I find this concept really interesting and confusing at the same time. Consider that within plasma laboratories, we can observe certain fundamental morphologies that naturally result from the existence of charge density. Plasmas naturally form double layers, which tend to protect a plasma's charge. The double layer leads to the formation of plasma filaments. We see within the laboratory that plasma filaments tend to exhibit long-range attraction and short-range repulsion with one another. This causes the filaments to twist around one another like a braided rope. Within the plasma laboratory, we observe these complex twisted transfer charged particles very efficiently. They are called Birkeland Currents.

We see these braided filament plasma structures in space too, like in the Cygnus Loop ...

http://www.spacetelescope.org/videos/hd1080p_screen/heic0712g.mp4

http://www.thunderbolts.info/tpod/2007/arch07/070103cygnusloop.htm

Braided ropelike plasma structures are the fingerprints of electromagnetic activity. When you see plasma behaving this way, you need to make sure that you're not trying to use fluids-based equations to understand/model it.

It's interesting that the same thing can be done with respect to radio waves. I'm actually a little bit confused as to why this works for radio waves. When Birkeland Currents do this, they require the existence of a plasma medium, and the structures do their thing in the lab because of the existence of the ionization. The plasma both responds to magnetic fields and creates its own due to the right-hand rule. But these guys seem to be saying that they can create these structures within the Earth's atmosphere in the absence of a plasma medium (?). With Birkeland Currents, the collimation occurs because the flow of charged particles generates a magnetic field.

I'm not getting something. Any plasma physicists out there??? Is HAARP creating an ionized pathway for the signal through the atmosphere?

I realize that Slashdotters are exceptionally anti-creationist. So am I. But, this site is really quite fascinating. In the same way that you wouldn't put your hand up in a religious person's face, we should still listen to the evidence they point to. Once you read this theory, religion doesn't really have much to do with it at all!

I'm quite sure you will see whatever it is you want to see in it. People generally appear to like to confirm their pre-existing beliefs. That's why it's generally a good idea to introduce people to alternative ideas. It provides a more useful context to begin with. In a general sense, the confidence exhibited by Slashdotters on the topic of cosmology is not really shared by a lot of mainstream astrophysicists. Quotes are not hard to come by to demonstrate this fact.

Speculating a little bit, SETI is not receiving signals because ET is most likely inside of the diffuse atmosphere of brown dwarf stars. Planets can orbit within the glow of a brown dwarf. You cannot transmit radio signals through a plasma double layer like that, so ET doesn't even know what stars are inside of this environment. All he can see in his sky is a red glow and possibly vortex-like plasma formations. The perpetual harvest that surrounds him deprives him of any desire to contact us anyways. Why would you try to contact aliens when you are in the Garden of Eden? Brown dwarf atmospheres contain copious amounts of water, which when combined with the perpetual glow from the sky, would cause the entire planet to explode with life.

We have a pretty good idea that this is happening because it appears to be what happened to the Earth as well. Humans were alive to testify to it.

Sounds pretty absurd to you, I'm sure. But when you dig into the details, it's a pretty interesting theory for SETI's failure.

I love how somebody labeled you as "flamebait" for pointing this out. I mean, that's a fairly uncontroversial statement you made there. The Electric Universe is almost entirely based upon the observations of the glow discharge in a plasma laboratory. It shouldn't really be all that controversial.

The notion that we cannot build a simple, workable cosmology based upon the observed behavior of the glow discharge within a plasma laboratory is quite a stunning allegation once you actually educate yourself on the behavior of glow discharges. We can explain EVERY enigmatic feature of the Sun by just observing glow discharges. Kristian Birkeland used nothing more than plasma in a vacuum chamber 100 years ago to replicate numerous astrophysical observations. Anthony Peratt has demonstrated that galaxies are the natural result of large-scale twisting Birkeland Currents. We plainly see that spiral galaxies are oriented like beads on a string, as if they are connected by transmission lines. The writing is already on the wall. You guys just don't know what is being alleged, so the evidentiary support for the Electric Universe just goes right over your head.

It never ceases to amaze me that people don't consider it important to observe the behavior of plasmas within the laboratory when accounting for the behavior of plasmas in space. It's really pretty mind-bending when you consider that the visible matter in space is 99.999% matter in the plasma state. THEMIS has already demonstrated that Birkeland Currents connect the Sun and Earth. The existence of Birkeland Currents clearly violates the premise that space plasmas are magnetized fluids. You can create any cosmology you want by manipulating your models for space plasmas. We have VERY GOOD REASON by now to suspect that the models are extremely flawed.

The entire dominant paradigm demands the overly-simplistic, erroneous application of magnetohydrodynamics models in order to minimize the importance of plasma's electrodynamic properties in astrophysical observations. Hannes Alfven warned the astrophysical community as he was receiving the Nobel Physics prize. Many astrophysicists don't even know what he said in that speech to this day, as if it was never even said. It's quite scandalous.

So long as you imagine that the dominant paradigm is working well, you'll never be motivated to learn about competing paradigms. But you won't ever find any fault in the dominant paradigm if you never actually listen to what the critics are saying. Once you have even a general grasp of what the two paradigms say, it's really rather funny to watch the astrophysicists spin enigmatic observations. They use enigmas to spur interest with the public in the mystery of space. But, the enigmas are never really treated as the predictive failures of the model. They always propose some ad hoc mechanism as a solution, which complicates the model. Our understanding of space is steadily, week after week, becoming more complex. If we were on the right track, we would be seeing a simplification -- not a complexification, if you will. Most of the time, they are actually doing nothing more than binning enigmas into the result of black holes, dark matter or magnetic fields. The public is left with the false impression that progress is being made. But when you dig into concepts like magnetic reconnection, you start to see a willingness to accept metaphysical concepts (that magnetic fields can store and release energy) in order to ignore the more established link between electric currents and magnetic fields.

Most people never investigate deep enough into the issues to even notice the serious problems with our dominant paradigm -- which is rather perplexing for a group of people like Slashdotters. You guys are the engineers of this world. You should put more faith in your ability to understand and critique the astrophysicists. They are saying things that directly violate your own educations -- particularly if you are an electrical engineer. But, you guys appear to accept just about whatever it is they say without question. Somehow, it became acceptable for astrophysicists (whose models tend to be highly deductive and lack experimental basis) to contradict plasma physicists on the behavior of plasmas. It's really quite extraordinary to watch.

This debate will one day eventually explode in the public's awareness and people will go over forums like these in order to understand how all of this could have happened. Astrophysicists will eventually claim that they never actually disagreed that space plasmas could conduct electricity, and that the Electric Universe is still wrong. They will refuse to acknowledge that they were wrong. But we will have the numerous records of EU advocates on forums across the globe to testify to the fact that people were being incredibly lazy in their dismissals of the EU arguments.

Let me guess: You don't have a clue about how a glow discharge works, do you?

Yeah, except for the fact that the sunspots exhibit attraction to one another without apparent combination. By sharp contrast, this is exactly what would be expected if you took a cross-section of two twisted Birkeland Current filaments. They possess long-range attraction and short-range repulsion, meaning that they will dance around one another and yet never fully combine. Think novelty plasma globe.

My understanding is that most, if not all, claims of gravitational lensing require the existence of copious amounts of dark matter in order to even get into the ballpark mass required.

Also, I've seen all sorts of pitiful attempts by ideologues to cast doubt upon Arp's findings. At one point, scientists actually published a paper claiming that Arp's quantization was not observed in raw redshift observations. Those researchers didn't understand what Arp was saying well enough to even realize that the quantization was being proposed for only the intrinsic component of the raw value.

Tom Bridgman has similarly been trying to argue that Arp's quantization is the result of some sort of statistics error. But, why would the recessional component not also demonstrate quantization?

It seems to me that ideologues are very anxious to be done with Arp's observations, which come in a pretty wide array of types of evidence. To this day, however, the idea that redshift must only come in one flavor is pure speculation. The only reason it's never questioned is because it serves as a critical crutch propping up the dominant paradigm.

People will surely argue about Arp for decades to come. The statistics argument is the treatment of last resort for scientific heretics. It's the same thing that was done to Verschuur when he proposed that he was seeing relatively local filaments of hydrogen within the CMB. When people resort to statistics for argumentation, we'd all be wise to keep in mind that there may be politics involved.

If you spoke correctly here (and I'm not sure that you intended to say "EU" there), I believe that this demonstrates a rather severe misunderstanding of the EU model. The corona is hot for the same reason that an anode in a glow discharge is hot. An electron drift occurs within the heliosphere, from the heliospheric boundary (the cathode) towards the anode. This is pretty basic plasma physics here -- the same thing we see with high-voltage DC transmission lines. They ionize the air around them because their voltage difference with the atmosphere creates an electric field that causes electrons to drift into the transmission line while ions are simultaneously accelerated away. The heat is a natural byproduct of the discharge.

Should we just assume that it is pure coincidence that all of the Sun's most prominent features correspond precisely to the glow discharge? Only if we are being biased about it.

Spoken like Plato. It's fun to deduce the operation of the universe, eh? Deduction, however, isn't even necessary when we can study plasmas within the laboratory, and plainly see that our magnetohydrodynamics models are completely archaic.

Um, you guys should get your own house in order before criticizing others. From http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2814-earths-magnetic-field-boosts-gravity.html ...

I smell junk!

You know, when you permit yourself to develop an opinion on the matter prematurely, you will not pay attention to the evidence that supports competing paradigms. For instance, a quick search on "spiral galaxies aligned" will lead to the following article. From http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=4215 ...

Also, you should look carefully at the shape of the Large and Small Magellanic Clouds. They are not at all circular morphologies. That whole system fully supports Anthony Peratt's supercomputer simulations that demonstrate that spiral galaxies can be created by twisting together two large plasma filaments.

You will see braided ropelike plasma structures all over nebulas. We're supposed to believe that these structures are shock fronts, but that assumes that plasmas can be modeled as magnetized fluids. Unfortunately, plasmas are not as easy to model as astrophysicists would like to believe. If I may quote a private conversation with Don Scott ...

The idea that plasmas can be modeled as fluids is rather archaic.

I believe that you've been looking for these ...

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/freeabs_all.jsp?arnumber=4346305

http://members.cox.net/dascott3/SDLIEEE.pdf

From the first link:

There was a mention in the news recently about plasma physicists actually productizing plasma transistors for the first time. You might have seen it.

Well, I think you are underestimating the amount of diligence required to formulate an honest assessment. You really have to spend a couple of years learning about all of this stuff before you should try to argue against it. You really have to follow the arguments on both sides several layers deep, and on each topic. I've found it necessary to pass arguments back and forth between both camps. If you do this, you develop a much higher appreciation of the amount of thought that has gone into the Electric Universe. The large majority of the criticisms are in fact wrong. The real problem is that very few people actually understand what a plasma really is, or what behavior they tend to exhibit within the laboratory. Very few astrophysicists can actually comment on the validity of their magnetohydrodynamics models. Most just assume that the models are right. They're not trained to even question them. It's a real big problem. If you are modeling space plasmas incorrectly as fluids, and in spite of the observation of behavior that is specifically electromagnetic, then sure, you can get your model to say that gravity is dominant. But, you'll also end up with a never-ending slew of surprises as you stare at the sky. When you ignore the intrinsic link between electric current and magnetic fields, in particular, magnetic fields will take on a devilishly complex, almost magical, appearance. That people like yourself will accept the existence of invisible dark matter and yet strenuously object to the existence of electric currents causing the magnetic fields we observe in space ... It really kind of boggles my mind a little bit. There is a sort of collective cognitive dissonance going on that people need to be shaken out of.

You're using YOUR paradigm to judge somebody ELSE's. Sheesh! I believe that Anthony Peratt's view is that plasmas are scalable over 16 orders of magnitude. And in this alternative paradigm, fusion is a byproduct of the action of an anode within a glow discharge. It occurs up near the surface of the Sun, which is why sunspots are observed to anti-correlate with neutrino production. That observation is one of many enigmatic observations within the dominant paradigm.

Well, that's convenient. You seem to have reduced the total number of people who can legitimately interpret astrophysical imagery to those who are already trained to believe in the dominant paradigm.

Oh, and by the way, helioseismology is the most speculative garbage that has ever been called science in the history of science. You cannot look into the Sun. Get over it!!!

But THEMIS has. And, if you don't just accept as fact the interpretations for astrophysical imagery that you've read countless times, then with a little bit of help, you'd plainly see the filaments and braids in space imagery. They range from ambiguous to absolutely undeniable in form.

And Verschuur has identified local filaments of hydrogen gas that correlate with the CMB.

Filaments are everywhere in space. And so is plasma. What makes plasma filamentary? It's electromagnetic rotation. You might be able to get the math to work in a fluids-based model for plasmas under some situations, but fluids do not create the braided ropelike structures we've seen with THEMIS connecting the Sun with the Earth. Many people will dismiss this, but the fact is that it calls into question our magnetohydrodynamics models. Can we really afford to just assume that the math we use to model space plasmas in correct when plasmas represent 99.999% of all visible matter in space? THEMIS should have caused astrophysicists to blink. But the inertia of pre-existing belief is strong.

Well, I would add to that that when it comes to the topic of physics, ridicule possesses the power of a psychological weapon. Studies demonstrate that when a spectator observes somebody else being ridiculed, the spectator will be inclined to avoid the same thing happening to him. In this manner, when it comes to the topic of physics, ridicule is perhaps one of the most effective tools available for keeping people from discussing or thinking about controversial subjects. People already fear making an ass of themselves. Public ridicule -- like here on Slashdot -- will tend to raise the cost of speaking up about one's opinions. This creates a society on Slashdot that is generally more close-minded on the topic of cosmology -- or at least arguably more receptive to opinions that tend to dismiss alternative physical paradigms.

When it comes to debunking the Electric Universe, for instance, many people like to throw around URL's by Tim Thompson, Tom Bridgman and Leroy Ellenberger. But behind the scenes in discussions with Tom and Leroy, we can plainly see that they lack the understanding of plasma glow discharges that Wal Thornhill possesses (Wal is the primary target of their criticisms). Leroy Ellenberger will in fact say anything so long as it causes David Thomson to look bad. Ellenberger hasn't paid any attention to any of the recent findings by any of our probes -- literally for decades. And yet, people on wikipedia treat him as though he's some sort of expert on the Electric Universe just because he turned coat on Velikovsky decades ago. We've come a long, long way from Velikovsky. The Electric Universe, unlike catastrophism, is based upon laboratory plasma physics principles -- in particular, the behavior of the plasma glow discharge. The Sun is, without much doubt, a glow discharge phenomenon. Getting the math all in order to reflect it will take some time, but much of the work has already been done by people like Hannes Alfven, Ralph Juergens and Wal Thornhill.

btw, I still hold out hope for Tim Thompson. His criticisms are far more targeted and intelligent. But, he oftentimes proposes possible explanations that might work in explaining enigmatic observations for the Standard Model as a rationale for not looking into competing paradigms. Many people already accept as fact that the Standard Model has poorly performed, and are already looking for a new paradigm to be created from scratch. We want something simpler than what we've been offered, and the Electric Universe appears to offer that.

Khallow, with all due respect, you appear to be refusing to learn about what a drift current is. We already see that charged particles, when subjected to the electric field of an electric discharge, can actually flow upstream of an outflow of positively charged particles being accelerated away. This is what happens when high-voltage DC trolley lines ionize the surrounding air. The transmission line is the anode and the surrounding atmosphere is the virtual cathode. The same thing also happens in a glow discharge. If you are having problems believing it, then you should get your hands on the Cobine book that I liberally referenced. Wal Thornhill has come to see that book as being the most useful book available for understanding glow discharges.

From Wal Thornhill's book "The Electric Universe" ...

As you can see, two can play that game.

Who says they are massively collapsing? Don't you realize the model is nothing more than a best guess, derived specifically for the purpose of agreeing with the Standard Model? Lifted from holoscience (http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=7hjpuqz9) ...

You claim ...

Well, again no offense, but now you're just demonstrating that you clearly don't understand what the Electric Star Hypothesis says. You appear to not realize -- and pay close attention here -- that the entire HR stellar diagram can be explained in terms of the operating modes of plasmas as observed within the laboratory. We can do away with ALL of the nonsense about stars aging. In fact, we should, because we've already seen stars become younger, get older and become younger once again. The stellar aging hypothesis has effectively become an untestable hypothesis, because when enigmas are noticed they are swept aside by claims that the star has gained fresh fuel.

Red dwarfs are indeed explained in rather great detail in the Electric Universe. And in fact, if you decide to read on, you'll come to find out that planets can actually orbit within the low-temperature, diffuse glowing plasma atmosphere of the red dwarfs. Since these atmospheres contain abundant amounts of water, it is our theory that planets which would orbit inside of those atmospheres would in fact have no seasons. They would receive equal light across their entire surfaces regardless of their orbits. The ramifications for the search for life should be abundantly clear.

But if you refuse to read what these guys are saying, and just dismiss everything in a knee-jerk fashion, then you'll never get to learn about any of that.

You should pick up a copy of Don Scott's "The Electric Sky".