Well, edd already did that. But hey, he's a astrophysicist. So he would know.
Astronomy / Space What drives my Star Ship
- Thread starter Cargobane
- Start date
Well, edd already did that. But hey, he's a astrophysicist. So he would know.
So, it's just crackpots trading insults then. Internet forums business as usual.
It is not the consensus of opinion, it is the notion most frequently talked about in the press because journalists can understand the concepts.
There is no actual evidence that this dark matter exists. The notion is theoretical. Along with other equally valid theories, is one for discussion.
This is a discussion forum where Amateurs gather to discuss and exchange thoughts.
It is not the exclusive province of one or two who dismiss the thoughts of others is a contemptuous manner, without an explanation.
Your behaviour is tantamount to trolling.
Others may have equally valid points to make, some backed by serious study. All are equally entitled to do so. All are equally valid and welcome in a discussion forum. But experience of other forums demonstrates that, where trolls stand in wait, ready to attack those who dare to think for themselves, people move on.
A bit of good manners with a whole lot of humility is perhaps what is most needed here please.
Are you serious? You mean, really?
Read your own posts, and tell me why they're not trolling if Slo-Mo-Shun's posts are.
There is absolutely actual evidence. Evidence is not proof though. It is well supported but proof is a hazy concept and poorly understood or agreed upon, ranging from 'beyond reasonable doubt' to 'does not exist outside logic and mathematics'.
Personally I think it's open for a fair amount of discussion which is why it is fun and interesting.
Are you serious? You mean, really?
Read your own posts, and tell me why they're not trolling if Slo-Mo-Shun's posts are.
Apologies, I was of course referring to edd's #4.
Cargobane posted information about a theory he had heard. the response in #4 was patronising and not argument.
It is fully appreciated that edd has some strong views and seems to be quite keen on the Dark Matter theory. But discussion and argument is the required response.
This is a discussion forum for Amateurs. The consequences of being wrong or mistaken here are irrelevant. There seems little point in making life difficult for a few simply because we might feel our knowledge of a particular point is greater than theirs.
It might be more welcome if he would contribute to that discussion instead of simply attacking those he disagrees with with his certainties.
As for any of my posts being trolling, I have never sought to humiliate or undermine anyone. If anyone has taken any offence at anything I have ever said then I will be more than interested to hear it and will apologise as and if appropriate.
I don't understand why BB and DM supporters defend their concepts so religiously that it eventually comes down to just waving their arms about saying 'It can't be anything else'. I'm not describing here, just saying..
When we (-0-) started to discover just how much there is out there, and how much is sort of not out there, all our Gravity models took a massive dump. Because Gravity was all man knew and all his heavens revolved around it. So of course, What Else Could it Be. You can't question that it's Not gravity.
After all, the evidence of gravity is gravity itself. Gravity is certainly real and we know it. We don't know exactly what 'makes' gravity other then 'mass'. We developed math and theory to fully understand it's effects that we know of. It's quite easy because we have a absolute abundance of gravity effects to work with on earth and around our planet bodies.
But all of this doesn't quite work on the galactic scale. So it must be Black Holes with more Gravity then anything, infinite actually. Now in comes DM and it's offspring to save the day for the BB/BH community. And it's so wonderful, it can be assigned any property we want to keep explaining all sorts of observations. Pretty soon the evidence of Dark Matter is Dark Matter itself. It can have any mass and it's ability to both repel and attract while being invisible and intangible to anything from of our modern understandings of matter. The great Black Hole has been removed from the Space Throne as the ultimate ruler in the universe.
And it's all conjured from assumptions built on assumptions. One basely certainty supporting another. It's absolute crazy to see the science community wishfully support sci-fi level possibilities and that includes Black Holes. And deep in internet forums it usually boils up (or down) into distracting Plato level discussions of questioning whether we are even real, and what came first; the thing or the thought of it. Or even much simpler discussions debating the meaning of every word, like 'evidence' and 'nothing'. Or even better, electromagnetism and wind.
It's all a complete waste, just to support some crazy idea like the Big Bang. And we can keep fun-trolling about time and relativity. Have you seen how deep that rabbit hole goes?
ugh I feel I've kicked enough sand around now...
--------
edd, do you find in your career any evidence of electrical things astrologically? And returning to something earlier, how would you describe this wind in space?
When we (-0-) started to discover just how much there is out there, and how much is sort of not out there, all our Gravity models took a massive dump. Because Gravity was all man knew and all his heavens revolved around it. So of course, What Else Could it Be. You can't question that it's Not gravity.
After all, the evidence of gravity is gravity itself. Gravity is certainly real and we know it. We don't know exactly what 'makes' gravity other then 'mass'. We developed math and theory to fully understand it's effects that we know of. It's quite easy because we have a absolute abundance of gravity effects to work with on earth and around our planet bodies.
But all of this doesn't quite work on the galactic scale. So it must be Black Holes with more Gravity then anything, infinite actually. Now in comes DM and it's offspring to save the day for the BB/BH community. And it's so wonderful, it can be assigned any property we want to keep explaining all sorts of observations. Pretty soon the evidence of Dark Matter is Dark Matter itself. It can have any mass and it's ability to both repel and attract while being invisible and intangible to anything from of our modern understandings of matter. The great Black Hole has been removed from the Space Throne as the ultimate ruler in the universe.
And it's all conjured from assumptions built on assumptions. One basely certainty supporting another. It's absolute crazy to see the science community wishfully support sci-fi level possibilities and that includes Black Holes. And deep in internet forums it usually boils up (or down) into distracting Plato level discussions of questioning whether we are even real, and what came first; the thing or the thought of it. Or even much simpler discussions debating the meaning of every word, like 'evidence' and 'nothing'. Or even better, electromagnetism and wind.
It's all a complete waste, just to support some crazy idea like the Big Bang. And we can keep fun-trolling about time and relativity. Have you seen how deep that rabbit hole goes?
ugh I feel I've kicked enough sand around now...
--------
edd, do you find in your career any evidence of electrical things astrologically? And returning to something earlier, how would you describe this wind in space?
We look to gravity for these things because it's the only force we know of that can work on long ranges without being shielded like electromagnetism would, and which affects matter independently of its state (why do stars - great balls of plasma - orbit the same way as clouds of neutral hydrogen for example).
If you want to use another force you have a hard job demonstrating it will work - do go ahead and try but the thunderbolts guys have failed.
Dark matter can't have any mass - there has to be the right amount in total and each particle must weigh more than a certain amount or it wouldn't clump enough (this is the problem with the neutrino which is otherwise effectively dark matter, was postulated to fix other problems in physics and later turned out to actually exist). We also know it can't have very high mass or it'd be on the MACHO category which we know can't work from gravitational microlensing results. It also doesn't repel. Dark energy has that job.
I don't believe it can't be anything else. MOND could certainly cope with explaining the bullet cluster if allowed enough neutrinos, but it's looking harder for it to cope with these new results I think, and theoretically it is less well motivated. Dark energy has alternatives too and we simply don't have good enough measurements to make any headway on that yet.
If you don't like the Big Bang, fair enough but you have to come up with a better idea that can do as good a job of explaining all these results (most prominently the CMB and its anisotropies, primordial element abundances, the redshift distance relation and BAO measurements).
I don't feel the need to attack EU ideas in detail here as they haven't been presented in much detail here and have been thoroughly looked at in other places linked off my original link and in other places. http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html for example.
I certainly see evidence for electromagnetism at work in space. Pervasive magnetic fields are clear evidence for that, and plenty of physical processes like synchrotron emission. As for wind in space, it is seen on all sorts of scales from stellar winds of all sorts (normal outflows, planetary nebulae, supernovae) to AGNs blowing galaxy sized bubbles in the intergalactic medium. They're hugely important for their effects on star formation throughout the universe's history.
You prefer EU ideas? Go ahead and stick with them, but if you want to defend them here's a first challenge: do as good a job as standard cosmology at fitting the latest Planck satellite results.
If you want to use another force you have a hard job demonstrating it will work - do go ahead and try but the thunderbolts guys have failed.
Dark matter can't have any mass - there has to be the right amount in total and each particle must weigh more than a certain amount or it wouldn't clump enough (this is the problem with the neutrino which is otherwise effectively dark matter, was postulated to fix other problems in physics and later turned out to actually exist). We also know it can't have very high mass or it'd be on the MACHO category which we know can't work from gravitational microlensing results. It also doesn't repel. Dark energy has that job.
I don't believe it can't be anything else. MOND could certainly cope with explaining the bullet cluster if allowed enough neutrinos, but it's looking harder for it to cope with these new results I think, and theoretically it is less well motivated. Dark energy has alternatives too and we simply don't have good enough measurements to make any headway on that yet.
If you don't like the Big Bang, fair enough but you have to come up with a better idea that can do as good a job of explaining all these results (most prominently the CMB and its anisotropies, primordial element abundances, the redshift distance relation and BAO measurements).
I don't feel the need to attack EU ideas in detail here as they haven't been presented in much detail here and have been thoroughly looked at in other places linked off my original link and in other places. http://dealingwithcreationisminastronomy.blogspot.co.uk/p/challenges-for-electric-universe.html for example.
I certainly see evidence for electromagnetism at work in space. Pervasive magnetic fields are clear evidence for that, and plenty of physical processes like synchrotron emission. As for wind in space, it is seen on all sorts of scales from stellar winds of all sorts (normal outflows, planetary nebulae, supernovae) to AGNs blowing galaxy sized bubbles in the intergalactic medium. They're hugely important for their effects on star formation throughout the universe's history.
You prefer EU ideas? Go ahead and stick with them, but if you want to defend them here's a first challenge: do as good a job as standard cosmology at fitting the latest Planck satellite results.
I was trying to point in what you quoted up there that to say there was no evidence was wrong while conceding that the case was not as strong as we would like yet. I don't have certainties, and I think certainties are a dangerous thing for anyone to have. In the first post I made I mentioned the existence of sensible alternatives and I think it is unfair to frame me as some kind of attacking zealot.
Funny that to me you're the one with religious-like agenda and behaviour here.
Pot and kettle etc.
Edd's latest post hits the proverbial nail in its proverbial head perfectly:
To continue the discussion, in my opinion: What Surfinjo in parts of his posts, and to me it seems Slo-Mo-Shun & Edd too try to say is that there are no certainties in these matters.
What do I think about the theories mentioned previously?
IMO they're all found lacking, but the ones that have observations confirming their predictions look most credible. I wouldn't be surprised if newer observations or newer ideas coming in the near future might shake the field somewhat. Who knows, maybe dark matter and/or dark energy won't be needed anymore, or are conceptualized with more descriptive names with solid theories and supporting observational evidence. Only time will tell.
As a universal explanation of cosmology, the Electirc Universe theory should go the way of aether and phlogiston. That said, some aspects of it might even fit some other framework which may or may not explain better what astronomers observe than today's prevalent theories.
You have got me weighed up anyway. There is indeed no certainty in any of these theories. personally I like brane/bulk theory as it provides for something before the BB. But one thing is certain, AT THE MOMENT all evidence points towards a BB, inflationary universe. That does not preclude my preference yet ��. Another candidate is Susskind's Holographic principle, and that does have some interesting advantages like the preservation of information (probably its main advantage) but even this with someone like Susskind behind it does not offer all the answers. I am certainly not a fan of the Electric Universe but I think raising it here has at least inspired an interesting debate.
I suspect that there will be a little bit of most of these theories in the true nature of the universe. Will I see it in my lifetime, almost certainly not. I probably wouldn't understand the answer anyway.
All the best
Pete
On a positive vein, I will suggest it remains important to still try to have an understanding of archaic work. There are a number of very important points and much to be gleaned.
We're dealing with a field where the amount yet to be understood is seems to increase each time another new discovery is made.
The thinking which has led researches into what are now said to be inaccuracies, remains important for its own sake.
edd, what field of AP do you work in?
Should we have some sort of google contest. I mean, I can see how people seem so confused about gas in space and think it's all just thermal-nuclear-gravity power.
how are electromagnetic waves produced:
An electromagnetic wave can be created by accelerating charges; moving charges back and forth will produce oscillating electric and magnetic fields, and these travel at the speed of light.Jul 26, 1999
And this is particular interesting...
how are electricity produced:
In hot gas (gas turbine), turbines are driven directly by gases produced by the combustion of natural gas or oil.
how is electricity produced:
Electricity is most often generated at a power station by electromechanical generators, primarily driven by heat engines fueled by chemical combustion or nuclear fission
where does electricity come from:
Most electricity in the U.S. today comes from converting the heat energy released from burning fossil fuels--coal, natural gas and oil.
You know, earthy stuff more humans can relate to. What else could it be really? I do love all the work being exposed these past years. The time used to be you had to be on top of the coffee table books of Time Life or something to see so much information available (or at least accessible because there are some fields that just start to go way to deep, reading high-math language is the instant barrier for most usually, and I would almost fork my eye looking at so many graphs and plots of number after number...)
And I think most agree the horrible Press Releases attempting to normalize space as if it's breakfast in the microwave over or something. You know?
So Zieman if/are you done with your troll fest, or am I supposed to bow to wiki now... hopefully a few of my really basic questions will be discussed.
Should we have some sort of google contest. I mean, I can see how people seem so confused about gas in space and think it's all just thermal-nuclear-gravity power.
how are electromagnetic waves produced:
An electromagnetic wave can be created by accelerating charges; moving charges back and forth will produce oscillating electric and magnetic fields, and these travel at the speed of light.Jul 26, 1999
And this is particular interesting...
how are electricity produced:
In hot gas (gas turbine), turbines are driven directly by gases produced by the combustion of natural gas or oil.
how is electricity produced:
Electricity is most often generated at a power station by electromechanical generators, primarily driven by heat engines fueled by chemical combustion or nuclear fission
where does electricity come from:
Most electricity in the U.S. today comes from converting the heat energy released from burning fossil fuels--coal, natural gas and oil.
You know, earthy stuff more humans can relate to. What else could it be really? I do love all the work being exposed these past years. The time used to be you had to be on top of the coffee table books of Time Life or something to see so much information available (or at least accessible because there are some fields that just start to go way to deep, reading high-math language is the instant barrier for most usually, and I would almost fork my eye looking at so many graphs and plots of number after number...)
And I think most agree the horrible Press Releases attempting to normalize space as if it's breakfast in the microwave over or something. You know?
So Zieman if/are you done with your troll fest, or am I supposed to bow to wiki now... hopefully a few of my really basic questions will be discussed.
Last edited:
edd, I must apologize, I did not see your previous reply on Pg2:3am
Can you explain how electromagnetism is shielded in space?
And what is the measured and known distance-to-G force equation for gravity (that's the G) in space? (Do you see where this is leading and why dark 'matter' had to be 'invented'?)
The rest of your post is equally thin with a final, ohh, what's that term for "Solve all the Worlds problems and I'll believe you" kind of retort?
You keep dancing around the physical matter issues. And continue to ignore you own misuse of gas/wind. Please tell me what your gas and wind is made of.
Maybe your just waiting to pull out the time/relativity/particle tricks...
You just confirmed my theory and worst fear.
Can you explain how electromagnetism is shielded in space?
And what is the measured and known distance-to-G force equation for gravity (that's the G) in space? (Do you see where this is leading and why dark 'matter' had to be 'invented'?)
The rest of your post is equally thin with a final, ohh, what's that term for "Solve all the Worlds problems and I'll believe you" kind of retort?
You keep dancing around the physical matter issues. And continue to ignore you own misuse of gas/wind. Please tell me what your gas and wind is made of.
Maybe your just waiting to pull out the time/relativity/particle tricks...
Electrostatic forces tend to get shielded by opposite charges. Since you're trying to explain how things are held together more tightly than usual you have to have reasonably balanced charges or stuff would fly apart, so you have to explain how charges remain separated in exactly the right way, and explain what that right way is.
Magnetic forces can be long distance and you have to explain why both (as in the part you cut) affect say clouds of neutral hydrogen in the same way as plasma. Obviously we know of galactic scale magnetic fields through synchrotron emission and measurements of Faraday rotation, but if the magnetic fields were big enough to support Peratt-type models then why don't we see the synchrotron emission those models predict?
You have to explain why both are capable of causing lensing that looks exactly how gravitational lensing would if dark matter were present - remembering that electromagnetic forces don't affect light much, but gravity affects light twice as much as non-relativistic matter. Note it also needs to lens in exactly the same way across all frequencies - a trivial feat for gravity but less so for other explanations like refraction.
You have to explain why a force that can repel as well as attract can explain spiral rotation curves and largely disordered internal motion of elliptical galaxies and the largely disordered internal motion of galaxy clusters.
Dark matter, as I said earlier, also fits in perfectly with CMB and supernova cosmological measurements, and if you drop that out I feel you are obliged to provide an explanation for those too, unless your explanation for all the other stuff is really that good, which it clearly isn't.
So when you say:
then yes - I think if you want to introduce a theory to compete with one that explains a, b, c, and d, then you should probably come up with a theory that explains more than just a. I don't think that's really that unreasonable.
It's the standard Newtonian 1/r2 one, except when relativity is important which it isn't much except for gravitational lensing, and it's known to hold well out to solar system scales. We don't have good tests that that law holds on larger scales - we generally assume it does and include dark matter, but I am entirely ok with the suggestion that you modify it somehow on larger scales to fix things instead. I hinted at that quite strongly in earlier posts. It happens that while dark matter has its problems, and this approach of changing gravity has its problems too, I happen to feel that dark matter has fewer and less serious ones, but I completely agree that both warrant research and testing. When it comes to dark energy the two approaches are more evenly matched, and I'm even more open to alternatives. I also feel that the EU has multiple very serious difficulties that completely put it out of the running.
I don't think I was particularly dancing around things, especially given I'm writing forum posts not a paper or a book. I don't think I'm particularly misusing gas or wind, unless you're referring to plasmas not being gases. Unfortunately astronomers do tend to talk that way and know what they mean when they do so, in much the same way they refer to every element heavier than helium as a metal when blatantly they aren't all metals. Calling, say, the intracluster medium a gas when it's clearly an extremely hot plasma is fairly commonplace. It's a terminology difference, an unfortunate one perhaps but commonplace.
So the winds I've mentioned are generally mostly hydrogen plasmas, with other elements mixed in amounts that depend on the source.
Finally, I don't know what 'time/relativity/particle tricks' you're expecting me to pull out, but I imagine I'll happily do so if they're part of standard astrophysics and cosmology and you prompt me enough...
Hi Edd,
Electrostatic is not Electromagnetism. Or are you changing your earlier premise.
What field of AP are you in?
Oh my what is this? 'how things are held together more tightly than usual', what is the unusual mode of the universe which is less tightly.. hahha holy cow..
'you have to have reasonably balanced charges or stuff would fly apart' oh come now, really... What stuff are you talking about?
'so you have to explain how charges remain separated in exactly the right way, and explain what that right way is'
Why would I have to explain a baseless stuff statement like this? What are you claiming here about charge separation?
I am completely lost on 'both' here? Is that something I did. And where are these 'neutral' hydrogen blobs you imagine?
This is a critically failing of some thinking, that all of space is "neutral" and there is not charge in space. This is your belief too edd I suppose, that all of space is electrically neutral.
This is patently false based on the very evidence used to support your 'wind'. Or any other measure really. (que the cold-frozen-ice-ball-sublimating-in-the-nuclear-fire-of-the-sun comet that doesn't exist)
This seems to be a by-product of your earthly gas stuff, that plasma is always neutrally charged.
A plasma is charged whether you like it not (sometimes neutrally yes). Electricity produces magnetic fields. Do you dispute this?
And the problem again, you say you know but then you ignore the very thing you say you know about.
Synchrotron, you mean like X-Rays and Gamma Rays and such(parts of the ELECTROMAGNETIC spectrum).
Or not, only Thermal Gravity Collisions and Black Hole Energy Cannons could possible produces such large events spanning thousands to millions of light-years across.
All the Synchrotron emissions hitting your fancy detector (somehow they didn't get shielded while traveling billions of light years to reach us) and all you can think of is BigBang BlackHole DarkMatter/Energy. All that crazy talk is not even needed to explain it.
Crackers, all that I'm still barely part way through your response. I'll just skip some stuff.
'I also feel that the EU has multiple very serious difficulties that completely put it out of the running'
Like what?
Completely? That would be like completely putting Gravity out of the running because it can't repel anything and doesn't work with many galaxy formations either. And that's silly, no one would completely dismiss gravity theories just because of that..
As far the as the time/relativity tricks, you'll see you already did them. No more prompting required. ;]
Electrostatic is not Electromagnetism. Or are you changing your earlier premise.
What field of AP are you in?
Oh my what is this? 'how things are held together more tightly than usual', what is the unusual mode of the universe which is less tightly.. hahha holy cow..
'you have to have reasonably balanced charges or stuff would fly apart' oh come now, really... What stuff are you talking about?
'so you have to explain how charges remain separated in exactly the right way, and explain what that right way is'
Why would I have to explain a baseless stuff statement like this? What are you claiming here about charge separation?
'Magnetic forces can be long distance', well there's a positive. Although it's not really. What is your 'can be' condition? How long are you referring?
I am completely lost on 'both' here? Is that something I did. And where are these 'neutral' hydrogen blobs you imagine?
This is a critically failing of some thinking, that all of space is "neutral" and there is not charge in space. This is your belief too edd I suppose, that all of space is electrically neutral.
This is patently false based on the very evidence used to support your 'wind'. Or any other measure really. (que the cold-frozen-ice-ball-sublimating-in-the-nuclear-fire-of-the-sun comet that doesn't exist)
This seems to be a by-product of your earthly gas stuff, that plasma is always neutrally charged.
A plasma is charged whether you like it not (sometimes neutrally yes). Electricity produces magnetic fields. Do you dispute this?
Maybe we can't "detect" them yet? Ha, take that Dark Matter. :}
And the problem again, you say you know but then you ignore the very thing you say you know about.
Synchrotron, you mean like X-Rays and Gamma Rays and such(parts of the ELECTROMAGNETIC spectrum).
Or not, only Thermal Gravity Collisions and Black Hole Energy Cannons could possible produces such large events spanning thousands to millions of light-years across.
All the Synchrotron emissions hitting your fancy detector (somehow they didn't get shielded while traveling billions of light years to reach us) and all you can think of is BigBang BlackHole DarkMatter/Energy. All that crazy talk is not even needed to explain it.
Crackers, all that I'm still barely part way through your response. I'll just skip some stuff.
'I also feel that the EU has multiple very serious difficulties that completely put it out of the running'
Like what?
Completely? That would be like completely putting Gravity out of the running because it can't repel anything and doesn't work with many galaxy formations either. And that's silly, no one would completely dismiss gravity theories just because of that..
As far the as the time/relativity tricks, you'll see you already did them. No more prompting required. ;]
Last edited:
This is quite pointless. You're criticising me for talking about electrostatic forces before you've even read me talking about magnetic forces for example. I'm done - if anyone seriously thinks now that EU is remotely defensible they can see plenty of other take downs of it by searching Google.