thanks for your response.
Sorry, ticking slower. I think
To understand my experiment correctly. Both clocks are at the same height in my experiment. The cesium atoms will be at the exact the same height within the gravitational field in both clocks. I do not want them to differ.
As LBC states Einstein’s equations will predict no difference in time between the 2 clocks. I fully agree. But I want to put that to the test.
Important detail is that the Cesium atoms from the balanced clock should be in exact line of the same horizontal plain [stick]. Not on the stick, which would be above the stic.k,
I should have been more precise, I’m sorry.
This experiment has btw absolutely nothing to do with EU. If you think so, then you are completely unaware of my line of thought.
Hannes said;
“This experiment has btw absolutely nothing to do with EU. If you think so, then you are completely unaware of my line of thought.”
Obviously you haven’t run into the EUJ Anaconda – who often denigrates general relativity. (He uses it, for example, to argue against aspects of the big bang, black holes, dark matter/energy and try to highlight various ‘faults’ or ‘contradictions’ with gravity in general.
The usual attack is to somehow based replace gravitational explanations of astrophysical / astronomical phenomena with EU ones – usually to place emphasis on some bogus EU explanation. As shown time and again by many bloggers here, it is usual either ill-informed or tainted with the usual propaganda.
If you don’t know about it now, believe me these EUJ will come out with it some where.
iantresman said;
“Crumb, give it a rest, you’re doing exactly what you’re complaining others are doing.”
Always with the misguided rhetoric. I am far from complaining. I am pointing out the nonsense of the EU agenda – saving the innocent from the gross deception.
As I said;
This plasma dragon needs to be finally slain!
Ah, you seem to be under the illusion we are in some debate about the “electric universe” / plasma cosmology, (whatever you seem to label it) … been there, done that, in endless debates across the Internet and Universe Today for over a year. We’ve about done it all. Now YOU want to be entertained! Oh please.
Plasma physics is an important branch of science and does have its place. However it is your concept of plasma physics, is deliberately masked behind the delusional parts of so-called “electric Universe” is not what current legitimate science is about.
An example is on the BAUT forum;
Electric Universe Model.
Let me finish with a nice quote from Jean here (not my words);
As I said;
This plasma dragon needs to be finally slain!
So sorry. Your really the problem, your not the solution. I’m around to bury you!
Oh… I forgot to mention….
You have no place here… and no one to talk too!
Everyone has left the building!
(Please turn the lights off. Ta.)
“Electric Universe” = Pseudoscience.
Enough said!
Hi Hannes,
If you agree with Einstein and LC, what outcome are you expecting by putting your experiment to test?
@wjwbudro:
You’ll see.
Hon. Salacious B. Crumb,
I have deleted several of your comments; they clearly violate the Universe Today comments policy.
I will ask you, once again, to please tone down your language.
Nancy has, in some comments in an earlier story, provided some good advice on dealing with those who use Universe Today story comments to promote “Electric Universe” ideas, and I believe you read her comments. I thank you for providing some quite eye-opening material into what I must admit does look like a cult, and will research this further. However, your language in responding to iantresman’s, and others’, comments is quite unacceptable here; to quote Fraser “be nice”.
iantresman,
You seem to be a bit of a fan of Alfven, and have an interest in plasma physics and its applications to astrophysics and space physics. Good.
However, I sense that you may misunderstand the nature of science, at least the branches we touch on here in Universe Today, over the last half century or so.
While there are papers written five decades ago (or more!) which are still widely cited today (the Burbidges, Fowler and Hoyle “Synthesis of the Elements in Stars” is an outstanding example), they are very few. And the reason is clear: active fields in science change, and only a tiny, tiny handful of papers retain relevance after a few decades (other than historical, of course).
The reasons for the lack of contemporary scientific relevance are many, and include the fact that a great many good hypotheses at the time were subsequently shown to be inconsistent with new data or analyses, and the fact that most subsequently successful theories have been developed substantially since their first publication.
Firstly, Jean Tate said of iantresman;
Actually I disagree. This fellow knows perfectly well about the nature of science, and has from previous experience. However, he has ‘selected hearing’ when it come to plasma physics. He’s far from the innocent he pretends to be.
You should be aware, that people like iantresman, will manipulate the terminology so that they are looking like they are writing about plasma physics, but in fact are discussing plasma cosmology or electric universe – pretending they are interchangeable terms. If you take the foot of the pedal, we will hear rampant EU and plasma cosmology, but when the pressure is put on them, the it is all about plasma physics and the thin veil of the imaginary support from the IEEE, etc.
Sadly many of these individuals (like iantresman from the site plasma-univese) are ‘trained’ in how to respond, and have various strategies to raise the profile of their pseudo-scientific philosophies. They have as one of their main methods to influence those who have little or no knowledge of the topic, and persuade them that they views are acceptable ‘alternatives’ to current astronomical / astrophysical theories.
(I you think that I’m over the top, just look at where targeted kids encyclopaedias on the web (kids net au What chances have people have, when the individuals try to manipulate others who know no better.)
While astrophysics/ astronomy and plasma physics are somewhat interrelated in several fields of studies, these EU individuals will suggest that they are ‘part of the mainstream’, when they are no better than pseudo-science hitmen.
As for;
Yes she has and I have taken her views into serious consideration. However, as other commentary from other bloggers in UT have stated, ignoring the EU individuals, allows them to spread their here-say. (Lawrence and I have already pointed this out in these replies.)
Time and again, the ire of deceptive EU comes out, and time and again, the responders to the given storyline have to come out again to defend science, the scientific method, and the accepted astrophysics. (Dr Flimmer, Lawrence Crowell, myself, ND, Olaf, etc.)
What is frustrating is knowing there is a deliberate agenda and being diverted away from not discussing the storyline but defending the science behind it.
As yet, authors of stories in Universe Today, expect us to ignore the nonsense, but still expect the knowledgeable bloggers to do all science explanations in the comments!
The EU blogger know this, and this is how their deliberate and endless disruption continues. Their desperately trying to get a voice, but no one listens any more. I wonder why?
(I notice that iantresman has now formed his pleading thread ” Civility on Universe Today comments?” at BAUT to try and drum up support against me. Thats OK. I already know he has complained directly to Jean and attempted to do as much attention seeking because no one is listen to .)
Apparently he says; “I feel that a Universe Today poster, “Hon. Salacious B. Crumb”, is being uncivil, and recent ad hominems bring the website into disrepute, and contribute little to the article at hand.”
Sorry. I disagree. I’ve contributed much to this article, by exposing the nefarious activities of individuals with an alternative organised agenda.
… Q. What should I do about iantresman deliberate deceptions in this thread? Put up with that too?
In the end, what is amusing is why ‘iantresman’ turned up here, which was only on a comment by me towards solrey on the assumed “scaleable” nature of EU. (This is the main topic being discussed here in your article.)
Solrey has said in the past (7th April 2009, in the same UT “Where are all the sunspots” article”;
In the end, they can’t actually answer the question, as they know full well that the whole “Electric Universe” doctrine collapses like a house of cards if it is not “scaleable.” I.e. Most of the large-scale astrophysical phenomena. They have to do this – under the basic tenant of EU that plasma physics work in the laboratory can be extended (scaled up) to all astrophysical phenomena.
Now as an example of rather deceptive behaviour, iantresman said in this story; “I did not state that the “EU is always “scaleable”.
Yet if you have read his common position on this (as far back as 2004-2005. (Just Google “iantresman scaleable”)) finds his arguments centres on the problem of ‘scaleable’ EU.
Of course, the real problem is that providing observational evidence that astronomical phenomena is plasma physics (EU) related – and of coarse, there is little proof. I.e. Galactic and intergalactic fields probably do exist, but they are mostly very weak (~10^-12 Gauss) [and likely tend to be easily fragmented]
Jet phenomena, especially when caused by strong gravitational sources like black holes (as in this story), find EU’ers coming out in their droves, only because it is one of few phenomena where the plasma and magnetic field strengths are even capable of showing off their laboratory experiments. (It occurs in nearly every black hole story in Universe Today over the last two years.)
Why do they do this. It is all part of their sick EU agenda?
And you wonder why I really think;
This plasma dragon needs to be finally slain!
Sorry missed the quote…
iantresman said;
Oh what a precious innocent little lamb you are! It is like that little boy in school who is upset because all the other boys will not play with him. So he goes and hide behind him mummy’s skirt so he has some additional personal courage to face his accusers. I.e. Desperately wanting to be absolved – “Mea culpa, sorry for the misunderstanding.” (Sound familiar)
Of course this little reply hides yet another EU tenet doesn’t it.
When you say “Research tends to go where the money goes.” We all know the IEEE and plasma cosmology cronies are bitter that all the science funding goes into astrophysics and astronomy, and not to research into plasma physics. You all feel it is grossly unfair, and has (apparently) caused the whole of your bitterness against the observational astronomy and current astrophysics.
Isn’t this really why you lot are so desperate to be the centre of attention?
We all know that research in plasma physics has already come to a major crossroads – and needs to expand into new avenues to continue to be funded.
Transparant as a piece of glass, are you not?
Iantresman-
Judging by the sheer number of “allowed” full-frontal attacks made by the (not-so) Hon. S. against you, I can only conclude that the moderators of this forum are getting off on it. I wonder if the Hon. S. realizes he is being used by them in this way?
Now get ready for the rallying troops – its been coming for absolute ages. Good luck.
Jean said;
Yes. Please read my general responses at the BAUT forum..
Note: “nice” is very hard against “hardball” players with an organised agenda.
Sorry, forgot to add to the bio I pasted in my last post- that Peratt has an extensive list of credentials. Why is he called a fringe element? This might be a case of mistaken ident
blueshift0_0,
It’s not the person, it’s the ideas.
Geoffrey Burbidge, for example, is one (of four) authors of a spectacularly influential paper on nucleosynthesis in stars. He is also author of several papers on quasars, in the last decade or so, that are spectacularly bad, scientifically.
I cannot comment on Peratt’s papers on plasma physics experiments done in labs, but his published papers on astrophysics range from mildly interesting to merely strange to awful, scientifically (I pointed this out to solrey, in comments on a different Universe Today). Those which purport to be about cosmology are especially bad.
iantresman,
Supermassive black holes, accretion disks, AGNs/quasars, the associated jets/blazars, etc are among the most active areas of research in astrophysics today. Plasma physics is crucial to an understanding of the observed phenomena. The potential prizes for spectacular breakthroughs in this area are huge, so I think the chances that a critical insight is to be found in decades-old papers by an author as well known as Alfven are slim to none. But, if you think you have a good insight into this, why not develop it, write it up, and get it published?
Hannes, and others interested,
I’ve started a new thread in the BAUT Forum’s Q&A section, on the topic of the ideas you’ve introduced here. Maybe you, and others interested, could continue the discussion there?
Jean-
You didn’t post the bio I posted. Why? Can’t have been because it was too long…whats-his-holiness’ rants above were far longer. And what a stew pot of nastiness his comments were. I truly can’t fathom the purpose of this comments’ section. Maybe just pure sensationalism.
And I thought Peratt’s papers were inspired, all. But what am I? Not even a mediocre science-blogger.
iantresman,
What specific research do you want to see funded for studying EU/PC?
OH MY GOD!
I’ve been away for one week (a nice winter-school in Switzerland about High Energy Astropyhysics :)… speakers were: Charles Dermer, Felix Aharonian, and Lars Bergström), one week of piece and without the internet and any connection to the outside world.
Now, I’m back online, and what the hell happened here?
This is sad. Really!
Btw: Good to be back! 😉
oh….. I meant one week of PEACE
😀
@ Dr Flimmer
I wondered where you went. Yes you are right there has been a little heated ‘discussion’ here, and no doubt, your peace with some actual science-based reality must have been joyful. Crunching particles to create other particles is no doubt great fun but still so crucial to understand the hidden intricacies of Nature.
I once heard a lecture of Prof. David McKenzie from Sydney University, who spoke of the achievements of applied plasma physics, where he talked about wonderful odd things like diamond synthesis, thin film analysis, and window glazing technologies. Here was useful science applied to everyday life, far from the early naive experimental conjectures of people from Birkeland to Alfvén – and the unfettered hero-worship by the current needlessly blindly faithful.
There is no need to be sad though, as some of the discussion has again just exposed the void between really useful plasma physics and pseudo-plasma physics just wanting desperately to pretending to be something else that it never can be.
So yes, I have been a bit of a naughty boy, but the absolute frustration of having to sort out the “wheat from the chaff” every damn time some plasma physics phenomena is discussed. Honestly, every time I even hear the words “plasma physics” these days, just makes me immediately think of all the bad stuff and want to strangle or wring someone’s neck.
In the end, the most important statement I’ve said here – summing up of this mess is this story by Jean;
In these views, I sure I’m not alone. The serious problem remains how do the science journalists, front-line researchers, or actual practitioners of science communicate or translate knowledge to an interested but easily influenced audience – and still differentiate themselves from the growing din of organised anti-science lobbies driven mostly by deliberately hidden agendas or other motives.
Hopefully your Switzerland winter-school reinforced the purity in how science works instead of the mirky fog of that sometimes appears in Universe Today. If that is the case, my sympathies.
In view of the open criticism of my some what disdainful to describe Electric Universe proponents, I have though of a new term to describe them; E.plasmamoebidae (as a group) or E.plasmamoeba (individually).
This might solve the issue between the sensible plasma physicists and the pretend wannabes.
@ Dr.Flimmer
Charles Dermer’s 2009 book entitled “High Energy Radiation from Black Holes” is an absolute classic and address this very news story! I would have been great to hear him speak (he would have solved some of the issues here on the spot.)
He says with the figure on pg.105 that;
“…with magnetic field lines formed by currents in the accretion disk (top) [and the] black-hole magnetosphere (bottom)”
Energies extracted by the black hole are by so-called Blandford–Znajek process, and this has been used to explain the energies observed by quasars. It is exciting in this story, we may be able to test this idea out, which has only be done (I think) in computer simulations.
I recall reading an arXiv paper by Li-Xin Li; “A Toy Model for Blandford-Znajek Mechanism.” (1999), which demonstrated some basic modelling.
His conclusion says on pg.10.;
It is as Greg Madejski says here;
Indeed. He has a point.
[No mentions here for astrophysical jets, without things like EU dense plasma focus (DPF) or z-pinches, which as we know, are unstable. I wonder why other here don’t mention THAT?]
@ Dr Flimmer
You said earlier;
“And the final question: What causes the kinks and bends of the jet?”
I think it might be due to the feeding mechanism of the accretion disk, and the instability of the generator of the magnetic field. We know that quasars are small and are variable over periods of days or few months. This might explain these variances, which is probably tells the recent history of the accretion disk in the lines themselves. It would be interesting if such speculation were to come true, as we might understand the environment of such object. (I’ve read little about this issue in such jets.)
blueshift0_0,
If you can’t spot at least some of the most obvious flaws, astronomically speaking, in Peratt’s Plasma Cosmology papers yourself, a few minutes spent googling will turn up lots of detailed rebuttals, here for example, and here.
Hon. Salacious B. Crumb,
I have already thanked you for providing considerable background on the “Electric Universe”.
While I can easily understand your anger, the intensity of your feelings are no justification whatsoever for using inappropriate language here, especially towards iantresman. If you want to rebut the points he makes, do so in an objective way, based on the relevant science, or ask a pointed question (as ND has done).
Just so my meaning is clear, should you use inappropriate language again, your comments will be deleted in their entirety.
Thanks Jean
May I suggest you also read the story by Nancy regarding the
The Periodic Table of Science Bloggers”
This shows what deception others like lantresman are capable of, and how things need to be ‘corrected’ even in the mainstream.
There is an easier solution, of course. i, and the others of the same ilk, just won’t comment at all. However, the only problem with that idea is, how many others will be fooled by the PC/EU agenda. You were, and so was David Bradley in Nancy’s story on the Periodic Table, fooled by their hidden agenda – and your supposed to be into science journalism!
Look. We have acting passive and nice hasn’t worked Ignoring them as trolls just encouraged them. Use objective and rational thought, and you get total irrationality.* Now you say challenging them and humiliating them is out…
What options are left, other than perhaps “leave the gate of the chicken house wide open and let the foxes in.”
Ok problem solved. You guys fix it!
* Read comments by OilIsMastery the Universe Today story by Nancy “Kepler’s “First Light” Images”
Finally. If you want an example of a earlier debate, i suggest you read Nancy’s thread and comments on the Universe Today Where Are All the Sunspots? of 2nd April 2009.
Perhaps you can now see what a absolute trial the comment threads can really be!
Should I endlessly just “…rebut the points he makes, do so in an objective way, based on the relevant science, or ask a pointed question.” It didn’t work then. WIll it now?
(Reading this again reminds me of all the number of people willing to take on these guys.)
@ HSBC
Yes, the lectures were great, indeed. Although I thought he spoke way too much about the Fermi satellite and too less about some theories. But that’s my taste as a theoretician 😉 . Others might have liked it without the theoretical stuff…. (unbelievable 😉 ).
Btw: Nice idea about the “kinks and bends”. Instabilities in the disk. Hm… I have to talk about that with my advisor, maybe there is the possibility for a PhD project hidden in there 😉 . Because the latter is what I have to think about in the next few weeks….
@DrFlimmer
I can understand why he would of spoken mostly on Fermi, because he though it might inspire up and coming astrophysicists towards new lines of research.
As to the kinks and bends, no doubt there is a differential across the accretion disk in the electron flows generating the fields. There would be significant differences in the field between the inner and outer disk, and even in areas away from the disk.
Of course, it is possible other interactions like tidal distortions by planetary material or even material striking the disk. it once remember a lecturer describing the accretion disk not as a smooth disk but something like a wobbling pizza dough base being thrown in the air.
Sounds like you will be having some fun is finding a suitable project. Good luck to you with your search!
@ Nancy (and all)
It might be a bit late, but there is a great general summary of jets, there is just released as another interesting arXiv article by Luigi Foschini entitled “Jets (relativistic and non) in astrophysics.”
This is a nice summary of the issues on jets, and raises some interesting questions. I especially like the clarity of the nature of jets, some history, and something importantly about the progenitors of the magnetic fields (without the diversionary hype.).
Highly recommended article for intermediate novices and useful to the nature of this story.
Note: The quote that sank into my mind was on pg.5-6;
The concluding paragraph (pg.7.) is equally useful;
Wish we had this at the beginning of this discussion!
Sorry, for the shouting.
Forgot the close the HTML bold. I.e. “” not “”
Well, Fermi has the latest and important results, so of course one MUST speak about Fermi. 😉
I just missed a little bit of theory……
and btw: Thanks 😉