Thunderbolts Forum

'12-01-31, 20:21 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Mathis' Semi-Electric Sun * I just read part of a paper by Mathis, called THE HOLE at the center of the Sun at http://milesmathis.com/sunhole.html. Again, he sounds very persuasive to me. See if you agree? I happen to think we have some pretty strong evidence for fusion. Neither the mainstream fusion theorists nor the electrical Sun people can explain all the phenomena we see, so I would like to combine them both. If we have both, we can explain more of the data. So I would like to propose that they are both right. All of my work on the charge field tells me that we do have fusion (see below for immediate proof), but we need charge and E/M effects to get it started. In other words, a star isn't born in a gravitational collapse, it is born in a unified field "collapse," where the charge field undergoes changes like the rest of the field. ... It is not fusion that created the plasma in the Sun, it is the dense plasma that created the possibility of fusion. ... In short, because the Sun was NOT dense, but contained a large amount of matter, it coalesced into a very large sphere that was able to recycle very large amounts of charge. You don't want too much density in a star, because the radius is more important than the density. The bigger radius gives you more angular momentum, which allows you to recycle more charge, which allows for a hotter plasma. All this charge passing through the sphere created a hot plasma, and the hot plasma allowed for the beginning of fusion. In this way, we see that much of the heat of the Sun predated fusion. And in this way, we see that the electrical Sun people are right. A good portion of the current heat of the Sun is still caused by the charge passing through the Sun. Fusion only adds to this heat. We can now (with my theory) even calculate the percentages of heat that come from fusion and from charge—see below for the math. ... Wikipedia gives us a few "present anomalies" of the Sun, which include the current dimming of the Sun, the loss of ½ the magnetic field, the loss of 3% of the Solar Wind, and the fall in sunspot activity. ... The only way to explain all these linked phenomena is with the charge field. The Sun is currently recycling less charge than usual because it is receiving less charge from outside the Solar System. Remember, our entire system is traveling through the galaxy at high speed (250km/s), in an outer arm. Well, the galaxy is not homogeneous: it has areas of higher charge and lower charge. These fluctuations cause fluctuations in the Sun. ... Although we cannot explain the current anomalies with fusion alone, we cannot explain them with charge alone either. The anomalies are proof of fusion as well. Why? Because if the Sun were based on E/M or charge alone, these passes through lesser charge would be catastrophic for us. Let us say the Sun is passing through a charge field that is much less than normal, as it apparently is. All the other outputs would have to drop by large amounts as well. The Sun couldn't lose all that charge and keep most of its light and heat. The Sun has lost only .02% of its light, according to the researchers, and 13% of its temperature. But if the Sun were electrical only, a big drop in charge would cause the immediate death of us all. We would immediately freeze. If the heat followed the magnetism, for instance, we would have lost half our heat. - To have kept its heat, the Sun must be storing energy. How is it doing that? Well, there are various answers to that, and the question is far from being decided, but an easy answer is that the Sun doesn't have to store energy to make it through these down times. Once fusion has started, it won't stop unless the temperatures in the Sun drop below a certain level. So fusion continues, even when charge inputs drop considerably. [I'm skipping his math here, except for his conclusions.] ... [T]he Sun requires only 15% of its total energy to initiate fusion. The Sun has cooled by 13%, but it would have to cool by about 85% for fusion to cease. And since fusion creates 85% of the current energy anyway, the Sun wouldn't stop fusing even if we traveled through a large patch of zero charge. The charge would have to be turned off for a long time for the Sun to cool below 15% of its current energy. - By the way, this also explains charge reversals, including the magnetic reversal we are currently experiencing. These [galactic] pockets of charge are made up of both photons and anti-photons, in varying amounts.
'12-01-31, 23:46 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: So how do you think it would be to start your model with the charge field and try to build photons and particles from that? Since he says the charge field is 19 times more massive than particles, that might be doable. He also says photons can ionize matter, if I remember right, so, even if you started with a gas cloud, it might be ionizable. He says particles recycle the charge field and produce photons constantly, except for neutrons, I think. But I'm too stupid to understand most of what Mathis is saying... Lloyd wrote: Since you question the existence of neutronium or pure neutron substance, did you mean to say pulsar, instead of neutron star, there on the first line? Yes, thanks. Lloyd wrote: What average figures have you read for the intensity of pulsar pulses? And about how much greater would the pulsar's total pulse intensity be than the intensity of the brightest known object? If you keep asking questions that I am too stupid to answer, I am going to get very, very upset. Lloyd wrote: If you're right, it sounds like Wal and Don's pulsar model may be ruled out. By "Wal and Don's pulsar model", I assume you're talking about the "repetitive arc discharges between binary stars" thing. I wouldn't rule it out, but it asks a lot more questions than it answers. For example, the description in The Electric Sky has a Birkeland current flowing into one star that acts as a capacitor. When too much charge has been stored, the breakdown voltage between the stars is exceeded, and there is an arc discharge. Now the other star has the charge, which it sends back out into space as an exiting Birkeland current. Now imagine doing an experiment to test this in a vacuum chamber (to simulate the infinitesimal electrical resistance in space). Charge up two plates, separated by a sufficient distance, and suspend two small semi-conducting spheres close to each other, between the plates. Why would the current flow into the first capacitor and build up a charge sufficient for an arc discharge? Why wouldn't the current just go around? If the first sphere was a conductor (such as Birkeland's terrella), it would focus the lines of electric force on itself, and all of the current would definitely flow through it. But what if the first sphere is a dielectric? And why would the current continue to flow into it, after it had already developed a net charge, and therefore should have repelled more of the same? Auto-discharging capacitors are easy to build, and yes, they will take a steady current and turn it into a pulsed current. As insulators, they store charge, up to the breakdown voltage, and then they discharge. But to make one of these things, you have to force the current into the capacitor, with well-insulated wires that don't offer alternative paths to ground. How are you going to get similar effects in a current flowing through a low resistance medium (such as a vacuum chamber)? So I question the relevance of the metaphor. Lloyd wrote: ...I think you suggest that the pulses are produced as beams concentrated by magnetic fields of nuclear fusion explosions at the pulsars... There isn't any evidence that magnetic fields can focus photons, so this is not what I'm saying. I'm actually saying that the time-varying magnetic fields in the tokamak are generating the axial plasma jets, and then the high-velocity, pinched plasma jets are bending the light into a coherent beam, by the mirage effect. Lloyd wrote: Do you know of evidence that it's possible for them to repeat hundreds of times per second? That would seem rather amazing and hard to believe. Did I misunderstand something? In what manner do you think these explosions would occur? Would each one explode matter in a small area of the star? Do you have an idea how big each pulsar star would be? The frequency is just a function of the speed of sound. For example, at the end of a lightning strike here on Earth, when the current stops, the discharge channel closes up again, because it no longer has a heat source to maintain the plasma at 2,500 degrees C. But the channel doesn't just collapse and call it a day. The implosion compresses the air along the axis, which creates a new shock wave that radiates outward, which then implodes again. Eventually, all of the energy in the sound waves has been thermalized, and the oscillations stop producing sound, but in the meantime, shock waves are generated at the speed at which sound waves can travel the radius of the former channel. In lightning, where the channel is less than 10 cm across (r < 5 cm), the frequency is thousands of cycles per second. But calculating the size of the implosion/explosion channel inside a pulsar would necessitate knowing the surrounding pressure. Then if you take into account that "sound" waves might travel much faster in plasma, because the electrostatic repulsion begins to accelerate the next atom before the collision occurs, you might be talking about very fast waves, which would mean traveling huge distances to only repeat a couple hundred times per second. So yes, this is possible. I'm not sure I've got a firm grip on how to start estimating the actual dimensions (toroidal and poloidal) of the standing waves, and the energy that would be produced, and how much of that would be gamma rays, and how effective the mirage focusing would be, to see if that matched the intensity of light that we receive. It would be an interesting exercise, to start playing around with the parameters, to see if there are practical limits. How fast could the plasma be whipping around inside the tokamak? That would yield a maximum magnetic field density, and thus a baseline for the magnetic confinement. The implosion/explosion cycle would then be superimposed over that. How much additional pressure is being supplied by gravity? All interesting questions.
'12-02-01, 12:25 mharratsc	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Just a point of note- a semi-conductor is a non-conductor in the presence of a conductor. A semi-conductor is a conductor in the absence of other conductors. Additionally, just like a lightning leader, ionization through a semi-conductor (like air) creates a more conductive path of charge equalization also...
'12-02-02, 12:16 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Pulsar Luminosity * Charles, it looks like it's better to discuss luminosity, rather than intensity, regarding pulsars etc. A Google book said: For an object like Cygnus X-3 the maximum pulsar luminosity was derived to be [less than or equal to] 6x10^36 erg/s. Some websites say that the solar luminosity is about 3.85 x 10^26 W or 3.85 x 10^33 erg/s. So that pulsar seems to be about 1,000 times more luminous than the Sun. * One website gave this table of stellar luminosities etc. Class — Temp.(K) — Stellar color — Luminosity (x Sol) O — 30,000-60,000 — Blue ---------- 1,400,000 B — 10,000–30,000 — Blue ---------- 20,000 A — 7,500–10,000 --- Blue-white — 80 F — 6,000–7,500 ----- White ------- 6 G — 5,000–6,000 ---- Yellow-white- 1.2 K — 3,500–5,000 ----- Orange ------ 0.4 M — 2,000–3,500 ---- Red ---------- 0.04 * According to that, the above pulsar's luminosity is less than that of class B stars. So it seems that the pulsar's luminosity wouldn't necessarily be the total luminosity of the surface directed into a beam. It looks like it could be just from a part of the surface that's facing us, just like with other stars. * However, your reasoning for why the EU version is wrong sounds good offhand, though I haven't yet analyzed it in detail. I hope to hear more from you on this ere long, as well as on Mathis' ideas. I think you exaggerated by calling yourself dumb in that regard. I imagine you'll understand Mathis' ideas after you read more of them, since he seems to be pretty good at explaining them.
'12-02-02, 12:27 Sparky	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Don'tcha need to know about how fer from a source ya are to calculate Luminosity ?
'12-02-02, 23:03 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Lloyd wrote: ...the pulsar's luminosity wouldn't necessarily be the total luminosity of the surface directed into a beam. It looks like it could be just from a part of the surface that's facing us, just like with other stars. There are a couple of different variables here, that might be difficult to sort out, but we at least need to identify them. Saying that the observed energy output of a pulsar is within range of a "normal" star could mean two things. First, as you noted, it could mean that the total energy is similar to that of a star that radiates in all directions, eliminating the need for a beaming mechanism. Second, the energy output is far less than a normal star, but the observed energy is the same, because beaming exists. If the latter is the case, it would be easier to believe that the source of the energy is an implosion/explosion cycle, as I'm having a hard time believing that a "natural tokamak" could stay organized as it produced the energy of a Class B star. One would think that high-energy particles from the explosions would disorganize the magnetic fields, and the background magnetic confinement would no longer be capable of setting the stage for an implosive thermonuclear reaction. Of course, without the magnetic confinement, there could be a reaction, but we'd never see it, because the surrounding pressure could only come from surrounding matter, which would block the radiation from our view. In fact, I'm contending, in the more general sense, that if all gamma rays (anywhere in the night sky) are only produced by fusion, then magnetic confinement has to be present at all gamma sources, because only magnetic confinement could create the pressure without blocking the EM radiation. Is there another way to determine whether or not beaming is actually happening? For example, if the beam was not pointing straight at us, we would not see it directly, but are there cases in which we're seeing a reflection of the output from a pulsar that we cannot see directly? We certainly wouldn't get the nice, distinct pulses that we would get if we're looking straight down the axis. But might we see a ripple effect through the surrounding gas? I'll see if I can't scare up evidence for or against this. To be convincing, there would have to be evidence of an accretion disc, with a large gravity source at the center, and a jet perpendicular to the disc, with luminous waves passing through it separated by distances equating to a pulse cycle between 1 millisecond and 10 seconds. In other words, it would have to display all of the distinguishing peripheral characteristics of a pulsar, but without a flashing light at the center, and with flashes passing through the plasma jet.
'12-02-03, 11:00 Lloyd	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient * How will you go about searching for that kind of info about pulsars, Charles? Will you do an internet search? If so, what words will you search for? I'll be impressed if you find anything. I'll try to analyze your rationale against the EU pulsar model soon and get back to you on that.
'12-02-03, 18:38 jjohnson	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Peratt & Healy wrote an interesting paper in 1995 titled, "Radiation properties of pulsar atmospheres: Observation, Theory and Experiment". For any of us wanting a detailed plasma physics interpretation of pulsar phenomena, I'd think that careful reading of this one paper first would be almost a requirement before launching into Miles Mathis (whom I love but have a hard time with, too) or any of the conventional viewpoints of how a pulsar operates. If you need more detailed information on magnetic mirrors and how they work [to help you through the paper above], Bellan's Fundamentals of Plasma Physics gives a good introduction, and if you want more detailed info on what he calls 'magnetic traps', Boris V. Somov's Fundamentals of Cosmic Electrodynamics is pretty good. Incidentally, I am still wading slowly back and forth through such "Fundamentals" textbooks and find it hard slogging. —but absorbing and enlightening, and it opens up the plausibility of vistas unseen when reading 8th grade text and viewing "artists' interpretations" of such difficult and complex interactions. I'm not quite sure how pulsar discussion relates to the Sun's density gradient, to be sure. Jim
'12-02-03, 20:07 Solar	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient jjohnson wrote: Peratt & Healy wrote an interesting paper in 1995 titled, "Radiation properties of pulsar atmospheres: Observation, Theory and Experiment". Jim Thanks Jim; I linked it in your quote for those interested.
'12-02-04, 01:48 jjohnson	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Thanks, Solar! I downloaded the paper myself way in the past, so was too lazy to re-find the source. Enjoy, y'all! JIm
'12-02-05, 19:40 4realScience	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient I like the citing of Mathis' work, but his theory is not yet fixed (for instance: he lately has replaced expansion, as gravity's source, with universal spin). I like his expansion idea better, but am not completely in favor of it. His theory is still evolving. I also follow EU's theories. I like them both better than mainstream. Both are incomplete. Both are in exciting stages of development.
'12-02-06, 08:21 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient Peratt & Healy wrote: This paper reinvestigates a magnetospheric disk-field-aligned-current transmission line system as the origin of the observed radiation, with external wave excitation by as yet an unexplained source. Has there been any progress in the search for the source of the "external wave excitation"? Would it take another pulsar to provide those waves? Would that beg the question of what creates the pulses? jjohnson wrote: I'm not quite sure how pulsar discussion relates to the Sun's density gradient, to be sure. My "natural tokamak" model covers both phenomena, so I didn't object when Lloyd expanded the scope. The black hole discussion was even further off-topic. But not as much as the "What is electricity?" overflow and the Miles Mathis references.
'12-02-06, 10:40 mharratsc	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient CharlesChandler wrote: Peratt & Healy wrote:This paper reinvestigates a magnetospheric disk-field-aligned-current transmission line system as the origin of the observed radiation, with external wave excitation by as yet an unexplained source.Has there been any progress in the search for the source of the "external wave excitation"? Would it take another pulsar to provide those waves? Would that beg the question of what creates the pulses? Seems you're still a bit antipathic towards the idea of externally-provided power, Charles. Let me throw out a pic and a description that really drove it home for me and made me believe in externally-supplied power via hydrogen 'power cables' from who-knows-how-far-away: Minimum credit line: Image courtesy of NRAO/AUI (for details, see Image Use Policy). "About this Image: This image shows the optical and radio morphology of the radio galaxy 3C31 (NGC 383), the dominant galaxy of a prominent chain of galaxies. In this image, red colors depict radio emission measured with the VLA, and blue colors depict the optical emission from starlight. This system is a powerful radio source, with conical inner jets developing into wiggling jets and irregularly shaped plumes, which stretch to a distance of 300 kpc from the center of the galaxy (980,000 light years, for a Hubble constant of 100 km/s/Mpc). The left-hand image shows the large-scale morphology of the radio jet and the surrounding optical field (optical image from the Digitized Sky Survey), while the right-hand image shows the center of the galaxy with its conical radio jets. The optical image is an HST WFPC2 image, and shows prominent dust features in the host galaxy. The radio emission is due to relativistic streams of high energy particles generated by the radio source at the center of the radio galaxy. Astronomers believe that the jets are fueled by material accreting onto a super-massive black hole. The high energy particles are shot into extragalactic space at speeds approaching the speed of light, where they eventually balloon into massive radio plumes. Investigator(s): Alan Bridle & Robert Laing. HST image from Martel et al. 1999, ApJS, 122, 81" They call the radio lobes to either end of this galaxy 'jets'. If we could improve the resolution of how sensitive we could tune our radio antennae, how much farther out do you think we would see those radio-emitting hydrogen clouds/'jets'? My own opinion is that we would see them go from galaxy-to-galaxy in that aforementioned "prominent chain of galaxies". IMHO, it just doesn't take a big leap of logic to see that those clouds make up the 'Birkeland current filaments' talked about over-and-over here on the Thunderbolts site. Those tenuous clouds are energized! They are emitting radio frequencies. Some of them that have been mapped are seen to put out copious synchrotron radiation (higher freqs) and to extend for even larger distances. The Double Helix of our own galaxy is pointed dead at the galactic nucleus and is also emitting energy (not just sitting there reflecting light as was originally suggested.) So- the question "Has there been any progress in the search for the source of the "external wave excitation"? has a mixed answer: you could say that the source of the excitation is the power source itself, but what the power source IS ultimately currently escapes us. Simple, common physics at work! Or that is how I see it, at any rate.
'12-02-06, 19:39 Solar	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient I know some of you folks don't like a bevy of links so just turn your heads please. Mike H is correct here Charles. You said yourself: So you have to look at all of the factors. With respect to the "galactic circuit", I'd like to know how that much electricity flows, from that distance away, toward an electrode made of plasma, that somehow remains an electrode with a net charge, without electrostatic repulsion blowing it apart. Ironically, if you actually looked at my model, you'd realize that I'm actually solving your biggest problem. I think that I would still disagree with you, that the Sun's primary energy source is external. But if it is, and if it is electromagnetic, you have to explain what overcomes electrostatic repulsion to maintain the net charge, thereby enabling the voltage and thus the current. My model can explain that — yours cannot. I don't think it wise to look at the Sun, or any other star/galaxy, as an island. To that end the work of Merav Opher assessing the data of Voyagers 1 & 2 has shown that the previously conceived "magnetic bubble" aka the 'heliosphere' might more properly be elongated and that - at its 'front' occurs an 'indentation' where interstellar magnetic field lines 'cut' the heliosphere at an angle; the 'front' of heliosphere looks like the mouth of a fish. Solar System Is "Bullet Shaped" Space probes reveal Solar System's bullet shape Global Asymmetry of the Heliosphere Effects of a Local Interstellar Magnetic Field on Voyager 1 and 2 Observations Combining Opher's work with that of IBEX and its research on ENA's: "Giant Ribbon Discovered at the Edge of the Solar System" "Mystery of the Giant Ribbon, Solved?" As mentioned earlier in this thread there may be some correlations with the so called "ribbon" which might correspond to proximal the 'curling', 'kinking', or 'knoting' as depicted in the Focus Fusion video with sound that you referenced earlier producing a spherical plasmoid. I think most members here like to correspond several aspects because independently no single one has singlehandedly covered all of the bases. As such, and with regard to "without electrostatic repulsion blowing it apart", I'm also not adverse to consider the ponderings of sonoluminescence and/or plasma 'cavitation' [on the cosmic scale] in relation to 'lightning beading' along the discharge channel. Using Galaxy M82 as an example and considering that some star along the outer edge of its disc is somehow part of its electromagnetic dynamic it seems to me that micro gauss magnetic fields and extremely diffuse (but large scale) "drift currents" would need to be a part of the process. These becoming stronger relative to regions of "local fluff" that are tied to interstellar magnetic field lines at some angle generating 'local' electric currents which might then be 'reconstituted' from said "drifts" into the familiar filamentary morphology. Using Galaxy M82 as an example and considering that some star along the outer edge of its disc is somehow part of its electromagnetic dynamic it seems to me that micro gauss magnetic fields and extremely diffuse (but large scale) "drift currents" would need to be a part of the process. These becoming stronger relative to regions of "local fluff" that are tied to interstellar magnetic field lines at some angle generating 'local' electric currents which might then be 'reconstituted' from said "drifts" into the familiar filamentary morphology. Even M82 is part of a larger 'circuit'. In galaxies one should find stars being produced along extremely diffuse filaments and this is what was demonstrated in Thornhill's "Alfven Triumphs Again! (& Again)". In that article the paper: "Characterizing Interstellar filaments" with Herschel in IC 5146" … is cited. The .paper is available for free via .pdf under the heading "Abstract" in the upper right-hand (rule) of the webpage. Note that: "…that these filaments are the main birth sites of prestellar cores." In the above cited paper scientist call these "stellar cores". The proposal of H. Alfven posits just such cosmic scale electric currents and accompanying magnetic fields in space along with the charged plasmas. Yet, inquiring minds want to know 'the circuit'. They want to know how electricity from a central region such as a galaxy can reach stars (Suns) out along the edges of the spiral disc. Yet, it seems quite clear that Stars lay along the 'current channel' of cosmic scale thunderbolts. With that in mind it is to be noted that accustomed lightning here on Earth can undergo "beading" along the "discharge channel" as the 'bolt' cools. Make the comparisons: Stop the following video at 0:31 seconds: Close "clear-air" lightning bolt! Stop the following video at 0:7 seconds and compare the snapshot with the resolved filaments from the Hershel paper. Then stop the same vid here at 0:26-0:38 seconds: Lightning in super DUPER slow motion. This one is interesting owing to the implications of stellar output variations along the discharge path as the discharge channel 'pulses'. Bead Lighting at roughly 0:34 seconds with intersecting perpendicular secondary lightning strike: Bead lightning strike! What causes the condensation or "beading" along the discharge channel of a lightning bolt such that electrostatic repulsion doesn't blow the bead apart? The discharge channel begins to become diffuse as the "beads" of plasma coalesce. I think this is owed to the 'evacuation' of said plasma along the discharge path towards "pinch" regions. Personally, I also think 'pulsed plasma cavitation' of some sort may also be involved at the central core of the narrowest aspect of a "sausage kink" i.e. at the apex of the hourglass shaped "pinch" region. Its unusual to try and look at the workings of a star from the supposed inside out in conjunction with the activities of its atmosphere when there are so very many other 'external' factors inextricably connected.
'12-02-07, 05:41 CharlesChandler	Re: The Sun's Density Gradient mharratsc wrote: Let me throw out a pic and a description that really drove it home for me and made me believe in externally-supplied power via hydrogen 'power cables' from who-knows-how-far-away... First of all, this shows how little I know about jets from active galactic nuclei, and it blows up half of my pulsar model. It wasn't exactly central to the model, but in quick searches I had found information only on monopolar jets, so I had stubbed in time-varying magnetic fields (from the pulsar cycle) that would send protons one way and electrons the other, resulting in a monopolar jet. (The protons, with more inertia, would keep going, while the electrons would circle around, not producing a "jet".) The only significance of this was just that it would provide a collimated proton beam that would focus photons due to the mirage effect, which I considered to be useful. As Lloyd pointed out, if a pulsar's luminosity is less than that of a class B star, there doesn't necessarily have to be a beaming mechanism. But then you have to explain how a class B star can turn on and off a thousand times a second. So now I'm scrounging around for more information on jets, and as Lloyd hinted, the information is sparse. The "double radio active galactic nuclei" (DRAGNs) are only associated with elliptical galaxies (which are only 4% of the population), not spirals or peculiars, and they all occurred a long time ago. That's telling us something very specific, but what? Stellar jets exist, and are thought to come from black holes, where energy liberated outside of the event horizon can accelerate particles above the escape velocity. But the information on stellar jets is even sparser. I personally think that a "black hole" is a natural tokamak, and that the gamma rays and particle streams are from nuclear fusion, either inside the tokamak or from things colliding with it, or with each other on their way in. The "blackness" is an artifact of the relativistic speeds achieved on the way in, as described in a previous post. So I'm totally not buying the standard story. But I'm not buying the EU story either. On my "to do" list is an analysis of bipolar nebulae (such as M2-9). The most striking thing about these, and about the jets from NGC383, is the unbelievable symmetry. Far from my flawed conception of opposite charges getting accelerated in opposite directions, these ejecta are being accelerated to precisely the same speeds, at precisely the same temperatures, and are composed of precisely the same elements. I agree that a magnetic pinch is the only possible organizing principle that can keep these jets from dispersing right away. But a magnetic pinch does not necessitate a Point-A-to-Point-B current — it could be just relativistic jets that were endowed with enough velocity to invoke electrodynamics. This would explain why the jets eventually disperse. If it was an intergalactic current, it would achieve its greatest speed in the intergalactic void, and therefore would be the best organized. Yet this is not what we're seeing. We see jets emerging from active galatic nuclei, and in some cases, from supernova remnants. We're not seeing jets flowing into anything, and we're not seeing them stay organized all of the way from one node to another in the proposed electric grid. If you were just saying that there is "an" energy source there, it wouldn't be as critical that you connect all of the dots. But you're saying that this is "the" energy source. Hence all of the evidence should be in favor, and there should be a lot of it. In reality, there is little evidence, and it doesn't favor intergalactic currents at all. Until/if/when somebody can actually present a plausible model for a current flowing through a pinch and producing jets that look like this, I'll be investigating the hypothesis that nuclear fusion of matter flowing in from an accretion disc is the energy source. I believe that the force pulling the matter inward is electric, not gravitational. But I'm going with the "like-likes-like" principle. And it's not that everything is attracted to the center — it's that everything is attracted to everything, and this gets stuff flowing inward. Once it develops inertia, something is going to happen in the middle, but not because of any point source at the middle. In other words, if gravity was 39 orders of magnitude greater, it would do the same thing, but at the "center of gravity", there isn't any gravity inward — it's all outward at that point. Nevertheless, stuff that developed inward inertia isn't going to slow down and stop before it reaches the center where there is no net force — it's going to slam into anything else headed for the center also. I can't say that I fully understand the EU model of accretion discs, but nothing I've heard so far (e.g., "Birkeland currents can do anything") is what I would call a specific enough model to elicit agreement or disagreement. mharratsc wrote: ...it just doesn't take a big leap of logic to see that those clouds make up the 'Birkeland current filaments'... This isn't logic at all. There is a little bit of evidence there, but the rest is pure conjecture. With just that much evidence, the total number of epiphanies that could be supported is quite large. Some people believe that DRAGNs are the receiving ends of wormholes, while black holes that do not produce relativistic jets are the sending ends. Same evidence, different conclusion. And the wormhole hypothesis (if you accept the possibility of alternate dimensions, which I do not) can explain why the jets are symmetrical. Intergalactic currents could only create such symmetry if all of the nodes were perfectly spaced, and had exactly the same voltage between them. So forget it. These are not "hydrogen 'power cables' from who-knows-how-far-away". Hydrogen just isn't good like that. The intergalactic void is a near-perfect conductor. It doesn't need any cables to connect galactic nuclei. If you're going to think like that, you should just think that there is a current there, flowing through free space, and where the stationary particle density increases near galaxies, you see evidence of high-energy collisions. That would certainly be the case, if there was, in fact, a current there. But that wouldn't organize the jets — it would disperse them. In other words, the electric current would heat the plasma, and the heat would disperse the particles, while the electric current would burrow through the hole in the plasma that it created with ohmic heating, the way it does in lightning on Earth. You wouldn't see fluid dynamic behaviors as we see in the imagery of NGC383, where the particle stream wobbles and then splays out, typical of a high-pressure jet encountering friction. You'd see a piercing bright channel through the plasma, straight to the electrode. It really comes down to how closely you're looking at the phenomena, and how critical your thinking is. If a superficial similarity is all that you need to jump to a conclusion that two phenomena are related, great. But if you lock down on that, and then refuse to even consider a more detailed analysis, you're not much closer to the truth. If any of my efforts are any indication, initial impressions aren't worth much. I spent 5 years figuring out how tornadoes work. I spent most of the time figuring out why this or that epiphany wasn't going to work. Now I can prove that the active ingredient in tornadoes is the electric force. But it isn't EDM, and therefore, I'll never convince anybody in the "Electric Universe" camp that I figured it out. You're so convinced that the Universe is electric, that you take the first electric answer provided, and then you'll argue if anybody proposes a different answer (even if it's electric also, and more accurate). That isn't showing that the EU is the destination. It's showing that the EU is a dead-end. It's just like the mainstream — it's broken, and because of the tenacity of its adherents, it cannot be fixed. So you go with the mainstream if you want to be like most people, or you go with the EU if you just want to be different from most. But neither position is accurate. Solar wrote: As mentioned earlier in this thread there may be some correlations with the so called "ribbon" which might correspond to proximal the 'curling', 'kinking', or 'knoting' as depicted in the Focus Fusion video with sound that you referenced earlier producing a spherical plasmoid. I think most members here like to correspond several aspects because independently no single one has singlehandedly covered all of the bases. As such, and with regard to "without electrostatic repulsion blowing it apart", I'm also not adverse to consider the ponderings of sonoluminescence and/or plasma 'cavitation' [on the cosmic scale] in relation to 'lightning beading' along the discharge channel. These are category errors. You're comparing toroidal knots in electron streams to the aggregation of solid matter in a planet or star, while the toroidal knots have only been demonstrated in electron streams. If you can build planets and stars out of relativistic electrons, you've got something. Otherwise, that strategy might not carry you over the finish line. Similarly, "bead lightning" is no metaphor for star formation in an electrified spiral arm. In lightning, the "beads" are artifacts of the stepped leaders that extend the lightning channel. Essentially, lightning is not an instantaneous flash — it's a complex process that sometimes plays out over several seconds. Somewhere inside the cloud, an instantaneous flash occurs, because the breakdown voltage was exceeded. This creates a discharge channel that is roughly 100 m long. That would be the end of it, except for the fact that the plasma in the discharge channel is a much better conductor than the surrounding air. So now, it's like there is a 100 m wire. Surrounding charge disparities sense that there is a conductor there, and flow toward it. This creates a secondary flash. When those electrons reach the end of the existing discharge channel, they slam into the unsuspecting air at relativistic speeds, extending the channel by another 50~100 m, and creating a hot spot in the air. After the discharge ends, the hot spots will glow a few milliseconds longer than the rest of the channel, because they were a bit hotter. So there is no difference in kind between the hot spots and the straight sections of the dicharge channel connecting them, like beads on a string, where the beads and the string are made of different stuff. It's just an artifact of the way the lightning channel is extended in a stepwise manner. So... the "beads" are not aggregations of matter — they're voids. This is where the current encountered an instantaneous increase in resistance, created hotter temperatures, and evacuated more of the matter. I agree that the electric force is great at condensing matter. But not in lightning (bead or otherwise). Lightning is famous for vaporizing matter, which is different from condensing matter.