Is the Sun a ball of lightning?

Discussion in 'Pseudoscience Archive' started by Starman, Dec 7, 2008.

  1. Starman Starman Registered Senior Member

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    Problems with the current model of the sun as continuous fusion reaction, releasing energy from the core:

    Missing neutrinos
    Temperature of the halo-like corona is 300 times that of surface
    Rotates faster at equator, faster on surface
    Solar wind accelerates upon leaving the Sun
    Sunspots reveal cooler interior
    Sunspots travel faster than surrounding surface
    Sunspot penumbra (interior walls) reveal structured filaments

    Any thoughts?
     
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  3. Steve100 O͓͍̯̬̯̙͈̟̥̳̩͒̆̿ͬ̑̀̓̿͋ͬ ̙̳ͅ ̫̪̳͔O Valued Senior Member

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    Are you not going to say how the sun being a ball of lightning answers any of these problems, or how they are problems with the current model?
     
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  5. Starman Starman Registered Senior Member

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    Yes, they are problems with the current model.

    Experiments with plasma seem to be similar to how the sun works, we would have to re-consider our concept of nuclear fusion.
     
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  7. Steve100 O͓͍̯̬̯̙͈̟̥̳̩͒̆̿ͬ̑̀̓̿͋ͬ ̙̳ͅ ̫̪̳͔O Valued Senior Member

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    I could just as easily say they are not problems with the current model.
     
  8. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    There are no missing neutrinos. This issue has been resolved by flavor change.

    ... which is consistent with some magnetohydrodynamics models of the Sun. The problem that solar scientists currently face is not so much that they lack an explanation of what is happening on the surface of the Sun. The problem is that there are multiple explanations and there is no reason yet to identify one (or possibly more than one) as definitive.

    To say that because science cannot fully explain every observed phenomenon that all of solar science is invalid is a specious argument. Moreover, invalidating extant solar science would not serve to elevate the status of the silly, content-free, electric sun "hypothesis". That silly conjecture, like any other scientific model has to stand on its own merit.

    The answer to this is closely tied to the previous "issue". Coronal heating is closely allied with the acceleration of the solar wind.

    This is an implied red herring, with the implication that the mundane mainstream scientists says that the Sun should be rotating at the same rate everywhere. There is no reason to expect this to be the case (the Sun is not a solid object) and many reasons to expect otherwise. Jupiter exhibits differential rotation rates, as does the Earth's atmosphere. In short, there is no problem here.

    Sunspots result from immense magnetic activity. The magnetic fields tend to physically isolate the immediate area around the sunspot and thus reduce convective heating from below. The still are subject to radiative cooling. With less incoming heat and no reduction in outgoing heat, sunspots cool off. In short, there is no problem here.

    See http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2007AdSpR..39.1753Z, for example.

    This is an unresolved problem -- for now. This does not mean that all of solar science is wrong. It just means we don't yet know what causes these filaments, and it most certainly does say anything about the validity of some alternative models. The only way to advance your pet hypothesis is to show that it is better. Since the electric sun "hypothesis" is content-free, it explains absolutely nothing.
     
  9. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    Thanks D H.
    Not only is this out of date, but even when this was still a mystery (pre-1998), the conventional explanation which suffered a deficit of 67% of the predicted neutrino detection was better at describing the sun then your description which suffers an embarrassment of failing to predict 100% of the detected neutrinos.

    Here is a picture of the sun made from recording neutrinos:
    http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap980605.html

    Nowadays (more than 10 years later) this is known to be a failure to detect not a failure of the sun to produce.
     
  10. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    Since Maunder minimums have actually been observed, do we then have an alternate explanation for them?
     
  11. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    One very amusing fact about the electric sun crowd is that the work they reject most vociferously is that done by the more mainstream part of the plasma theory crowd. The solar plasma physicists are the ones who have come up with models of the corona, the solar wind, solar rotation, and grand minima (e.g., the Maunder minimum) in solar activity. This is not surprising, as the Sun is a plasma and the two dominant forces near the surface of the Sun are gravity and electromagnetism.

    Re grand minima, see http://solarphysics.livingreviews.org/open?pubNo=lrsp-2008-3&page=articlesu15.html.
     
  12. MetaKron Registered Senior Member

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    You didn't say which work they have rejected.
     
  13. BenTheMan Dr. of Physics, Prof. of Love Valued Senior Member

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    Neutrino Oscillation. Observed.

    Strike this one from your list.
     
  14. fedr808 1100101 Valued Senior Member

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    no the sun is not a ball of lightning.
     
  15. jerrygg38 Registered Member

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    This is news to me. Are you saying that only 33 percent of neutrino energy has been detected?

    My calculations using the neutron shows that the neutrino should only have 0.20178MEV of energy as compared with the predicted 0.7801MEV. My calculations show 25.87 percent. I get this because most of the energy to form the neutron is from the electrical field. Thus in order to push an electron into the proton to form the neutron, the electrical energy is EQ/R. This comes to 1.09122MEV. Therefore the energy of the neutrino is

    1.29300MEV - 1.09122MEV = 0.20178MEV

    I will agree that my calculation is a linear approximation since the electric field is destroyed in the process. Thus the non-linear solution may produce a more energetic neutrino.

    Anyway am I correct in interpreting your data of 67%?
     
  16. Tiassa Let us not launch the boat ... Valued Senior Member

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    A matter of classification

    The sun is a ball of lightning in the same way a fart is a geothermal event. In other words, if you relax your definitions enough, you can classify nearly any two things as similar. For instance, did you know that you are the same thing as a star? After all, a person and a star both represent ratios of matter and energy, and they both radiate.
     
  17. D H Some other guy Valued Senior Member

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    rpenner was talking about something real. Your math is bogus.
     
  18. rpenner Fully Wired Valued Senior Member

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    No.

    Only about 1/3rd of the predicted solar neutrinos were observed at the underground detectors. But the number was suspiciously close to exactly 1/3rd -- if the neutrino flavor and the mass eigenstates weren't simultaneously diagonalizable, then elementary quantum mechanics (and all of it's relativistic extensions) predict that for distant sources only 1/3rd of the electron neutrino signal will be detected. Further experimentation with reactors supported this conclusion.

    This burst of neutrino physics was one of the (top 5?) most interesting fundamental experimental results in the last about 20 years.
     
  19. OilIsMastery Banned Banned

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