Electricity and Astronomy.

More food for thought from the historic side.

Who would have guessed that the myths of ancient cultures could throw new light on the mysterious surface features of planets and moons? Or give new meaning to current work in artificial-lightning laboratories? If mythologist David Talbott of Portland, Oregon, and physicist Wallace Thornhill of Canberra, Australia, are correct, then ancient myths and symbols are a key to an expanded and holistic understanding of both history and the physical universe.

Yet in our age, world mythology seems a most unlikely source of discovery. Until recently, mythologists sought to explain the ancient stories with references to events in everyday life-to the seasons, to the power of a storm, to phases of the Moon, or to movements of the Sun. But their efforts have produced a morass of contradictions, reinforcing the popular belief that myth is fiction pure and simple-anything but a dependable guide to the past.

COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY

In contrast, David Talbott, inspired by Immanuel Velikovsky´s theory of interplanetary upheaval, developed a method for comparing the myths of far-flung cultures. His objective was to discover whether reliable memories are embedded in the different stories. This method is similar to the reasoning of lawyers in a court of law, questioning witnesses who may be lying, or incompetent, or remembering incorrectly. When statements from independent witnesses converge on unique details, they tend to corroborate each other, even if the witnesses are not reliable in other things they say. Similarly, according to Talbott, there are hundreds of common themes in world mythology, where different words and different symbols point to the same remembered events. The more peculiar the points of convergence, the more unreasonable it is to dismiss them.

When allowed to speak for themselves, these universal memories tell a coherent and detailed story, Talbott claims. But it is a story that seems preposterous from today´s worldview:

According to Talbott, what the ancients worshipped and feared as powerful gods were planets positioned extremely close to the Earth. This close congregation of planets appeared as huge powers in the sky. Their instabilities and unpredictable movements gave rise to one of the most common themes of myth-the wars of the gods. In these dramatic stories, the gods pound each other with cosmic lightning while fire and stone descend on the Earth.

THE WEAPON OF THE GODS

In ancient traditions, few images are more vividly presented than the thunderbolts of the planetary gods, Talbott notes. Consider the gas-giant Jupiter, whom the Greeks remembered as the ruler Zeus, the victor in the celestial clash of the Titans. "Jupiter is just a little speck of light in our sky, but ancient peoples recalled the god Jupiter as a towering form in the heavens, wielding lightning as his weapon of choice. What does this mean? If the gods were planets, then the thunderbolts of the gods were nothing less than interplanetary lightning discharges."

In Hesiod´s Theogony, we read of Zeus, "From Heaven and from Olympus he came immediately, hurling his lightning: the bolts flew thick and fast from his strong hand together with thunder and lightning, whirling an awesome flame...."

When the dragon Typhon attacked the world, there was "thunder and lightning, and ... fire from the monster, and the scorching winds and blazing thunderbolt." Destroyed by a lightning bolt from Zeus, the world-threatening dragon came to be known as the ´thunderstricken´. Indeed, it is remarkable how many mythical figures are struck down by lightning. In classical myth alone, you would have to include Enceladus, Mimas, Menoetius, Aristodemus and Capaneus, Idas, Iasion, Asclepius and others. "The biggest mistake a scholar can make," Talbott says, "is to look for terrestrial explanations. The earliest forms of these stories are cosmic. The gods, the great heroes, and the thunderbolts which fly between them are celestial through and through."

Hebrew tradition has remembered well the lightning of the gods. Psalm 77 proclaims: "The voice of thy thunder was in the heaven: the lightnings lightened the world: the earth trembled and shook." From India, the Mahabharata and Ramayana relate that lightning of the gods filled the heavens like a rain of fiery arrows. From ancient Egypt, Babylon, Scandinavia, China, and the Americas, myths and legends describe conflagrations attributed to thunderbolts from the gods.

These stories of cosmic battles provided much of the content of the myths we know today. Talbott writes: "If we´ve failed to recognize the celestial players, it´s because the planets which inspired these stories have receded to pinpoints of light. In modern times, we see no interplanetary lightning arcing between them."

But Talbott reminds us that if there is anything to these global memories, the physical evidence should be massive. This amounts to a call for objective investigation of the surface features of planets and moons, to see if the tell-tale markers of interplanetary discharges might be present.

ELECTRICITY AND ASTRONOMY

Unbeknown to Talbott, Australian physicist Wallace Thornhill had been pursuing just such an investigation. Thornhill had discovered Velikovsky´s books shortly before starting his university career. "I was the only physics undergraduate to haunt the anthropology shelves of the university library," he says. "The result was a strong conviction that Velikovsky had presented a case which required further study." But his next discovery was the reluctance, even hostility, of scientists to question the assumptions underlying their theories.

One of those assumptions which Thornhill questioned was the insignificance of electrical phenomena on astronomical scales. Nobel-laureate Hannes Alfven, a pioneering investigator of the properties of plasmas in electrical discharges such as lightning, had admonished theoretical physicists that their models were wrong. Real plasmas didn´t behave the way mathematical deductions predicted. They are not superconductors, Thornhill explains, nor can they be treated as a gas, as is implicit, for example, in the term ´solar wind´. Electrical currents flow in them, pinching into long filaments and then braiding themselves into rope-like structures. These long, twisted filaments are visible in solar prominences, galactic jets, and comet tails. They were detected as ´stringy things´ in the 45 million kilometer long tail of Venus last year.

Following the suggestion of Ralph Juergens, an electrical engineer who studied Alfven´s work, Thornhill began to amass evidence that most features now being photographed on planets, satellites, and asteroids are scars of plasma discharges: interplanetary lightning.

"By scaling up electrical effects seen on Earth and in the laboratory, I can provide stunning support for the ancient imagery of a different sky and hence the likelihood that planets and moons did move in close proximity in the recent past," he claims. "An electrical model provides a simple mechanism for re-ordering a chaotic planetary system in a very short time and maintaining that stability."

One of the laboratory effects is produced by moving a high-voltage pointed rod just above the surface of a powder-covered insulator placed on a grounded metal plate. The spark forms characteristic patterns in the powder. A long, narrow main channel of fairly uniform width will have a narrower, more sinuous channel engraved along its center. Tributary channels run parallel to the main channel for a distance, then they rejoin it almost perpendicularly.

Thornhill points out that these same features are seen on a larger scale in lightning strikes to earth, such as on golf courses. Trenches of constant width are created, with narrower furrows snaking down their centers. The soil blasted from the trench is deposited along both sides. Secondary channels may run parallel to the main channel, and tributary channels join at right angles.

PLANETARY PLASMA EFFECTS

Thornhill describes how the same effects are repeated on a planetary scale in the features called sinuous rilles. Long, uniformly-narrow channels snake across the surface, often with levees of material deposited along each side. The more sinuous inner channels often have chains of small, circular craters precisely centered along their axes, or the craters overlap to produce fluted walls. There is generally no sign of rubble from collapsed roofs as would be expected if the conventional ´lava tube´ explanation for rilles on the Moon were correct. Nor is there evidence of the outwash that would result if the channels had been formed by water, as has been proposed for rilles on Mars.

Furthermore, the rilles run uphill and down, Thornhill points out, following an electrical potential rather than following the gravitational potential as water and lava do. Where rilles intersect, the younger channel and its levees continue uninterrupted across the older as though the older channel weren´t there. This is especially obvious on Europa, where the levees are often darker than the surrounding terrain. They are also darker than the central channel, which creates a problem for the accepted explanation that they are darker material welling up through cracks in the ice. Thornhill surmises the electrical forces of the arc altered the chemical or, possibly, the nuclear composition of the debris.

Particularly remarkable is the series of looping rilles on Europa: Ice cracking in loops is unheard of, but the characteristic ´corkscrew´ form of a plasma filament arcing across the surface easily explains it.

Thornhill also notes the similarities of craters on the planets and moons to those created in the laboratory. Both tend to be perfectly circular because an electrical arc always strikes perpendicular to a surface. Walls are nearly vertical and floors are nearly flat as the circular motion of the arc machines out the crater. Impact and explosion craters, by contrast, tend to have a bowl shape: Instead of being lifted from the surface, excavated material undergoes shock displacement, shattering and flowing similar to a fluid for the duration of the shock.

Another common feature of electrically generated craters, Thornhill explains, is terracing along the sides, sometimes ´corkscrewing´ down to the floor, following the rotary motion of the arc. The Moon and Mars both provide many examples of terraced and corkscrew craters.

Central peaks tend to be symmetrical and steep-sided, similar to the central ´nipple´ left by plasma machining as the rotary ´corkscrewing´ motion of the arc cuts out the material around it. Thornhill contrasts this with the irregular mass of the so-called "rebound peak" in a lab-produced impact or explosion crater. In a number of craters on the Moon, the central peak connects to the surrounding terrain with an ´isthmus´, just as in a plasma-machined crater when the arc is quenched before completing a full rotation.

A telling characteristic of electrical origin, Thornhill asserts, is a crater centered on the rim of another crater. This is a common sight on the Moon and other planets. It´s an expected effect of the arc jumping to or striking the highest elevations.

Finally, many volcanoes are more likely scaled-up versions of fulgamites, Thornhill claims. Fulgamites are blisters of material raised on lightning arrestors during a strike. Typically, the fulgamite has a steep, fluted outer edge and a crater at the top, formed as the more-diffuse discharge that raised the fulgamite pinches down to a narrow arc. The most impressive example is Olympus Mons on Mars, 600 kilometers across and 24 kilometers high. A six-stroke crater was machined into the top as the arc narrowed and jumped to high spots on each successive rim.

THE LIGHTNING-SCARRED GOD

The possibility that human memories could explain some of the great surprises of the space age does not come as a surprise to Talbott. As an example, he describes the ancient "Scarface Motif".

A theme that occurs in many cultures is the warrior-god who, at a time of upheaval, receives a gaping wound or scar on his forehead, face, or thigh. At first sight, this is hardly surprising, because warriors and wounds do go together. However, this is not just the story of "a warrior", but of the celestial archetype of warriors-the god whom human warriors celebrated as their inspiration on the battlefield. In early astronomies this warrior archetype is identified with a specific planet-Mars.

It was said of the Greek Mars, named Ares, that this celestial warrior received a deep gash, as in his encounter with Diomedes; then the god lets loose the howl of a thousand warriors and rushes to Zeus to bemoan his gaping wound. An alternative Greek name for Mars was Heracles, and this god too suffers a harsh wound on his thigh.

The Blackfoot Indians do not appear to have preserved any astronomical associations with their legendary warrior "Scarface". Nor do the Aztecs appear to have remembered any planetary connection for their famous scarred god Tlaloc. But Talbott insists that a comparative approach can demonstrate the common roots of such mythical themes.

Is it possible, then, that the "wounding" of Mars might refer to an actual event? "I remember looking at one of the first Mariner photographs of Mars," Talbott recalls. "It displayed a stupendous chasm cutting across the face of the planet. Even from a considerable distance, the chasm looked like a scar." Astronomers christened it "Valles Marineris"-and it would swallow a thousand Grand Canyons and more. "At that moment I realized that of all the planets and moons in our solar system, Mars alone bore the likeness of the warrior-god´s wound."

The comparative method can also account for numerous details that the experts have missed. Most dramatic is the connection between the Scarface theme and the lightning of the gods. Talbott gives as an example the god Enceladus, struck down by a thunderbolt of Zeus. The god was remembered as "the lightning-scarred god". Enceladus appears to be a counterpart of the monster Typhon, the "thunderstruck" god. Both can be identified as the terrible aspect of the celestial warrior, according to Talbott, for it was in his "man-slaying" rampage that Ares received his wound.

Talbott was the first to connect the highly visible scarring of the Aztec Tlaloc to lightning. "That´s entirely due to the fact that the experts have not looked at the worldwide theme," he assures us. Tlaloc was in fact directly linked to lightning, and it was through lightning that he dispatched souls to the Aztec heaven. In Aztec mythology there is a special afterlife world reserved for people who are killed by lightning. It´s ruled by Tlaloc and is called Tlalocan.

"Could something as massive as Valles Marineris have been carved by interplanetary lightning?" Talbott wondered.

As it turned out, he had the opportunity to pose that very question to Wal Thornhill.

THE LIGHTNING-SCARRED PLANET

Thornhill and Talbott met nearly a decade after the first images of Valles Marineris were returned. Talbott summarized his investigation of the lightning-scarred god theme. "Could Valles Marineris have been caused by a thunderbolt?" he asked.

Thornhill replied, "It couldn´t have been anything else."

At 4000 kilometers long, 700 kilometers across in places, and up to 6 kilometers deep, it´s comparable to scaling up the Grand Canyon to stretch from New York to Los Angeles. Approximately 2 million cubic kilometers of the Martian surface was removed with no comparable debris field apparent.

"Valles Marineris was created within minutes by a giant electric arc sweeping across the surface of Mars," Thornhill claims. "The rock and soil were lifted into space. Some of it fell back around the planet to create the great, strewn fields of boulders seen by both Viking Landers and Pathfinder."

He points to the steep, scalloped walls of the canyon and the central ridges as typical of plasma machining. The side gullies often terminate in circular alcoves and are left hanging with no debris apron in the main channel. They tend to join at right angles. Smaller channels and crater chains run parallel to the main channels. "The arc probably began in the east in the region of chaotic terrain," Thornhill speculates. "It then swept westward forming the great parallel canyons. It finally terminated in the huge rilles of Noctis Labyrinthus."

Thornhill has published a CD (The Electric Universe, available from WholeMind, 8350 S.W. Greenway, #24, Beaverton, OR 97008, 1-800-230-9347) describing these and other electrical phenomena on an astronomical scale. He cites the research of Talbott demonstrating that ancient peoples witnessed an age when these now-quiescent energies were dominant.

All the planets associated with the deities of myth are covered with scars that are explained best as plasma-discharge features. The craters, volcanoes, and canyons, when examined in detail, show essential differences from terrestrial counterparts. Yet those anomalous features do correspond with the features of lightning scars. Talbott´s prediction that the reconstructed themes of myth should be verified in massive physical evidence on the planets gains support with every image returned by space probes.

Valles Marineris bears the most striking correspondence with the mythical warrior-god´s wound. This mighty chasm represents the confluence of two worldviews: the dramatic, historical worldview of mythology and the objective, physical worldview of science. If Talbott and Thornhill are correct, the accepted understanding of both myth and science must be rebuilt on a new foundation that will support both the historical past and the electrical future.

From [link to www.atlantisrising.com]

"...have no legitimate explanations for the anomalies listed above."

Define "legitimate explanations", please.

How about...No? You didn´t even read the whole thing so why even bother posting?

...BUMP..BUMP..BUMP......... ..Just Idol practising to be a stripper...

Yawn......

Bravo Jim Mc Canney
I adore people who question everything!!!

>"Valles Marineris was created within minutes by a giant electric arc sweeping across the surface of Mars," Thornhill claims.


ROTFLMAO. Sometimes, you really need to cut parts of your copy/pastes to make them look somewhat plausible. Including that quote just about causes the whole C/P job to be ignored as fantasy (which it is).

I give this thread 2 out of 5 Kitchen Sink Loony Points. Needs more buzzwords. Also needs more use of aliens and there was no mention of contrails.

idol-

give your own

You just wont listen to a thing I say, will you?

www.thunderbolts.info
You want electricity in space, here it is.

If you had bothered to check the links you would see that this theory has been proposed by ASTRONOMERS (more than one), starting as early as the 19th century. McCanney isn´t the only one with an electrical universe theory you know.

Idol must be a speed reader! Five minutes elapsed from the post of who knows how many pages of cut and paste information to her posting a response. Five minutes!

Poor CS, must be frustrated at the PX no-show.

>If you had bothered to check the links you would see that this theory has been proposed by ASTRONOMERS (more than one), starting as early as the 19th century. McCanney isn´t the only one with an electrical universe theory you know.

And none of them have yet to prove their claims with hard data, instead, the data shows their claims to be nothing more than supposition and conjecture, going all the way back to the origins of the theory.

And by the way, selective argument of authority noted, a classic pseudoscience tactic.

You know, I´ve never mentioned "planet x" once in my posts. And what has this got to do with "planet x" anyway?

"And none of them have yet to prove their claims with hard data, instead, the data shows their claims to be nothing more than supposition and conjecture, going all the way back to the origins of the theory."

Thats funny, I don´t recall anyone having any "hard data" (ROFL) for the Big Bang theory either and yet almost everyone believes in it.

"Once there was nothing...and then it exploded".

"The less one knows about science, the more plausible Velikovsky´s scenario appears...."
--Leroy Ellenberger

"The fact is that the whole of the ramshackle edifice of nonsense to be found scattered throughout the Velikovskian corpus is purported to have a historical…foundation, but that it has none." John David North

[link to abob.libs.uga.edu]

[link to abob.libs.uga.edu]

DISCLOSURE: This Top Ten list is based on 30 years exposure to Velikovsky´s ideas which includes 8 years as an insider at the Velikovsky journal Kronos (1978 - 1986), confidant to Velikovsky (4/78 - 11/79), invited "Devil´s Advocate" at Aeon (´88 - ´91), and 13 years as a turncoat/critic interacting with Velikovsky´s defenders and/or successors at conferences, in private, and in Usenet (´94 -´96) & list-serve forums. I apologize for the stridency in what follows, but I continue to be passionate about the issues involved. I hope the tone of what I say does not obscure the accuracy of my analysis. (L.E., 11-XII-99)

[link to abob.libs.uga.edu]


From: C. Leroy Ellenberger ([email protected])
Subject: Re: Planet-X radio interview 5/16/03 Nancy Lieder on Lou Gentile Show
Newsgroups: sci.astro
Date: 2003-05-18 12:32:18 PST

I need to eat some crow here because a few of the details in my
remarks yesterday are wrong, which I realized when I was later able to
access my early 1980s files, which are in storage. Corrections are
inserted below, followed by a few new remarks:

[email protected] (C. Leroy Ellenberger) wrote in message news:<[email protected]>...
> Possibly my message below will NOT come as news to most of the
> sci.astro readers, but perhaps not:
>
> [email protected] wrote in message news:...
> > Your choice of prescription PX poison today:
> >
> > 1.) Nancy Lieder on the Lou Gentile show.
> > [link to www.lougentile.com]
> >
> > 2.) Jim McCanney on George Noory show.
> > [link to www.jmccanneyscience.com]
> >
> > If you have the strength, listen to both and call us in the morning;)
>
> I happened to listen to the last hour of Jim McCanney´s talk with
> George Noory last nite, and I am here to tell you, as I have known
> since 1983 and as Phil Plait indicated earlier this week on Coast to
> Coast AM, that Jim McCanney is a fraud. (In the hour after the debate
> with Nancy Lieder, Noory referred approvingly to McCanney´s ideas and
> Plait indicated in his dismissive response that he had many bones to
> pick with McCanney´s science.) McCanney is a fraud in a trival sense
> because he allowed a caller to repeatedly refer to him as "Doctor
> McCanney" when all good ´ol boy Jim has is a M.S. in mathematics from
> Tulane (if memory serves and if not, then from L.S.U., at least a
> universtiy in Louisana).

It is Tulane!

>
> I also caught McCanney´s act on Coast to Coast a couple weeks ago, or
> so, and was appalled at how often what McCanney says is b.s. pure and
> simple, as with the miraculously flash frozen mammoths in Siberia, in
> which McCanney conflates the recent discoveries of the dwarf mammoths
> on Wrangel Island (ca. 10,000 years old) with the famous 1899
> discovery of the Beresovka Mammoth (ca. 35,000 years old) which Jim
> says was so well preserved that steaks were cut off it and taken back
> to St. Petersburg where the Czar dined on them. This is the
> grandfather of urban legends, folks, because we know very well that
> the Beresovka mammoth suffered much decompostion (despite the
> well-preserved vegetation in its mouth and stomach) prior to its
> freezing. I refer the reader to the 1990 book by Guthrie, Frozen Fauna
> of the Mammoth Steppe.

One trait that is consistent in McCanney´s behavior is that he NEVER
lets the facts get in the way of a good story, as shall be
demonstrated below.

>
> McCanney refers to Velikovsky and his ideas over and over and most of
> the time what he says is just plain wrong. Last nite he said
> Velikovsky died in 1976 when it was really 1979; Nov. 17th, actually,
> the very same nite that Jim first contacted Lewis Greenberg, the
> editor-in-chief of the Velikovsky magazine Kronos, in Wynnewood, PA. I
> happen to know this because I was visiting Greenberg that day and
> actually talked with McCanney on the phone. He was all excited about

The date here is incorrect. After browsing thru my McCanney files
later, I realized my first contact with him was in late February 1981
when he phoned Lewis Greenberg while I was visiting. He was interested
in holding a Velikovsky conference at Cornell on May 9th. His first
letter to me is dated Feb. 26, 1981.

> his ideas that he claimed rescued Velikovsky´s Worlds in Collision
> from derision. He also said last nite that Velikovsky´s father was the
> director of a museum in Palestine when he was actually a very
> prosperous tea merchant in Moscow before the Revolution who eventually
> found his way to Palestine, where he was a financial backer of the
> kibbutz at Ruhama, where Allenby´s HQ had been during WW-I. Jim also
> exaggerates Velikovsky´s linguistic abilities, since many scholars
> have pointed out the numerous errors Velikovsky committed. In one
> famous episode, published in Kronos in the mid-1980s, it was shown
> that Velikovsky did not even know the standard French idiom for
> "rape". Contrary to McCanney, Velikovsky was no Sanskrit scholar,
> either.
>
> Perhaps Velikovsky´s greatest error was in associating various pagan
> deities often identified with Venus, as being Venus itself, when it is
> probably more correct that these deities were ALSO identified with a
> real comet, since faded or ejected, whose lore was transfered to Venus
> when the comet disappeared, as the British astronomers Victor Clube
> and Bill Napier explain in their many journal publications and two
> books: The Cosmic Serpent (1982) and The Cosmic Winter (1990). When
> you get right down to it, Venus is simply TOO MASSIVE ever to have
> displayed a visible tail as ordinary comets do, a simple fact of
> nature that I am unaware McCanney has ever confronted. For further
> insights into the intellectual pathology of the Velikovsky cult, see
> my "Worlds Still Colliding" (written for Skeptic magazine, 2001)
> < [link to abob.libs.uga.edu] >. Also of interest would
> be "A lesson from Velikovsky"
> < [link to abob.libs.uga.edu] > and the expanded version
> of my 1995 Skeptic article "An Antidote to Velikovskian Delusions"
> < [link to abob.libs.uga.edu] >.
>
> Now, as it so happens, I was original editor for McCanney´s 3-part
> article on the capture theory for the origin of the Solar System which
> ran in Kronos IX:1, IX:3, and X:2, in 1983-84. Immediately following
> part 2, a critique by me was also published that so incensed McCanney

My critique was titled "The New Solar System: Selected Criticisms",
pp. 86-7.

> that he had me taken off the job, but he NEVER answered my criticisms.
> Then, in Kronos X:1, he had a letter to the editor "The Axioms of
> Astronomy" which contained at least four major errors of fact that I

Ooops! This letter was in Kronos X:3, pp. 109-10, the same issue as my
"Still Facing Problems, Part II" was published in the lead-off
position.

> attempted to correct with a follow-up letter "Axioms and Ignorance".

For what it´s worth, the title was actually "On Axioms and Ignorance".

> This correction was rejected on the fallacious grounds that "it was
> all a matter of opinion" along with the threat that nobody else´s
> letter correcting these "alleged mistakes" would be printed, either;
> and none was. My "Axioms and Ignorance" was distributed at the
> Reconsidering Velikovsky Conference in Toronto in August 1990. A copy
> of it can be obtained by sending a SASE (or $1.00 for foreign mail) to
> me at 3929 Utah St., St. Louis, MO 63116, USA).

The jist of my letter was that McCanney was wrong or at least way
off-base concerning the "four" axioms that supposedly have held
astronomy hostage against progress "at least since the early 1900s"
and "have remained unaltered over the course of this century". Here is
his list of those axioms:
1a. the solar system formed 4.5 billion years ago,
1b. the order of the planets has never changed,
2a. the universe began in a "big bang" about 10 billion years ago,
2b. the universe has been expanding ever since,
3. gravity is the sole force that governs the cosmos, and
4. comets are frozen ice balls which melt [sic, sublime] when near
the Sun.

The reader will understand that the 4.5 billion year age for the
universe was not derived until 1953, contrary to McCanney´s notions,
whose prejudices in his letter blind him to the existence of the
pioneering work in cosmic electromagnetic effects by such as
Birkeland, Fermi and Alfven dating back to the 1890s.

>
> And, lest anyone be seduced by Jim´s shuckin´ and jivin´, the probes
> that encountered Halley´s Comet in the mid 1980s proved without a
> doubt that it is one comet that truly is a "dirty snowball". Jim
> returned to me the postcard I sent him with the headline from an
> article announcing this confirmation. One problem with the study of
> comets is that for a long time they were ascribed a homogeneity in
> composition that was not justified, as the many recent discoveries
> indicate, and as Bailey, Clube and Napier discussed in their 1990 book
> The Origin of Comets.
>
> I think it would be a good idea for George Noory to arrange a "debate"
> between Jim McCanney and Phil Plait so that the outragous claims
> foisted by McCanney on a the public can be finally put to rest.
>
> C. Leroy Ellenberger, "Per Veritatem Vis"

In the course of my interaction with McCanney between 1981 and 1984,
he indicated to me that he endorsed Velikovsky´s notion that the
geomagnetic field is produced by the rotation of the electrically
charged Earth, but this ignores the fact that of the at least 13
processes proposed for the origin of Earth´s magnetic field, ONLY the
dynamo-in-the-core model is able to produce the observed geomagnetic
field and its behavior.

One of the first bones of contention between me and McCanney arose
over his model for the Galaxy in which he posits that the stars move
through the galactic core, not around the galactic core, as is usually
envisioned. Tom Van Flandern had many objections to this movement of
stars through the core when I discussed McCanney´s model with him at
the time, but these objections carried no weight with Jim.

In footnote 9 of Part 2 of his Kronos article (vol. IX:3, p. 77)
McCanney states: "In light of the present paper, Venus is without
doubt a young, highly active planet." Judging from his comments
Friday nite on Coast-to-Coast, Jim still believes this. However, this
cannot be true because the Magellan probe detected no volcanic
eruptions while the atmosphere below the clouds (the lowest 30 km) was
shown to be stable against convection, having a sub-adiabatic
temperature gradient. But McCanney either ignores such negative data
or else dismisses it as the result of NASA hiding the truth from the
public in order to prevent giving any credit to McCanney for his
revolutionary ideas.

To show how McCanney never lets the facts get in the way of a good
story, consider the article "From Exodus to Voyager II: The Velikovsky
Connection", which he wrote for submission to OMNI, wherein he
relates: "Studying at Princeton in 1946, Immanuel Velikovsky began to
unravel the tales of destruction handed down from cultures of ancient
lands. . . . Scientists levelled a boycott on MacMillan Press forcing
it to sell publishing rights and Velikovsky was thrown out of
Princeton for conducting his ´pseudo-science´. The ´crazy old man´ had
to be stopped. It was a young aspiring astronomer named Carl Sagan who
led the onslaught, bringing the 76 year old Velikovsky to face an
inquisition of traditional scientists at the 1977 meeting of the
American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)."

Here are the major errors in this brief excerpt: 1. All of Velikovsky
research in the 1940s was done in Manhatten, mostly at Columbia and
the New York Public Library. 2. Velikovsky did not move to Princeton
until 1952. 3. Macmillan in 1950 did not sell its publishing rights
to Worlds in Collision, but rather transferred them to Doubleday. 4.
Since Velikovsky was never on faculty at Princeton (or anywhere else),
he could not have been "thrown out". 5. In 1950 the onslaught against
Velikovsky was led by Harvard´s Harlow Shapley. 6. In 1977,
Velikovsky was 82 years old, not 76. 7. However, the AAAS session
where Sagan and Velikovsky clashed was in 1974, not 1977 (the year the
partial proceedings Scientists Confront Velikovsky was published) at
which time Velikovsky was 78 years old. I submit that anyone writing
an article for publication who had any concern for the factual truth
would not produce a manuscript as error-laden as this one is,
especially when written by someone who has a strong affinity for the
subject and when the correct facts are so readily available.

Finally, I close with the following quote from the OMNI manuscript in
which McCanney explains how the orbit of "comet Venus" was
circularized so fast in the Worlds in Collision scenario: "Venus´
elliptical orbit was changed to lie completely to the inside of
Earth´s orbit due to its energy exchanges with Earth. Slowly its
elliptical orbit became circular from the continual _drag_ of the
comet tail. This effect, first noticed by the astronomer Encke and
developed by late 19th century mathematicians, has been the key to
understanding one of the most difficult analytical problems facing
Velikovsky´s hypothesis. The problem was this: how could the highly
elliptical orbit of a massive comet quickly change to a near circular
orbit. Traditional astronomy afforded no explanation, so theorists
´proved´ Velikovsky´s story to be impossible. It is now known that
the ´tail drag´ performs this function. Within no more than 100
years, Venus settled into the orbit it maintains today. It cooled
rapidly from incandescent state by heat loss from its many volcanoes,
some of which are still active today."

I am sure the reader can find many errors in this paragraph. Here are
some that strike me: 1. Venus had NO tail because Venus is too massive
EVER to have had a tail as ordinary comets do, which makes McCanney´s
"tail drag" concept irrelevant. 2. What Encke discovered was that the
ca. 3.3 year period of P/Encke was not constant and this variation was
later explained in terms of the "jet effect" from degassing as the
comet lost volatiles due to sublimation (not melting as McCanney says)
near perihelion. 3. There is NO proper solution to Velikovsky´s
problem with the circularization of Venus because any solution for the
sequence of orbits in Worlds in Collision that conserves both angular
momentum and orbital energy requires that the sequence start with
Earth closer to the Sun than Venus now is; see "Top Ten Reasons Why
Velikovsky Is Wrong about Worlds in Collision"
< [link to abob.libs.uga.edu] >. Such a state is
contradicted by all the proxy climate data we have for the Holocene
deduced from tree rings and the ice cores of Greenland and Antarctica.

C. Leroy Ellenberger, "Per Veritatem Vis" & "Vivere est vincere"

>Thats funny, I don´t recall anyone having any "hard data" (ROFL) for the Big Bang theory either and yet almost everyone believes in it.

"Once there was nothing...and then it exploded".

-------------

Straw man argument, noted. Additionally, a false straw man. There´smore evidence that supports the BB than there is for your so called EU theories.

Once again I must state that McCanney wasn´t the only one with an electrical universe theory NOR was he the first. And what, pray tell, does this have ANYTHING to do with "planet x"? You want to post about "planet x" I suggest you make yor own thread and post that there.

Cosmic_Serpent nli
10/25/2004
2:30 pm EDT


I suggest you make yor own thread and post that there.




that strikes me as just the sort of thing celestial samantha would say,
of course you wouldn´t know about that would you serpent?...............

"Straw man argument, noted. Additionally, a false straw man. There´smore evidence that supports the BB than there is for your so called EU theories."

You should know, you wouldn´t be here if you didn´t. :)

There is also evidence which DOESN´T support the big bang theory yet people still cling to it with their lives. Lets see, who is more "woo woo", someone who clings to a theory which has evidence against it and building by the day or someone who is searching for a theory of the universe which explains it all with no BS explanations everytime something "strange" and "mysterious" shows up which doesn´t fit into their theory? Scientists are supposed to find out how things work not how to make things work for them.

>Once again I must state that McCanney wasn´t the only one with an electrical universe theory NOR was he the first.

And once again, I´ll state that NONE of them have ever shown their hypothesis to be supported by evidence or observation; in fact, the opposite is true.

And, most likely they won´t be the last in a long line of woo-woo´ism.

>And what, pray tell, does this have ANYTHING to do with "planet x"? You want to post about "planet x" I suggest you make yor own thread and post that there.

An additional straw man argument noted.

CS, you proved your intellectual incapacity by attempting to support Grant on PX.

Therefore, everything you post is highly suspect of being total bullshit, as was this OP.

You are a bullshit-spewing troll.

Same old garbage coming from Serpent i see

I may be a troll, but at least I´m prepared to admit it!

>Scientists are supposed to find out how things work not how to make things work for them.

You mean like the Electric Universe theory, correct? A classic example of ignoring overwhelming disconfirming evidence, in favor of conjecture and supposition based on ignorance or pet hypotheses.

Serpent, why have you started yet another thread on this topic?

You never came back to answer my points on the other thread, and already I can sense that this one is heading in the same direction, with no attempt at debate.



edit : well, since you admit to being a troll (if that was you, and not some stirring AC) then there´s not much point in even trying to have a sensible discussion with you...

"Serpent, why have you started yet another thread on this topic?"

Isn´t that what trolls do?

Thornhill - another woo-woo of J, McCanney caliber:

"This is really too long, but I put some effort into it, so I will
send it out anyway. That´s life.

We have now seen several messages from Thornhill, forwarded by
Dave Talbott. They are so bizarre that it it difficult to understand
how to respond. Without ever offering a particularly good reason (nor
for that matter, even a particularly bad one), Thornhill simply and
expediently denies the validity of all physics. Every time a counter
point is made to one of his assertions, the canned answer takes the
form of "if I am right, everything about physics is wrong". And so I
will pick one message that just happens to mention me by name, but
I really want to address the question of "grey areas" in standard
theory.

[ Date: Sun, 3 May 1998 17:01:16 +1000 ]
[ From: (Wal Thornhill) ]
[ Subject: Re: 2 Going backwards on questions ]

[ Thornhill ... ]
[ ... ]
> (I pointed out some years ago that the possible oscillatory nature
> of such circuits may offer a simple explanation for some variable
> stars and pulsars. The explosive effects are seen in novae and some
> features on the sun).

This is the beginning and the end of the electric star "hypothesis".
Prose is easy, and anyone can string together words to create the
most outlandish of hypotheses. But where is the substance. In the face
of an overwhelming body of observational and theoretical evidence
that describes all of these phenomena in tremendous (and successful)
detail, why should anyone pay attention to this? Thornhill presents
a bizarre theory, and he must know that everyone is going to ask
"how does that happen?" Yet on every occasion, when the opportunity
arises to actually provide some informative insight, Thornhill fails
the test badly.

> [ ... ] My last post on the subject attempted to highlight the
> problems of such mutual avoidance when a respected plasma physicist
> noted, within weeks of first looking at the problem of the dynamics
> of solar prominences, that it was obviously an electrical discharge -
> so he asked why were the astrophysicists concerned only with the
> magnetic structures?

One ...

=============================================================​=============
LARGE-SCALE ELECTRIC-FIELDS IN SOLAR-FLARE REGIONS
Article (Refs:23)
by Pudovkin-MI (*R) Zaitseva-SA Shumilov-NO Meister-CV
St Petersburg State Univ,Inst Phys/St Petersburg 198904//RUSSIA/
-------------------------------------------------------------​-------------
SOLAR PHYSICS
v178(1): pp125-136 (1998 Feb)
ABSTRACT
A method of separating electric field in the flare region in the
potential and vortex (induced) parts is discussed. According to the
proposed model, the motion of flare ribbons from the central line of
the Bare region is caused by the vortex component of the coronal
electric field, while the motion of bright spots within the flare
region towards the central line is driven by the potential component
of that field. The intensity of both the components of the flare region
electric field is estimated to equal approximately 1-3 V cm(-1), which
provides the input of the electromagnetic energy into the active region
at a rate of about 10(10) erg cm(-2)s(-1).
=============================================================​=============

Two ...

=============================================================​=============
CHROMOSPHERIC HEATING BY ELECTRIC CURRENTS INDUCED BY FLUCTUATING MAGNETIC
ELEMENTS
Article (Refs:12)
by Lorrain-P (*R) Koutchmy-S
Mcgill Univ,Dept Earth & Planetary Sci,3450 Rue Univ/Montreal
/Pq H3A 2A7/CANADA/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
SOLAR PHYSICS
v178(1): pp39-42 (1998 Feb)
ABSTRACT
We refer to two papers by Goodman (1995, 1996) on the heating of the
chromosphere by large scale electric currents, and to our paper (Lorrain
and Koutchmy, 1993) on magnetic elements. Goodman assumes that the dynamo
that runs a magnetic element stops operating at t = 0. From then on, the
magnetic field decays exponentially, and the induced current; heat the
chromosphere. The time constants calculated by Goodman disagree with the
observed values, possibly because he disregards the driving dynamo. Also,
he assumes static conditions, but his magnetic force density appears
suddenly when the dynamo stops, and it is about equal to the gravitational
force density. The magnetic force acts downward and fluctuations in the
current flowing through the magnetic element should induce vertical
oscillations at the photosphere. This point should be investigated further.
=============================================================​=============

Three ...

=============================================================​=============
ON THE ION-SCALE STRUCTURE OF THIN CURRENT SHEETS IN THE MAGNETOTAIL
Article (Refs:11)
by Hesse-M (*R) Winske-D Birn-J
NASA,Goddard Space Flight Ctr/Greenbelt//MD/20771
-------------------------------------------------------------​-------------
PHYSICA SCRIPTA
vT74: pp63-66 (1998)
ABSTRACT
A numerical and analytical investigation of the formation and structure
of thin current sheets which form in a magnetotail-like plasma model is
presented. Current sheet formation is driven by the application of a
boundary electric field similar to what would be expected from solar wind
driving. As a result, a thin current sheet forms which involves strong
Hall-type electric fields, which, by means of electric field drifts,
strongly increase the electron contribution, and reduce the ion
contribution to the cross-tail current density. This result is also
supported by analytical investigations of the total plasma momentum. The
thin current sheet forms on strong gradients in the ion density and the
magnetic field. The simulation leads to a well defined equilibrium state.
=============================================================​=============

Four ...

=============================================================​=============
ELECTRON ACCELERATION BY RANDOM DC ELECTRIC-FIELDS
Article (Refs:49)
by Anastasiadis-A (*R) Vlahos-L Georgoulis-MK
Univ Thessaloniki,Dept Phys,Sect Astrophys Astron & Mech/
GR-54006 Thessaloniki//GREECE/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
v489(1) Part 1: pp367-374 (1997 Nov 1)

We present a global model for the acceleration of electrons in the
framework of the statistical flare model of Vlahos et al. In this model,
solar flares are the result of an internal self-organized critical (SOC)
process in a complex, evolving, and highly inhomogeneous active region.
The acceleration of electrons is due to localized DC electric fields
closely related to the energy-release process in the active region. Our
numerical results for the kinetic energy distribution of accelerated
electrons show a power-law or an exponential-law behavior, depending on
the maximum trapping time of the energetic particles inside the
acceleration volume.
==========================================================================


Even "respected plasma physicists" need to take more than a week
to understand complex theories, and to understand the real current
status of research in a wide ranging field. The question & answer
only illustrate that the "respected plasma physicist" did not yet
know what he was talking about. It just so happens that solar, and
other astrophysicists most certainly *do* concern themselves with
electric and magnetic fields, and electric and magnetic structures;
both of these are all over the literature. But it takes time to learn,
and more than a week. We know that sunspots are primarily magnetic
"bubbles", because we can measure the magnetic field strengths by
Zeeman splitting (aside from the observation that the trapped
plasma makes the magnetic field lines visible). We know that electric
fields are present because, contrary to your constant stream of
misunderstanding, the rest of the physicists in the world actually
do know that "electro-" and "magnetism" do go together. The rest
of the physicists in the world also know that electric fields tear
plasmas apart, and magnetic fields confine them. So, when you see
a plasma confined by a field, which kind of field are you looking at?

It would appear that the "respected plasma physicist" had failed
to do his homework.

> Tim Thompson is merely repeating aspects of the standard model which,
> as you say, "appears correct". But Tim has the unfortunate habit of
> the SKEPTIC of presenting arguments in black-and-white terms when
> they are actually all shades of grey.

I have made no such argument; evidently my real purpose has sailed
over your head, so I will make it explicit. We are presented with a
constant stream of assertions that you have uncovered anomalies which
standard theory "cannot explain". I have shown in each instance, and
sometimes repeatedly so, that your assertions are contradicted by
fact. In each case standard theory either has already solved the
problem of the alleged anomaly, or has introduced a line of research
that shows promise of doing so in the future. You have yet to make
a convincing case that there is any weakness anywhere in the body
of standard theory, which is so pronounced as to cause us to bring
that standard theory into question. I have nowhere argued that
standard theory is "right"; but I have argued, and continue to argue
that (a) standard theory is much more complete than you imply, and
(b) standard theory is vastly superior to the electric star hypothesis
in all respects, save one: Standard theory does not allow a Saturn
centered planetary configuration, but the electric star hypothesis
provides a philosophical framework for allowing electromagnetic
torques to do what gravity will not. This is your real reason for
seeking the hypothesis in the first place, as you have already said
( [link to www.marmsweb.com] ). This also explains the
lack of physics to back an argument primarily physical in nature.
You use the assumed truth of the Saturn configuration to support
your hypothesis instead of any known physics; hence, your appeals
to unknown physics instead. I think bizarre is the right word.

[ ... ]
> When it comes to identifying grey areas in the standard model,
> they are legion. The greyest of all is the source of the energy to
> hypothetically support the sun against gravity. As Parker & Rolfs
> wrote in their paper, Nuclear Energy Generation in the Solar Interior,
> "...we may be forced to conclude that after more than 60 yr, we still
> have only qualitative evidence for thermonuclear reactions in the
> solar interior." (Solar Interior and Atmosphere, 1991, Cox, Livingstone
> [Livingston - TJT] & Matthews, Editors, p.33).

I submit that "qualitative" evidence for thermonuclear reactions in
the solar core is vastly superior to "no" evidence for the electric
star hypothesis; so why should we abandon the one in favor of the other?

Physicists are by nature about the most skeptical lot around; like
the legendary Missourian, our motto is "show me". It is easy to verify
that the standard model predicts physical conditions in the solar core
that literally cry-out "fusion". However, knowing that the theory
implies thermonuclear fusion, and actually seeing it face-to-face are
two different things, and that is what Cox et al. are talking about.
The only source for "quantitative" evidence would be something that
allows us to probe the solar core directly. As far as I know, only
neutrinos and helioseismology will do that.

Helioseismology I will take up below, but neutrinos I can deal with
here. I have already made several references to the standard literature
on the solar neutrino problem, one which Thornhill thinks that physics
is defenseless against, but mistakenly so. The neutrino flux from the
sun is certainly diagnostic of the thermonuclear state of the core, and
certainly imply the presence of thermonuclear fusion. However, they
also imply that either (a) there is not as much fusion as expected
(because there are fewer neutrinos than expected), or (b) we don´t
know as much about neutrinos as we thought. I appears likely now that
the answer is (b) and that neutrinos really do have a rest mass. This
is certainly a significant turn of events, but it does not bring
physics to its knees. Once the question is settled, if it is determined
that neutrino oscillations are real, then we will have our quantitative
tool for analyzing thermonuclear fusion directly in the solar core.

> Helioseismology is supposed to be the new tool to unravel what is
> going on inside the sun. Yet here is another grey area. The
> fundamental question of what causes the oscillations is unanswered by
> the standard model: "Another unclear problem is that any oscillation
> must be triggered: The flute does not produce music unless one blows
> in it, so to speak. Therefore one is led to the question: Who is
> blowing the pipe?", Pecker, The Global Sun, ibid, p.21.

A serious misrepresentation by the esteemed Thornhill. The standard
theory most certainly does answer this problem, in spades as they say;
no "grey area" here. Thornhill would have the unsuspecting reader
believe that this rumination from Pecker implies that there is no
known mechanism to excite the oscillations. But the real problem is
that there are *too many* excitation mechanisms available, which makes
it quite a challenge to figure out which role is played by which
mechanism! There are thermal, electric, and magnetic instabilities
galore on and in the sun, any or all of which could kick-start just
about any oscillation you can come up with. All this aside from the
fact that the sun, like everything else, once was not, and then was!
I doubt very much that any scenario for the genesis of the sun, in
any theory, would have left it oscilatorally silent. So much for that
"grey area"

> Electrical discharges are inherently very noisy. If the granulations
> in the photosphere do represent the tops of gigantic electrical
> discharges (as suggested by another unexplained phenomena in the
> standard model - the filaments of penumbrae), then there should be a
> constant barrage of explosive pressure waves directed downward,
> sufficient to set the sun ringing like a bell.

Remember, filaments are unexplained by standard theory.

One ...

=============================================================​=============
A DYNAMICAL MODEL FOR THE PENUMBRAL FINE-STRUCTURE AND THE EVERSHED EFFECT
IN SUNSPOTS
Article (Refs:24)
by Schlichenmaier-R (*R) Jahn-K Schmidt-HU
Kiepenheuer Inst Sonnenphys,Schoneckstr 6/D-79104 Freiburg//GERMANY/
-------------------------------------------------------------​-------------
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL (LETTERS)
v493(2) Part 2: ppL121-L124 (1998 Feb 1)
ABSTRACT
Relying on the assumption that the interchange convection of magnetic
flux tubes is the physical cause for the existence of sunspot penumbrae,
we propose a model in which the dynamical evolution of a thin magnetic
flux tube reproduces the Evershed effect and the penumbral fine structure
such as bright and dark filaments and penumbral grains.
According to our model, penumbral grains are the manifestation of the
footpoints of magnetic flux tubes, along which hot subphotospheric plasma
flows upward with a few km s(-1). Above the photosphere the hot plasma
inside the tube is cooled by radiative losses as it flows horizontally
outward. As long as the flowing plasma is hotter than the surroundings,
it constitutes a bright radial filament. The flow confined to a thin
elevated channel reaches the temperature equilibrium with the surrounding
atmosphere and becomes optically thin near the outer edge of the penumbra.
Here the tube has a height of approximately 100 km above the continuum,
and the flow velocity reaches up to 14 km s(-1). Such a how channel can
reproduce the observed signatures of the Evershed effect.
=============================================================​=============

Two ...

=============================================================​=============
THE VECTOR MAGNETIC-FIELD, EVERSHED FLOW, AND INTENSITY IN A SUNSPOT
Article (Refs:38)
by Stanchfield-DCH (*R) Thomas-JH Lites-BW
Univ Rochester,Dept Phys & Astron/Rochester//NY/14627
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
v477(1) Part 1: pp485-Continues (1997 Mar 1)
ABSTRACT
We present results of simultaneous observations of the vector magnetic
field, Evershed how, and intensity pattern in a nearly axisymmetric sunspot,
made with the Advanced Stokes Polarimeter at the Vacuum Tower Telescope at
NSO (Sacramento Peak). The vector magnetic held is determined from the
Stokes profiles of the magnetically sensitive lines Fe I 630.15 and 630.25
nm, and Doppler velocities and intensities are measured in several lines
including the weak C I 538.03 nm line, formed in the deepest layers of the
atmosphere. The strength of the magnetic field decreases with increasing
zenith angle (angle of inclination to the local vertical), and this
decrease is nearly linear over most of the range of values in the sunspot.
Magnetic field strength and continuum intensity are inversely related in
the sunspot in a manner similar to the characteristic nonlinear relationship
found by Kopp & Rabin in the infrared line Fe I 1564.9 Mn. A different
relationship is found between magnetic field strength and core intensity
(in Fe I 630.25 nm), however, with the curve doubling back to give two
distinct values of field strength at the same core intensity in the
penumbra -t he higher and lower field strengths corresponding to the inner
and outer penumbra, respectively. In the penumbra the magnetic field pattern
consists of spokelike extensions of stronger, more vertical magnetic field
separated by regions of weaker, nearly horizontal magnetic field, as found
by Degenhardt & Wiehr and Lites et al. The penumbral magnetic field extends
outward beyond the outer continuum boundary of the sunspot, forming a canopy
at the height of formation of Fe I 630.25 nm. Our results for the Evershed
flow confirm the discovery by Rimmele that this flow is generally confined
to narrow, elevated channels in the penumbra. In the Fe I 630.25 nm line and
other strong photospheric lines we see isolated, radially elongated channels
of Evershed flow crossing the outer penumbra. These flow channels lie in
regions of the penumbra where the magnetic field is very nearly horizontal.
In the weak C I 538.03 nm line (formed at a height h = 40 km) the flow
pattern shows small, isolated patches of upflow, lying at the inner end of
the Fe I how channels where the magnetic held is more inclined to the
horizontal. These patches presumably correspond to the upstream footpoints
of the arched magnetic flux tubes carrying the Evershed flow. For some of
the flow channels we find isolated patches of strong downflow in the C I
line just outside the penumbra that might correspond to the downstream
footpoints of these flux tubes. There is a weak association between the
Evershed flow channels and the dark filaments seen in continuum intensity
in the penumbra, but a much stronger association between the flow and the
dark filaments seen in core intensity measured in the same spectral line.
==========================================================================

Three ...

==========================================================================
SUN CENTER OBSERVATIONS OF THE EVERSHED EFFECT
Article (Refs:34)
by Rimmele-TR
New Jersey Inst Technol/Newark//NJ/07102
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
v445(1) Part 1: pp511-516 (1995 May 20)
ABSTRACT
Results of observations of the Evershed effect for a round sunspot at
disk center are presented. Using the 20 m Angstrom UBF/FP filter at the
VTT of NSO/Sacramento Peak we recorded a 2 hr time sequence of Fe I
5576.099 Angstrom velocity maps, Mn I 5394.675 Angstrom intensity maps,
and white-light images. By computing the 2 hr time average we were able to
filter out the vertical Evershed component of a few hundred m s(-1) from
the back-ground of oscillatory and granular velocities, which dominate
individual images.
The averaged velocity fields show distinct filaments which extend
beyond the white-light boundary of the sunspot by as far as 10,000 km.
The velocity profile along these filaments is consistent with the picture
of an arched magnetic loop carrying the Evershed flow. These loops reach
their maximum elevation at less than 300 km above continuum height. The
portions of the loops seen in velocity maps have a length of up to 20,000
km. Within the penumbra the velocity filaments are correlated with dark
filaments observed in the core intensity map of the temperature-sensitive
Mn I line. However, beyond the penumbral boundary the same velocity
filaments coincide with enhanced brightness, relative to the photospheric
intensity, suggesting that the gas in the downstream legs of the loop is
at a higher temperature than the surrounding photospheric material. The
temperature excess in the downstream legs is of the order of 200 K. A
possible explanation is a standing tube shock that occurs in the
downstream legs and near the penumbral boundary as modeled by Montesinos
and Thomas (1993). Some velocity filaments end in porelike features which
are 5%-10% darker than the average photosphere and reveal a pronounced
redshift.
==========================================================================

So much for penumbral filaments being "unexplained" by standard theory.
Meanwhile, as I have already pointed out, we do happen to know for a fact,
by virtue of direct observation, that granules in the photosphere are
convection cells. I have already posted references to several papers
that describe the observational evidence in detail. However, just for
the sake of completeness, I will repeat one here.

==========================================================================
3D VELOCITY-FIELD OBSERVATION OF SOLAR CONVECTION I - CHARACTERISTICS OF
MESOGRANULATION
Article (Refs:36)
by Ueno-S (*R) Kitai-R
Kyoto Univ,Kwasan Observ/Kyoto 6078471//JAPAN/
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLICATIONS OF THE ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY OF JAPAN
v50(1): pp125-Continues (1998)
ABSTRACT
In this series we report on the results of our 3D velocity-field
observation of the solar photosphere. The observation consisted of a 2D
granulation imaging observation and a 1D slit spectroscopic observation.
Both observations were performed simultaneously using the Domeless Solar
Telescope of Hida Observatory, Kyoto University. In this paper we focus
on the solar meso-sized velocity structure, i.e., mesogranulation. We
investigated its spatial size, lifetime, velocity amplitude, and the
relation between horizontal velocity and radial velocity. Our results are
as follows: (1) The characteristic size of meso-granular cells is about
18". (2) Especially at the region where the slit was placed, the patterns
of the horizontal velocity divergence and of the radial velocity are
closely related to each other, and their spatial sizes are also very
consistent. (3) The peak of its lifetime distribution is located at
30-40 min, and (4) the relative frequency of mesogranular cells having a
longer lifetime than 60 min is only 26%. (5) Solar mesogranulation is
confirmed to be a convective phenomenon. An exceptional example of upward
gas flow at the boundary of a strong mesogranulation cell was found
Discussions are also given concerning this abnormal phenomenon.
==========================================================================

Another "grey area" disposed of, so we will move right along.

> Another grey area is the high temperature of the solar corona. The latest
> reports are coming down in favour of transfer of energy from within the
> sun by "magnetic reconnection" rather than Alfven waves.

Wrong. Magnetic reconnection provides the energy source that drives the
Alfven waves that accelerate the solar wind. This is not a "change" in
the theoretical outlook, just a failure on Thornhill´s part to know what
"standard theory" is; a failure which in itself is rapidly becoming
"standard theory".

> But magnetic reconnection in a plasma is, in my opinion, a euphemism for
> an electrical discharge phenomena. The unwillingness of astrophysicists
> to deal with first order (electric current) implications of second order
> (magnetic) effects is quite striking.

Backwards; the electric current effects are definitely 2nd order
compared to magnetic effects in the solar photosphere. Only magnetic
fields can contain a hot plasma, never electric fields. Activity at the
photosphere is dominated by magnetic containment, which we can see directly.
Electric currents serve only to generate magnetic fields (a fact well
known to the astrophysics community), and are certainly an important
part of the photosphere environment, as I have noted above already.
However, the big boy on the photosphere block is the magnetic field,
not the electric currents and not electric fields.

> Of course, the generation of the solar magnetic field by a solar dynamo is
> another very grey area. DeLuca and Gilma, The Solar Dynamo, ibid, p.303,
> write "In closing, we remark that, after many years through which the
> prevailing opinion was that the problem of the solar dynamo was "solved" by
> mean field electro-dynamics applied to the bulk of the solar convection
> zone, new observational and theoretical results have now overturned that
> belief, leading to a stimulating new period of proliferation of solar
> dynamo theories."

Vintage Thornhill. Just because we are not able to lay the finished
answer at his feet, ribbons attached, then all aspects of the theory
must be totally false. That is a ludicrous position to take. As I have
said before, the fact that any question is not *answered* does not
automatically mean that it is *unanswerable*, despite Thornhill´s
belief to the contrary.

In the early days of dynamo, it was indeed thought by some that an
answer would be quickly at hand. This turned out not to be the case.
So what? Does this mean that all dynamo theories are so bad, so useless
that they should be abandoned? And if so, for what? Electric stars??
Thornhill has nothing, a totally empty theory, and he expects the rest
of the world to drop whatever it´s doing like a "hot potato" and follow
him to oblivion? Not likely.

In order to make the argument that dynamo theory does not work, you
first have to know what it is, and then show by some direct means that
it is either internally inconsistent, or that it is inconsistent with
observation. Neither of these is forthcoming. Add to that recent very
strong results from geodynamo theory (which is much easier that the
solar dynamo), and we have every reason to believe we are on the
right track [the "strong results" refer to the Glatzmaier & Roberts
achievement of modeling a geomagnetic field reversal in geodynamo
simulations, as reported in "A three-dimensional self-consistent
computer simulation of a geomagnetic field reversal", Nature, 377,
203-209 (1995)].


> The motions inside the sun suggested by helioseismology
> have generally conflicted with models of the solar dynamo.

Quite wrong. And quite the contrary, helioseismological
observations have pinned down the location of the solar tachocline,
where the inner radiative core stops and the outer convective region
begins. Since the solar dynamo should be located in the convective
region, this is good news for dynamo theorists, who now know where
and how to confine the mechanism.

> The more recent discovery that the magnetic field lines near the
> poles of the sun are evenly spaced rather than crowding together
> like a normal dipole field, actually fits the model of the sun being a
> focus for an electric discharge.

It also fits well the model of the sun being a *source* of the solar
wind plasma, which will stretch out the magnetic field as seen. A nice
confirmation of the standard theory. However, if the sun is the focus
of an electrical discharge, then the solar wind should be in-bound
instead of out-bound. Or, more precisely, an electric current should be
in-bound. But such is not the case; protons and electrons both flee the
sun rapidly in all directions, consistent with a thermally driven wind,
and inconsistent with an electrical origin. The field and plasma
observation actually serves to *disprove* the electric star hypothesis,
and to confirm the standard theory.

> In that model, the field lines trace the current flow and are evenly
> spaced because of the short range repulsion of Birkeland currents. The
> filamentary nature of most of the phenomena above the photosphere is
> characteristic of Birkeland currents in a plasma.

Wrong again. Birkeland currents in the earth´s ionosphere propagate
*downwards*, whereas the solar wind propagates *upwards*, away from the
sun, not towards it.

> Another grey area is that of the acceleration of the solar wind.
> Withbroe, Feldman & Ahluwalia, The Solar Wind and its Coronal Origins,
> ibid, p. 1094, write: "Finally, we still do not know how the coronal
> plasma in these regions [coronal holes] is heated and accelerated to
> form the solar wind; the coronal heating mechanism is unknown and there
> are uncertainties as to the role of wave-particle interactions in
> accelerating the solar wind."

As there is no other reference to this work, I can´t follow the
"ibid". If it´s a book, I can find no trace of it. Not that this matters
all that much, as this is just another of Thornhill´s non-grey
"grey areas". The speed of the normal solar wind (~400 km/sec) is readily
explained by the "thermally driven wind" theory of E.N Parker, which was
published in the Astrophysical Journal in 1958 (v. 128 p. 664) [ref
"Plasma Astrophysics", Tajima & Shibata, Addison-Wesley, 1997, page 20].
The real problem has been the fast solar wind (~800 km/sec). The fast
solar wind comes from coronal holes, and is the subject of the remark
by Withbroe et al.

However, as I have already pointed out at least twice, recent work
has essentially solved that problem. In a set of papers I have already
referenced, we see the fine structure of the magnetic field over the
photosphere revealed for the first time. That fine structure, dubbed a
"magnetic carpet", provides the network for reconnection that supports
the Alfven waves that accelerate the fast solar wind. While this
scenario I describe is by no means final, it is quite reasonable, and
consistent both with observation, and Alfven wave models for solar
wind acceleration. This "grey area" is rapidly approaching the status
of a problem solved. The best place to look for a simple explanation
of all this is the March 1998 issue of "Physics Today" (v. 51 #3),
pages 19-21. But the key paper is this one:

==========================================================================
SUSTAINING THE QUIET PHOTOSPHERIC NETWORK - THE BALANCE OF FLUX EMERGENCE,
FRAGMENTATION, MERGING, AND CANCELLATION
Article (Refs:47)
by Schrijver-CJ (*R) Title-AM Vanballegooijen-AA Hagenaar-HJ Shine-RA
Stanford Lockheed Inst Space Res,Dept H112,Bldg 252,3251 Hanover St/
Palo Alto//CA/94304

ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
v487(1) Part 1: pp424-436 (1997 Sep 20)
ABSTRACT
The magnetic field in the solar photosphere evolves as flux
concentrations fragment in response to sheared flows, merge when they
collide with others of equal polarity, or (partially) cancel against
concentrations of opposite polarity. Newly emerging flux replaces the
canceled flux. We present a quantitative statistical model that is
consistent with the histogram of fluxes contained in concentrations of
magnetic flux in the quiet network for fluxes exceeding approximate to
2 x 10(18) Mr, as well as with estimated collision frequencies and
fragmentation rates. This model holds for any region with weak gradients
in the magnetic flux density at scales of more than a few supergranules.
We discuss the role of this dynamic flux balance (i) in the dispersal of
flux in the photosphere, (ii) in sustaining the network-like pattern and
mixed-polarity character of the network, (iii) in the formation of
unipolar areas covering the polar caps, and (iv) on the potential formation
of large numbers of very small concentrations by incomplete cancellation.
Based on the model, we estimate that as much flux is canceled as is
present in quiet-network elements with fluxes exceeding approximate to
2 x 10(18) Mr in 1.5 to 3 days, which is compatible with earlier
observational estimates. This timescale is close to the timescale for
flux replacement by emergence in ephemeral regions, so that this appears
to be the most important source of flux for the quiet-Sun network; based
on the model, we cannot put significant constraints on the amount of flux
that is injected on scales that are substantially smaller than that of
the ephemeral regions. We establish that ephemeral regions originate in
the convection zone and are not merely the result of the reemergence of
previously canceled network flux. We also point out that the quiet,
mixed-polarity network is generated locally and that only any relatively
small polarity excess is the result of flux dispersal from active regions.
=============================================================​=============

> The electrical model of the sun has a simple plausible qualitative
> explanation for most, if not all, of the features we see on and above the
> photosphere. On the other hand, the standard model seems to rely on ever
> more complex ad-hoc and disjoint theories to wind up with a grey, murky
> picture which is supposed to provide us with a standard by which to measure
> all stars.

Exactly the opposite from the truth. The standard model is both elegant
and powerful, even if it is a tad complicated. I am sorry indeed that the
standard theories cannot be easily composed into a prose that is
acceptable for one more interested in myth than science, but that´s the
way it is. If you want to do real physics, you just have to get your
hands dirty, so to speak. On the other hand, the electric star hypothesis
requires a network of tortured ad-hoc presumptions right out of the gate.
The sun is supposed to be the focus of an electrical discharge, but there
is no electricity moving towards the sun! Is that "simple and plausible"?
The sun is supposed to be "isothermal" throughout, an assertion which
only requires that we ignore everything we know about the physics of
plasma or neutral gas. Is that "simple and plausible"? Thornhill rigidly
denies that solar granules are convective, even though we can put our
eyeballs right up the the them (astronomically speaking, of course) and
watch them convect! Is that "simple and plausible"? I think not. Thornhill
has it bass-ackwards, as they used to say in Texas.

> The electrical model lends itself to laboratory simulations which should
> quickly show its worth.

Exactly false, and exactly what Alfven´s contemporary Falthmammar warned
against in a passage I posted yesterday, and will repeat a snippet of
here: "As soon as the thermonuclear effort made it possible to conduct
experiments in the new parameter range of very hot plasmas, the limited
validity of classical plasma theory became evident." ["The Plasma Universe",
in the book "Basic Plasma Processes on the Sun", E.D. Priest & V. Krishan,
eds.; Kluwer, 1990; proceedings of the 142nd symposium of the International
Astronomical Union, Bangalore, India, 1-5 December, 1989]. Thornhill is
doing what Falthammar already did, and found to fail.

> Anyone who scans the journals of plasma physics will see that this approach
> is essential since the papers are littered with caveats that anode and
> cathode behaviour in electrical discharges are poorly understood.

But anyone who actually *reads* the journals of plasma physics will
quickly discover that this is not the case. Some things are understood
very well, and some not. But the entire argument is irrelevant, because
as Falthammar already has pointed out, you can´t just assume that all that
cathode-anode stuff works in an astrophysical setting. And anyone who
reads the literature on space plasma physics and plasma astrophysics will
quickly learn that Falthammar was right.

> It is not necessary for me to provide a full working model of an electric
> star. I have many ideas, but our physics is lacking in some crucial areas.

I would say it´s lacking in *all* areas, but I might be biased, since I
actually have not seen any physics come out of Thornhill yet. But this is
ever the case in the Velikovskian crowd. It has been 50 years since Worlds
in Collision hit the stands, and ever since then it has all been
"preliminary" work. No real model yet, but we will get one. No real science
yet, but we will find one. It has been that way for 50 years, and taken
all together, they have accomplished a grand total of exactly nothing.
Highly impressive, but not very awe-inspiring.

> And, a point I tried to make in my earlier post, which didn´t seem to
> penetrate, is that we do not know the true radius of the sun if the
> photosphere merely defines the visible limit of a spherical discharge.

We do not know the "true radius" of the sun in standard theory either,
since it does not have one. The "true radius", for what it is worth, is
*defined* as distance from the center of the sun to the visible surface of
the photosphere. That should be good enough, and I fail to see how this
´glitch´ over the solar radius stops Thornhill from espousing a theory.

> So even if the body of the sun obeyed the standard gas theory, the
> boundary conditions defined by the photosphere are not primarily related
> to anything going on inside the sun and cannot be used to deduce
> conditions in its centre.

Exactly false; all boundary conditions are always bound to an arbitrary
boundary, and the photosphere is as good as any other. Indeed, this is such
a surprising statement that I am surprised any physicist would say it. So
somebody tell me, is Thornhill really a physicist, with a real degree in
physics from a real school? I don´t believe it, at least for now.

> Certainly, if the true radius of the sun is appreciably smaller
> than that defined by the photosphere, conditions at the centre of the sun
> will be less conducive to nuclear fusion. The lack of neutrinos tends to
> confirm this view.

Exactly false once again. The location of the "true radius" is arbitrary
in either theory, and not relevant to the discussion. Photospheric boundary
conditions *do* constrain the interior model, a fact that should be known
to anyone who ever worked out a boundary value problem. That much is just
red-herring nonsense from Thornhill to throw readers off the straight and
narrow. And, finally, the "lack" of neutrinos means nothing of the kind.
The presence of any neutrinos at all shows that fusion is happening, almost
certainly. However, the fact that there are fewer neutrinos than expected
leads one to believe that either there is less fusion going on than was
previously thought, or that our understanding of neutrino physics is
deficient (the latter is now the most popular view). This leaves open
questions, to be sure, but hardly counts as a fatal flaw.

> It is sufficient, surely, to tie together phenomenologically and
> quantitatively all of the complex phenomena we can actually see to have a
> strong argument for consideration of the electric discharge model.

No, it is not sufficient at all (nor has it been done at all). Once you
get to the point of "tying together" all these phenomena, then you need to
test your "qualitative" theory against known physics by quantitative
analysis. What I have seen so far, limited though it is, bodes ill for the
quantitative test; especially in Thornhill´s propensity to deny the reality
of that which is in front of him.

> As Sir Arthur Eddington wrote all those years ago: "Perhaps in the crude
> stages of a theory qualitative evidence is more significant than quantitative."
> The Internal Constitution of the Stars, 1926, p. 310.

But when your theory remains qualitative for 50 years, maybe it´s time to
get quantitative or get a new theory.

Tim Thompson
[link to www.geocities.com]

I think Idol and Hoax Hunter are the same...

cause they both all the time