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37 Comments
- sockpuppets, on 07/02/2009, -3/+24O o
/¯/___________________________ _ __/
| I'MMA FIRIN MA BLAZAR!!!
\_\¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯ ¯ ¯¯\ - detales, on 07/02/2009, -0/+12I was expecting some sort of comparison to give me perspective, like "500 trillion times more powerful than 500 billion exploding hydrogen bombs," but instead received the analogy "[the] name "blazar" is like calling a speeding sixteen wheeler truck full of professional wrestlers, grizzly bears and dynamite a "gentle prodder."
What the hell does that mean? - pmwhitlock, on 07/02/2009, -2/+11Ima firin mah blazar!
- fuzzyllama, on 07/02/2009, -0/+9FTA: You can try writing down the values as numbers, but they end up being so stupidly huge that our monkey brains, programmed to deal with "one two three lots", just don't comprehend them. <-- dugg for that comment alone.
- nick2525, on 07/02/2009, -1/+9Dugg for "speeding sixteen wheeler truck full of professional wrestlers, grizzly bears and dynamite"!
- Disgod, on 07/02/2009, -0/+8FTA:
"(especially when they're over nine hundred million *miles* away)"
I think they mean light years, considering Pluto's orbit is ~4 and a half BILLION miles out. Still, that is insanely cool. I would love to see a comparison of the energy output of these blazars in comparison to super novas. - Disgod, on 07/02/2009, -1/+8[Citations Needed]
- Disgod, on 07/02/2009, -0/+5"So Digg requires citations for posting intelligent comments now? "
No, but when someone is making outlandish claims with zero evidence, the least they could do is attempt to actually provide back up for their claims, which is basically what I'm asking for when I use [Citation Needed]. If their information is valid they should have no trouble presenting their evidence. So far they haven't presented anything scientific, just a bunch of vague claims about the whole of modern physics, cosmology, and astronomy. [Citation Needed] is just a way for asking for their evidence.
"You really think he made all of that up just to sound smart?"
No, I think he is parroting some random conspiracy site, and I'm always interested in what "evidence" they might have to present. I'm a curious individual, and if they have a valid case I will listen, but somehow I doubt that they have a valid case. - chroko, on 07/02/2009, -1/+5It means that the author doesn't understand anything that he's trying to report about.
Also: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazar - joecomputerguy, on 07/02/2009, -0/+3Yes, but quickly realized it wasn't referring to them after reading "Most Violently Energetic Objects in the Universe"
- itstodd, on 07/02/2009, -1/+4I was a blazar in college and had no energy at all...
- dandaman0345, on 07/02/2009, -0/+3"The BL Lacertae blazar is a particle accelerator that makes the LHC look like an asthmatic child throwing pebbles." that comparison was terrible
terribly funny =D - SicSevens, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Why hasn't some douchebag come along and noted the phrase 'over 9 hundred million'?
...I guess I'm your douchebag. :- ( - termerjur, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2unreadable? more like it just sucks.
- Volath, on 07/02/2009, -0/+2Hyper beam would be more accurate imo.
- AmnesiacJack, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Had the moves. She's getting old and those were her younger more energetic days.
- CrazyEddie041, on 07/02/2009, -1/+2Blazar! I choose you!
Fire blast, now! - pln2bz, on 07/03/2009, -1/+2You guys crack me up with your thumbs downs. It's as if you don't realize that there are some smart ones that are following my comments here who are waiting for you to respond to me. I respond to as many erroneous space-related Digg submissions as time permits, and people think that they can debunk me by just thumbs'ing me down. And yet, logic isn't something that you can vote on. It either makes sense or it doesn't, regardless of your vote.
Assuming that the naysayers don't have just one finger -- a thumb -- I encourage you to help people to understand why I'm wrong. Please tell us. Until people start responding to the underlying logic of the Electric Universe with something more than "holoscience should be hollowscience", you can't expect that your vote means anything at all. People expect more than clever puns. - pln2bz, on 07/03/2009, -1/+2Blindhammer and others, there is incidentally a very interesting book named "Disciplined Minds: A Look at Salaried Professionals and the Soul-Battering System that Shapes Their Lives" by Jeff Schmidt. Jeff was an editor at Physics Today for 19 years until he became a whistleblower. He gave an insider's view for why the physics establishment is like a mindless bootcamp, where people are taught a belief system instead of how to think. He was fired from Physics Today because of his writings, and he subsequently sued. 500+ physicists wrote letters of support defending him, and he reached a settlement with Physics Today.
There have been many chances to realize that we were on the wrong path. Hannes Alfven, who received the Nobel Physics Prize for his creation of magnetohydrodynamics appealed to the astrophysicists in his acceptance speech by distancing himself from his own creation ...
"I thought that the frozen-in concept was very good from a pedagogical point of view, and indeed it became very popular. In reality, however, it was not a good pedagogical concept but a dangerous 'pseudo-pedagogical concept.' By 'pseudo-pedagogical' I mean a concept which makes you believe that you understood a phenomenon whereas in reality you have drastically misunderstood it."
When we started sending probes into space, it was discovered that space was filled with charged particles. This was a missed opportunity. People should have realized that you can't change space's dominant state of matter and NOT change your cosmology at all. And yet, that's exactly what they did.
When the solar wind was observed to fail to appreciably decelerate even as it passes the orbit of Earth, that should have inspired a lot of thought. When the Sun's corona was observed to be 100x hotter than its surface, people should have questioned the dominant view. When the Milky Way was observed to be a strong emitter of nonthermal synchrotron radiation, people should have asked why?!
There was another important missed opportunity when Halton Arp discovered that quasars possess inherent QUANTIZED redshifts (the raw value possesses two components, one of which is quantized). One only needs to understand what the word "quantized" means in order to realize the significance of this statement. We do not generally expect to see anything in nature that is consistently and repeatably quantized on the galactic scale of existence (the quantized values follow a very specific pattern that repeats).
The latest alarm bell relates to Gerrit Verschuur's observation of 200 correlations between WMAP hotspots and interstellar neutral hydrogen (HI) filaments, and his observations of critical ionization velocity spikes within the spectra of "anomalous high-velocity clouds". This is a bit more complicated topic that requires a fair amount of reading to understand, but when you put that work in, it's very compelling evidence for interstellar electrical transmission lines, and the Marklund convection process (which astrophysicists confuse for "gravitational collapse").
And now, scientists are trying to find polarization within the CMB, thinking that it will demonstrate ripples from the Big Bang. Although I'm not a theorist myself, nonthermal synchrotron radiation from electrical transmission lines should in theory appear as filaments, as the electrons spiral around the filamentary magnetic fields created by the Birkeland Currents. I suspect, however, that theorists will once again miss the opportunity. - termerjur, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Breaking!:
Scientists observe and shout "It looks like a big fried egg!" Party starts at 6pm. - UnWeave, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Nature's way of showing us it's still got the moves.
On a side note, I thought Blazars were pretty well understood, although I suppose this is more of a confirmation of theory than new theory.
Whatever, Blazars are the *****. - notruth, on 07/02/2009, -0/+1Funny, but disappointing that this is the crap that passes for science these days.
- Astark, on 07/02/2009, -0/+0A Blazar is more powerful than Brandon Roy charging through the lane, being guarded by a 6 year old girl in a wheelchair.
- Azathothh, on 07/02/2009, -1/+1yay one more cool nick to choose from
- blindhammer, on 07/03/2009, -1/+1Well, if you insist:
http://www.holoscience.com/news/img/DPS%20talk.pdf - pln2bz, on 07/05/2009, -1/+1@Disgod, I don't think people actually read citations. There's this typical pattern of behavior on forums where citations are demanded, and then when they produced, nobody follows up on them. The peer review system only works when people are willing to read materials that are logical, and which don't support their pre-existing views. If the public accepts the first cosmology it's presented as unassailable fact, and ignores all competitors (even those based upon laboratory, textbook physics), then the peer review system cannot fix this broken approach.
People have been demanding citations for the Electric Universe for many years now. They pretend as though none exist. And yet, Cosmic Plasma by Hannes Alfven, Physics of the Plasma Universe by Anthony Peratt, The Electric Sky by Don Scott, The Electric Universe by Wal Thornhill, Ralph Sansbury's work on subtrons, Verschuur's recent work on critical ionization velocities and Gerrit Verschuur's The Invisible Universe offer the full spectrum of resources, from layperson to PhD physicist. http://www.plasma-universe.com contains all of the citations anybody would actually need in order to understand what plasma cosmology says and why it makes sense. People just don't want to read them. They would rather formulate an uninformed opinion without having to do the background research necessary to formulate an INFORMED opinion. And then they go onto forums and ridicule those who have done their homework, and who formulated an opinion that's contrary to their own.
What you guys are effectively doing is that you're making people feel scared to think for themselves. The institution of physics no longer tolerates independent thinkers. The physics PhD system is designed to instill beliefs rather than stimulating creative out-of-the-box thinking. Jeff Schmidt, who worked for 19 years as a Physics Today editor, has written about this extensively. - bhny, on 07/02/2009, -1/+1That article is unreadable.
read this instead- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blazar - hazard99, on 07/02/2009, -1/+1Zebras are better.
- pln2bz, on 07/02/2009, -2/+2Re: "No, I think he is parroting some random conspiracy site, and I'm always interested in what "evidence" they might have to present. I'm a curious individual, and if they have a valid case I will listen, but somehow I doubt that they have a valid case."
Well, then that would distinguish you from most. People are very eager to find excuses not to read against-the-mainstream views and evidence these days. While you are being skeptical, however, you might also truly wonder if we can only see 4-5% of the universe's matter with our telescopes and still pretend as though we have great confidence in our theories for how the universe works. Or, you might also wonder how it is that astrophysicists can be permitted to propose their own causes for the magnetic fields we observe in space. In all other disciplines, it's accepted that magnetic fields are the result of electrical currents ... Which begs the question: Why do we see magnetic fields permeating the entire universe -- associated with both galaxies and the intergalactic space between them?
I'm not quite sure what claims are "outlandish". This is for the most part a straightforward recounting of the history of the Big Bang Theory. When trying to establish confidence within a cosmological model, it's absolutely vital that you understand the timelines and sequence of events associated with the formation of the theor(ies). It's not enough to just understand what the theory says when you are trying to evaluate its claims.
For instance, the Big Bang Theory was largely concocted at a time (<1950's) when it was believed that the dominant states of matter in space were like those down here on Earth. However, it would be learned in the 1950's when we started sending probes into space that Nature's preference was for the plasma state of matter. In fact, it's now recognized as an observational fact that 99%+ of the visible matter in space is matter within the plasma state. That we can change the dominant state of the universe's matter and not have any effect upon our chosen cosmology should inspire some amount of disbelief and skepticism. The truth is that astrophysicists have convinced themselves that they can model plasmas as if they are gases. They model the magnetic fields as though they are frozen-in; they pretend as though the plasma will instantaneously charge-neutralize any charge imbalance; and they pretend as though the plasma has no electrical resistance, like a superconductor. They make all of these claims on the basis of a concept called Debye screening. The problem is that Debye screening fails if plasmas can naturally form transmission lines. We in fact observe strong evidence for such electrical transmission lines in space, no differently from our observations of the behavior of plasmas within the laboratory.
The history of radio astronomy is covered in good depth in Gerrit Verschuur's "The Invisible Universe", in particular pages 14 - 22.
On the topic of electrical transmission lines in space:
The unique nature of the magnetic rope shape ("morphology") makes them reasonably easy to identify in the cosmos. We can now see an electrical grid that spans all scales of space, including interplanetary, interstellar and even intergalactic. THEMIS has observed magnetic rope structures as wide as the Earth regularly connecting the Sun with the Earth's atmosphere over the interplanetary heliospheric plasma. Do a search on "THEMIS Earth Sun magnetic rope" for press releases.
From http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/New_Milky_Way_Ma ...
[begin quote]
The halo of stars that envelops the Milky Way galaxy is like a river delta criss-crossed by stellar streams large and small, according to new data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS-II) ...
While the largest rivers of this delta have been mapped out over the last decade, analysis of the new SDSS-II map shows that smaller streams can be found throughout the stellar halo ...
"Even with SEGUE, we are still only mapping a small fraction of the Galaxy," said Schlaufman, "so 14 streams in our data implies a huge number when we extrapolate to the rest of the Milky Way."
If each velocity structure were a separate stream, Schlaufman explained, there would be close to 1,000 in the inner 75,000 light years of the Galaxy. However, these structures could arise from a smaller number of streams that are seen many times in different places.
"A jumble of pasta" is the way Columbia University researcher Kathryn Johnston described her theoretical models of the Milky Way's stellar halo.
[end quote]
Why are stars forming along filaments? Astrophysicists would have us believe that it's due to supernova remnants, but in the process of accepting that assumption, they're ignoring a physical process known as Marklund convection (covered in Anthony Peratt's Physics of the Plasma Universe). Marklund convection is a process of ionic convection resulting from electric and magnetic fields. Ions are drawn in by the force represented by E x B into plasma filaments. In the process, these ions recombine and form neutral filaments associated with the electrical transmission lines. Radio astronomer Gerrit Verschuur has written numerous papers analyzing all-sky maps of interstellar space which identify neutral hydrogen filaments. Gravity does not form filaments, and gravity cannot explain the presence of critical ionization velocities associated with these filaments (50 km/s, 35 km/s and 12 km/s). Their only tool for forming filaments that the astrophysicists can point to is supernova explosions. It's a weak case -- especially in light of the fact that we already observe plasmas in the laboratory to form filaments naturally (you can see this for yourself in a novelty plasma globe). The process thought to be "gravitational collapse" is in fact Marklund convection.
On the largest of scales -- the supergalactic -- we observe enormous strings of galaxies. Once it became clear that space was 99% matter in the plasma state, Hannes Alfven predicted that the universe's morphology should be filamentary. It was one of the earliest predictions made in regards to the shape of the universe. His suggestion that the universe was filamentary was generally disregarded until the 1980s, when a series of unexpected observations showed filamentary structure on the galactic, intergalactic, and supergalactic scales.
Lacking any professional training in what a Birkeland Current is, astrophysicists have deployed a scattered assortment of terminology to describe them. "Flux ropes", "magnetic ropes", "magnetic flux ropes", "plasma ropes", "plasma cables", "magnetic cables", "current constrictions", "plasma rays", "electrical tornadoes" and even "magnetic slinkies", "spaghetti" and "elephant trunks" may all show up in searches through astrophysical journals. All of these terms suggest the same morphology and unique underlying cause. In the absence of any education on what a laboratory Birkeland Current looks like, and equipped with ideologies that specifically forbid them, astrophysicists are uniquely incapable of identifying these structures within astronomical imagery. But make no doubt about it: the filamentary and twisted filamentary magnetic field represents the natural behavior of plasmas within the laboratory when it is conducting electrical current.
For a more thorough presentation of citations, visit http://www.plasma-universe.com.
The game is over for the Big Bang Theory. Those people who are paying close attention know by now that it's time to accept that gravity has an underlying cause. For those who understand what a plasma is, they will know that the most likely candidate is charge accumulation. The idea that large bodies in space don't acquire and trade electrical charge has always been a very weak astrophysical assumption.
From http://www.physorg.com/print160726282.html
[begin quote]
As modern cosmologists rely more and more on the ominous “dark matter” to explain otherwise inexplicable observations, much effort has gone into the detection of this mysterious substance in the last two decades, yet no direct proof could be found that it actually exists. Even if it does exist, dark matter would be unable to reconcile all the current discrepancies between actual measurements and predictions based on theoretical models. Hence the number of physicists questioning the existence of dark matter has been increasing for some time now.
Competing theories of gravitation have already been developed which are independent of this construction. Their only problem is that they conflict with Newton’s theory of gravitation.
“Maybe Newton was indeed wrong,” declares Professor Dr. Pavel Kroupa of Bonn University's Argelander-Institut für Astronomie (AIfA). “Although his theory does, in fact, describe the everyday effects of gravity on Earth, things we can see and measure, it is conceivable that we have completely failed to comprehend the actual physics underlying the force of gravity.”
[end quote] - blindhammer, on 07/03/2009, -1/+1Disgod, I would be interested in knowing what you consider to be science. In the classical sense, modern cosmology is not a science since it does not follow the scientific method. Hypothesis are usually not tested and when they are challenged by observations, new fictions are created.
There's no real evidence that dark matter exists. Nor dark energy. Nor black holes. These are all constructs that are created in order to maintain the conventional model of the universe.
As an example, look at dark energy. The only reason we think dark energy exists is because something HAS to exist or else there would be no other way for galaxies to continue to accelerate away from each other. That is bad logic.
Imagine I live in a town where no one is armed. There are no visitors coming in and out of town. One day, someone gets shot. No one knows who did it. Since we are all unarmed, it is a mystery. Now, in order to explain the gunshot, I create a fiction -- a mysterious invisible hamster armed with a gun shot the victim. Why would I create such a fiction? In order to continue the facade that everyone in the town is unarmed. My "theory" certainly describes the event AND allows me to maintain the notion that everyone in the town I am in is not armed. But it is certainly not true.
Such fictions were created with the Ptolemaic system of orbits. In order to match observations, new fictions were created in order to continue the facade that planets, moons and the sun revolved around the Earth. This went on for hundreds of years. The same exact process may be happening today.
You need only to look at all the "amazing" and "confusing" results that are coming back. As an example, look at the Deep Impact mission. The scientists in charge of the mission were completely baffled at several small flashes of light right before the impact. In other words, there was no logical or rational explanation for this occurrence under the conventional model. Yet, these results were predicted by Thornhill under the electric/plasma universe model.
From Bruce Alberts, Editor-in-Chief of Science:
"Rather than learning how to think scientifically, students are generally being told about science and asked to remember facts.” “Their science teachers failed to make it clear that science fundamentally depends on evidence that can be logically and independently verified; instead, they taught science as if it were a form of revealed truth from scientists."
Finally, it should cause some slight concern that two of our sciences are completely incompatible; quantum physics and cosmology/astro physics are mutually exclusive. They cannot co-exist. This is why we have created "theories" such as string/M-Theory in order to reconcile the two. But, the mathematics involved in M-Theory is almost nonsensical.
Perhaps we should fall back upon Occam's Razor:
"When competing hypotheses are equal in other respects, the principle recommends selection of the hypothesis that introduces the fewest assumptions and postulates the fewest entities while still sufficiently answering the question" (Wiki)
In other words, what is more likely: that humans may have gotten something wrong in our modern theory of cosmology or that there are infinite dimensions of reality filled with invisible objects such as dark energy and dark matter that defy all known observations and violate nearly all of our established laws? - 00trip00, on 07/03/2009, -0/+0"especially when they're over nine hundred million miles away"
Thats the distance that light travels in about an hour and twenty minutes. - ruretarded, on 07/02/2009, -2/+1"point of incredibly difficult to escape from"
- wonderchemist, on 07/02/2009, -2/+1Pretty easy not to blink when you are measuring distance in millions of light years.
- notruth, on 07/02/2009, -3/+2Why would anyone digg you down?
@Disgod: So Digg requires citations for posting intelligent comments now? You really think he made all of that up just to sound smart? Even if you ARE being sarcastic, you should stop wasting your time here and instead be complaining about the lack of scientific information in that article, which purports itself as scientific, and also that it was posted on digg as science.
THAT'S the true insult to my intelligence. >:C - pln2bz, on 07/02/2009, -6/+4Re: "These mega-scale observations tracked particles as they were hurled from the throat of the blazar, emitting radiation as they go, and confirmed the team's theories that the power source is massively compressed and twisted magnetic fields. As material is sucked into the black hole, it spirals in along a large accretion disk. As it gets closer to being consumed, the material is crushed smaller and smaller by increasing gravitational forces - and the magnetic field lines coming along with it are crushed together as well, creating hugely intense fields oriented around the spinning black hole. These gigantic fields can drive particles away from the hole, causing them to corkscrew along a narrowly confined path while emitting precise bursts of radiation - bursts the astronomers observed exactly."
It makes for a great story, but it's far from being the only explanation -- or even the best. For many years since the 1950's when the Big Bang Theory developed its legs, astrophysicists refused to acknowledge that radio sources or even large-scale magnetic fields existed in space (radio waves all result from the movement of electrons). The public is never told in these explanations for the magnetic fields associated with galaxies that they were never actually predicted by the Standard Model. To this day, explanations for galactic magnetic fields fail to acknowledge the simplest, most basic interpretation for them: that they are the result of electric currents (as acknowledged in every other discipline of science). Instead, astrophysicists propose all sorts of "new physics" explanations for the magnetic fields -- because they are taught in school that electric currents don't do things of importance in space.
Once observational evidence for galactic and intergalactic magnetic fields in space was confirmed, in spite of the Big Bang Theory, the claims were toned down to suggest that there was no observational evidence for large-scale electric fields, large-scale charge accumulation or cosmic plasmas conducting electricity. And yet, they've already imaged the filamentary and twisted magnetic fields (Birkeland Currents) on all scales of observable space that precisely correspond to the electrical transmission lines we observe plasmas to naturally form in the laboratory.
So long as astrophysicists pay more attention to their deductive reasoning, assumptions and textbook theories than observations and laboratory science, the answers to the most difficult questions man has ever asked will remain elusive to them. Sometimes, when trying to explain our surroundings, the things we've learned in school and our pre-existing beliefs can be our own worst enemies. - usdave, on 07/02/2009, -6/+1Did anyone else read "Blazers" and think of the NBA team?
- inactive, on 07/02/2009, -8/+0My penis #1
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