'We have left the familiar world of solids, liquids and gasses. We have entered a world of plasma, where the rules are different and more complex. We now live in an Electric Universe.'<blockquote>'It’s been over 300 years since Newton encountered his apple, and his conception of gravity, now modified by Einstein and supplemented with similar mechanical theories of solids, liquids and gasses, has become the popular vision of space—an almost-empty universe of self-contained bodies. And now it’s been 100 years since
Birkeland encountered his
aurora, and his conception of electric currents in space, developed by such pioneers as Irving Langmuir and Hannes Alfven, has been a footnote to standard theory, rarely called upon except to explain the occasional curiosity in space.
But aided by the new tools of the space age, we’ve discovered that the earlier “curiosities” are much more than footnotes. They are predictable patterns, and they point to radically new possibilities. The cosmic theater has outgrown the Newtonian stage, and we need a larger setting to understand the broader cosmic drama. Instead of a vision of isolated bodies turning gear-like in a vacuum, we need a vision of electrical circuits embedded in a conducting medium whose components drive each other and may be in resonance. We have left the familiar world of solids, liquids and gasses. We have entered a world of
plasma, where the rules are different and more complex. We now live in an
Electric Universe.'
- The Electric Universe:
Part I Bodies and Circuits, May 03, 2005</blockquote>
<blockquote>'If the electrical theorists are correct, those offering conventional answers to newly discovered objects in space need a crash course on plasma and electricity.'
-
A "Tornado" in Space, Feb 10, 2006</blockquote>
'When we extrapolate the Inverse Square Law. ( - dress it up how you will as G[eneral] R[elativity]) from the solar system where it was established, out to galaxies and clusters of galaxies, it simply never works.'<blockquote>'Cosmology requires us to extrapolate what physics we know over huge ranges in space and time, where such extrapolations have rarely, if ever, worked in physics before. Take gravitation for instance.. When we extrapolate the Inverse Square Law. ( - dress it up how you will as G[eneral] R[elativity]) from the solar system where it was established, out to galaxies and clusters of galaxies, it simply never works. We cover up this scandal by professing to believe in "Dark Matter" - for which as much independent evidence exists as for the Emperor's New Clothes.'
- M. J. Disney, The Case Against Cosmology (
pdf), 2000, page 3</blockquote>
'So the electrical theorists can only scratch their heads when they see exclamations of surprise and bafflement over the “mysteries” of interstellar jets. The new discoveries simply confirm the findings of Alfvén and his colleagues: Experiments in the plasma laboratory are scalable to cosmic dimensions.'<blockquote>
'In the twentieth century, astronomers showed only a limited appreciation of plasma phenomena. Most ignored the role of electric currents in space plasma, a subject unfamiliar to them. As a result, the cascade of more recent observations has left astronomers grasping for explanations....
The only known force that can prevent a stream of gas from rapidly dispersing in the vacuum of space is magnetism, and only electric currents can generate a magnetic field. But early in the twentieth century, the community of astronomers had already settled on the idea that gravity and inertia rule the heavens. Having constructed a simple and secure vision of the cosmos, they were not eager to entertain a more exotic force except as an inferior consideration, a footnote to a mathematically elegant “big picture” of the cosmos.
...
And he [Hannes Alfvén] used the occasion of
his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize to plead with scientists to ignore his earlier work. Magnetic fields, he said, are only part of the story. The electric currents that create magnetic fields must not be overlooked, and contemporary attempts to model space plasma in the absence of electric currents will set astronomy and astrophysics on a course toward crisis, he said.
Alfvén stated emphatically that plasma behavior is too “complicated and awkward” for the tastes of the mathematicians. It is a field “not at all suited for mathematically elegant theories”. It requires hands-on attention to plasma dynamics in the laboratory. Sadly, he observed, the plasma universe became “the playground of theoreticians who have never seen a plasma in a laboratory. Many of them still believe in formulae which we know from laboratory experiments to be wrong”.
Again and again Alfvén reiterated the point: the underlying assumptions of cosmologists today “are developed with the most sophisticated mathematical methods and it is
only the plasma itself which does not ‘understand’ how beautiful the theories are and absolutely refuses to obey them”.
...
Decades of laboratory experiments have shown that a toroidal magnetic field, created by a polar plasma discharge, confines the discharge to a narrow jet. In the vacuum of space, a magnetic field will prevent the hot gases of a discharge from rapidly dispersing and cooling like a wisp of steam. In the same way, plasma experiments have shown that it is electrical energy that creates and lights the bright knots and glowing filaments along the path of the discharge. So the electrical theorists can only scratch their heads when they see exclamations of surprise and bafflement over the “mysteries” of interstellar jets. The new discoveries simply confirm the findings of Alfvén and his colleagues: Experiments in the plasma laboratory are scalable to cosmic dimensions.'
-
A Tornado in Space (2),
Remembering Hannes Alfvén’s Admonition, Feb 13, 2006</blockquote>
<blockquote>'For the Electric Universe, the association of non-thermal radio filaments (NRF's) with star-forming regions is expected. However, the argument is turned on its head. The filaments are gigantic Birkeland Currents--transmission lines feeding electric energy into star-forming regions and the galactic center. They are the prime cause of star formation and other activity at the galactic center, not an effect. All star-forming regions--even all individual stars--have similar filaments. The majority of the filaments are not seen in normal light. They are detectable only by their influence on the gas and dust stretching between the stars. But in a few places, including the region near the galactic core, electric power is concentrated so that the star-feeding currents glow. Since the power source is electrical, a gravitational black hole is not needed to explain the energy pouring from the focus of galactic currents at Sgr A.'
-
Galaxy Filaments, Jul 23, 2004</blockquote>
<blockquote>'And even if we do get a perfect map of the Cosmic Background Radiation it will only be a map of a moment in time. Celestial mechanics is very precise - but it doesn’t tell us how the solar system was formed.'
- M. J. Disney, The Case Against Cosmology (
pdf), 2000, page 4</blockquote>