<blockquote>"We should remember that there was once a discipline called natural philosophy. 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."
- Hannes Alfvén
'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 (
Context)
'..It seems as if all the phenomena that NASA finds so mysterious can be explained through one agency: electricity.'
- Stephen Smith,
Snap Crackle and Spark, Jul 08, 2011
'Perhaps because humans have no sensory apparatus that is sensitive to specific electrical properties, such as sharks, birds, and platypuses are said to have, we ignore
electricity in nature. When it forces itself onto our attention, we find it spooky and a bit frightening. In this modern day, when we have many instruments that can fill in for our biological lack, and when we have been made aware of the
ubiquity of electrical phenomena, we must reexamine all the mechanical theories that we have inherited and taken for granted to get some idea of whether they should be revised to take electricity into account.'
- Mel Acheson,
Balanced Water Jul 18, 2011
'It is not often that one's fundamental perceptions change. The Electric Universe theory frequently predicts what space probes find.
..
..electrical energy is scaleable up to many orders of magnitude. From the smallest Martian blueberry, the monolithic cliffs on Miranda, or the mountains on Vesta, electricity provides a magnetically guided force that can energize biological organisms at the microscopic level or carve planets, depending on the strength of the current.
Knowing how electricity behaves, along with its essential counterpart, plasma, Electric Universe advocates look at a new reality governed by forces that are invisible or disguised to theories generated by other paradigms. Without the paradigm, the theory is impossible to formulate. Without the theory, no hypothesis can be tested. Experiments come along after the ability to ask new questions, not before.'
- Stephen Smith,
Daughter of Rhea, Jul 21, 2011
'The Electric Universe theory proposes that stars are primarily electrical phenomena and not strictly based on gravitational compression somehow balanced by internal thermonuclear energy. Stars are electromagnetic in nature, responding to the laws of plasma physics and electric circuits and not those of gas dynamics or electrostatics.
This alternative view applies to the Sun, as well as to all other stars that populate the Universe: celestial bodies exist in conducting cosmic plasma and are connected by electric circuits. The Sun is "plugged-in" to a galactic power source and behaves like an electric motor and electric light. The faster rotation of the solar equator is prima facie evidence of an external force acting to offset the momentum loss of the solar wind.
Electric stars are not born from cold nebular clouds. Rather, their genesis resides in the electric currents induced in moving plasma. The electric currents induce their own encircling magnetic field, which "pinches" the currents to flow in filaments. Photographs of plasma in the laboratory show those currents forming twisted filament pairs called "Birkeland currents." Birkeland currents follow magnetic field lines, drawing ionized gas and dust from their surroundings and then "pinching" it into heated blobs called plasmoids.
As the so-called "z-pinch" effect increases, it strengthens the magnetic field, further increasing the z-pinch. The resulting plasmoids form spinning electrical discharges that glow first as red stars, then "switch discharge modes" into yellow stars, some intensifying into brilliant ultraviolet arcs, driven externally by the Birkeland currents that created them.
Since this view of the Sun is at great variance with the conventional view, the mainstream "predictions" concerning solar activity should probably be taken with a grain of salt.'
- Stephen Smith and Wal Thornhill,
A Solar Siesta, Aug 05, 2011
'Clouds on the Sun are electrically charged, so dynamic structures should be described using plasma physics.
<blockquote>"The plasma exhibited striations and double layers; the electron distribution was non-Maxwellian; there were all sorts of oscillations and instabilities."
--- Hannes Alfvén, shortly after receiving his
Nobel prize</blockquote>
According to a recent press release, physicists from the University of Warwick in Coventry, England discovered regions of plasma instability occurring along the edges of some solar filaments. Warwick researchers "...spotted a familiar pattern of instability on one flank of an exploding cloud of solar material that closely paralleled instabilities seen in Earth’s clouds and waves on the surfaces of seas."
The pattern seen within the exploding solar double layer was dubbed a Kelvin-Helmholtz instability because it seemed to be occurring between two regions of different velocity. In other words, fluid dynamics theory is being attached to the phenomenon in an attempt to explain its features.
The Electric Universe hypothesis is based on electrodynamic principles and not on electrostatic or kinetic behavior. Its basic premise is that celestial bodies are immersed in plasma and are connected by circuits. Since the Sun is "plugged-in" to the galaxy and to its family of planets, it behaves like a charged object seeking equilibrium with its environment.
An electric discharge in plasma creates a tube-like magnetic sheath along its axis. If enough current flows through the circuit, the discharge will cause the sheath to glow, sometimes creating a number of other sheaths within it. The sheath is called a “double layer.”
Double layers form when positive charges build up in one region of a plasma cloud and negative charges build up nearby. A powerful electric field appears between the two regions, which accelerates charged particles. The electric charges spiral in the magnetic fields, emitting X-rays, extreme ultraviolet, and sometimes gamma rays.
Toroidal filaments couple to hourglass-shaped current sheets that are subject to diocotron instabilities: the current flow through plasma sometimes
forms vortices that change into distorted curlicue shapes. This phenomenon has been witnessed in many laboratory experiments, as well as in the polar aurorae.
Plasma physicist
Dr. Anthony Peratt wrote: "One of the outstanding problems in the propagation of electron beams along an axial magnetic field is the breakup of the beam into discrete vortex-like current bundles when a threshold determined either by the beam current or distance of propagation is surpassed. The phenomena observed closely resembles that associated with the Kelvin-Helmholtz fluid dynamical shear instability, in which vortices develop throughout a fluid when a critical velocity in the flow is exceeded..." '
- Stephen Smith,
Cloudy with a Chance of Instability, Aug 02, 2011
'Hannes Alfvén's "
electric galaxy" hypothesis, on the other hand, states that galaxies (and by extension, stars and other objects) are more like a device invented by Michael Faraday, the homopolar motor. A homopolar motor is driven by magnetic fields induced in a circular, conductive metal plate. The plate rotates between the poles of an electromagnet, causing it to spin at a rate proportional to the input current.
Since galaxies exist within a filamentary circuit of electricity that flows through the cosmos, they and their attendant stellar and planetary offspring most likely spin because of electricity flowing through them like it does through Faraday's motor.'
- Stephen Smith,
Wheels within Wheels, Jul 21, 2011</blockquote>
'Since astronomers do not map the current flow through space, or consider its influence on stellar evolution, they overstate the case for gravitational models. The electrical input and output of the stars is not considered when theories are debated. By failing to give it credence, an entire line of investigation remains fallow.'<blockquote>'The Electric Star hypothesis resolves many of the distorted opinions that arise when astronomers misunderstand the role of plasma and electric fields in space. Rather than gravity and kinetic activity (heated gas), radiant emanations result from electric currents. More powerful electric flux results in more powerful energetic output.
Electric discharges in plasma clouds create double layers, or sheaths, along their current axes. Positive charge builds up on one side and negative charge on the other. An electric field develops between the sides, and if enough current is applied, the sheath glows; otherwise it is invisible.
When electric currents flow along the sheaths, the currents spiral into filaments. The filaments attract each other, but rather than merging, they form zones of enormous compressive force known as z-pinches. Arc mode discharges might occur. Gravity, although it plays a small role in stellar evolution, is far too weak a force when compared to electric fields in plasma.
Since astronomers do not map the
current flow through space, or consider its influence on stellar evolution, they overstate the case for gravitational models. The electrical input and output of the stars is not considered when theories are debated. By failing to give it credence, an entire line of investigation remains fallow.
Retired professor of electrical engineering Don Scott provided a new look at stars in his book
The Electric Sky. Scott suggests that mass, temperature, and luminosity are not the only factors that should be considered when describing a star's life cycle. The most important factor is the current density in Amperes per square meter (A/m^2) at the star's surface. If the incoming current density increases, a star's surface gets hotter, radiates shorter wavelengths, and becomes brighter. Therefore, the strength of the impinging current density, as well as diameter, are responsible for a star's absolute brightness.
Massive stars might not be so massive after all. The intense radiation that is interpreted as an "atmosphere blowing away" is most likely due to high input currents triggering frequent bursts of stellar lightning. What appears to be a giant star might be a relatively small star with a large coma structure that is emitting a torrent of charged particles. Whether such stars live short or long lives has nothing to do with their gravitational mass.
- Stephen Smith,
Stellar Shedding, Jul 11, 2011
'In the Electric Universe, a large part of the redshift of a body (quasar, galaxy, even a
star) is intrinsic and probably due to the charge on the body. It is an indicator of the age since the body was formed or ejected, as distinguished from “age since the big bang.” High-redshift objects are fragments of violent, far-from-equilibrium plasma discharges from relatively nearby galaxies: they are small, faint, and nearby (compared to the “ultra” designations of the consensus theories).
Since they are electrical discharges, mass is of little concern and black-hole theory is unnecessary. They don’t “merge,” but neither do they “feed.” They are loads in an intergalactic circuit that is subject to instabilities and can discharge energy from the circuit—more than is available locally.
- Mel Acheson,
Astronomical Fashion Flips, Jul 15, 2011
'Planetary scientists ignore electrical explanations because they know almost nothing about plasma and electric currents in space. The "rubble pile" theory of asteroid composition was created to help explain the mass anomalies that have been seen in asteroid crater studies. It is the only available explanation in a gravity-based model. Asteroids are supposed to be "loosely compacted," so it is presumed that they act like big sand piles and absorb impacts without shattering. Asteroids therefore have no hard crust, according to consensus viewpoints, so they do not fracture despite repeated pounding.
In an Electric Universe, it is unnecessary for one object to crash into another for craters to exist. Electric arcs can gouge surfaces and scoop out material, accelerating it into space, leaving clean, deep pits. Based on
laboratory analysis, plasma discharges probably eroded Vesta (and other asteroids and moons with large, deep craters).'
- Stephen Smith,
Vesta in View, Jul 04, 2011
'Arid regions are influencing their weather using electrical technology.
According to a recent
press release, the United Arab Emirates successfully caused rain to fall by making use of negative ion generators. Approximately 50 rainstorms fell in the driest months, during which time weather forecasters did not predict any rain at all.
Scientists installed a network of interconnected conductors in the desert that release clouds of negatively charged ions. As the particles rise in the hot air, they attract water vapor in the atmosphere, since water is a dipolar molecule with both positive and negative poles.
..
The ionosphere is connected to the Sun by twisting filaments of electric current, so the lower levels of the atmosphere must also experience the Sun's influence because of the additional circuit node that connects them with the ionosphere. Could these electric circuits linking the atmosphere with the Sun have anything to do with Earth's climate in either the short or long term?
This leads to the more general idea that all weather may be influenced by the electrical connection between Earth and solar plasma. The larger view has only recently been considered, so experiments designed to verify the effect that charged particles have on Earth's weather are now being conducted. It appears that they are having some success.'
- Stephen Smith,
Rainmaker Jul 06, 2011
'The electrical history of the solar system includes intensely energetic events and violent interactions between charged planets and moons. That electric arcs can remove material with ease is proven by the experiments conducted by Dr. C. J. Ransom of VEMASAT Laboratories. His plasma discharges excavate surface depressions, scoop out material, and explode it into the air, leaving cleanly cut features.
The lightning bolts that carved Mars threw large chunks of its crust into orbit around it, as well as sending them around the Sun. The electric fields that accompanied the celestial disasters of the past smoothed and eroded them with plasma discharges. The result is that Phobos and the asteroids mentioned are covered in dust, are defined by huge craters, and look like they're
half-melted.Phobos and Deimos appear to be remnants of a catastrophic event that electrically devastated their parent planet.'
- Stephen Smith,
Phobos-Grunt Aug 04, 2011
'It is widely presumed by astrophysicists that the Universe is electrically neutral, so when electrically active plasma is found in space, or on other rocky bodies, it is glossed over. Localized phenomena no matter how improbable are invoked: tidal "kneading," "cryo-vulcanism," and "geysers" erupting from underground chambers of liquid water are given as the cause for activity seen on Enceladus, while electricity is ignored.'
- Stephen Smith,
Rainy Days on Saturn, Aug 03, 2011
'Since dark matter cannot be seen by optical telescopes and can be analyzed through inference alone, could it be that something else is taking place? Something that NASA and the ESA observers have failed to consider as an active force? That "something" is electricity.
..
Since Birkeland currents are drawn toward each other in a linear relationship, dark matter is unnecessary when electric currents flowing through plasma are recognized as the most powerful long-range accretion force.'
- Stephen Smith,
Doubting the Dark, Aug 18, 2011
'The plasma cosmogony hypothesis suggests that stars form when cosmic Birkeland currents twist around one another, creating z-pinch regions that compress plasma into a solid. Laboratory experiments have shown that such compression zones are the most likely candidates for star formation and not collapsing nebulae, which is the eighteenth century theory to which astrophysicists still cling.
When stars are born, they are most likely under extreme electrical stress. If such is the case, they will split into one or more daughter stars, thereby equalizing their electrical potential.
Thornhill writes: "The fission process is repeated in further electrical disturbances by flaring red dwarfs and gas giant planets ejecting rocky and icy planets, moons, comets, asteroids and meteorites. Planetary systems may also be acquired over time by electrical capture of independent interstellar bodies such as dim brown dwarf stars. That seems the best explanation for our ‘fruit salad’ of a solar system."
He
also argues that the longer a star lives, the more metal it will accumulate: "Intense plasma discharges at the stellar surface give rise to starshine. Those discharges synthesize 'metals' that continually rain into the star's depths." At some point, the star ejects those metallized accumulations as large, ionized gas giant-type planets. Smaller, rocky objects might also calve from the host star.
When it becomes possible to send probes to other star systems, they will most likely find planets similar to those around our own Sun. The electric forces that formed this planet most likely formed the exoplanets, so it is expected that we will find Earth-like planets eventually.
- Stephen Smith,
A Mystifying Menagerie, Jul 28, 2011
' ‘Plasma mythology’ may be defined as the study of plasmas, specifically near-earth plasmas, in human traditions, such as mythology and proto-scientific records. If this is a discipline, one of its most notable pioneers must be the French
savant, Jean-Jacques d’Ortous de Mairan (1678-1771).
De Mairan was a prominent biologist, a geophysicist and an astronomer, who conducted vital experiments in the circadian rhythms of living organisms. His interests extended to atmospheric plasma avant la lettre, as he was obsessed with the aurora borealis, but neither the concept nor the term ‘plasma’ had yet entered the minds of scientists. As an auroral expert, de Mairan towered well above his contemporaries. He was apparently the first to use mathematical methods in order to measure the height of the aurorae in 1726. In 1733, he published what has been identified as “the first textbook devoted entirely to the subject” of aurorae; this was his magisterial
Traité physique et historique de l’aurore boréale. And although he gave short shrift to an electrical theory of the phenomenon, he hit the nail on the head when he attributed the lights to interaction between the atmospheres around the earth and the sun:
<blockquote>‘… it is always certain that there really is other matter outside the Terrestrial Globe, to wit, the matter of the Atmosphere of the Sun, which is endowed with the property to reflect or to shoot at us a sensible light …; that this matter may reach as far as our Atmosphere, as it actually does, & often passes well from there to the Terrestrial Orbit, so that, consequently, it is suited to mix with the superior parts of our Atmosphere, & that it may be … a sufficient cause of the Phenomenon we are concerned with.’</blockquote>
In recent years, evidence for an auroral component in the world’s rich tapestry of myth and tradition has mounted and de Mairan’s proposition is worth revisiting – if only because the aurora is now known to have been much more frequent and intense over the eastern Mediterranean basin during the early 1st millennium BCE (see [
thunderbolts.info];
- Rens Van der Sluijs,
Mountains of Evidence, Aug 15, 2011
'Where does the idea of constellations come from? And how do these arbitrary groups of stars relate to mythology? '
- Rens Van der Sluijs,
Seeing Things—In the Sky Part One, Aug 10, 2011
'..a promising scenario involves extraordinarily vivid transient events in the atmosphere, as observed globally during prehistoric times. Once our scientists are ready to recognise the full impact such near-earth plasmas must have had on the earth and its inhabitants, we may want to thank our lucky stars that some survived to tell the tale.'
- Rens Van der Sluijs,
Seeing Things—In the Sky Part Two, Aug 12, 2011
'The conjecture that many mythical snakes or dragons signify bright plasma filaments observed at times in the earth’s atmosphere successfully accounts for a large number of traditions. In many cases, the assumption of a mundane sighting of an auroral band, ray or curtain suffices. In other cases, specifically where the ‘deep’ mythology of creation is concerned, more intense types of plasma activity must be imagined.
A common manufacturing process is
electric discharge machining (EDM), whereby a series of controlled current discharges remove material from a surface, producing a desired pattern. Tornadoes and powerful lightning flashes are known on occasion to create trenches and Lichtenberg figures. Could similar discharge events on a planetary scale have gouged out riverbeds and canyons, on other planets as well as on earth? Could this also have occurred in prehistoric times, prompting human witnesses, scared witless, to recognise a ‘creative dragon’ in a vortical plasma cloud that, tornado-like, scoured the landscape?
Blasphemous though the thought may be to geologists used to imperceptible slowness in their models as well as their thought processes, the electrical phenomenon itself is undeniably real. Plasma cosmologists, who demonstrate a much greater awareness of the preponderance of the electromagnetic force throughout the universe, could more easily accommodate the thought of atmospheric discharges leaving visible marks on the surface of the earth. It is to be hoped that future research will be able to close at least this rift.'
- Rens Van Der Sluijs,
Draconian Landscaping, Feb 22, 2011
'..In 1450 AD, the catastrophic comet Mahuika descended upon the coast of New Zealand. Reputed to be twenty-six times as bright as the Sun, it discharged electrically and shattered Admiral Zhou Man’s Chinese fleet of some sixty ships. The fleet supported a thriving Chinese colony of Han, Tang and Song, mining gold, jade and antimony in New Zealand. The comet’s screaming noise blew out the sailors' eardrums; they received horrific burns.
..
Conventional geology insists on a slow creation of Port Phillip Bay in a post ice age (Pleistocene) event occurring some ten thousand years ago. However, recent research from the University of Melbourne confirms this formation occurred within the last thousand years. This was a catastrophic event.
- Peter Mungo Jupp,
Mega-Tsunamis, Chinese Junks and Port Phillip Bay , Aug 17, 2011
'..the current flow through plasma sometimes
forms vortices that change into distorted curlicue shapes. This phenomenon has been witnessed in many laboratory experiments, as well as in the polar aurorae.'
- Stephen Smith,
A Kinked Link, Aug 01, 2011
A signature phenomenon in a dense plasma focus is helical strands of energy surrounding a powerful arc-mode discharge and a dark-current torus. The helical strands are plasma confined by magnetic fields into something like "power lines" in space, otherwise known as Birkeland current filaments. That phenomenon is present in the plasma gun discharge that makes up AM 0644-741.
- Stephen Smith,
It Has a Nice Ring To It , Jul 25, 2011
'Earth is said to emit heat energy because radioactive elements decay in its depths. Electrical activity might be a better explanation.'
- Stephen Smith,
Forty-four Trillion Watts, Jul 29, 2011
'Fast forward a century or so and another amateur archaeologist and lover of hiking is seen engrossed in a systematic exploration of prehistoric rock art, from caves to exposed rocks, working in ever greater circles from the direct surroundings of his home. Although most of the logged sites still carry Spanish names, New Mexico is now the centre of action. Amassing what is arguably the largest database of petroglyph and pictograph images worldwide, this collector makes another discovery that should rock the academic world. This time, the thought revolution does not concern the exquisite naturalistic art of Palaeolithic times, but the crude and angular images produced in the Neolithic – and some time afterwards. A mixed group of electrical engineers and mythologists are quick to offer support and spread the word to a sympathetic audience. Fully aware of the importance of his findings and with an unwavering zest for knowledge, the researcher unabashedly lectures at a prestigious university to an audience of archaeologists and other specialists. But he is greeted with derision. A decade on, not a single archaeological publication has addressed his work, not a single archaeologist has picked up the gauntlet and gone out to test the new idea. A stunning silence is the collective voice of scholarship.'
- Rens Van der Sluijs,
Painted Into a Corner? Aug 08, 2011
'Lightning of sufficient power can compress material in the discharge channel and accelerate it along with the negative charge, forming a jet. If the jet contains water vapor, liquid water or even ice might form inside the spinning Birkeland filament due to z-pinch effects.
If this phenomenon were to be scaled up to planetary dimensions, the increased electric discharges might have dumped quantities of ice particles onto the surface that clumped together into the frozen piles of debris that MRO's imagers allegedly detected.
The fact that areologists are thinking about lava instead of water is a step toward an understanding of catastrophic evolution on Mars. If what we find on Mars took place in the presence of planetary lightning bolts and was not the result of ice or water moving across the surface, should we rethink our ideas about similar observations here on Earth?'
- Stephen Smith,
When is a Flood not a Flood? Aug 19, 2011</blockquote>
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