IIRC, in at least one of Manuel's paper there is a case presented for D meeting requirements 1 and 4. However, Manual's idea would seem to require that the Sun is a very special star.
Let me start with this point. Manuel's idea would not require the belief that our sun is all that "special". In other words, if Manuel is correct, then we would be likely to find that all stars contain a small spinning neutron core since our sun contains a small core and it does not seem special in any particular respect. Some neutron cores might be larger than others, some might rotate faster than others, but the basic concept could be applied to all stars, not just our own star.
There's actually some interesting new evidence this week to suggests that "white dwarfs" exhibit some of the pulsing properties that are typically associated with spinning neutron stars.
Note that a rapidly spinning inner core might go a long way to explaining the "missing momentum" that is observed in stars. The outside surface of stars does not seem to rotate anywhere near fast enough to explain where all the momentum went during their formation process.
Quote:
Perhaps the weakest link here is in robustly, and independently, estimating the ages of MS stars ... I think such robust estimates can be made, but they are not easy to describe in 1,000 words or less. Of course, invoking some form of the Copernican principle side-steps the need for such estimates, at least for stars that are, by direct observation, very similar to the Sun.
I think one of the primary unknowns with EU theories in general, and particularly when it is combined with iron sun theories, is the fact that in EU theory, stars could be almost any age and it would be nearly impossible to predict how long they might last. If the total energy output isn't limited to internal sources of energy, then in theory at least, an iron star could last much longer than a hydrogen/fusion burning sun.
Quote:
Perhaps Michael Mozina would be kind enough to provide references which address how E meets requirements 1 through 4?
Well, I can't even say for sure what all the energy sources (plural) might be. In fact, in EU theory, even the internal vs. external energy concept gets "fuzzy". Let's start with some basic observations.
The sun as you know, is not actually a "blackbody" of any sort. Its atmosphere is not solid, but rather it's outer atmosphere is made entirely of light plasmas that do no emit energy uniformly like a blackbody. The plasmas are actually cooler in the lower atmosphere and hotter in the upper atmosphere. The solar atmosphere has got million degree coronal loops sticking out in some places while other areas of the atmosphere show no such activity. As an energy calculation method, blackbody calculations might be a useful way of looking at the total energy output, but as it comes to describing the actual heat flow behaviors (energy signatures) of the sun's atmosphere, it's completely meaningless to think of ans sun as a "blackbody". We're can really only consider how we might explain a "total" energy release that is somewhere in the range of 3.8 X 10^36 watts, that is "extremely" stable over a 30 year window and "moderately" stable over a much longer window of time.
Some other observations are useful when talking about the energy output of the sun. The solar wind accelerates as it leaves the photosphere. X-ray jets shoot off the surface of the photosphere at very high speeds, and the coronal temperatures are OOM's hotter than the surface of the photosphere. All these observations suggest to an EU proponent that the sun's atmosphere electrically interacts with the heliosphere and ultimately with the galactic winds. These behaviors suggest that electrons rain down onto the sun and into our solar system in great volume. These electron flows provide a significant amount of the heat that the sun generates in the form of resistance inside the plasmas of the upper solar atmosphere.
There are definitely "local" energy releases associated with the current flows through the atmosphere. Rhessi observes neutron capture signatures and gamma-ray signatures in the solar atmosphere that are consistent with P-P and CNO fusion processes.
Interestingly enough, as MITM at BAUT, I even got Tim T to agree that these high energy emissions were probably associated with at least P-P fusion processes in the solar atmosphere. These fusion processes occur "locally" (in the solar atmosphere), but the fusion processes themselves are a direct result of the z-pinches in the electron currents that flow through the plasmas of the atmosphere. Is that local fusion of hydrogen and/or carbon an "inner" or an "outer" energy source?
There are energy releases from the solar atmosphere that are a direct result of high energy (cosmic ray) particles striking the solar atmosphere.
There are also likely to be any number of possible internal energy release mechanisms, including heat related to gravitational compression forces, and probably some induction processes related to having a rapidly spinning core rotating inside of a mostly metallic crust. There could be fusion processes inside the sun, or even fission processes inside a mass separated sun. There are many possible options to choose from, and there is currently little if any way to determine how much of the total energy release is due to any of these potential influences.
As a rule of thumb, I would suspect that most EU enthusiasts are more apt to suggest that the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons), not from the sun itself. The regulation of the energy output would be external as well. I would personally be inclined to agree with that assessment, but I personally believe that there are significant internal energy sources to account for. I don't think that Oliver's purely internal energy output calculations would necessarily need to apply to an electric sun theory, but I do believe there is a significant local component to the energy release process.
The overall stability of the sun's output would be related to the overall stability of the current flow through the sun. The slow but steady changes to the energy output over billion year timelines could be related to changes to the internal configuration (I.e. the core loses momentum and spins more slowly over time). It could also be related to the suns' positioning within the galaxy, or the energy flow changes within the entire galaxy.
I tend to believe that the sun's core rotates rapidly (on a 5 minute rotation cycle) and that it is composed of either a heavy neutron material as Dr Manuel suggests (mostly likely scenario IMO), or it is composed of heavy elements like Iron and Nickel and/or fissionable materials. Whatever the material of the core, it probably takes the form of a flowing internal z-pinch filament, with strong currents running through/around the core. I can't say for sure how much energy is produced internally due to induction etc, because as you said before, there is little if any way to test for an internal energy source based on our current state of technology. We would have to know what the external current flows were, and how much resistance we might expect with very great precision to have any idea how much additional internal energy we might need to explain the sun's total energy output. I don't think we're anywhere close to that level of sophistication just yet. Even an induction type of "inner" energy release process might be caused by a z-pinch through the core that "winds it up" which in turn could help regulate the flow of current through the core.
I tend to favor a spinning core of heavy elements, and I personally lean toward a neutron material, whereas other EU proponents like upriver seem to be much more skeptical of the presence of neutron materials. A basic spinning core solar model would work with a core made of heavy elements as well. The observation of a 22 year rotation of the sun's magnetic field suggests that there is either an internally driven process that is responsible for that observation (like a rapidly spinning core that slowly rotates it's spin axis due to induction, or it is due to an external process such as the changing galactic wind condition at the heliosheath. We don't have the technology to test either of these theories at the moment.
If the nuclear strong interaction does not power stars, what is its utility? To give electricity to France through its nuclear reactors? Remember Occam's Razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). But the strong force is evidently necessary.
Tullio
More substantively, it's clear, from the Birkeland quote (that you have reproduced here), that he (Birkeland) assumed that the mass of what we (today) call the ISM is greater than that of the stars within it. In this respect, your gloss appears inaccurate - Birkeland did NOT "calculate[] [...] that most of the mass of a galaxy and the universe was contained in the plasma steams and electrons streams between the stars, not in the stars themselves".
No, actually, he indeed "calculated" it. I'll have to skim through the pdf when I get a chance to find that same quote. His calculation was shortly after that flying ion quote as I recall. Before you write Birkeland off Nereid, take a gander at the the math he provides around page 650-770. Birkeland was every bit as capable of doing the math as you are, or Alfven was. None of you were slouches in the areas of quantification methods and mathematical calculation. I think his density calculations is on page 720, or somewhere around there.
[snip]
Wow! That's a >160MB file!!
Anyway, I downloaded and read it (well, skimmed it, and didn't even look at the ~600 pages of 'Plates').
I couldn't find anything at all on the ISM, with electrons and ions, along the lines of the Peratt quote; when you do find it, would you mind letting us know which page(s) it's on please?
I also appreciate better what Peratt said ("He then shot clouds of electrons towards this simulated Earth to produce a light phenomenon that looked like the aurora. (We now know that the solar wind also consists of positive ions, as well as negative electrons.)". Certainly Birkeland's work seems very good, for his time, but modern data on the observable phenomena is dramatically better.
The "looked like" is quite educational: while the visual images do 'look like' aurorae, and while Birkeland's simulation does reproduce his hypothesised mechanism (at least qualitatively), he was also lucky, in the sense that we now know the detailed mechanisms involved*, and, from this much deeper understanding, know that the parts that Birkeland missed (or got wrong) do not affect the visual appearance of aurorae (within the restricted range of Birkeland's tests; he did not, for example, examine spectra, for example, or polarisation).
Also of interest is that Birkeland proposed a mechanism for how the Sun shines: radioactive decay (I should add it as source H). It is not a key part of his 'paper'; rather it is a by-product of his speculation as to the source of the electrons causing aurorae.
One last note: I think I read, somewhere in those >900 pages, that Birkeland's hypothesis leads to the electrons which cause aurorae being (highly) relativistic, and that they take not much more time to get from the Sun to Earth than light does. If indeed this is a logical consequence of his hypothesis, then we could use it as a good example of how science works - some parts of Birkeland's proposed mechanism turn out to be right, others quite wrong; the theory/model gets modified, tweaked, adjusted, new observations taken and tests performed; and the cycle repeats.
* much better anyway; for sure there are many more details awaiting discovery
Perhaps Michael Mozina would be kind enough to provide references which address how E meets requirements 1 through 4?
Well, I can't even say for sure what all the energy sources (plural) might be. In fact, in EU theory, even the internal vs. external energy concept gets "fuzzy". Let's start with some basic observations.
The sun as you know, is not actually a "blackbody" of any sort. Its atmosphere is not solid, but rather it's outer atmosphere is made entirely of light plasmas that do no emit energy uniformly like a blackbody. The plasmas are actually cooler in the lower atmosphere and hotter in the upper atmosphere. The solar atmosphere has got million degree coronal loops sticking out in some places while other areas of the atmosphere show no such activity. As an energy calculation method, blackbody calculations might be a useful way of looking at the total energy output, but as it comes to describing the actual heat flow behaviors (energy signatures) of the sun's atmosphere, it's completely meaningless to think of ans sun as a "blackbody". We're can really only consider how we might explain a "total" energy release that is somewhere in the range of 3.8 X 10^36 watts, that is "extremely" stable over a 30 year window and "moderately" stable over a much longer window of time.
Some other observations are useful when talking about the energy output of the sun. The solar wind accelerates as it leaves the photosphere. X-ray jets shoot off the surface of the photosphere at very high speeds, and the coronal temperatures are OOM's hotter than the surface of the photosphere. All these observations suggest to an EU proponent that the sun's atmosphere electrically interacts with the heliosphere and ultimately with the galactic winds. These behaviors suggest that electrons rain down onto the sun and into our solar system in great volume. These electron flows provide a significant amount of the heat that the sun generates in the form of resistance inside the plasmas of the upper solar atmosphere.
There are definitely "local" energy releases associated with the current flows through the atmosphere. Rhessi observes neutron capture signatures and gamma-ray signatures in the solar atmosphere that are consistent with P-P and CNO fusion processes.
Interestingly enough, as MITM at BAUT, I even got Tim T to agree that these high energy emissions were probably associated with at least P-P fusion processes in the solar atmosphere. These fusion processes occur "locally" (in the solar atmosphere), but the fusion processes themselves are a direct result of the z-pinches in the electron currents that flow through the plasmas of the atmosphere. Is that local fusion of hydrogen and/or carbon an "inner" or an "outer" energy source?
There are energy releases from the solar atmosphere that are a direct result of high energy (cosmic ray) particles striking the solar atmosphere.
There are also likely to be any number of possible internal energy release mechanisms, including heat related to gravitational compression forces, and probably some induction processes related to having a rapidly spinning core rotating inside of a mostly metallic crust. There could be fusion processes inside the sun, or even fission processes inside a mass separated sun. There are many possible options to choose from, and there is currently little if any way to determine how much of the total energy release is due to any of these potential influences.
As a rule of thumb, I would suspect that most EU enthusiasts are more apt to suggest that the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons), not from the sun itself. The regulation of the energy output would be external as well. I would personally be inclined to agree with that assessment, but I personally believe that there are significant internal energy sources to account for. I don't think that Oliver's purely internal energy output calculations would necessarily need to apply to an electric sun theory, but I do believe there is a significant local component to the energy release process.
The overall stability of the sun's output would be related to the overall stability of the current flow through the sun. The slow but steady changes to the energy output over billion year timelines could be related to changes to the internal configuration (I.e. the core loses momentum and spins more slowly over time). It could also be related to the suns' positioning within the galaxy, or the energy flow changes within the entire galaxy.
I tend to believe that the sun's core rotates rapidly (on a 5 minute rotation cycle) and that it is composed of either a heavy neutron material as Dr Manuel suggests (mostly likely scenario IMO), or it is composed of heavy elements like Iron and Nickel and/or fissionable materials. Whatever the material of the core, it probably takes the form of a flowing internal z-pinch filament, with strong currents running through/around the core. I can't say for sure how much energy is produced internally due to induction etc, because as you said before, there is little if any way to test for an internal energy source based on our current state of technology. We would have to know what the external current flows were, and how much resistance we might expect with very great precision to have any idea how much additional internal energy we might need to explain the sun's total energy output. I don't think we're anywhere close to that level of sophistication just yet. Even an induction type of "inner" energy release process might be caused by a z-pinch through the core that "winds it up" which in turn could help regulate the flow of current through the core.
I tend to favor a spinning core of heavy elements, and I personally lean toward a neutron material, whereas other EU proponents like upriver seem to be much more skeptical of the presence of neutron materials. A basic spinning core solar model would work with a core made of heavy elements as well. The observation of a 22 year rotation of the sun's magnetic field suggests that there is either an internally driven process that is responsible for that observation (like a rapidly spinning core that slowly rotates it's spin axis due to induction, or it is due to an external process such as the changing galactic wind condition at the heliosheath. We don't have the technology to test either of these theories at the moment.
Thanks for the lengthy reply Michael.
I must say that I'm now rather confused.
Back on 26 December, 2007, in this thread, you wrote, in answer to the question "How does he propose the Sun generates its energy? (3.9e26 W is not a trivial affair - aside from nuclear reactions I really can't see any way)":
The sun does not generate the bulk of it's energy, though it does generate some energy locally. The bulk of the energy comes from the electrical current that flows through the sun.
Your more recent post is much more tentative, to the point of all but declaring 'anything goes' ("There are many possible options to choose from, and there is currently little if any way to determine how much of the total energy release is due to any of these potential influences.")
In any case, can you provide us with references to papers which describe the details of the hypothesis that "the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons)" and which include estimates of what that energy is (i.e. the extent to which it satisfies requirement 1)?
IIRC, in at least one of Manuel's paper there is a case presented for D meeting requirements 1 and 4. However, Manual's idea would seem to require that the Sun is a very special star.
Let me start with this point. Manuel's idea would not require the belief that our sun is all that "special". In other words, if Manuel is correct, then we would be likely to find that all stars contain a small spinning neutron core since our sun contains a small core and it does not seem special in any particular respect. Some neutron cores might be larger than others, some might rotate faster than others, but the basic concept could be applied to all stars, not just our own star.
There's actually some interesting new evidence this week to suggests that "white dwarfs" exhibit some of the pulsing properties that are typically associated with spinning neutron stars.
Note that a rapidly spinning inner core might go a long way to explaining the "missing momentum" that is observed in stars. The outside surface of stars does not seem to rotate anywhere near fast enough to explain where all the momentum went during their formation process.
Quote:
Perhaps the weakest link here is in robustly, and independently, estimating the ages of MS stars ... I think such robust estimates can be made, but they are not easy to describe in 1,000 words or less. Of course, invoking some form of the Copernican principle side-steps the need for such estimates, at least for stars that are, by direct observation, very similar to the Sun.
I think one of the primary unknowns with EU theories in general, and particularly when it is combined with iron sun theories, is the fact that in EU theory, stars could be almost any age and it would be nearly impossible to predict how long they might last. If the total energy output isn't limited to internal sources of energy, then in theory at least, an iron star could last much longer than a hydrogen/fusion burning sun.
There may be an earlier paper where Manuel presents this source; there are several later conference presentations, posters, and (I think) one paper which present source D.
None of these address requirements 2, 3, or 4.
Regarding requirement 1: Manuel et al. simply declare that >57% of 'solar luminosity' is due to 'neutron emission from the solar core', where the 'solar core' is a neutron star in which the neutrons are in an excited state; neutrons which are 'emitted' from this core produce '~10-22 MeV' per neutron. There are at least two references to this process, but I have not been able to obtain either. The first is "O. Manuel, C. Bolon and M. Zhong, J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 252 (2002) 3-7".
This hypothesis, in respect to 'How the sun shines', seems similar to Peratt's on spiral galaxies, in this respect: for such a (potentially) exciting idea, the main author seems curiously reticent about seeking to test it, even though several simple, direct tests which seem both obvious and straight-forward have not even been mentioned in the latest papers, despite it being some 6-7 years now since it was first published. And, like Peratt's paper, such an underwhelming presentation may be one reason* why none of the papers have been cited much (other than by later papers by the same author).
* another reason could be that, for Manuel's mechanism to be what powers all (or most) MS stars, the ('super-massive') neutron star remnants of supernovae must fragment 'into smaller ones'. Manuel cites the work of W. K. Brown for this; a quick check shows that the Brown hypothesis seems to have gotten no traction, in the >20 years since it was first published.
[…] no one has produced, in the lab, many of the nebular lines (including the very common green [OIII] one).
That’s nebulium, don’t you know.
(Excuse the levity.)
Indeed.
There are actually two [O III] 'green' lines, at 495.9 and 500.7 nm.
Curiously, another part of the history of astronomical spectral lines appears in the Birkeland material, 'coronium' ... of course Birkeland cannot have known that this is not a 'new element', but, unlike nebulium, coronium lines can be produced in the laboratory.
It's also 100 years old. :) Try finding it in print sometime. :)
Quote:
Anyway, I downloaded and read it (well, skimmed it, and didn't even look at the ~600 pages of 'Plates').
Quote:
I couldn't find anything at all on the ISM, with electrons and ions, along the lines of the Peratt quote; when you do find it, would you mind letting us know which page(s) it's on please?
Will do. Like I said, I think it's on page 720-721, but I'll look it up for you after work. The file can be searched, and I recall that is calculation was right after after his flying ion comment.
Quote:
I also appreciate better what Peratt said ("He then shot clouds of electrons towards this simulated Earth to produce a light phenomenon that looked like the aurora. (We now know that the solar wind also consists of positive ions, as well as negative electrons.)". Certainly Birkeland's work seems very good, for his time, but modern data on the observable phenomena is dramatically better.
Sure, of course. Even still, for his day, his lab is pretty impressive and it looks to be pretty well funded. I'd say he was way ahead of his time.
Quote:
The "looked like" is quite educational: while the visual images do 'look like' aurorae, and while Birkeland's simulation does reproduce his hypothesised mechanism (at least qualitatively), he was also lucky, in the sense that we now know the detailed mechanisms involved*, and, from this much deeper understanding, know that the parts that Birkeland missed (or got wrong) do not affect the visual appearance of aurorae (within the restricted range of Birkeland's tests; he did not, for example, examine spectra, for example, or polarisation).
Well, the notion of "looks like" is a bit misleading. The basic concept was correct. He didn't have in situ measurements to work with, and spectral analysis was in it's infancy back then. They had not even identified all the wavelengths that relate to various elements. The energy transfer process that Birkeland proposed however was accurate. There is a current flow involved in the process. Now of course his overall model was rather primitive, and it was limited due to a lack of overall technological sophistication in 1908, but it was accurate, at least at the basic level.
Quote:
Also of interest is that Birkeland proposed a mechanism for how the Sun shines: radioactive decay (I should add it as source H). It is not a key part of his 'paper'; rather it is a by-product of his speculation as to the source of the electrons causing aurorae.
Interestingly enough, fission was also my first energy proposal when I setup my website. In fact it's still mentioned as a possible energy source on my website. There could be a lot of factors in a sun's total energy output, so internal, and some external.
Quote:
One last note: I think I read, somewhere in those >900 pages, that Birkeland's hypothesis leads to the electrons which cause aurorae being (highly) relativistic, and that they take not much more time to get from the Sun to Earth than light does.
Hmmm, well not exactly. He suggested that there may be "beams" of energy (cathode rays) directed at the Earth from the sun. In those instances, particles might travel a significant portion of the speed of light, but I got the impression he also recognized a "background" flow of ions that was not necessarily traveling at very high speeds. Interesting enough we have seen CME events that have spewed heavier protons at a significant portion of the speed of light.
Quote:
If indeed this is a logical consequence of his hypothesis, then we could use it as a good example of how science works - some parts of Birkeland's proposed mechanism turn out to be right, others quite wrong; the theory/model gets modified, tweaked, adjusted, new observations taken and tests performed; and the cycle repeats.
* much better anyway; for sure there are many more details awaiting discovery
Well, I certainly agree that there were aspects of his theories that were less accurate than others. He seemed to presume that the sun was the primary energy source of these interactions for instance, whereas now it's pretty clear that there is at least some external component to this process. He could still be right about fission being an energy source however.
I think the most intriguing part of his theories is that he tested them in a lab. His opinions about the flow of energy were directly related to what he was able to directly observe in a lab, using standard (controlled) scientific tests and by making methodical changes to the experiment to see the results of these changes. That is a textbook example of how science is supposed to work. We're supposed to test our theories to a great a degree as possible, and develop theories that come from a controlled testing process.
His "methods" are far more along the lines of classic physics, and less along the lines of "guessing". When astronomers today talk about "magnetic reconnection", they have no laboratory evidence that "magnetic reconnection" is real, and they've never tested the idea before pointing to things that are occurring in the solar atmosphere and claiming that "magneticreconnectiondidit".
That is the difference between Birkeland's methodical use of classical physical testing procedures and today's brand (Chapman's brand) of astronomy that is based on pure mathematical speculation, devoid of physical testing. Birkeland understood that there were electrical energy releases occurring in the Earth's atmosphere because he could turn off the power and watch these emission patterns go away. Today's astronomers seem utterly unwilling to get their hands dirty or to test their theories in real life scenarios before making pronouncements. Magnetic reconnection theory is another recent example of an idea that is simply logically wrong, it is in direct opposition to the MHD theory that Alfven espoused, it defies the laws of physics, and it's based on blind math, not scientific tests of concept. The worst part however is that any electrical engineer can tell you that magnetic fields always form a full continuum. They don't make and break connections like electrical circuits or release any energy at a zero point (null point) in the magnetic field.
[…] no one has produced, in the lab, many of the nebular lines (including the very common green [OIII] one).
That’s nebulium, don’t you know.
(Excuse the levity.)
Indeed.
There are actually two [O III] 'green' lines, at 495.9 and 500.7 nm.
Curiously, another part of the history of astronomical spectral lines appears in the Birkeland material, 'coronium' ... of course Birkeland cannot have known that this is not a 'new element', but, unlike nebulium, coronium lines can be produced in the laboratory.
The guy was working with the best information he had in 1908. It's not surprising that we can think of ourselves as "more enlightened" today. It's all relative however. If it turns out he was right, his willingness to embrace EU theory 100 years ago puts him way ahead of mainstream astronomers of today. You might be able to nitpick on a few details, but he was way ahead of where you are today as I see things, at least from a theoretical and physical testing perspective.
RE: IIRC, in at least one
)
Let me start with this point. Manuel's idea would not require the belief that our sun is all that "special". In other words, if Manuel is correct, then we would be likely to find that all stars contain a small spinning neutron core since our sun contains a small core and it does not seem special in any particular respect. Some neutron cores might be larger than others, some might rotate faster than others, but the basic concept could be applied to all stars, not just our own star.
There's actually some interesting new evidence this week to suggests that "white dwarfs" exhibit some of the pulsing properties that are typically associated with spinning neutron stars.
http://www.spacedaily.com/reports/White_Dwarf_Pulses_Like_A_Pulsar_999.html
Note that a rapidly spinning inner core might go a long way to explaining the "missing momentum" that is observed in stars. The outside surface of stars does not seem to rotate anywhere near fast enough to explain where all the momentum went during their formation process.
I think one of the primary unknowns with EU theories in general, and particularly when it is combined with iron sun theories, is the fact that in EU theory, stars could be almost any age and it would be nearly impossible to predict how long they might last. If the total energy output isn't limited to internal sources of energy, then in theory at least, an iron star could last much longer than a hydrogen/fusion burning sun.
Well, I can't even say for sure what all the energy sources (plural) might be. In fact, in EU theory, even the internal vs. external energy concept gets "fuzzy". Let's start with some basic observations.
The sun as you know, is not actually a "blackbody" of any sort. Its atmosphere is not solid, but rather it's outer atmosphere is made entirely of light plasmas that do no emit energy uniformly like a blackbody. The plasmas are actually cooler in the lower atmosphere and hotter in the upper atmosphere. The solar atmosphere has got million degree coronal loops sticking out in some places while other areas of the atmosphere show no such activity. As an energy calculation method, blackbody calculations might be a useful way of looking at the total energy output, but as it comes to describing the actual heat flow behaviors (energy signatures) of the sun's atmosphere, it's completely meaningless to think of ans sun as a "blackbody". We're can really only consider how we might explain a "total" energy release that is somewhere in the range of 3.8 X 10^36 watts, that is "extremely" stable over a 30 year window and "moderately" stable over a much longer window of time.
Some other observations are useful when talking about the energy output of the sun. The solar wind accelerates as it leaves the photosphere. X-ray jets shoot off the surface of the photosphere at very high speeds, and the coronal temperatures are OOM's hotter than the surface of the photosphere. All these observations suggest to an EU proponent that the sun's atmosphere electrically interacts with the heliosphere and ultimately with the galactic winds. These behaviors suggest that electrons rain down onto the sun and into our solar system in great volume. These electron flows provide a significant amount of the heat that the sun generates in the form of resistance inside the plasmas of the upper solar atmosphere.
There are definitely "local" energy releases associated with the current flows through the atmosphere. Rhessi observes neutron capture signatures and gamma-ray signatures in the solar atmosphere that are consistent with P-P and CNO fusion processes.
http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0512633
Interestingly enough, as MITM at BAUT, I even got Tim T to agree that these high energy emissions were probably associated with at least P-P fusion processes in the solar atmosphere. These fusion processes occur "locally" (in the solar atmosphere), but the fusion processes themselves are a direct result of the z-pinches in the electron currents that flow through the plasmas of the atmosphere. Is that local fusion of hydrogen and/or carbon an "inner" or an "outer" energy source?
There are energy releases from the solar atmosphere that are a direct result of high energy (cosmic ray) particles striking the solar atmosphere.
There are also likely to be any number of possible internal energy release mechanisms, including heat related to gravitational compression forces, and probably some induction processes related to having a rapidly spinning core rotating inside of a mostly metallic crust. There could be fusion processes inside the sun, or even fission processes inside a mass separated sun. There are many possible options to choose from, and there is currently little if any way to determine how much of the total energy release is due to any of these potential influences.
As a rule of thumb, I would suspect that most EU enthusiasts are more apt to suggest that the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons), not from the sun itself. The regulation of the energy output would be external as well. I would personally be inclined to agree with that assessment, but I personally believe that there are significant internal energy sources to account for. I don't think that Oliver's purely internal energy output calculations would necessarily need to apply to an electric sun theory, but I do believe there is a significant local component to the energy release process.
The overall stability of the sun's output would be related to the overall stability of the current flow through the sun. The slow but steady changes to the energy output over billion year timelines could be related to changes to the internal configuration (I.e. the core loses momentum and spins more slowly over time). It could also be related to the suns' positioning within the galaxy, or the energy flow changes within the entire galaxy.
I tend to believe that the sun's core rotates rapidly (on a 5 minute rotation cycle) and that it is composed of either a heavy neutron material as Dr Manuel suggests (mostly likely scenario IMO), or it is composed of heavy elements like Iron and Nickel and/or fissionable materials. Whatever the material of the core, it probably takes the form of a flowing internal z-pinch filament, with strong currents running through/around the core. I can't say for sure how much energy is produced internally due to induction etc, because as you said before, there is little if any way to test for an internal energy source based on our current state of technology. We would have to know what the external current flows were, and how much resistance we might expect with very great precision to have any idea how much additional internal energy we might need to explain the sun's total energy output. I don't think we're anywhere close to that level of sophistication just yet. Even an induction type of "inner" energy release process might be caused by a z-pinch through the core that "winds it up" which in turn could help regulate the flow of current through the core.
I tend to favor a spinning core of heavy elements, and I personally lean toward a neutron material, whereas other EU proponents like upriver seem to be much more skeptical of the presence of neutron materials. A basic spinning core solar model would work with a core made of heavy elements as well. The observation of a 22 year rotation of the sun's magnetic field suggests that there is either an internally driven process that is responsible for that observation (like a rapidly spinning core that slowly rotates it's spin axis due to induction, or it is due to an external process such as the changing galactic wind condition at the heliosheath. We don't have the technology to test either of these theories at the moment.
It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland
RE: […] no one has
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That’s nebulium, don’t you know.
(Excuse the levity.)
RE: RE: […] no one has
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It seems like this conversation needed some levity actually. :)
It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland
If the nuclear strong
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If the nuclear strong interaction does not power stars, what is its utility? To give electricity to France through its nuclear reactors? Remember Occam's Razor (entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem). But the strong force is evidently necessary.
Tullio
RE: RE: More
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Wow! That's a >160MB file!!
Anyway, I downloaded and read it (well, skimmed it, and didn't even look at the ~600 pages of 'Plates').
I couldn't find anything at all on the ISM, with electrons and ions, along the lines of the Peratt quote; when you do find it, would you mind letting us know which page(s) it's on please?
I also appreciate better what Peratt said ("He then shot clouds of electrons towards this simulated Earth to produce a light phenomenon that looked like the aurora. (We now know that the solar wind also consists of positive ions, as well as negative electrons.)". Certainly Birkeland's work seems very good, for his time, but modern data on the observable phenomena is dramatically better.
The "looked like" is quite educational: while the visual images do 'look like' aurorae, and while Birkeland's simulation does reproduce his hypothesised mechanism (at least qualitatively), he was also lucky, in the sense that we now know the detailed mechanisms involved*, and, from this much deeper understanding, know that the parts that Birkeland missed (or got wrong) do not affect the visual appearance of aurorae (within the restricted range of Birkeland's tests; he did not, for example, examine spectra, for example, or polarisation).
Also of interest is that Birkeland proposed a mechanism for how the Sun shines: radioactive decay (I should add it as source H). It is not a key part of his 'paper'; rather it is a by-product of his speculation as to the source of the electrons causing aurorae.
One last note: I think I read, somewhere in those >900 pages, that Birkeland's hypothesis leads to the electrons which cause aurorae being (highly) relativistic, and that they take not much more time to get from the Sun to Earth than light does. If indeed this is a logical consequence of his hypothesis, then we could use it as a good example of how science works - some parts of Birkeland's proposed mechanism turn out to be right, others quite wrong; the theory/model gets modified, tweaked, adjusted, new observations taken and tests performed; and the cycle repeats.
* much better anyway; for sure there are many more details awaiting discovery
RE: [snip] RE: Perhaps
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Thanks for the lengthy reply Michael.
I must say that I'm now rather confused.
Back on 26 December, 2007, in this thread, you wrote, in answer to the question "How does he propose the Sun generates its energy? (3.9e26 W is not a trivial affair - aside from nuclear reactions I really can't see any way)":
The sun does not generate the bulk of it's energy, though it does generate some energy locally. The bulk of the energy comes from the electrical current that flows through the sun.
Your more recent post is much more tentative, to the point of all but declaring 'anything goes' ("There are many possible options to choose from, and there is currently little if any way to determine how much of the total energy release is due to any of these potential influences.")
In any case, can you provide us with references to papers which describe the details of the hypothesis that "the bulk of the total energy release of the sun comes from an external energy source (flowing electrons)" and which include estimates of what that energy is (i.e. the extent to which it satisfies requirement 1)?
RE: RE: IIRC, in at least
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A little searching turned up this 2001 O. Manuel conference presentation, in which source D is described: The Sun's Origin, Composition and Source of Energy.
There may be an earlier paper where Manuel presents this source; there are several later conference presentations, posters, and (I think) one paper which present source D.
None of these address requirements 2, 3, or 4.
Regarding requirement 1: Manuel et al. simply declare that >57% of 'solar luminosity' is due to 'neutron emission from the solar core', where the 'solar core' is a neutron star in which the neutrons are in an excited state; neutrons which are 'emitted' from this core produce '~10-22 MeV' per neutron. There are at least two references to this process, but I have not been able to obtain either. The first is "O. Manuel, C. Bolon and M. Zhong, J. Radioanal. Nucl. Chem. 252 (2002) 3-7".
This hypothesis, in respect to 'How the sun shines', seems similar to Peratt's on spiral galaxies, in this respect: for such a (potentially) exciting idea, the main author seems curiously reticent about seeking to test it, even though several simple, direct tests which seem both obvious and straight-forward have not even been mentioned in the latest papers, despite it being some 6-7 years now since it was first published. And, like Peratt's paper, such an underwhelming presentation may be one reason* why none of the papers have been cited much (other than by later papers by the same author).
* another reason could be that, for Manuel's mechanism to be what powers all (or most) MS stars, the ('super-massive') neutron star remnants of supernovae must fragment 'into smaller ones'. Manuel cites the work of W. K. Brown for this; a quick check shows that the Brown hypothesis seems to have gotten no traction, in the >20 years since it was first published.
RE: RE: […] no one has
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Indeed.
There are actually two [O III] 'green' lines, at 495.9 and 500.7 nm.
Curiously, another part of the history of astronomical spectral lines appears in the Birkeland material, 'coronium' ... of course Birkeland cannot have known that this is not a 'new element', but, unlike nebulium, coronium lines can be produced in the laboratory.
RE: Wow! That's a >160MB
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It's also 100 years old. :) Try finding it in print sometime. :)
It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland
RE: RE: RE: […] no
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The guy was working with the best information he had in 1908. It's not surprising that we can think of ourselves as "more enlightened" today. It's all relative however. If it turns out he was right, his willingness to embrace EU theory 100 years ago puts him way ahead of mainstream astronomers of today. You might be able to nitpick on a few details, but he was way ahead of where you are today as I see things, at least from a theoretical and physical testing perspective.
It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions of all kinds. - Kristian Birkeland