Hannes Alvfén --- Plasma specialist.

[William Gaatjes]

I was doing some reading about the history of physics and i read about Hannes Alvfén. This guy was a true genius and mocked and ridiculed by scientists. But almost every time his theories turned out to be correct.

He reminds of Bonnie Bassler who have been mocked for years as well about the bacterial communication, her research field.

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1970/alfven-bio.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hannes_Alfvén

http://public.lanl.gov/alp/plasma/people/alfven.html


Some excerpts :

Hannes Alfvén, winner of the 1970 Nobel Prize in Physics,acknowledged as one of creative and intuitive intellect's of the 20th century, died peacefully Sunday evening, April 2, 1995 in Stockholm, Sweden. He was 86 years old.
In the world of specialized science, Alfvén was an enigma. Regarded as a heretic by many physicists, Alfvén made contributions to physics that are today being applied in the development of particle beam accelerators, controlled thermonuclear fusion, hypersonic flight, rocket propulsion, and the braking of reentering space vehicles. At the same time, applications of his research in space science include explanations of the Van Allen radiation belt, the reduction of the earth's magnetic field during magnetic storms, the magnetosphere (a protective plasma envelope surrounding the earth), the formation of comet tails, the formation of the solar system, the dynamics of plasmas in our galaxy, and the fundamental nature of the universe itself.
Alfvén was the first to predict (in 1963) the large scale filamentary structure of the universe, a discovery that confounded astrophysicists in 1991 and added to the woes of Big Bang cosmology. Hannes Alfvén has played a central role in the development of several modern fields of physics, including plasma physics, the physics of charged particle beams, and interplanetary and magnetospheric physics. He is also usually regarded as the father of the branch of plasma physics known as magnetohydrodynamics.

In spite of these fundamental contributions to physics and astrophysics, Alfvén, who retired his posts of professor of electrical engineering at the University of California at San Diego and professor of plasma physics at the Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm in 1991, was still viewed as a heretic by many in those very fields. Alfvén's theories in astrophysics and plasma physics have usually gained acceptance only two or three decades after their publication. Characteristically and also concomitant with his 80th birthday in 1988, Alfvén was awarded the most prestigious prize of the American Geophysical Union, the Bowie medal, for his work three decades earlier on comets and plasmas in the solar system. Disputed for 30 years, many of his theories about the solar system were only vindicated as late as the 1980's through measurements of cometary and planetary magnetospheres by artificial satellites and space probes.

Although Alfvén received these singular honors from many parts of the world -and a rash of scientific journals scheduled special issues in honor of his 80th birthday- for much of his career Alfvén's ideas were dismissed or treated with condescension. He was often forced to publish his papers in obscure journals; and his work was continuously disputed for many years by the most renowned senior scientist in space physics, the British-American geophysicist Sydney Chapman. Even among physicists today there is little awareness of Alfvén's many contributions to fields of physics where his ideas are used without recognition of who conceived them.

Attempting to explain the resistance to his ideas, Alfvén pointed to the increasing specialization of science during this century. "We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy," he said in 1986. "Unfortunately, this discipline seems not to exist today. It has been renamed science, but science of today is in danger of losing much of the natural philosophy aspect." Among the causes of this transition, Alfvén believed, are territorial dominance, greed, and fear of the unknown. "Scientists tend to resist interdisciplinary inquiries into their own territory. In many instances, such parochialism is founded on the fear that intrusion from other disciplines would compete unfairly for limited financial resources and thus diminish their own opportunity for research."

Alfvén versus Chapman

Alfvén became active in interplanetary and magnetospheric physics at a time when a contrary viewpoint prevailed. Alfvén's views were consistent with those of the founder of magnetospheric physics, the great Norwegian scientist Kristian Birkeland. At the end of the nineteenth century Birkeland had laid out a compelling case-supported by theory, laboratory experiments, polar expeditions, and a chain of magnetic-field "observatories" around the world -that electric currents flowing down along the earth's magnetic fields into the atmosphere were the cause of the aurora and polar magnetic disturbances.

However, in the decades following Birkeland's death in 1917, Chapman became the acknowledged leader in interplanetary and magnetospheric physics. Chapman proposed, in contradistinction to Birkeland's ideas, that currents were restricted to flow only in the ionosphere with no downflowing currents. Chapman's theory was so mathematically elegant that it gained wide acceptance over the Birkeland theory. Based on Chapman's theory, algebraic expressions of the ionospheric current system could, with complete mathematical rigor, be derived by any student of the subject. Birkeland's ideas might have faded completely had it not been for Hannes Alfvén, who became involved well after Chapman's ideas gained predominance. Alfvén kept insisting that Birkeland's current system made more sense because downflowing currents following the earth's magnetic field lines were required to drive most of the ionospheric currents. The issue was not settled until 1974, four years after Chapman's death, when earth satellites measured downflowing currents for the first time.

This story was typical of the difficulties Alfvén faced in his scientific career. Interplanetary space was commonly considered to be a good vacuum, disturbed only by occasional comets. This viewpoint was widely accepted because space "looked" that way, having been viewed only by using telescopes at optical wavelengths. In contrast, the electrical currents proposed by Alfvén generated a telltale signature only in the radio portions of the electromagnetic spectrum so they had not yet been observed. Thus Alfvén's proposal that there were electrical currents in space was received with great skepticism.

In 1939 Alfvén advanced a remarkable theory of magnetic storms and auroras that has widely influenced contemporary theories of plasma dynamics in the earth's magnetosphere. He used the notion of electric charges spiraling in magnetic fields to calculate the motions of electrons and ions. This method came to be universally adopted by plasma physicists and remained in use until the tedious task was assigned to computers in the mid-1970s. Yet in 1939, when Alfvén submitted the paper to the leading American journal Terrestrial Magnetism and Atmospheric Electricity, the paper was rejected on the ground that it did not agree with the theoretical calculations of Chapman and his colleagues. Alfvén was forced to publish this seminal paper in a Swedish-language journal not readily accessible to the worldwide scientific community. Restrictions such as this were imposed on several of Alfvén's other key articles as well.

It is usual in science that one or two major discoveries place their author in the rank of leading authorities with great influence and continuing funding commonly following. This was certainly not the case with Alfvén. At no time during his scientific career prior to winning the Nobel Prize was Alfvén generally recognized as a leading innovator by those in the scientific communities who were using his work.

Dessler has written of his own realization that Alfvén's contributions were being overlooked.

"When I entered the field of space physics in 1956, I recall that I fell in with the crowd believing, for example, that electric fields could not exist in the highly conducting plasma of space. It was three years later that I was shamed by S.Chandrasekhar into investigating Alfvén's work objectively. My degree of shock and surprise in finding Alfvén right and his critics wrong can hardly be described. I learned that a cosmic ray acceleration mechanism basically identical to the famous mechanism suggested by Fermi in 1949 had [previously] been put forth by Alfvén."

Alfvén VERSUS THE BIG BANG

For 30 years, based on plasma physics, Alfvén and his colleagues proposed an alternative cosmology to both the Steady State and the Big Bang cosmologies. While the Big Bang theory was preferred by most astrophysicists for nearly 30 years, it is being challenged by new observations, especially over the last decade. In particular, the discovery of coherent structures of galaxies hundreds of millions of light years in length and the large-scale streaming of superclusters of galaxies at velocities that may approach 1,000 kilometers per second present problems that are difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile with the Big Bang theory.

To Alfvén, the problems being raised were not surprising. "I have never thought that you could obtain the extremely clumpy, heterogeneous universe we have today, strongly affected by plasma processes, from the smooth, homogeneous one of the Big Bang, dominated by gravitation."

The problem with the Big Bang, Alfvén believed, is similar to that with Chapman's theories, which the scientific community accepted mistakenly for decades: Astrophysicists have tried too hard to extrapolate the origin of the universe from mathematical theories developed on the blackboard. The appeal of the Big Bang, said Alfvén, has been more ideological than scientific. When men think about the universe, there is always a conflict between the mythical approach and the empirical scientific approach. In myth, one tries to deduce how the gods must have created the world - what perfect principles must have been used."

To Alfvén, the Big Bang was a myth - a myth devised to explain creation. "I was there when Abbe Georges Lemaitre first proposed this theory," he recalled. Lemaitre was, at the time, both a member of the Catholic hierarchy and an accomplished scientist. He said in private that this theory was a way to reconcile science with St. Thomas Aquinas' theological dictum of creatio ex nihilo or creation out of nothing.

But if there was no Big Bang, how -and when- did the universe begin? "There is no rational reason to doubt that the universe has existed indefinitely, for an infinite time," Alfvén explained. "It is only myth that attempts to say how the universe came to be, either four thousand or twenty billion years ago."

Is the big bang the next religious idol ?

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

First, as someone who does plasma physics, I have a great respect for Alfven.

Science by its very nature is skeptical. We need to be highly critical in our thought process. That said, you have to be willing to admit when you are wrong. The scientific community has shown this many times, in this case they resisted Alfven's theories until they were proven. I think this is a good way to do things, not to take theories and ideas on faith. Don't make arguments by authority, question it and try to poke holes.

I don't think the big bang is "believed" so much as it is accepted as the theory which makes the most sense right now. That's not to say we won't switch to a better theory at the drop of a hat, just need to come up with one. The problems that Alfven had with the big bang have been mostly solved, namely the clumpiness of the universe and the origin of the large scale structure we see.

Recently I attended a lecture by Jayant Narlikar about a quasi-steady state theory of the universe, quite a fascinating talk, but not very convincing. He was a grad student of Hoyle (a proponent of the steady state model)

 

[Modelworks]

This is sort of inline with some reading I have been doing lately on Nikola Tesla. I recently got some copies of papers that he wrote that were not normally on display because they were considered just ramblings but the more I read the more I began to understand what he intended.

You probably know that everyone wrote him off as a crackpot when he started building huge towers to distribute electricity without wires and even today many say there was no way it could have worked. But in his 'ramblings' I think I see what he was after,it just wasn't something understood at the time and not really all that well now. He intended to create plasma links from one tower to the next and in doing so he could transfer power around the world due to the low resistance, if he could ever get the links to complete.

Plasma wasn't understood then and everyone assumed he wanted to create strong radio waves. Some of his notes refer to things much larger than radio waves. He made a comment in one of them that if you do not have 20,000 volts at 30,000 amps don't even bother trying. When I read that I knew he had to be thinking about plasma.

 

[Turtle.Man]

Hannes Alvfén is a Nobel Laureate. I wish my colleagues would ridicule me like that. Anyway, he's a well- respected scientist: no need to feel sorry for Hannes.

 

[William Gaatjes]

This is sort of inline with some reading I have been doing lately on Nikola Tesla. I recently got some copies of papers that he wrote that were not normally on display because they were considered just ramblings but the more I read the more I began to understand what he intended.

You probably know that everyone wrote him off as a crackpot when he started building huge towers to distribute electricity without wires and even today many say there was no way it could have worked. But in his 'ramblings' I think I see what he was after,it just wasn't something understood at the time and not really all that well now. He intended to create plasma links from one tower to the next and in doing so he could transfer power around the world due to the low resistance, if he could ever get the links to complete.

Plasma wasn't understood then and everyone assumed he wanted to create strong radio waves. Some of his notes refer to things much larger than radio waves. He made a comment in one of them that if you do not have 20,000 volts at 30,000 amps don't even bother trying. When I read that I knew he had to be thinking about plasma.

Yes it is true. I may be wrong, but it seemed Nikolai Tesla was also a difficult man to work for the people who could not keep up with him. I guess he was with his insight to far ahead on some physical aspects but never could explain them properly to others. It may have something to do with the negative experience he had with Thomas Edison in particular and possibly a few important others. As a young man Tesla worked for Edision but the two could not agree that for power transfer over large distances AC is superior over DC. Tesla was in favor of an AC distribution system and Edison for a DC distribution system. It was George Westinghouse that recognized the advantage of AC and Tesla could work for him. After that, Tesla got rich very fast and he had enough money and support to do his large scale experiments.
Some where quite amazing. IIRC, it seemed Tesla could electrify certain towns with his huge tesla coil towers with millions of volts and high frequencies from large distances. But it looked more to me as if he was creating the same process when a thundercloud starts discharging. The sensation of a strong electrified field in the air just before the air brakes down and an electric current can pass through the air. An amazing feature to create nevertheless. I think he understood that really high power rf waves can ionize air as well if at the right frequency.

 

[William Gaatjes]

First, as someone who does plasma physics, I have a great respect for Alfven.



I don't think the big bang is "believed" so much as it is accepted as the theory which makes the most sense right now. That's not to say we won't switch to a better theory at the drop of a hat, just need to come up with one. The problems that Alfven had with the big bang have been mostly solved, namely the clumpiness of the universe and the origin of the large scale structure we see.

But is solved not a big word for support theories without practical evidence for a model ? I mean all evidence is indirect and the last 2 decades amazing discoveries have been done without being used by astrophysicists to improve the model or even rethink the model while balancing on the edge of discarding. I myself just gather information about what the real researchers(not me) find and relay that information in order to get it known more to all kinds of people. Might be someone who is really smart and upcoming and who gets an "Eureka !" insight just as most great minds did where from, mankind can experience progress.

And now it seems that more and more secrets of plasma become unraveled that where not known when the original explanations created to sustain the big bang model was known. It is easy to say that current theories are sufficient but that is IMHO not what science is about.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I mean even Edwin Hubble was honest enough to admit that the data he found seemed to be related and he was also always admitting that there possibly existed more reasons to create the red shifts experienced.

Is there any research done if the cosmological redshift is a wide band phenomenon or is the cosmological redshift only limited to the spectral lines of for example hydrogen and helium ?

 

[Modelworks]

Yes it is true. I may be wrong, but it seemed Nikolai Tesla was also a difficult man to work for the people who could not keep up with him. I guess he was with his insight to far ahead on some physical aspects but never could explain them properly to others.

I think his problem was he wanted to focus solely on his work and didn't realize the business side of it and that he would need that money to continue his work.
To do the Niagara falls project with Westinghouse he was supposed to be paid two cents per 1/2 horsepower generated from the plant. Westinghouse was having problems after the construction because they had spent so much. Rather than make them stick to the contract, Tesla tore it up remarking it wasn't about the money. JP Morgan financed the tower in NY and Tesla told them it was for a wireless telegraph . Morgan kept pressuring for results . Marconi transmitted a signal across the ocean, Morgan got upset and Tesla told him the truth . Morgan became furious that he had been lied to and that Tesla didn't intend to turn a profit with his invention.

In the end he ended up broke but I wondered how he lived with no income until I found out that Westinghouse thought so much of him and what he did that they paid all his living expenses until he died.

It may have something to do with the negative experience he had with Thomas Edison in particular and possibly a few important others.

Edison did leave him with a bad experience. Tesla was offered the Edison medal and didn't show up to collect it. I guess to him that was the ultimate insult.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I think his problem was he wanted to focus solely on his work and didn't realize the business side of it and that he would need that money to continue his work.
To do the Niagara falls project with Westinghouse he was supposed to be paid two cents per 1/2 horsepower generated from the plant. Westinghouse was having problems after the construction because they had spent so much. Rather than make them stick to the contract, Tesla tore it up remarking it wasn't about the money. JP Morgan financed the tower in NY and Tesla told them it was for a wireless telegraph. Morgan kept pressuring for results . Marconi transmitted a signal across the ocean, Morgan got upset and Tesla told him the truth. Morgan became furious that he had been lied to and that Tesla didn't intend to turn a profit with his invention.

In the end he ended up broke but I wondered how he lived with no income until I found out that Westinghouse thought so much of him and what he did that they paid all his living expenses until he died.

I learn every day something new. That was totally wrong from Tesla. A contract is a contract. A gentlemen's agreement is a gentlemen's agreement. And now i have the feeling that Tesla found him self better then others.

Edison did leave him with a bad experience. Tesla was offered the Edison medal and didn't show up to collect it. I guess to him that was the ultimate insult.

Well, to forgive and solve problems is always the best way.
But it is not as always easy, i noticed it with someone on my work.

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

The CMB is pretty convincing evidence. At the time, there were some big unanswered questions - which were pretty well answered by the CMB and subsequent experiments like WMAP.

Thats not to say that big bang theory doesn't have its problems, namely fine tuning.

Edit:
Oh, and cosmological redshift is applicable to not just helium and hydrogen. We see redshifted spectral lines all over the place. In fact, there are a number of really high redshift galaxies found by looking for a sharp cutoff when a galaxies light is redshifted into the strong absorption of intervening gas.

 

[William Gaatjes]

The CMB is pretty convincing evidence. At the time, there were some big unanswered questions - which were pretty well answered by the CMB and subsequent experiments like WMAP.

Thats not to say that big bang theory doesn't have its problems, namely fine tuning.

WMAP = Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
It searches for microwave radiation and the small variations. But is it not the case that the data from the WMAP only confirms that there is background radiation ? That the data it presents fit's some support theories for the big bang model but also defies others ? I have read that the plasma universe model also explains the background radiation and in a more probable view IMHO. Because it can be tested in laboratory.

Edit:
Oh, and cosmological redshift is applicable to not just helium and hydrogen. We see redshifted spectral lines all over the place. In fact, there are a number of really high redshift galaxies found by looking for a sharp cutoff when a galaxies light is redshifted into the strong absorption of intervening gas.

It is to preliminary to write, but thats sounds a bit as some version of the CREIL effect. Halton Arp also seemed to have found a lot of galaxies as well that do not fit the theories supporting the big bang model. Yet everything he presents is ignored. Do you know why ? I would like to read for once something better then that big bang theorists ignore everything or call it a chance factor because the findings compromises the support theories for the BB. I find this strange.

EDIT:

I almost forgot Gerrit Verschuur. He came up with an interesting theory that could not been proven wrong yet he was treated as an heretic as well. Because he undermined the big bang interpretation of the WMAP. I never heard or read after that that he was proven wrong, just ignored in the hope he would go away.

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

WMAP = Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe.
It searches for microwave radiation and the small variations. But is it not the case that the data from the WMAP only confirms that there is background radiation ?

No, WMAP was a probe to study the already well founded Cosmic Background Radiation in detail. Its main finding was the variations in intensity corresponding to variations in temperature at the level of 1 part in 100,000. This was really what solved the problem with the large scale structure.

That the data it presents fit's some support theories for the big bang model but also defies others ? I have read that the plasma universe model also explains the background radiation and in a more probable view IMHO. Because it can be tested in laboratory.

If it weren't for the predictive power of the big bang theory it wouldn't be so widely accepted. What I'm saying here is that the theory predicted the presence of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO's) in the power spectrum of the CMB (amongst other things), to cosmologists this was the bigger finding from WMAP .

It is to preliminary to write, but thats sounds a bit as some version of the CREIL effect. Halton Arp also seemed to have found a lot of galaxies as well that do not fit the theories supporting the big bang model. Yet everything he presents is ignored. Do you know why ? I would like to read for once something better then that big bang theorists ignore everything or call it a chance factor because the findings compromises the support theories for the BB. I find this strange.

EDIT:

I almost forgot Gerrit Verschuur. He came up with an interesting theory that could not been proven wrong yet he was treated as an heretic as well. Because he undermined the big bang interpretation of the WMAP. I never heard or read after that that he was proven wrong, just ignored in the hope he would go away.

A quick search on Halton Arp showed that he was/is studying quasars. When his theories were first thought of they held some merit, but with high resolution spectroscopy they have pretty well been debunked. Yes he is still a firm believer of his theory...at some point you have to let go.

As for the last guy, wiki didn't go into too much detail into his research, but I would expect that it is unlikely that hydrogen clouds would explain the BAO's quite as well as the BB does.

 

[William Gaatjes]

No, WMAP was a probe to study the already well founded Cosmic Background Radiation in detail. Its main finding was the variations in intensity corresponding to variations in temperature at the level of 1 part in 100,000. This was really what solved the problem with the large scale structure.

You have to admit that that finding also allows for other explanations.

If it weren't for the predictive power of the big bang theory it wouldn't be so widely accepted. What I'm saying here is that the theory predicted the presence of baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO's) in the power spectrum of the CMB (amongst other things), to cosmologists this was the bigger finding from WMAP .

I have to do some more background reading on that.
There is a fine line between finding new data for a theory and looking and cherry picking data for a theory.

A quick search on Halton Arp showed that he was/is studying quasars. When his theories were first thought of they held some merit, but with high resolution spectroscopy they have pretty well been debunked. Yes he is still a firm believer of his theory...at some point you have to let go.

Well, even from current time, the data he shows has not been debunked.

As for the last guy, wiki didn't go into too much detail into his research, but I would expect that it is unlikely that hydrogen clouds would explain the BAO's quite as well as the BB does.

Gerrit Verschuur offered an explanation that very large hydrogen clouds in space are actually responsible for the cosmic background radiation. Maybe this is related to some variation on the same principle as the CREIL effect from Jean Moret-Bailly. however Gerrit Verschuur and Jean Moret-Bailly have not gained any momentum, although this seems promising. But instead of researching the option, the BB theorists just ridicule these people.

I am still doing background reading on the link between black holes and the big bang theory. IIRC Albert Einstein, completely ignored anything in electrical nature with his theories. He assumed that everything was electrically balanced but he did admit that this was a flaw that he wanted to solve.
Perhaps this was his cosmological constant he later on in his life was searching for ? Most theories of the big bang are still based on electrical equilibrium in space while we now know this is really not the case at all. Yet this is still widely ignored.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

Edison did leave him with a bad experience. Tesla was offered the Edison medal and didn't show up to collect it. I guess to him that was the ultimate insult.

yeah, i struggle to think of a greater insult than that. edison was a complete twat.

 

[William Gaatjes]

There is a remarkable coincidence between Hannes Alfvén and Halton Arp.

Both know the experience of scientific journals refusing to publish there work because it is against the current science consensus and endangers the work from other established scientists who do not want to be proven wrong.

To make it even worse, Halton Arp was no longer allowed to use the large Hale telescope in California to continue his search for anomalies in 1983. These anomalies where of course the quasars and galaxies that did not fit the Hubble redshift. As is stated above in the quote by Hannes Alfvén, science is still about greed and fame and not about doing science.

Which theory is not correct, it is only the true nature of the universe that is important. But man's greed knows no limits...

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

There is plenty of wiggle room for alternate theories to the big bang. No one is holding onto it for dear life, if a better one comes along I expect most if not all astrophysicists to support that model. As it stands, there aren't any better models that explain the data -- so we go with the big bang model with an inflationary epoch. In addition we currently go with lambda-cold dark matter for the same reasoning.

You seem to have a very jaded view of how science works.

Halton's papers aren't being refused due to being "blocked" by "mainstream" scientists to protect their theories. They are being blocked because there is no science in them. If you have a theory you need to find evidence for your theory, high resolution spectroscopy clearly shows a galactic spectra and not a stellar one for quasars. The active galactic nuclei model works quite well for these types of galaxies and we can see them even in the relatively low redshift universe. That is not to say there aren't problems to be resolved, how you make such a large structure in the very early universe is a matter of much debate, for instance. The hubble ultra deep field is a prime example of galaxies at high redshift that look nothing like what he proposes.

Yes, Hannes and Halton may have been similar in that their theories were resisted. Hannes was vindicated with evidence for his ideas, Halton has yet to be.

Science is still about doing science, there are a small number of people who do it for other reasons. Same as any other field, there are people who will be people.

 

[William Gaatjes]

There is plenty of wiggle room for alternate theories to the big bang. No one is holding onto it for dear life, if a better one comes along I expect most if not all astrophysicists to support that model. As it stands, there aren't any better models that explain the data -- so we go with the big bang model with an inflationary epoch. In addition we currently go with lambda-cold dark matter for the same reasoning.

IMHO
The other theories are more plausible because they do not need exotic non existing matter to function. The problem i have with the big bang theory is that it is like reading the bible. It is filled with non proven creatures that can not exist within the laws of nature. Yet testable theories are ignored in favor of these mythical creatures. That is the problem i have with the big bang.

You seem to have a very jaded view of how science works.
Halton's papers aren't being refused due to being "blocked" by "mainstream" scientists to protect their theories. They are being blocked because there is no science in them.

I do not have a jaded view. I have history on my one side and my understanding of human mass psychology on my other side. I do not need to come up with conspiracies or the big evil mastermind. I understand how life works. And if you need one example : The genius in the first post was not allowed to publish his papers either because of his "wrong" science... Or did you not read that part ? The most famous example of an astronomer : Galileo Galilei.

If you have a theory you need to find evidence for your theory, high resolution spectroscopy clearly shows a galactic spectra and not a stellar one for quasars. The active galactic nuclei model works quite well for these types of galaxies and we can see them even in the relatively low redshift universe. That is not to say there aren't problems to be resolved, how you make such a large structure in the very early universe is a matter of much debate, for instance. The hubble ultra deep field is a prime example of galaxies at high redshift that look nothing like what he proposes.

Somebody ones pointed Occam's razor out to me. For me Occam's razor is the following :
During the formulation of the big bang, it was assumed that space was empty and of electrical equilibrium. It was not know that space is filled with(while conveniently forgetting the other elements because of the numbers) either hydrogen gas, ionized electrons and protons or something in between. And the allowable large electric fields and magnetic fields. Now this is known. We live in a universe filled with plasma.

Occam's razor tells me that we should forget mythical creatures as for example dark matter, dark energy, neutron stars and black holes. Why, because there is a plasma model present that can explain them all in combination with gravity. Not enough gravity to pull a galaxy in a twist ? If you add the attraction and repulsion from electrical and magnetic fields that are present in hot plasma, it is achievable. You then do not need an infinite heavy mass in the center. You need the radiation, electrons in hydrogen plasma can do it by use of bremstrahlung. This is powerful enough to create synchrotron radiation. And the fun part is, is that when you take the data from all the satellites and optical telescopes and radio telescopes the plasma universe makes a lot more sense because it does not require mythical creatures. Only laws of nature and laboratory tests and observation. No modified laws of nature in unrealistic mathematical models.

So for me it is simple. The big bang is just another dogma. IMHO a lot of people who call themselves atheists are no more different then religious people who claim the earth was created 4000 years ago with the difference that religious fundamental people do not use math jiggling to prove their point.

Another point is that there are only theories and no proof. You mentioned the baryonic oscillations. This is again Occam's razor ignored. The quantized spectral red shifts ? Ignored again.

Yes, Hannes and Halton may have been similar in that their theories were resisted. Hannes was vindicated with evidence for his ideas, Halton has yet to be.

It will be called just another chance in the statistics when somebody finds more prove.

Science is still about doing science, there are a small number of people who do it for other reasons. Same as any other field, there are people who will be people.

True, but most people are government scientists and not scientists with a heart for scientific passion and scientific truth. They just go along with the rock stars. It is similar as with a demonstration, one or two persons provokes, the rest of the crowd follows. The global warming scheme is another such an example. Co2 is not the strongest greenhouse gas but as long as it is being repeated enough, everybody will believe it...

 

[Biftheunderstudy]

I suggest you do a bit of research into these alternate theory before saying that they fit the observations better.

Here is the wiki page for the plasma cosmology proposed by Hannes Alfven:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology

Here is the one for redshift quantization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift_quantization

Neither of these cosmologies has any theoretical ground to stand on. They fail to produce any predictions that match observations. If your theory doesn't produce testable predictions, then you aren't doing science. Your doing math at best and storytelling on the other end of it.

Your description of the big bang theory is also very flawed, if you would like to compare theories you need to at least try to understand the theory you are attempting to discredit.

As for the mythical creatures, I don't know many astrophysicists that like the idea of invoking things like dark matter and dark energy. To me, it is like using complex numbers to find the roots of polynomials, mathematicians didn't like this when they were first used either. That said, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that DM and DE do indeed exist -- we just don't know what they are.

Black holes and neutron stars don't deserve to be in this category. The central supermassive black holes are well founded. You can point a ground based telescope at the centre of our galaxy and find a group of stars orbiting a central object. We can't see the object, but we can measure the orbital parameters of the stars precisely to narrow down the mass of the object. When you work it out, it comes out to be somewhere around 1,000,000 solar masses. This mass must be enclosed in a volume of about 45 AU^3, pretty difficult to fit anything in there without it being a black hole and it not being extremely luminous.

Occoms razor is a guideline at best, the simplest answer is most definitely not always the correct answer.

Coming from a scientist, most scientists are not government scientists. Most are researchers working at a university, they might be on government grants but who else will pay for this kind of research? No one is getting paid to come up with results that support the big bang theory. No one has anything to gain from such a venture, unlike global warming.

Like I said, if someone comes up with a better theory, we'll switch to that. This has happened in the past many times, and it will happen again.

 

[William Gaatjes]

I suggest you do a bit of research into these alternate theory before saying that they fit the observations better.

Here is the wiki page for the plasma cosmology proposed by Hannes Alfven:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_cosmology

Here is the one for redshift quantization:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redshift_quantization


Neither of these cosmologies has any theoretical ground to stand on. They fail to produce any predictions that match observations. If your theory doesn't produce testable predictions, then you aren't doing science. Your doing math at best and storytelling on the other end of it.

Your description of the big bang theory is also very flawed, if you would like to compare theories you need to at least try to understand the theory you are attempting to discredit.

As for the mythical creatures, I don't know many astrophysicists that like the idea of invoking things like dark matter and dark energy. To me, it is like using complex numbers to find the roots of polynomials, mathematicians didn't like this when they were first used either. That said, there is a wealth of evidence to suggest that DM and DE do indeed exist -- we just don't know what they are.

Black holes and neutron stars don't deserve to be in this category. The central supermassive black holes are well founded. You can point a ground based telescope at the centre of our galaxy and find a group of stars orbiting a central object. We can't see the object, but we can measure the orbital parameters of the stars precisely to narrow down the mass of the object. When you work it out, it comes out to be somewhere around 1,000,000 solar masses. This mass must be enclosed in a volume of about 45 AU^3, pretty difficult to fit anything in there without it being a black hole and it not being extremely luminous.

Occoms razor is a guideline at best, the simplest answer is most definitely not always the correct answer.

Coming from a scientist, most scientists are not government scientists. Most are researchers working at a university, they might be on government grants but who else will pay for this kind of research? No one is getting paid to come up with results that support the big bang theory. No one has anything to gain from such a venture, unlike global warming.

We disagree here, because the theory is there and the evidence too...
And it is wise to not use wiki as evidence. Far too often it contains (political) errors.

When it comes to the center of galaxy...
If you take gravity only into account as the only force then yes, you are probably right. I will start reading soon about David Hilbert and Karl Schwarzschild.I am interested to find out if the theories have changed over the years and the mathematics behind them as well. I have read that there have been made some mistakes with respect to the solution of Einstein's field equations.I do not know if it is true, or if it is already solved. It will be interesting nonetheless. Because i have a question In the past, multiple solutions where present, all solutions that where compatible but did not produce a black hole. Except for one. This solution was about a perfect sphere in perfect vacuum with one test particle without mass. Is this same solution still used today for number crunching on the super computers ?

Like I said, if someone comes up with a better theory, we'll switch to that. This has happened in the past many times, and it will happen again.

We agree... ^_^

EDIT:
I forgot to mention one thing, the hartley2 comet is interesting, because it seems to show elements of discharging while producing it's own light...

According to wiki it is co2 gas peing expelled in jets... Sigh...
The gas emits light...

I agree with this statement made by plasma universe astronomers :
If you look at the lighting, there is no reason the assume it is co2 jets that are lit up by the sun. These seem more as plasma discharges...

 

[William Gaatjes]

I think his problem was he wanted to focus solely on his work and didn't realize the business side of it and that he would need that money to continue his work.
To do the Niagara falls project with Westinghouse he was supposed to be paid two cents per 1/2 horsepower generated from the plant. Westinghouse was having problems after the construction because they had spent so much. Rather than make them stick to the contract, Tesla tore it up remarking it wasn't about the money. JP Morgan financed the tower in NY and Tesla told them it was for a wireless telegraph . Morgan kept pressuring for results . Marconi transmitted a signal across the ocean, Morgan got upset and Tesla told him the truth . Morgan became furious that he had been lied to and that Tesla didn't intend to turn a profit with his invention.

In the end he ended up broke but I wondered how he lived with no income until I found out that Westinghouse thought so much of him and what he did that they paid all his living expenses until he died.

Hey Modelworks, i read some interesting article about Tesla a few weeks ago. I agree with you that he really was not a businessman at all. But indeed the addict to research. Wen Westinghouse was financially in trouble because of the market war with General electric, Tesla ripped the contract with Westinghouse to peaces. Freeing Westinghouse from paying him royalty fees. He pushed the Westinghouse into financial bliss with the invention of the ac polyphase generators and transformers. And then again when he ripped the royalties contract apart.

Edison did leave him with a bad experience. Tesla was offered the Edison medal and didn't show up to collect it. I guess to him that was the ultimate insult.

Yes, when fame rises to the head, people start to behave strange. Edison refused to admit that ac current was just better for transferring power over large distances. I cannot believe that he in his own mind could not understand that. I think Edison refused to admit that he could make mistakes. "The man that brought electrical power all over the world" is a pretty big title to let go for Edison at the time it seems. However, i have also read that Edison invented the light bulb, but he never knew how it worked. The endless search for finding the right material for the carbon wire seems to correlate with the idea that Edison had no idea what electricity really was and how it functioned in his light bulbs.

(Back to N Tesla.)
I do am happy that he never realized his idea of transferring large amount of electrical current as EM energy through the ionosphere. We would never had any wireless communication going if large amounts of discharges would have dominated the world and life itself would have been difficult...


I always wondered what the side effects were when in the past atom bomb test after atom bomb test caused the ionosphere to turn into a mirror for a large part of the rf spectrum for a short time. I wonder how much of IR would have been reflected and how long the effects where. Do you have any idea ?

 

[Ninjahedge]

Back to OT (sorta), so long as you realize that science and math are some of the most competitive areas in learning and that most geniuses are some form of sexual genitalia, then all this makes sense.

People who were primarily not accepted because of their understanding of things that others did not forced them to the fringe of society. NOBODY likes to have something pointed out to them that they do not know.

So, this ostracization should somehow galvanize the bond between like minded scientists so that they can be heard and appreciated by society, right?

Nope. Many will gut his "best friend" in order to be accepted by the many. Whether that be for something they do, something they discover, or something the people just plain like. There is that combined with the ingrained "spirit" of competition (if you are not the smartest, you are not the best, you are worthless among the rejected) that makes many in the scientific community lone wolves.

It is a shame that more scientists truly do not know how to network. But that is human nature. It is rare to have someone SO GOOD at one thing and still good at others...


There is much more on this subject, but the one thing I am partially glad about is that people are still willing to keep the records and findings of people they spurned and refuted earlier. That this man's findings were able to be utilized 20 years later.

There were times that if you did not follow the status quo, not only your findings, but your body may never be found later when evidence comes to support your work.

 

[William Gaatjes]

Math is one of the most beautiful tools humanity has. But as any tool, it is not the path to the truth , just a tool. It can be used wisely and it can be used foolishly.

I am doing reading and viewing on the background of calculus and how physics in the mechanical universe came to be. And i can tell you, if my math teachers would have been a bit better at explaining the background of math, math would have been a lot easier when i was a child.

The internet is truly the (2012 ^_^ ) factor. It allows young and old to learn not only from each other by teaching but also by doing research on ones own. A grand library for everyone.

For those interested :
It is about the mechanical universe. About 60 or 70 episodes.
Here everything is explained and with the very important background factor.
When viewing this, math will become easy and fun. And to use it will be even more fun.

Caltech: The Mechanical Universe - 01 - Introduction
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6774539130229106025#

I fear for the day where public is refused of internet. A day that only will come when the closed minded delusional fundamental religious freaks take the earth hostage once again.

To come back to keeping everything to ones self instead of to share the credits, that is because the non scientific world does not understand how much important science is. Thus scientists must fight for their dreams and behave unethical to receive grants. An example :
Nowadays, i have a HTC desire android smartphone. It is an amazing device. Yet all the engineers who worked hard to design this and other similar devices are not seen as smart people. Nor are the scientists who did the ground work.

This i feel is the opinion of many non technical people :
"Because a gsm phone or smartphones you can buy for a few dollars or euros. That means it is nothing special right ? Anybody can build a gsm, right ?
"

It is saddening but people take everything for granted. And thus scientists behave as they do. Although scientists are humans too. Some just prefer to party before the work while the party should be happening after the work.

 

[Ninjahedge]

For me Math was good for PDE's and Calculus when I could SEE them in my head as representations of things like area and volume....


It lost me with Fourier Transforms and the like in Advanced Engineering Mathematics though....


And Matrix Math back in the day where all I had was my 2-line HP calculator??!?

You try using Fortran 77 to make a Finite Element Analysis program you could save on your floppy from your 486's 120 meg HD!!


Math is just hard to visualize in so many cases...



But if we talk to much about it, I think we will get too far OT.... (sorries!)

 

[William Gaatjes]

For me Math was good for PDE's and Calculus when I could SEE them in my head as representations of things like area and volume....


It lost me with Fourier Transforms and the like in Advanced Engineering Mathematics though....


And Matrix Math back in the day where all I had was my 2-line HP calculator??!?

You try using Fortran 77 to make a Finite Element Analysis program you could save on your floppy from your 486's 120 meg HD!!


Math is just hard to visualize in so many cases...



But if we talk to much about it, I think we will get too far OT.... (sorries!)

I do not know if this helps :
For me it worked to visualize fourier transformation as an graphic equalizer.
For every hertz i visualize a bar where the size is dependent on the amplitude. Thus when i hear music, i can not only hear it but i also visualize it as a graph. Afcourse in the mind it is an estimation and not exact values. But it works very good. In the real world, a spectrum analyzer does exactly this but with accurate values.

Some examples :

When you can visualize it, it is easier to see when (for your thought experiments) special events occur. At least that is what i assume.
Great mathematicians (not me at all) can actually visualize math formula's before they derive them.

 

[Ninjahedge]

WG, I got the same thing, and that is what I always think about when I look at the GEQ on something like WinAmp, but it is still hard to picture physically, as an object.

Foirier itself was the line though, there were others that went further, and this is coming from me, a Math Science Engineering (Civil) "student" from times past. Imagine what it is like for people that are not as keyed into it.....

*shrug*