© Charles Chandler

 

This is a critique of the Essential Guide to the Electric Universe on the Thunderbolts site.

 

Chapter 2

 

It is correctly shown that the force of gravity is extremely weak compared to electromagnetism. But then the following statement is made.

 

Electric currents can transport energy over huge distances before using that energy to create some detectable result, just like we use energy from a distant power station to boil a kettle in our kitchen. This means that, over longer distances, electromagnetic forces and electric currents together can be much more effective than either the puny force of gravity or even the stronger electrostatic Coulomb force.

 

This is the beginning of a series of stretches that eventually arrive at the conclusion that Birkeland currents create stars, and then supply all of the power that they expend. Yet in what relevant sense can electric currents be "more effective" than the electric force? Without a Coulomb force, there wouldn't be a current. This is like saying that the inertia of a falling object is more effective in transferring force than the force of gravity. Yet if it were not for the force of gravity, the object would not have fallen.

 

Chapter 3

 

A molecular cloud of very cold gas and dust can be ionized by nearby radiating stars or cosmic rays, with the resulting ions and electrons taking on organized plasma characteristics, able to maintain charge and double layers creating charge separation and electrical fields with very large voltage differentials. Such plasma will accelerate charges and conduct them better than metals. Plasma currents can result in sheets and filamentary forms, two of the many morphologies by which the presence of plasma can be identified.

 

Radiating stars and cosmic rays can certainly ionize gas and dust. Ionized plasma can very definitely conduct electricity better than metals. But how can "organized plasma [...] create and maintain" charge separations, and conduct electricity better than metals, all at the same time? I think that this passage is saying that plasma can do anything it wants.

 

Chapter 6