Plasma cosmology

Gokul43201

Are you saying that EM interactions are a key ingredient in, for instance, the internal dynamics of our Solar System?

iantresman

If you're asking about the dynamics of the planets around the Sun, then no. However, for ions (ie. a plasma), and small charged particles such a dust and grains (ie. a dusty plasma), then electromagnetic forces may play a significant role.

Nereid

Of interest may the principal authors of each of these, year of publication, and (an estimate of) the number of subsequent papers that cited them (excluding those by the same author):A. L. Peratt, 1995, zero
A. L. Peratt, 1996, zero
A. L. Peratt, 1996, {no estimate}
C. K. Whitney, 1995, zero
A. L. Peratt, 1997, {no estimate}
A. L. Peratt, 1995, zero
A. L. Peratt, 1995, zero
A. L. Peratt, 1995, zero
E. J. Lerner, 1993, zero (the only citation is by E. J. Lerner, in a later paper)
H. C. Arp, 2001, 10 [comment: to have this classified as a 'plasma cosmology' (PC) paper is curious; the Arp-Narlikar Variable Mass Hypothesis (VMH) is an interesting alternative cosmological theory which has, as far as I know, no relationship to any PC ideas ... in fact, I'm pretty sure the two are mutually inconsistent, in a great many respects]
H. C. Arp, 2001, 9 [as above; no relationship to any PC ideas]
M. B. Bell, 2002, 3 [as above, no relationship to any PC ideas]
A. L. Peratt/G. L. Verschuur, 1999, 5 [this paper is principally concerned with presenting an observational result; however, it does introduce 'critical ionization velocity' (CIV) and seeks to relate the observations to CIV. CIV is interesting, and the topic of some research. AFAIK, no unambiguous signature of CIV has been detected, despite a decade of searching.]
A. L. Peratt, 1998, 1 [what this has to do with PC is beyond me!]
A. L. Peratt, 1983, 7
C-G Fälthammar, 1988, zero
M. B. Bell, 2004, 7 [another 'Arpian' paper; no relationship to any PC ideas]

So it looks very much like A. L. Peratt is (principal) author of almost all the PC papers published in relevant, peer-reviewed journals, and that almost none of these have been cited by anyone else.

The list also reveals a curiosity - why are (largely) observational papers by Arp et al.¹ listed as being related to PC?

While CIV certainly seems tied to PC, it may be investigated independently ...

¹Note that M. B. Bell, and almost all those who cite the Arp et al. and M. B. Bell papers, present empirical analyses of observations, in some cases with a view to testing hypotheses related to 'intrinsic redshift' or 'quantized redshift'.

iantresman

Whether the number of citations to an article means that (a) it is factually wrong (b) ignored (c) not understood (d) uncontested (e) unknown (f) politically unpopular , is open to speculation. Citations certainly don't imply veracity or disproof of the published science, though it may give an indication of popularity, which is hardly a scientific comment.

I note that Alfvén's original 1942 paper predicting hydromagnetic waves in Nature journal received only 1 citation in the first 10 years, and only 3 more in the next decade, and 3 more in the 10 years after that.

And Alfvén's article on the same subject in Arkiv f. Mat published in 1943, has received one citation to the article, ever.

I think this merely shows that one journal is more popular than the other, and some ideas just don't get noticed early on. It certainly didn't reflect on the veracity of theories.

Nereid

Indeed.

And the numbers I gave are only estimates - even the big sites that track citations have clear caveats on the accuracy of their results.

Nor did I mean to imply that the number of citations is necessarily indicative of (a).

In fact, given PhysicsForum's excellent Independent Research (IR) section, I think those who've done recent research into things EU/PU/PC have a truly wonderful opportunity!

I mean, if these ideas, so forcefully presented on several internet sites, do, indeed, have scientific legs, then what better way to make the strength of the scientific case known than by getting something up in the IR section? Surely among the hundreds of folk writing with such vitriol and venom about contemporary mainstream space (plasma) physics, astrophysics, and cosmology there must be at least one or two who've actually done some independent research (that they're just bursting to get published)?

And there's precedent to consider too: several of PF's IR submissions have subsequently been published in pertinent, peer-reviewed journals.

May I even suggest some topics? With the phenomenal amount of high-quality astronomical data available today - for free! - along with almost as much computing power in a high-end PC as Peratt used in his supercomputer 'galaxy rotation' simulations, it should be relatively straight-forward to look for CIV signatures. There's even a precedent in some of the papers PlasmaSphere listed: David Russell, a co-author of at least one of the 'Arp et al.' papers has no professional affiliation; if he can get stuff published, in mainstream astronomy journals, based upon research using those databases (and other published papers), why not an EU proponent (in PF's IR section)?

Here's another example: why not download the Open Geospace General Circulation Model code (Open GGCM - it's open source), develop it further, and apply it to the GB of (freely available!) high-quality data on the ISM (interstellar medium), to test hypotheses about filaments in the ISM? After all, surely no proponent of any EU/PU/PC ideas could possibly claim that the Open GGCM fails to incorporate all the relevant plasma physics and electromagnetic theory, could they?

Or even more straight-forward: why not get Peratt's code, transfer it to a PC, develop it, and re-run the simulations so that they produce many more observables (such as SEDs)? Or, somewhat more ambitious, take the Peratt outputs and model the expected weak gravitational lensing signatures (and then compare them with those in the published literature)?

iantresman

Some very good suggestions. As always, the problem is to find those individuals who know sufficient about the subject to do just this. I don't consider myself sufficiently knowledgeable (I'm sure they'll be no disagreement there!), and still learning about the plasma universe.

But I know others who are still getting their material published in peer reviewed journals. The Aug 2007, IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, 7th Special Issue on Space and Cosmic Plasma, Vol 35 No 4 Part 1, which also includes an article by Gerrit L. Verschuur on Critical Ionization Velocity Effects.

I hadn't heard of the Open GGCM Model (Open Geospace General Circulation Model), but I'll certainly take a look.

Nereid

Thanks.I'm puzzled, and not a little bit shocked, to read this.

Do I understand you correctly to say that, for all the years of high-volume promotion of EU/PU/PC ideas, on dozens of internet fora, there are really very few among such energetic promoters who've taken the trouble to actually learn Space/Plasma Physics 101? or Astronomy 101?
If so, and if there are so few who've graduated with even a BSc in physics, whence comes the intense certainty about EU ideas?

I know you can speak for only yourself, but look at PlasmaSphere's posts in this thread - so common of what EU proponents write ... is it possible that she is ignorant of the thousands of peer-reviewed papers on the ISM (a great many of which include Maxwell's equations, in one way or another), to take just one example?
My goodness! For all the outpouring of vitriol and venom directed at mainstream space scientists, astrophysicists, and cosmologists, on websites promoting EU ideas, the thousands of papers on the very topic which at least one promoter claims is the foundation of 'EU theory' (Birkeland, on aurorae) are only now being discovered by one of that idea's leading lights?!?

I'm sorry iantresman, I don't mean to be rude or anything, but the AGU (American Geophysical Union) past meetings website isn't exactly hard to find - and look at all the sessions at the 2002 Fall meeting, in the Magnetospheric Physics track, for example!

Nereid

iantresman's post triggered a thought, and a question: have you presented papers or posters at an AGU meeting, PlasmaSphere, in their Planetary Sciences, Heliospheric Physics, or Magnetospheric Physics sections? Or attended any such meetings? Or read any of the proceedings of such meetings?

Based on Scott's article, would you be prepared to write a paper, to present at an AGU meeting, explaining why so many of the scientists are so obviously wrong (in your view) in some fundamentals of their research (and presenting an outline of how they should have been doing their analyses, writing the code for their models, and so on)?

By taking a representative selection of the AGU papers, can you support your assertion ("Mainstream science in contrast looks on the universe as electrically neutral and purely mechanical")?

And, most generally of all: in your view, what - in some detail - are the steps which those doing research in space (plasma) physics, astrophysics, and cosmology need to take, to develop and test hypotheses?

Astronuc

I don't remember anyone at PF mentioning that mainstream peer-reviewed plasma journals are disallowed.

Ivan Seeking

I specified that none could be used as a source for new Cosmology theories. If you feel that certain papers can be allowed, I will leave that up to you and the other experts here.

Astronuc

Please offer the evidence to support that last statement.

It's a matter of the relative strengths of fluid dynamics forces versus magnetohydrodynamics forces, and I believe astrophysicists have a sound grasp of both.


As for the Abstract of Scott's paper, I take exception to his statements as to what many helioastronomers and astrophysicists have themselves claimed, and I would like to see the evidence to support Scott's assertions.

Astronuc

If those papers use observational evidence of stellar or interstellar plasmas, then they would be admissible. If however, the papers simply refer to laboratory (terrestrial) experiments, then they may not be necessarily appropriate for a discussion of plasma cosmology.

iantresman

As you correctly wrote, I can generally only speak for myself. As for any vitriol directed at mainstream scientists, I don't approve of nonconstructive criticism.

There are numerous well-qualified people in the plasma sciences. But I think that many of guilty of over-generalizations, both for and against many an idea.

iantresman

Earlier I expressed a desire to distinguish between different areas of astrophysics, namely (a) Klein's cosmology (b) Klein-Alfvén cosmology (c) Plasma Cosmology (d) The Plasma Universe (e) Plasma Astrophysics.

I was wondering whether you perceive a difference between them?

I ask because about a year ago, I emailed some people I though had written peer reviewed papers on "plasma cosmologists", to ask them if they considered themselves to be "plasma cosmologists". All said they considered themselves to be "plasma physicists" or "astrophysicists". Only one said he could also be called a "plasma cosmologists.

iantresman

How about an example with the following papers:

• Bostick, Winston H., Possible Hydromagnetic Simulation of Cosmical Phenomena in the Laboratory" (1958) Cosmical Gas Dynamics, Proceedings from IAU Symposium no 8. (publ. in Reviews of Modern Physics, vol. 30, Issue 3, pp. 1090-109)
  .
• Peratt, Anthony L., "Evolution of the plasma universe. II - The formation of systems of galaxies" IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science (ISSN 0093-3813), vol. PS-14, Dec. 1986, p. 763-778. Available in full here

Both papers are peer-reviewed, one in a plasma journal, both describe laboratory experiments, Peratt's also describes plasma simulations, both papers consider applications to astrophysics and galaxy formation.

I would not consider either paper to be (a) Klein's cosmology (b) Klein-Alfvén cosmology (c) Plasma Cosmology, since neither paper mentions or requires their symmetric universe. But I considered both papers to fall into the categories of (d) The Plasma Universe (e) Plasma Astrophysics.

I think both papers contain decent science, and their application of laboratory plasma to cosmic plasmas in not automatically invalid.

Nereid

(re-)Reading the second one, I am struck by just how different the state of extra-galactic astronomy is today, compared with what can infer from the Peratt paper¹.

Today, almost anyone with a broadband internet connection and the appropriate software (much of it available free) could write hypotheses (relevant to the Peratt paper), in much more rigorous, statistical form, and test them against much, much better databases (not only the number of potential objects to include, but also far more wavebands, far better understood selection effects, calibrated flux levels, and so on). Of course, as Peratt did not (it seems) make the code he used in his simulation public, reproducing that part of his paper would be quite problematic.

Perhaps it's just the benefit of > 20 years' of hindsight, but it struck me as odd that Peratt chose to restrict his simulation outputs to such a narrow range of observables, when with (it seems to me) just a few extra lines of code he could have performed a much richer range of tests of his hypotheses; while I have no objective basis for saying so, it almost seems he deliberately restricted the test space.

Further, and this is common to many of the Peratt 'astronomy' papers I've read over the years, he seems to place huge emphasis on qualitative, intuitive interpretation of images ... almost as if "what's in this picture looks like what's in that, therefore the (physical) mechanisms at work are the same!". In this regard, my reaction to some of the images could illustrate one reason why such an approach - by itself - is so little used in astronomy, namely "gee, those simulated galaxies look, to me, so different from the real galaxies he says they resemble, in certain key aspects, that I can't understand why he chose to include them as support for his hypothesis!".

One interesting aspect: the abstract of one, very recent, paper which cites, favourably, the 1986 Peratt paper starts like this: "Following the model of magnetically supported rotation of spiral galaxies, the inner disk rotation is dominated by gravity but magnetism is not negligible at radii where the rotation curve becomes flat, and indeed becomes dominant at very large radii." Oh the irony of the history of science! Just as Birkeland's work on the physics of aurorae may be said to be 'pioneering', even though most of the details of his model (to use the modern term) are now known to be wrong, Battaner and Florido use the same word ('pioneering') when referring to Peratt, even though their (magnetic) model is different from his in just about all key aspects!

¹ I also suspect that Peratt, not being actively involved in that branch of astronomy at that time, missed, or misunderstood, a fair bit of the field, even back then.

Nereid

I hadn't realised that one of the links in PlasmaSphere's post was to a website which lists Ian Tresman as site owner - is that you by any chance?

Anyway, the 'Plasma Universe resources' page seems curiously unbalanced - heavy on Peratt and Alfvén, light on anyone else; prominent place given to those in the astronomical community who are authors of non-mainstream (or even fringe) ideas, light on everyone else; lots of stuff that is a decade to a century old, little on the tremendous advances of the last decade or two; and so on.

It's almost as if the site owner feels there's just one institution doing valid research into plasmas in the universe, the one where Peratt works.

Do you happen to know why the dozens of other institutions are ignored? For example, why is there no mention of the KTH Alfvén Laboratory¹? Why no mention of the regular AGU meetings, with their Planetary Sciences, Heliospheric Physics, and Magnetospheric Physics tracks? Rather ironic that a century old book, by Birkeland, is given as a resource yet a huge international conference, held several times a year, which covers developments in the study of the magnetosphere and solar wind (that Birkeland can be said to have pioneered), is ignored.

The omission of KTH's Alfvén Laboratory seems particularly odd², given what you have written about the importance of combining lab research into plasmas with space research; here, for example, is what the main Space and Plasma Physics page says:Earlier you wrote:I should like to take this opportunity to say that you do not seem to have been the author of vitriolic and venomous comments about mainstream scientists (I checked), and if it seems that I implied this, I apologise.

However, if you are indeed the site owner of the webpage PS linked to, your compilation of material is, if anything, even worse (than such attacks) - the (deliberate?) omission of vast amounts of material and sources that are apparently highly pertinent ... for what purpose?

¹ In Sweden, in the School of Electrical Engineering
² Doubly so, given that the only hint of more current work in this area, since Birkeland (!), is a 1988 Falthammar paper, in addition to the Peratt-edited IEEE transactions