Astronomers Again Baffled by Solar Observations

SteakNShake writes "Once again professional astronomers are struggling to understand observations of the sun. ScienceDaily reports that a team from Saint Andrew's University announced that the sun's magnetic fields dominate the behavior of the corona via a mechanism dubbed the 'solar skeleton.' Computer models continue to be built to mimic the observed behavior of the sun in terms of magnetic fields but apparently the ball is still being dropped; no mention in the announcement is made of the electric fields that must be the cause of the observed magnetic fields. Also conspicuously absent from the press releases is the conclusion that the sun's corona is so-dominated by electric and magnetic fields because it is a plasma. In light of past and present research revealing the electrical nature of the universe, this kind of crippling ignorance among professional astrophysicists is astonishing."

Re:Crippling ignorance?

[Scarblac]

Isn't it rather an indication that they're doing their job? Data which challenge our current models are the most valuable things scientists can collect, because they give researchers chance to refine their theories.

The thing is, the theory the submitter alludes to isn't the "current model", it's extreme fringe theory (I'm tempted to call it crackpot theory but will leave that to an actual physicist), and the submitter managed to get his troll on Slashdot.

I mean, he's calling the fact that scientists don't agree to a theory on thunderbolts.info as "crippling ignorance".

I mean, Nature, thunderbolts.info, they're about the same in status, don't you agree?

Re:whaa?

[p_trekkie]

DISCLAIMER: I am an astronomy grad student.

I have repeatedly gotten emails from a similar group of nutjobs linking to a 40 page paper which "proves" the universe is not powered by fusion but by magnetic fields or some such. Their paper contained I think three equations and a whole lot of hooey.

The story on the front page of slashdot is complete and utter BUNK (yes, I know not THAT big of a surprise). Editors should remove immediately.

Is CowboyNeal new around here?

[p3d0]

I'm not exactly the most savvy Slashdot reader around, and even I know this "electric universe" theory is about as credible as the time cube [timecube.com].

Re:whaa?

[ettlz]

After a quick look at the "electric universe" site it appears that as long as you are a "mythologist" (wtf?) and you can get a book published, then people should believe you.

They also have a few electrical engineers. Disclaimer: I'm a theoretical physics Ph.D. student, so I may have my biases... but I do see an awful lot of electrical engineers running crank sites claiming to have invented devices and/or theories for all sorts of outrageous things from anti-gravity to free energy to psychic amplifiers. That's not to say all electrical engineers engage in this sort of kookery --- quite the opposite, in fact. I just seem to be perceiving a certain trend.

Re:The electrical nature of the universe

[SteakNShake]

Over ninety-nine percent of the visible universe is matter in a plasma state. Only utter ignorance of plasma could lead one to the conclusion that the universe is anything but electrically-driven. Plasmas are affected about forty orders of magnitude more strongly by electromagnetic fields than by the weak, virtual force of "gravity". Gravity is an anachronistic model and stellar fusion is a myth that's been falsified by observations. The sun is not a "nuclear furnace". The sun is solid.

If we let this in, how about Archimedes Plutonium?

[Ralph Spoilsport]

For those too young to remember, Archi was the bane of early newsgroups with his endless rants about how the universe is a giant Plutonium Atom. His ideas are as useful as the "Electric Universe". So if we're going to let the Electric Universe cranks have objective status, then we should invite Archimedes Plutonium to come and bark at us. I should not have had to type this - this story never should have seen the light of day - it should have been filtered by our fearless Slashdot Editorial staff. Undoubtedly, they were out in the parking lot doing bong hits when they should have been reading the submissions...

RS

Re:The sun is...

[SteakNShake]

...a solid body: http://thesurfaceofthesun.com/ [thesurfaceofthesun.com] ...the focus of an electric discharge, which powers it: http://www.electric-cosmos.org/sun.htm [electric-cosmos.org] ...to be respected. The sun doesn't dodge bullets. Bullets dodge the sun. http://passthebrass.com/2005/12/chuck-norris-owns- you/ [passthebrass.com]

Re:whaa?

[earendil]

Off-topic, but the first is a myth. Noone with any education believed the Earth was flat after oh, about 100 AD - the Greek experiments that showed it otherwise were well-known. The reason why it's commonly believed that middle-age man believed the Earth to be flat can be blamed on Washington Irving, who needed a nice symbol of the barbarism of Europe as compared with the enlightened new world, and came up with this idea.

The second was actually for good reasons, since the early Copernican models provided no better accuracy than the the Ptolemaic system - Copernicus simply preferred it for aesthetic reasons. It wasn't until Brahe provided the measurements, and Kepler the mathematical model that there was a good reason to switch to the new way of looking at things.