Astronomers should be sued for false advertizing. (2)

[davidbilby]

Scientists detect dark lightning linked to visible lightning - environmentalresearchweb

Oh ya, and by the way.....

As if by magic, it turns out that all those 'dark lightning' discharges that release high energy gamma rays and positrons are related to plain old "electrical discharges".

Of course NASA never mentioned naturally occurring electrical discharges as a possible source of positrons or gamma rays. Why is that?

The sum of what you don't know about what you're frothing about is truly impressive.

Once again....what is interesting in this analysis of the AMS and PAMELA data is not the mere presence of positrons (which is actually nothing particularly special, as you seem to have figured out, and you've easily found another source of positrons as if that would somehow solve the issue).....but the excess of positrons over electrons in the 10 GeV range (with a strong-ish rise at 8.5 GeV) over what prior theory would predict.

The principal source of positrons that we have measured to date is interstellar muon decay - which should produce equal numbers of electrons and positrons - such as occurs with interactions between higher energy protons from cosmic rays and the hydrogen nuclei in the interstellar gas.

Even with other cosmic sources, such as the one you mention - the decay properties of these interactions should theoretically produce a positron fraction that tapers off steadily above 1 GeV. In this image the grey area is what the positron fraction should lie within according to 'standard' sources such as you cite, and for quite a long time this is what was expected and no higher energy level measurements were available to test it.

http://physics.aps.org/assets/1b7b63df62e7a1e0

What is actually observed is an increase of the positron fraction above 8 or 9 GeV or so, not a decrease or constant value. The values are orders of magnitude greater than expected from standard sources of positrons in the cosmos, such as the predominant source measured here, secondary decay emissions from the interstellar medium. What is interesting about this is that the energy level at which this takes place, were it to be a dark matter signal and not a mundane pulsar origin, is roughly around where other independent experiments have suggested that the energy level would be (synchrotron emission from galactic center, signals from DAMA/LIBRA, CoGent).

The outstanding questions are, can we confirm the data with all other possibilities ruled out (particularly as regards proton/positron differentiation), and what happens above the TeV range, which is considerably harder to measure?

WIMP theories do predict that dark matter should self-annihilate and a signature of this would be an excess of high energy positrons against the background, but of course - the question is, what is the background?

A few nearby pulsars could be causing the observed excess - this is the most likely standard solution (and the one you should be advocating, if you really want to know, because it's the only current and sensible non-DM solution to the problem, and even quite a few DM theorists would actually fall to the more mundane solution here, even though it too has a few issues).

To be honest, the real consensus in the community on it is that the positron excess most definitely is there, and it's definitely being caused by something - but it's going to be quite some time before it's resolved as being of pulsar origin or the tantalising dark matter signal.

I can however agree that the journalists in most of the stories covering this work got completely ahead of themselves and didn't exactly report it accurately - once again another reason not to trust the popular science press for factual data - but the AMS work is pretty impeccable and the accuracy deeply impressive considering where we were on this 10 years ago.

 

[davidbilby]

You folks don't even limit yourselves to C in the first place!

Beg pardon? This is just absurd. Who is 'you folks'? C is a pretty touchstone issue, if a theory or observation merely suggests that somehow C is not a constant or something can violate C, then it'd be controversial from the get-go.

I'll admit that I probably should have just started with C since you're violating that "limit" too. You worm around the limits of C with 'expanding space' claims without bothering to define 'space'. Spacetime and distance are defined in GR, but not "space".

Once again, within the framework of GR and SR, expansion of space-time does not pose a problem. This has been explained to you repeatedly, several times by me, but I'm assuming that you've just ignored the simple stuff in GR such as comoving coordinates because, frankly, you've never actually really studied GR and what it actually says...

I thought that I was quite clear that I had a lot to learn about this particular topic.

Yet you somehow know enough to lecture me about inelastic scattering being 'demonstrated' to be the cause of the cosmological redshift, despite not really knowing about it at all. Whatever.

Perhaps you could save us some time and just explain each type of scattering and explain why it's not applicable.

Well, Compton, Thompson, Brillouin and Rayleigh scattering processes are wavelength dependent to varying degrees and not Doppler-like, so they simply cannot be part of the equation as regards an observed wavelength independent redshift. For Brillouin scattering in particular to exhibit the constant redshift we see in all directions the phonons etc. would have to be aligned as respects to Earth (otherwise we would expect to see a non-Doppler like redshift varying depending on which direction you look, and also redshifts varying considerably in time, i.e. the redshift of various galaxies observed one day to the next should fluctuate pretty wildly). The AC Stark effect is specially and wavelength dependent (and in the Chen paper, laser induced), and causes spectral line broadening, not a wavelength independent redshifting of the entire spectra.

I'd also be curious how these magic photons avoid every possible scattering mechanism in space, including Brillouin scattering. By definition you're claiming there are no EM field variations or temperature variations in space?

No, that's not what I'm claiming at all, and well you know it. Photons that are scattered through the above processes in space don't make it to where they would have otherwise gone. (They are scattered!).

That million degree plasma around our galaxy is a 'medium', and I'm sure it has a refractive index as well.

Since you claim to be pretty good in the plasma area (and since so few of us have apparently read 'plasma textbooks')....what can you tell me about that refractive index? You should be able to tell me what number it is certainly less than, and bonus marks for explaining why that isn't a problem as regards C...

How would that million degree plasma *not* have phonons or other modes?

Aligned to Earth? I think you need to read about what Brillouin scattering actually is and how it actually works. It's not going to be a useful avenue for you...

No it's not! It's nothing of the sort. Its simply another 'tired light' theory, much like Ashmore's brand of "new tired light". This galaxy isn't special in any way.

Branding anything makes no difference, Ashmore's 'new tired light' is simply Compton scattering where he just rubs out the part that points out the photon would be scattered away at right angles...

In spite of these papers you say that?
Speed-of-light fluctuations prompted by ephemeral vacuum particles | TG Daily

How do you *know* this stuff with such conviction even though other scientists claim even VP's might have an influence?

You're in essence claiming the aether might be made up of virtual particles? Ooooh dear.

Those papers aren't relevant. Interesting, rather controversial and eminently falsifiable in future experiment (especially the first paper you cited), but not relevant to the cosmological redshift (or aether). They are not suggesting that photons undergo any frequency loss in interactions with virtual particles. They are not suggesting an 'aether' of virtual particles without which photons would not propagate.

This is all still ignoring the numerous experimental verifications of Michelson-Morley...

I don't "hear him saying that", at least not in the paper I cited. I simply hear him talking about a non uniform medium that could be made of VP's or just EM fields for all I know.

If so, you can quote him from the paper I cited I presume?

"Karim Khaidarov suggested the redshift mechanism which is based on the classical idea of interstellar space filled with universally present media – aether that is the carrier of electromagnetic waves. In this media, EM waves experience “constant fading, just like waves in the usual isotropic physical media: solids, liquids, gases”

"Aether is a physical media which is attributed by physical properties such as pressure, density, temperature, elasticity, viscosity. The properties of aether define the speed of electromagnetic waves."

"Based on the Central Limit Theorem one may suggest that the travelling time has Gauss distribution."

"It returns physical meaning to light as waves in media."

If you don't think that Holushko is saying that light is a wave in a medium then I can only assume you actually can't read....but...you clearly can. Holushko thinks that light is not a 'special' wave, but that it, like sound, requires a medium travel, because he thinks all waves should necessarily travel in a medium (for reasons passing understanding).

I would think that you would already know that I'm personally quite a strong supporter of GR theory without the magical matter and energy claims.

Since you don't know what GR actually says (as demonstrated by claims of lorentz violation of an expanding space-time metric, which is actually at the heart of GR before Lambda even comes into play) I fail to see how you think you 'support' it. You raise the kind of objections that demonstrate you haven't actually studied it beyond say, the first few lines of the wikipedia page...

I simply don't see his 'bumpy road' concepts to be any direct threat to GR as you do, certainly not from the paper I cited at least. Perhaps you're bringing in claims from *outside* of that paper?

"paper" is pushing it, it's vixra woo at best, but no, I'm going off the paper, as evidenced above.

One gets the distinct impression from reading your posts that you're simply unwilling to even second guess yourself, or leave open any room for 'honest doubt' for that matter.

Pot, meet kettle. Except, I'm not actually unwilling to second guess myself and do so all the time, but I'm the kind of person who likes to see...you know...evidence. Math. Models. You have no credible evidence, math, or model.

Care to quote me where I claimed to "hate math", or is that some sort of made up mental justification that you go through when you "trash" individuals like you do?

You have posted many hundreds (thousands?) of posts on various fora, and I cannot find a single instance of you using any mathematical construct ever or argument from mathematics as regards your cosmological ideas. Since math is the physicist's most formidable weapon, I'm guessing yours is blunt. Or broken. Or nonexistent. I'm going only off observation...I guess you could call it an empirical approach.

Based on time constraints I'm going to have to respond to part of this post later

That'll be never, I guess, since you're going to do your usual thing of ignoring it for a few weeks then repeating the initial ridiculous assertions about inelastic scattering. Time rarely seems to constrain you, given your litany of posts, unless any valid physics or mathematics is brought up, and then you get busy really quick. Yeah, sure. We get it...

 

[Michael]

The sum of what you don't know about what you're frothing about is truly impressive.

Considering the fact you can't even tell me where "dark energy" comes from, that phrase about people that live in glass houses comes to mind. You'll understand why that statement isn't particularly "stinging" from my perspective considering the fact that 95 percent of your theory is essentially "dark stuff of the gaps", and you know almost nothing about it. Your dark frothing isn't particularly impressive from my skeptical vantage point, I assure you.

Once again....what is interesting in this analysis of the AMS and PAMELA data is not the mere presence of positrons (which is actually nothing particularly special, as you seem to have figured out, and you've easily found another source of positrons as if that would somehow solve the issue).....

Ya, but NASA and the European groups never even bothered to mention *the most "natural" source* of positrons and gamma rays. Why? Talk about blatantly irrational behaviors. The "phobia" towards all things "electrical" in space is palpable and frankly rather pathetic IMO. The lack of even a "mention" of the most natural source of positrons borders on pure incompetence. That's why it's really hard to take astronomers seriously, and it really hard to believe this is all an 'accident'.

but the excess of positrons over electrons in the 10 GeV range (with a strong-ish rise at 8.5 GeV) over what prior theory would predict.

Who's theory? EU/PC theory "predicts" that the universe has a "charge" with respect to the sun. Birkeland 'predicted' that feature (charged space) over 100 years ago based on pure empirical, lab tested physics.

The principal source of positrons that we have measured to date is interstellar muon decay - which should produce equal numbers of electrons and positrons - such as occurs with interactions between higher energy protons from cosmic rays and the hydrogen nuclei in the interstellar gas.

Virtually *every* reaction we might dream up based on empirical physics is likely to release equal numbers of electrons and positrons. I have no reason to believe otherwise. Furthermore, I can think of logical reasons why electrons might be selectively absorbed by the cooling plasmas of spacetime, whereas positrons might just "pass on through".

Even with other cosmic sources, such as the one you mention

Is the "one I mentioned" unmentionable by you for some reason? I noticed you keep avoiding the term "electrical discharge". Why?

- the decay properties of these interactions should theoretically produce a positron fraction that tapers off steadily above 1 GeV. In this image the grey area is what the positron fraction should lie within according to 'standard' sources such as you cite, and for quite a long time this is what was expected and no higher energy level measurements were available to test it.

http://physics.aps.org/assets/1b7b63df62e7a1e0

What is actually observed is an increase of the positron fraction above 8 or 9 GeV or so, not a decrease or constant value.

So the IGM/ISM selectively "absorbs" more high energy electrons. So what? Birkeland himself was the first EU proponent to 'predict' that "space" was positively charged with respect to suns. Such a "prediction" would fully explain why electrons are selectively absorbed, whereas positrons pass on through.

The values are orders of magnitude greater than expected from standard sources of positrons in the cosmos, such as the predominant source measured here, secondary decay emissions from the interstellar medium.

Show me some "calculations" that included a component that is related to natural "electrical discharges". If there aren't such mathematical models, your models aren't worth the paper they are printed on in the first place, and your "order of magnitude" claim is suspect.

What is interesting about this is that the energy level at which this takes place, were it to be a dark matter signal and not a mundane pulsar origin, is roughly around where other independent experiments have suggested that the energy level would be (synchrotron emission from galactic center, signals from DAMA/LIBRA, CoGent).

The outstanding questions are, can we confirm the data with all other possibilities ruled out (particularly as regards proton/positron differentiation), and what happens above the TeV range, which is considerably harder to measure?

I suspect that depends on how we spend our money. LHC can "look for" some sort of mythical matter to resolve all your problems after a few years of upgrades, but in the mean time the logical "source" of positrons is higher and higher energy 'electrical discharge" channels. They'll form "Bennett Pinch" structures anyway, and provide synchrotron emissions. I'd rather spend my tax dollars studying *known* processes between now and 2015 when LHC can start looking for your mythical matter, complete with all your mythical ad-hoc properties.

WIMP theories do predict that dark matter should self-annihilate and a signature of this would be an excess of high energy positrons against the background, but of course - the question is, what is the background?

Since I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that WIMPS even exist, let alone emit positrons, and I have a "naturally occurring" process to explain them, why put any value on your mythical sky thingies? As it relates to the release of high energy positrons, when does Ockham's razor actually apply?

A few nearby pulsars could be causing the observed excess - this is the most likely standard solution (and the one you should be advocating,

Since a rapidly rotating magnetic field would induce "large electrical discharges" in the surrounding plasma, I'd certainly say it's the most "likely" cause.

if you really want to know, because it's the only current and sensible non-DM solution to the problem, and even quite a few DM theorists would actually fall to the more mundane solution here, even though it too has a few issues).

Oddly enough the "pulsar" source seems far more plausible to me than your "dark sky thingies did it". The problem was your "experts" keep avoiding even mentioning the "natural" causes, specifically *electrical discharges in plasma* around the pulsar! It's not the pulsar that simply spits out high energy positrons from it's surface, it's the *electrical discharges* in the surrounding plasma that emit both high energy positrons and high energy electrons. The positively charged plasmas of spacetime selectively capture more of the high energy electrons. Pure physics explains these observations. I don't need mythical physics to explain positron abundance in space.

To be honest, the real consensus in the community on it is that the positron excess most definitely is there, and it's definitely being caused by something - but it's going to be quite some time before it's resolved as being of pulsar origin or the tantalising dark matter signal.

So your industry is "finally' (100 years later) willing to "entertain" the idea that there are more high energy positrons in space than electrons? You mean Birkeland may have been correct all along, and suns are relatively negatively charged with respect to space?

I can however agree that the journalists in most of the stories covering this work got completely ahead of themselves and didn't exactly report it accurately - once again another reason not to trust the popular science press for factual data - but the AMS work is pretty impeccable and the accuracy deeply impressive considering where we were on this 10 years ago.

Sorry, but NASA controls their own website. The fact they left out the term "electrical discharge" and failed to mention it on their website is their own fault, not the fault of the media. The fear of electrical activity in space is palpable and it can be documented in the way that these natural processes are selectively ignored in every single article. You folks should be *ashamed* at this point. Can you even admit that electrical activity and currents flow through spacetime, or are you afraid that your tongue will burn off the moment you mention it publicly?

 

[davidbilby]

Considering the fact you can't even tell me where "dark energy" comes from, that phrase about people that live in glass houses comes to mind. You'll understand why that statement isn't particularly "stinging" from my perspective considering the fact that 95 percent of your theory is essentially "dark stuff of the gaps", and you know almost nothing about it. Your dark frothing isn't particularly impressive from my skeptical vantage point, I assure you.

Inane talking points, inarticulately banged out with zero physics or rebuttal? Check. You're not a skeptic, not even vaguely, not even slightly. If Lyndon Ashmore told you. Holushko thinks there is an aether - you go along with hook line and sinker, and call his work 'generic' math applicable to you, yet you say, in complete contradiction, that you're a 'fan of General Relativity with some bits removed' completely failing to understand how silly you look to anybody who has even had a passing lesson in GR. Luminiferous aether = incompatible with GR in every respect (and incompatible with SR, by the way). I guess you didn't know that?

Ya, but NASA and the European groups never even bothered to mention *the most "natural" source* of positrons and gamma rays. Why?

Actually, they did - they pointed out that the excess existed with "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction". I guess you don't realise the significance of that statement; merely pointing to other positron sources, again, makes you look a bit foolish, like you don't really understand the paper at all.

It's rather like saying, on the observation of light from a distant galaxy "my bedroom lamp produces light! They didn't rule out my bedroom lamp!".

The lack of even a "mention" of the most natural source of positrons borders on pure incompetence. That's why it's really hard to take astronomers seriously, and it really hard to believe this is all an 'accident'.

Evidence please, that your source of positrons is the 'most natural'. What does that even mean? They were only measuring natural. Natural is a binary state, either a phenomenon is natural or it is man made. There's no 'most' natural source of positrons. What on earth are you talking about? Do you mean "most common in the natural universe"? In which case, no, secondary decay from cosmic rays in the interstellar medium is by far and away the most common source of positrons detected.

Who's theory?

I think you mean "whose theory".

Virtually *every* reaction we might dream up based on empirical physics is likely to release equal numbers of electrons and positrons.

Why would we need to "dream up" reactions?

I have no reason to believe otherwise. Furthermore, I can think of logical reasons why electrons might be selectively absorbed by the cooling plasmas of spacetime, whereas positrons might just "pass on through".

Oh, really? You can? Please, do tell. I'm just itching to hear how you are on highly complex quantum mechanics given you don't even know (first semester) inelastic scattering basics. Sounds fun to me. Let me strap in....

Is the "one I mentioned" unmentionable by you for some reason?

I couldn't be bothered to go get the citation, it's that irrelevant. See "no preferred incoming direction" point above for why the dark lightning thing didn't particularly help matters.

I noticed you keep avoiding the term "electrical discharge". Why?

Probably because I don't use out of context phrases that don't mean what I'm trying to say, whilst trying to discuss physical concepts. That's what a physics degree gets you. Muon decay does not produce an electric current, it decays to an electron and two neutrinos, as well as potentially an electron-positron pair (and some other more esoteric decay possibilities).

So the IGM/ISM selectively "absorbs" more high energy electrons. So what?

No, it doesn't. You just made that up. You have no mechanism or plausible reason why that might be true, and there is no QM reason to think that might be true, not even vaguely.

(Of course later you're probably going to agree with the pulsar thing when you realise that hey, anything that goes against dark matter has GOT to be your friend. I guess you don't really care about figuring anything out, but that's what you get when you put your eggs in a really badly made basket and don't want to admit it. See what I did there? I used one of those analogies you like to draw. Irrelevant and non-physical of course.)

Birkeland himself was the first EU proponent to 'predict' that "space" was positively charged with respect to suns.

Yeah...that's really not part of the topic at hand, which is quantum mechanics.

Such a "prediction" would fully explain why electrons are selectively absorbed, whereas positrons pass on through.

Through the interstellar medium? No, it wouldn't. Are you saying space-time is absorbing electrons somehow? Why? How? What on earth are you on about?

The whole conjecture is meaningless because no such thing occurs in the way you're talking about...(which I'm honestly not entirely sure of, so feel free to clarify your model here...maybe with some math showing how the rates observed match EU "predictions"?)

Show me some "calculations" that included a component that is related to natural "electrical discharges". If there aren't such mathematical models, your models aren't worth the paper they are printed on in the first place, and your "order of magnitude" claim is suspect.

Again, the observation shows "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction", and this is like asking people to adjust Hubble images because you left your bedroom light on an hour longer last night.

I suspect that depends on how we spend our money. LHC can "look for" some sort of mythical matter to resolve all your problems after a few years of upgrades

but in the mean time the logical "source" of positrons is higher and higher energy 'electrical discharge" channels.

And this produces an excess of positrons over electrons, why again, and why only at certain energy levels? You still seem to think you just have to 'find where positrons come from'. You still don't understand the point of the observation.

They'll form "Bennett Pinch" structures anyway, and provide synchrotron emissions.

And yet still emit positrons that won't fulfill the "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction" observation, because those sources would have variation over time and most definitely would have a preferred incoming direction, namely, from themselves. Again, you don't understand the simpler aspects of this work...

I'd rather spend my tax dollars studying *known* processes

Oh good, you've found an inelastic scattering process that works, have you? Or shown how phonons are aligned with respect to Earth in all directions of the universe, statically, or shown how Compton scattering can have it's transverse velocity component removed and still satisfy conservation of momentum, or found a source of lasers in space that cause only the redshift 'portion' of the signal broadening of the AC Stark effect? It generally seems to me you have no idea of the processes (eg, GR, SR) whatsoever, since you didn't blink before luminiferous aether was suggested (by you).

between now and 2015 when LHC can start looking for your mythical matter, complete with all your mythical ad-hoc properties.

Oh, why, thank you. Wasn't aware your permission was needed.

Since I have absolutely no evidence whatsoever that WIMPS even exist, let alone emit positrons, and I have a "naturally occurring" process to explain them, why put any value on your mythical sky thingies?

Because your naturally occurring process (nice poisoning of the well by the way) wouldn't produce the observed excess and wouldn't produce it with no particular correlation with location or time, once again.

We have an observation of an excess of positrons which doesn't correlate in time or location to any specific phenomena such that it could be ruled out as an observation. We have two models that can account for that excess - a pulsar model and WIMP annihilations. One is right, the other is wrong. I think it'd be nice to know. And so does the rest of the scientific community. If it is a pulsar origin, we can't actually SEE said pulsars either!

As it relates to the release of high energy positrons, when does Ockham's razor actually apply?

Could be either pulsars or WIMP annihilations (unless someone has a plausible alternative explanations - I heard a couple of less plausible ones a few weeks ago, including one in particular involving LKP dark matter particles being amplified by a nearby black hole).

Since a rapidly rotating magnetic field would induce "large electrical discharges" in the surrounding plasma, I'd certainly say it's the most "likely" cause.

And there goes the "come to Jesus" part of the post with the expected results. Bingo! I figured you'd probably suddenly realise that we're not all idiots and we might know what we're talking about when it's said there are two good models, and pick the one that isn't dark matter...just 'cause.

Oddly enough the "pulsar" source seems far more plausible to me than your "dark sky thingies did it".

Why would it cause a positron excess? Do you even know? Why IS it more plausible to you, other than a predisposition based solely on bias and not physics. Would love to know your answer.

The problem was your "experts" keep avoiding even mentioning the "natural" causes, specifically *electrical discharges in plasma* around the pulsar!

Yeah, that's not what causes a positron excess in the pulsar model. Try again. P.S. I noticed you embraced the pulsar thing within about what....ten seconds? Dark lightning? Pffff. Gone. Outta here.

It's not the pulsar that simply spits out high energy positrons from it's surface, it's the *electrical discharges* in the surrounding plasma that emit both high energy positrons and high energy electrons. The positively charged plasmas of spacetime selectively capture more of the high energy electrons.

Why only the high energy ones? Is electrical charge cancellation now energy level dependent? You're just making stuff up that sounds science-y now.

Pure physics explains these observations. I don't need mythical physics to explain positron abundance in space.

Wow. I guess we're all morons then. That's it, the interactions of particles with opposite electrical charges are selectively dependent on the energy level of the particles involved. Wow. You're so smart Michael!

So your industry is "finally' (100 years later) willing to "entertain" the idea that there are more high energy positrons in space than electrons?

Ha! This gets funnier and funnier. Now you're not only beginning to understand it, you're embracing it as if it was your position all along, despite the fact two posts back or so you didn't even realize the significance of the excess, and merely thought you had to find sources of positrons and say "look you idiots, here's another source of positrons, I bet you missed it!".

I guess we should just start referring to dark matter as 'dark plasma that might have an electrical charge' and see if you bite! Doesn't seem to take much...

You mean Birkeland may have been correct all along, and suns are relatively negatively charged with respect to space?

A curious changing of the topic to something you might have a modicum of knowledge about, to avoid talking about quantum mechanics, about which you have essentially zero.

Sorry, but NASA controls their own website. The fact they left out the term "electrical discharge" and failed to mention it on their website is their own fault, not the fault of the media.

And we're back...now we're talking 'electrical discharges' (an ill-defined concept at best, which is why you like it)...thoroughly confusing the issue when a moment ago you were completely aboard the pulsar idea.

The fear of electrical activity in space is palpable and it can be documented in the way that these natural processes are selectively ignored in every single article.

Yup....you're back.

You folks should be *ashamed* at this point. Can you even admit that electrical activity and currents flow through spacetime, or are you afraid that your tongue will burn off the moment you mention it publicly?

Well, since space-time itself carries no charge (the concept is meaningless), no, because that would be wrong, or a best a pointless statement (an electrical charge flowing requires a variance in potential, something that can only be had by the particles within space-time, not space-time itself).

 

[Michael]

Inane talking points, inarticulately banged out with zero physics or rebuttal? Check. You're not a skeptic, not even vaguely, not even slightly.

Right. You can't get your magical matter to show up in a lab, nor emit a single positron in a controlled experiment, and somehow that's all my fault. Worse yet, since you don't really have a logical rebuttal, you're left with resorting to the oldest trick in the book - "kill the messenger".

If Lyndon Ashmore told you.

He provides us *both* with a "model" to consider. You'll blithely handwave it away, whereas I see no logical reason to do so. There may very will be way for a photon to pass on it's momentum into a plasma medium, leaving heat in it's wake, and a loss of momentum to the photon. I can't just *ignore* possibilities that don't happen to jive with your preconceived dark sky religion.

Holushko thinks there is an aether - you go along with hook line and sinker,

I showed you two papers on VP's and their effect on photons that I have yet to hear you comment on. Until you do, it's a little goofy for you to talk about Holushko when I've handed you more recent (and published) work to consider.

and call his work 'generic' math applicable to you, yet you say, in complete contradiction, that you're a 'fan of General Relativity with some bits removed' completely failing to understand how silly you look to anybody who has even had a passing lesson in GR.

Somewhere in this conversation we're going to have to consider the differences between GR and QM as it results to photon travel paths. Until you get over the notion that GR *must* be accurate at the level of photon/plasma/phonon interactions, you just don't "get it" IMO. It's "silly" to you apparently *only* because you refuse to consider alternatives to your viewpoints.

Luminiferous aether = incompatible with GR in every respect (and incompatible with SR, by the way). I guess you didn't know that?

I guess I don't necessarily *assume* that GR is going to be be the "be-all-end-all" of understanding the physics of spacetime as you do. For instance, I'm quite certain that *most if not all* of your fascination with "dark sky things", is a direct result of your fear of PC/EU theory. The moment you folks start talking about electrical discharges in space, and *plasmas* rather than "hot gasses", the jig is up. Better that you claim that "magic matter did it" with respect to positron emissions rather to even *mention* electrical discharges in plasma. What a fear based religion.

Actually, they did - they pointed out that the excess existed with "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction". I guess you don't realise the significance of that statement; merely pointing to other positron sources, again, makes you look a bit foolish, like you don't really understand the paper at all.

I understand the paper perfectly, and the only foolish one is you. The pulsar does *not* emit positrons. It contains a strong magnetic field that rotates and creates *electrical discharges* in the surrounding plasma by inducing strong currents in the plasma! The "alternative" of positron emissions is *not* a "pulsar". It's a *discharge* around the outside of the pulsar! Your entire industry is afraid of even talking about electricity in space.

It's rather like saying, on the observation of light from a distant galaxy "my bedroom lamp produces light! They didn't rule out my bedroom lamp!".

Your whole argument amounts to: "You can't be sure my magic invisible sky bunny didn't do it, therefore I'm going to put my magic invisible sky bunny in some more math formulas and point at the sky!"

Evidence please, that your source of positrons is the 'most natural'. What does that even mean?

I provided you with several articles that cited papers. Didn't you read them? It turns out that electrical discharges are "natural phenomenon". They happen to emit positrons in our own atmosphere. Did you folks account for all those discharges in space? How did you decide that your exotic sky entity even emits positrons at *any* energy state?

They were only measuring natural. Natural is a binary state, either a phenomenon is natural or it is man made. There's no 'most' natural source of positrons. What on earth are you talking about? Do you mean "most common in the natural universe"? In which case, no, secondary decay from cosmic rays in the interstellar medium is by far and away the most common source of positrons detected.

Since most cosmic rays are charged particles 'discharged' from some massive electrical discharge event, we seem to be quibbling over terms at this point. The "physical moment" is of those particles is directly related to "electrical discharges" and the EM field, not "magic matter"!

Why would we need to "dream up" reactions?

You "dream" that there is some sort of magical matter that emits high energy positrons. You "dream up" the idea of WIMP *in spite of* the LHC results to date. Why? Pure faith?

Oh, really? You can? Please, do tell. I'm just itching to hear how you are on highly complex quantum mechanics given you don't even know (first semester) inelastic scattering basics. Sounds fun to me. Let me strap in....

I must admit you do have a colorful use of language at times.

Have you even read Birkeland's work related to cathode suns and their relationship to "space"?

I couldn't be bothered to go get the citation, it's that irrelevant. See "no preferred incoming direction" point above for why the dark lightning thing didn't particularly help matters.

In other words, the moment your theory is replaceable with ordinary physics, you won't be bothered to even read the work. Basic scattering, and electrical discharges can 'explain' high energy positron abundance. In fact Birkeland himself "predicted" that "space" held a different "charge" than the surface of a sun! Since you folks can't be bothered to study any laboratory physics experiments, somehow 'invisible magic matter did it".

Probably because I don't use out of context phrases that don't mean what I'm trying to say, whilst trying to discuss physical concepts. That's what a physics degree gets you. Muon decay does not produce an electric current, it decays to an electron and two neutrinos, as well as potentially an electron-positron pair (and some other more esoteric decay possibilities).

But your missing the whole point! It's those spinning EM fields around pulsars that create those high energy particles. It's *induction* and electrical discharges in plasma that emit those positrons, not some magical form of matter! You have *zero* evidence that magic matter even exists, let alone emits *any* positrons at *any* energy state. All you're doing is looking for some "gap" in our understanding in which to stuff your "sky entities"! That's just sad behavior IMO.

No, it doesn't. You just made that up.

Like you didn't "make up" your beloved "WIMP" thingy *in spite of the LHC data*? Pots and kettles.

You have no mechanism or plausible reason why that might be true,

Sure I do. According to Birkeland "space" has a net positive charge with respect to stars. High energy electrons emitted from a star (or pulsar) are going to be more likely to be electrically attracted to a mostly plasma medium. The positrons won't be as attracted to a free floating proton in the ISM/IGM.

and there is no QM reason to think that might be true, not even vaguely.

I'm thinking more of the EM implications of blowing electrons through a mostly "positively" charged plasma. It has less to do with QM, and more to do with Maxwell's equations.

(Of course later you're probably going to agree with the pulsar thing when you realise that hey, anything that goes against dark matter has GOT to be your friend.

No. I'm simply noting that a fast rotating EM field is going to interact with the plasma around it. It's going to kick out fast moving particles of all types. EM fields are not a "magical" way of accelerating charged particles, we do so at the LHC. It's called "tried and true physics".

Compare and contrast that with your "exotic matter of the gaps" argument. You're even "making up" the positron energy state to suit yourself, and choosing a "WIMP" candidate that fits the gaps. The problem is that every LHC result run to date shows not a single hint of *any* SUSY particle, not one. The standard particle physics theory explains everything we've seen in the lab to date *without* any extensions of any sort, and many of the most popular SUSY theories were eliminated.

Yeah...that's really not part of the topic at hand, which is quantum mechanics.

It's not *just* about QM. EM fields and Maxwell's equations show up in spacetime too. Your industry is simply to blind to see it, and it's to phobic to even talk about it publicly. It's *unethical* to have never bothered to mention that positron emissions of *all* energy states are directly linked to electrical discharges, not *magic matter*!

Through the interstellar medium? No, it wouldn't. Are you saying space-time is absorbing electrons somehow? Why? How? What on earth are you on about?

I'm talking about Birkeland's model of "cathode suns", and a positively charged spacetime. It not only explains everything we observe in solar physics, it explains every high energy observation in space. The moment you folks cop to the fact that we inside of an electric universe, the game is over, and your dark sky religion dies a horrible agonizing death.

Again, the observation shows "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction", and this is like asking people to adjust Hubble images because you left your bedroom light on an hour longer last night.

Why would it show a huge significant variation over time anymore than my bedroom light shows a huge variation in light while it's turned on? So what if it's relatively constant? That certainly doesn't favor your magic matter.

And this produces an excess of positrons over electrons, why again, and why only at certain energy levels?

The electrons are selectively attracted to a mostly positively charged medium in which they travel. The positrons are not attracted to the positively charged protons in the IGM or ISM, and therefore they are less inclined to be absorbed by the positively charged medium.

I have no evidence that the excess relates to selective emission of high energy positrons over high energy electrons.

The energy states probably relate simply to the likelihood of interactions with the medium.

You still seem to think you just have to 'find where positrons come from'. You still don't understand the point of the observation.

Positrons will be influenced by EM fields along the way. The "direction" of the positrons is irrelevant, and probably related the interactions of cosmic rays with "dust" in space. There's nothing "magical matter" about it!

And yet still emit positrons that won't fulfill the "no significant variation over time, or any preferred incoming direction" observation, because those sources would have variation over time and most definitely would have a preferred incoming direction, namely, from themselves. Again, you don't understand the simpler aspects of this work...

It's "odd" to me that you point out the implication of cosmic rays and their interactions with the medium, yet you ignore the fact that more mundane explanations are *better* suited to explain what we observe.

 

[Michael]

Oh good, you've found an inelastic scattering process that works, have you?

Not yet. Then again, your entire industry can't cite a single source of 'dark energy', and you've had something like 15 years to "find one". So what? In terms of total man years spent searching for an answer, I've not even put in a single year yet. Your industry has something like hundreds of thousands of man years invested in magical energy and matter and collectively you can't cite a single source for either!

Or shown how phonons are aligned with respect to Earth in all directions of the universe, statically,

Birkeland's work would "predict" an aligned EM field with respect to spacetime. I don't even fully understand the implications of that theory as it relates to positrons yet, let alone photons!

or shown how Compton scattering can have it's transverse velocity component removed and still satisfy conservation of momentum,

That seems to be the 64 thousand dollar question. Then again you haven't "shown" that exotic forms of mater exist, nor that they emit positrons at *any* energy state.

or found a source of lasers in space that cause only the redshift 'portion' of the signal broadening of the AC Stark effect?

Since you folks refuse to consider AC or DC or any combination thereof, it's irrelevant to me that I personally haven't found the answer yet. It's not like I even do this for a living, I do it in my "spare time". The fact that AC *does* have an effect on photons pretty much shoots all your claims dead IMO. Your magic photons must weave and dodge their way around every single temperature and EM field gradient in space, ever dust particle, every plasma particle, etc. They are the ultimately in "magic" as it relates to missing every type of scattering influence in spacetime.

It generally seems to me you have no idea of the processes (eg, GR, SR) whatsoever, since you didn't blink before luminiferous aether was suggested (by you).

I didn't suggest anything of the sort. I handed you papers related to VP's and their influence on photons. You ignored both papers apparently.

Because your naturally occurring process (nice poisoning of the well by the way) wouldn't produce the observed excess and wouldn't produce it with no particular correlation with location or time, once again.

That statement is simply a "statement of faith" on your part. Then again, so was your 'magic matter that is spread out evenly'. It's also a statement of faith that your magical matter emits *any* positrons at *any* energy state. It's not only a statement of faith, it's a statement of faith that flies in the face of LHC results on SUSY theories. Even the "experts" on SUSY theory are starting to talk openly about their doubts.

We have an observation of an excess of positrons which doesn't correlate in time or location to any specific phenomena such that it could be ruled out as an observation.

How did you "rule out" those cosmic rays produced by electrical discharges interacting with the plasmas of spacetime?

We have two models that can account for that excess - a pulsar model

It's a *discharge* model in the final analysis, not a "pulsar model"! Pulsars simply turn variable EM fields into charged particle movement! It's not magic, it's *electrical discharge* related!

and WIMP annihilations.

Apparently you missed the fact that SUSY theory failed it "golden test"?

BBC News - Popular physics theory running out of hiding places

If superparticles were to exist, the decay would happen far more often. This experiment is one of the "golden" tests for supersymmetry, and it would appear that this hugely popular theory among physicists has failed.

So, *in spite of* the utter *failure* of SUSY theory to pass it's "golden test", you still put "blind faith" in WIMP theory? Why?


You don't have an "alternative" to pulsars! You have a "gap theory" at best case, but worse yet, you have have a gap theory that fails it's own golden tests! It's the unfalsifiable theory from pagan hades!

One is right, the other is wrong.

One is a proven source of positrons. One is a sky mythos devoid of empirical support. It's not much a contest IMO.

I think it'd be nice to know. And so does the rest of the scientific community. If it is a pulsar origin, we can't actually SEE said pulsars either!

You aren't actually seeing anything. We're detecting high energy positrons in excess of high energy electrons in the "ambiplasma" that Alfven "predicted" would be found using PC/EU theory.

Could be either pulsars or WIMP annihilations (unless someone has a plausible alternative explanations - I heard a couple of less plausible ones a few weeks ago, including one in particular involving LKP dark matter particles being amplified by a nearby black hole).

Sure, anything except "electrical discharges" in plasma.

And there goes the "come to Jesus" part of the post with the expected results. Bingo! I figured you'd probably suddenly realise that we're not all idiots and we might know what we're talking about when it's said there are two good models, and pick the one that isn't dark matter...just 'cause.

Huh? It's more like "come back to empirical physics". I have a known physics source of positrons in a "natural" source called "electrical discharges". You apparently have some strong emotional attachment to a mythical form of matter that has never been observed to exist, let alone emit any positrons. You're "come to false (dark) messiah" claim is apparently based upon simply ignoring basic processes in plasma!

Why would it cause a positron excess? Do you even know?

I don't "know" anything, and neither do you in terms of WHY there is a positron excess. I can speculate just like you do.

Why IS it more plausible to you, other than a predisposition based solely on bias and not physics. Would love to know your answer.

Because here on Earth, electrical discharges emit positrons and gamma rays. Dark stuff fails it's own golden tests in the lab apparently.

Yeah, that's not what causes a positron excess in the pulsar model. Try again. P.S. I noticed you embraced the pulsar thing within about what....ten seconds? Dark lightning? Pffff. Gone. Outta here.

The part that is "Outta here" is your attitude. You're not even holding any "honest doubt" about any of these ridiculous claims that you make about exotic forms of matter and energy. You also spend way too much of your time *bashing people* rather than focusing on ideas. If the individual will not "give up" based upon your nonstop use of of personal attacks, apparently you give up. Oh well....

Why only the high energy ones? Is electrical charge cancellation now energy level dependent? You're just making stuff up that sounds science-y now.

It's more like the fastest electrons (from the source) are the most likely to reach the IGM and interact with it. Why it's selective is beyond me. The whole thing could be "externally powered" for all I know, with positrons acting as the actual "power source". I really don't know. What I do do know is that ordinary EM field can account for high speed charged particles. I have no need for exotic forms of matter to explain them.

Wow. I guess we're all morons then.

No. You're all just afraid of change, but unfortunately for you, change is inevitable, and it's just around the corner. The never technologies and observations haven't actually been kind to your theory. SUSY theory hasn't been helped out all by the LHC results to date.

Ha! This gets funnier and funnier. Now you're not only beginning to understand it, you're embracing it as if it was your position all along, despite the fact two posts back or so you didn't even realize the significance of the excess, and merely thought you had to find sources of positrons and say "look you idiots, here's another source of positrons, I bet you missed it!".

Pfft! You're not even listening to my answers and explanations apparently. "Pulsars" are not even a direct source of high energy positrons! Pulsars do not emit positrons from their surface. They do not emit positrons at all! The only "natural" cause of high energy positrons are electrical discharges. A spinning EM field is going to induce current in a conductive plasma *around* the pulsar that will create "discharges" the emit high energy particles of all types, including positrons. I reject *both* of your claims. Pulsars are *not* a direct source of positron, nor are WIMPS. NASA never even actually mentioned the *ONLY KNOWN SOURCE* of high energy positrons! Shame on them!

I guess we should just start referring to dark matter as 'dark plasma that might have an electrical charge' and see if you bite! Doesn't seem to take much...

If you folks even acknowledged the *numerous* problems in your theory caused by all that matter they found in the plasma around the galaxy, I'd be impressed. The fact your entire industry is afraid to discuss the *real cause* of positron emissions is simply pathetic IMO. They really should be sued for false advertizing IMO.

A curious changing of the topic to something you might have a modicum of knowledge about, to avoid talking about quantum mechanics, about which you have essentially zero.

That's quite "big talk" from a guy that hasn't touched either of those recent papers on VP's and their effect on photons. At least I admit I have things to learn, whereas apparently you're the world leading expert on everything, including invisible matter and energy.

And we're back...now we're talking 'electrical discharges' (an ill-defined concept at best, which is why you like it)...thoroughly confusing the issue when a moment ago you were completely aboard the pulsar idea.

Baloney. It's not the least bit "ill-defined", nor confusing. Electrical discharges release positrons here on Earth. I have no need for exotic matter to explain positron emissions.

Well, since space-time itself carries no charge (the concept is meaningless),

In your belief system that may be true, but in real physics it's not. Birkeland actually "predicted" that space was relatively positively charged with respect to every sun. He would certainly not have been surprised to discover an abundance of high energy positrons in cosmic rays.

no, because that would be wrong, or a best a pointless statement (an electrical charge flowing requires a variance in potential, something that can only be had by the particles within space-time, not space-time itself).

The plasmas in the IGM and ISM have more protons and positrons than has electrons. It therefore interacts with all "cathode suns". That pretty much the core *prediction* of Birkeland's entire theory. Have you even actually sat down and read his work yet?

 

[davidbilby]

Right. You can't get your magical matter to show up in a lab, nor emit a single positron in a controlled experiment, and somehow that's all my fault. Worse yet, since you don't really have a logical rebuttal, you're left with resorting to the oldest trick in the book - "kill the messenger".

Back to the lab again now. Wow. Just wow. (by the way, what is the control you're imagining in that experiment that we're...lacking?).

He provides us *both* with a "model" to consider. You'll blithely handwave it away, whereas I see no logical reason to do so. There may very will be way for a photon to pass on it's momentum into a plasma medium, leaving heat in it's wake, and a loss of momentum to the photon.

Momentum is a vector quantity. He defines a photon-electron interaction (I know you said you were considering other alternatives, since that clearly doesn't work, but I'm talking about his model now) - and that is demonstrably wrong. It doesn't add up. See all previous comments on this, and yes, six lines of algebra that show his equations cannot be right. You cannot arbitrarily remove the transverse velocity component and just go "linear momentum is conserved" because it most evidently isn't, when you actually add it up. In his particular equation it omits (1-cos theta) which in the instance he cites would send the photon off at a 90 degree angle...

I showed you two papers on VP's and their effect on photons that I have yet to hear you comment on. Until you do, it's a little goofy for you to talk about Holushko when I've handed you more recent (and published) work to consider.

And I gave you the benefit of the doubt and said....surely you don't think that virtual particle pairs are an aether through which light propagates? Not even the authors of that (rather controversial) paper think that...maybe reread it again and point to where you think that they think photons would not propagate without VPs. If you need an explanation of why that's not what it says....oh boy. Let me know. I guess you're also now going to stop bringing the Holushko option, since it's "goofy" to talk about it....thank goodness for that. At least we got one bit of vixra woo out of the way.

Somewhere in this conversation we're going to have to consider the differences between GR and QM as it results to photon travel paths.

In that sense they are no different, since photons travel null geodesics which are compatible between GR and QM. The two being incompatible only becomes a problem with singularities, which is a whole other topic.

Until you get over the notion that GR *must* be accurate at the level of photon/plasma/phonon interactions, you just don't "get it" IMO. It's "silly" to you apparently *only* because you refuse to consider alternatives to your viewpoints.

I considered (and have considered it far more times than it is due) your alternative, and if a theory as regards quantum particles doesn't add up in basic quantum mechanics, it's going to be pretty hopeless. If it added up in QM and didn't in GR, you'd have something, but in its own domain it is, as Zwicky put it...hopeless.

I guess I don't necessarily *assume* that GR is going to be be the "be-all-end-all" of understanding the physics of spacetime as you do.

Given that I've worked quite a lot in the area of singularity mathematics, that's a surprising (and incorrect) accusation. Nobody thinks GR is the be all end all because of a tricky old problem with singularities and how that relates to quantizing the metric field (and how implausibly impossible that is)...this isn't news, you know. But I digress.

For instance, I'm quite certain that *most if not all* of your fascination with "dark sky things", is a direct result of your fear of PC/EU theory.

Really? There was me thinking it was the undergraduate degree in physics. Silly me. Hadn't even heard of plasma cosmology woo until well past the fascination stage with dark matter and dark energy. Actually, it was just the swathes of evidence, particularly (as regards dark energy) the late time ISW effect measurements in baryon acoustic oscillation studies.

The moment you folks start talking about electrical discharges in space, and *plasmas* rather than "hot gasses", the jig is up. Better that you claim that "magic matter did it" with respect to positron emissions rather to even *mention* electrical discharges in plasma. What a fear based religion.

Actually, you'll notice I've claimed nothing of the sort. Once again, it's an immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade that causes the positron formation near a pulsar from electrons ripped from the surface of the pulsar by electric fields, not plasma effects and discharges (I suppose you could try and call it that but that'd just be confusing since this something quite specific)

And in fact, the physics community is actually actively discussing all models that actually produce numbers that fit the observed curve. For a good roundup, please read this:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.4827v2.pdf

 

[Michael]

Back to the lab again now. Wow. Just wow.

At some point it might be useful for you to explain to me why you lack belief in an intelligent creator. You seem to put all kinds of faith in things that your eyes cannot see, based simply upon a perceived "effect" you think it produces.

(by the way, what is the control you're imagining in that experiment that we're...lacking?).

Imagine me claiming that those positron emissions are a direct result of "God did it". That's about the same lack of control you have as it relates to demonstrating any of your claims. There is no cause/effect link between exotic matter and positron emissions at *any* energy state! It's not just just a "leap of faith" you're making, you're making a "bad leap of faith" based upon current LHC results run to date. They *falsified* the "simple" and the "popular" SUSY theories, and SUSY theory failed its "golden test". Your faith in the unseen in this case is an example of "bad religion" that is essentially "working the gaps" up the energy ladder, praying to God/(sky deity of choice if you're an atheist) that something actually shows up at LHC once the upgrades are complete. Even still there is no guarantee that anything "new" that might show up will have any of the necessary properties, including longevity, or "invisibility", etc. You're essentially 'guessing' at best case, and "betting against the odds" in terms of standard particle physics theory. Why? Have you folks even factored in all that mass that surrounds the galaxies in form of million degree plasma? Its located around the *outside* of the galaxy, right where your "dark matter" supposedly exists, and we just "found" all that missing mass last year.

Momentum is a vector quantity. He defines a photon-electron interaction (I know you said you were considering other alternatives, since that clearly doesn't work, but I'm talking about his model now) - and that is demonstrably wrong.

For the record, Holushko's work is *generic*, and *inclusive* of all types of inelastic scattering. It's not specific, nor is it exclusive as you seem to imagine.

It doesn't add up. See all previous comments on this, and yes, six lines of algebra that show his equations cannot be right. You cannot arbitrarily remove the transverse velocity component and just go "linear momentum is conserved" because it most evidently isn't, when you actually add it up. In his particular equation it omits (1-cos theta) which in the instance he cites would send the photon off at a 90 degree angle...

I'm going to grant you that in order for the equations to be balanced, the loss of momentum from the photon has to lead to an increase of heat/movement in the IGM medium, or an an increase in electron density, or a change in phonon density in some way in order for it to all balance correctly. Whether that loss of momentum is related to the photon-electron relationship remains to be seen, but Chen's work would suggest that the amount of redshift is related to electron density. That increase in electron density could simply create an increase in the virtual-photon density that carries the EM field, and the photon could be interacting with the EM field density changes, not necessarily the electrons directly. Even still, there does seem to be a relationship between electron density and redshift in Chen's results.

And I gave you the benefit of the doubt and said....surely you don't think that virtual particle pairs are an aether through which light propagates? Not even the authors of that (rather controversial) paper think that...maybe reread it again and point to where you think that they think photons would not propagate without VPs.

You're tossing in a red herring IMO. I'm not making any claims about the *necessity* of an EM aether to exist for photons to travel through a vacuum (at least not yet), but Brilliuon scattering shows that EM field changes can and do have an effect on photon redshift.

If you need an explanation of why that's not what it says....oh boy. Let me know. I guess you're also now going to stop bringing the Holushko option, since it's "goofy" to talk about it....thank goodness for that. At least we got one bit of vixra woo out of the way.

Your criticisms of his work aren't valid IMO. I see nothing in his paper that talks about any *requirement* of the aether in order for photons to travel through the vacuum. He's suggesting that the photons interact with a *medium* that could just be a variable EM field for all I know. Holushko's work is fine. It's your mind that remains irrationally closed IMO.

In that sense they are no different, since photons travel null geodesics which are compatible between GR and QM. The two being incompatible only becomes a problem with singularities, which is a whole other topic.

No, it becomes an issue as the photons travel through a *VP medium* in QM (if you refuse to call it an EM aether), not just an empty "vacuum". Even by your metaphysically kludged brand of GR, there is an excess of energy located in the "vacuum". The vacuum is not empty. The question then becomes: "What is the effect of a non empty vacuum on photons?"

I considered (and have considered it far more times than it is due) your alternative,

Have you even read Birkeland's work? Really?

and if a theory as regards quantum particles doesn't add up in basic quantum mechanics, it's going to be pretty hopeless.

Apparently it's not all that hopeless since I was able to hand you two recent papers on the topic of VP-photon interaction.

If it added up in QM and didn't in GR, you'd have something, but in its own domain it is, as Zwicky put it...hopeless.

What seems "hopeless" is pulling your head out of the *assumption* that the primary particle interaction is electron-photon related. Maybe that's true, but maybe that's not the whole story. Maybe the electron density changes Chen observes also induce EM field changes that also play a role in the interaction. I can't be sure until I *test* all ideas in an open an honest manner. If the funding all goes towards "find the invisible sky deity by staring at the sky", that's never going to happen.

Given that I've worked quite a lot in the area of singularity mathematics, that's a surprising (and incorrect) accusation. Nobody thinks GR is the be all end all because of a tricky old problem with singularities and how that relates to quantizing the metric field (and how implausibly impossible that is)...this isn't news, you know. But I digress.

The basic issue in terms of black hole density comes back to a Pauli exclusive view of "massive objects", vs a pure "singularity" viewpoint. Count me in the former category. I don't believe in infinite density objects.

Really? There was me thinking it was the undergraduate degree in physics. Silly me. Hadn't even heard of plasma cosmology woo until well past the fascination stage with dark matter and dark energy. Actually, it was just the swathes of evidence, particularly (as regards dark energy) the late time ISW effect measurements in baryon acoustic oscillation studies.

If you could demonstrate that oscillation of energy states of "normal matter" was actually influenced by some exotic form of matter/energy, your argument might not be a completely circular argument. As it stands, it's a "point at the sky and add one or more invisible deity(ies)" claim. Not only can you not demonstrate that exotic forms of matter or energy exist, you cannot show they oscillate acoustics, or anything else. It's all one gigantic affirming the consequent fallacy!

Actually, you'll notice I've claimed nothing of the sort. Once again, it's an immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade

Why does your term "immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade" sound suspiciously like Peratt's definition of an "electrical discharge"? Care to cite an example of this "immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade" in laboratory terms?

that causes the positron formation near a pulsar from electrons ripped from the surface of the pulsar by electric fields,

How did you rip electrons from the surface and (as if by magic) turn them into positrons again?

not plasma effects and discharges (I suppose you could try and call it that but that'd just be confusing since this something quite specific)

It sounds "specific" alright. It sounds specifically intended to obscure the real "term" for what is taking place in the plasma, AKA "electrical discharge".

And in fact, the physics community is actually actively discussing all models that actually produce numbers that fit the observed curve. For a good roundup, please read this:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.4827v2.pdf

I'll give it go as I get time. I suspect the authors will go to great lengths to avoid the term "electrical discharge". It's apparently your industry's version of an empirical "satan" figure, that has every (from your point of view "evil") intent of destroying your magic religion.

 

[davidbilby]

At some point it might be useful for you to explain to me why you lack belief in an intelligent creator.

Oh yes? Would it also be useful to explain to you why I lack belief in Elvis still being alive? Because that would be as relevant - which is to say, not.

No, it wouldn't be useful. It would serve to draw irrelevant comparisons between an 'intelligent' personal deity - with all its encumbering baggage, from creationism soup to theology nuts - to a mathematical model describing what might cause the observations of redshifted spectra.

You know the baggage you cite by claiming deistic properties for a hypothesis, and you choose you words despite knowing there are considerably better ways of phrasing it. Think of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". He didn't refer to it as "deistic entanglement"...

Thus goes sensible discourse between enlightened individuals.

You seem to put all kinds of faith in things that your eyes cannot see, based simply upon a perceived "effect" you think it produces.

We perceive an effect. It is only rational to develop hypotheses for the cause of this effect. Then one tests the hypotheses. Those that are found wanting (eg tired light) are discarded. Those that are found to have issues but still have some accuracy are explored further. There is no hypothesis that perfectly describes the universe yet - we try and improve upon the picture, just as Einstein improved upon Newtonian gravitational dynamics.

Imagine me claiming that those positron emissions are a direct result of "God did it".

If the positrons arrived and spelled out the ten commandments in Morse code, then "God did it" might be a valid hypothesis, but they don't, so it isn't. Next?

There is no cause/effect link between exotic matter and positron emissions at *any* energy state!

Most mathematical models for WIMPs predict self annihilation which the result of which would be positron excesses at the energy level related to the mass of the dark matter particle. If we are right, then the positron excess we observe at 10 GeV could be that signal. We don't KNOW if we're right, and neither do you.

Essentially your objection boils down to "you don't know if that's being caused by that, so I think it's not being caused by that". This is an unscientific position.

It's not just just a "leap of faith" you're making, you're making a "bad leap of faith" based upon current LHC results run to date. They *falsified* the "simple" and the "popular" SUSY theories, and SUSY theory failed its "golden test".

No, it didn't, and no, they didn't. They constrained them to within degrees that look like there may, be problems. This does not invalidate non-supersymmetric dark matter theories in the slightest, and doesn't completely invalidate supersymmetric ones. You jump to an unsupported conclusion.

Your faith in the unseen in this case is an example of "bad religion"

Again, deistic comparisons only show that you do not understand. Do you think that anything you cannot see is God? You cannot see me. Maybe I'm god? You can only see the effect I'm having on this board, posts appearing etc.

I could just as easily say you have no cause and effect justification to know that I'm the cause of this post appearing. The objection is laughable, infantile and unworthy of intelligent discourse.

Why? Have you folks even factored in all that mass that surrounds the galaxies in form of million degree plasma? Its located around the *outside* of the galaxy, right where your "dark matter" supposedly exists, and we just "found" all that missing mass last year.

Math please, a citation where somebody shows how the mass of intergalactic plasma fulfills the missing mass problem from galactic rotation curves, for starters.

For the record, Holushko's work is *generic*, and *inclusive* of all types of inelastic scattering. It's not specific, nor is it exclusive as you seem to imagine.

Please show how the application of a Gaussian distribution to photon travel time assuming luminifereous aether and the non-constancy of C is *generic* to a "tired light" theory assuming the constancy of C, and implying an inelastic photon-leptonic interaction with energy-momentum conserved (math to show that please), or a photon model where propagation upon a null geodesic geometry is dependent on virtual particle emission-reemission.

Math would be traditional, but I guess unlikely from you.

Until then your assertion is dismissed and will not be discussed further by me. Quit insulting my intelligence and your own.

I'm going to grant you that in order for the equations to be balanced, the loss of momentum from the photon has to lead to an increase of heat/movement in the IGM medium, or an an increase in electron density, or a change in phonon density in some way in order for it to all balance correctly.

No. This is wrong. Firstly you compare two scales - quantum (photon) and macroscopic (IGM medium), so the comparison is poor.

Secondly the loss of momentum from the photon implies a vector change, as momentum is a vector quantity. For equations to be balanced, you have to show how the vector quantity of momentum is satisfied - with both sides of the vector.

The notion of "phonon density" is errant and I think you're just writing science-y word salad again. (We do have a concept known as the "phonon density of states" which determines the heat capacity of certain crystalline structures).

Phonons are also a feature pretty much exclusively of condensates, not free electrons in a plasma (although I will grant that there has been work in the field of plasma crystals, but I'm sure you're not applying a universal crystalline structure to intergalactic plasma, because that would be rather silly.)

Whether that loss of momentum is related to the photon-electron relationship remains to be seen, but Chen's work would suggest that the amount of redshift is related to electron density.

Chen's interaction causes signal line broadening, laser induced in carbon nanotubes, so is still as irrelevant as the last time you brought it up. Won't get any more relevant by mere repetition.

That increase in electron density could simply create an increase in the virtual-photon density that carries the EM field

This is a meaningless sentence. "virtual photon density"? Virtual photons may have energy spectra but certainly no meaningful density estimate and no meaningful concept of them "carrying the EM field". Word salad again, sorry.

and the photon could be interacting with the EM field density changes, not necessarily the electrons directly. Even still, there does seem to be a relationship between electron density and redshift in Chen's results.

There's a relationship between electron density in the carbon nanotube and the resultant signal broadening seen, involving both the redshifting and blueshifting of certain spectral lines that is decidedly non-Doppler like. Fascinating for optical communication in carbon nanotubes and irrelevant as regards the wavelength independent cosmological redshift. Next?

You're tossing in a red herring IMO. I'm not making any claims about the *necessity* of an EM aether to exist for photons to travel through a vacuum (at least not yet), but Brilliuon scattering shows that EM field changes can and do have an effect on photon redshift.

Again, you're wrong. Brillouin scattering can indeed show that EM field changes can have effects on photons, but not directly and only in a particular circumstance - only via electrostiction of an electromagnetic field causing acoustic vibrations which themselves in turn cause Brillouin scattering, but the effect is tiny, on the orders of picometers of wavelength change, and the light is scattered in the opposite direction! This cannot happen in intergalactic plasma where the densities are nowhere near plausible and again, the structural alignment necessary would be ridiculous. (Essentially, you'd be pretending that the whole IGM would be as dense as optical fiber, which might give us problems, you know, seeing other galaxies).

Furthermore phonons are exhibited in condensate matter and crystalline structures (including 2D plasma crystalline structures) and not the intergalactic plasma. So you're left with other causes of Brillouin scattering, like quasiparticles and magnetic spin waves.

Furthermore, the photon IS deflected from its original path of travel in Brillouin scattering. (Forward in the sense only means in the 180 degree field of travel in front of the photon's original path).

Article on Brillouin scattering, nonlinearity, optical fibers, threshold - Encyclopedia of Laser Physics and Technology

He's suggesting that the photons interact with a *medium* that could just be a variable EM field for all I know. Holushko's work is fine. It's your mind that remains irrationally closed IMO.

Oh good grief. I guess you just ignored that prior post. What part of "returns meaning to light as waves in media" do you not understand? Do you understand what a medium is?

No, it becomes an issue as the photons travel through a *VP medium* in QM (if you refuse to call it an EM aether)

The VP ideas make no mention of aether because that would be wrong. You're not even sure what you're talking about...

Have you even read Birkeland's work? Really?

Already answered that. I have skimmed some of his papers but it is not directly related to much of my field.

Apparently it's not all that hopeless since I was able to hand you two recent papers on the topic of VP-photon interaction.

What seems "hopeless" is pulling your head out of the *assumption* that the primary particle interaction is electron-photon related. Maybe that's true, but maybe that's not the whole story. Maybe the electron density changes Chen observes also induce EM field changes that also play a role in the interaction.

Chen observes electron density changes...in anywhere other than carbon nanotubes where the electrons are loosely bound to carbon nuclei? Are you suggesting IGM electrons are bound to carbon nuclei? Gee, I missed that part of the paper. Maybe because it isn't there.

The basic issue in terms of black hole density comes back to a Pauli exclusive view of "massive objects", vs a pure "singularity" viewpoint.

Oh, God, please not be bringing up Manuel to obfuscate things and change the subject in an irrelevant direction...

Count me in the former category. I don't believe in infinite density objects.

If you could demonstrate that oscillation of energy states of "normal matter" was actually influenced by some exotic form of matter/energy, your argument might not be a completely circular argument. As it stands, it's a "point at the sky and add one or more invisible deity(ies)" claim. Not only can you not demonstrate that exotic forms of matter or energy exist, you cannot show they oscillate acoustics, or anything else. It's all one gigantic affirming the consequent fallacy!

This is just word salad. What do you mean by "oscillation of energy states"? "oscillate acoustics"? There are contexts which make sense to talk about acoustic vibrations (such as in dense optical fibers), but this is not what you're referring to here it seems...

This is nonsense of the Deepak Chopra variety. This is not physics. You are talking to someone to whom you cannot just make stuff up by stringing scientific sounding words together and get away with it. That last paragraph is literally nonsense.

Why does your term "immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade" sound suspiciously like Peratt's definition of an "electrical discharge"? Care to cite an example of this "immediate multiplicative electromagnetic cascade" in laboratory terms?

Seriously? I mean really? I guess you missed QED as well as QM and GR.

Please look up electromagnetic cascading in literally ANY decent physics/QM textbook (maybe look for QED textbooks to speed up the process), and come back when you've realised why it's not an "electrical discharge" and no sensible intelligent person would describe it as such. This is really basic QED...

How did you rip electrons from the surface and (as if by magic) turn them into positrons again?

Please read some of Alice Harding's work. Or any textbook on quantum electrodynamics. Why 'turn them into positrons again'? Why again? What are you even talking about?

As to why positrons are emitted and an excess should be observed in the pulsar model, again, please learn what electromagnetic cascading is.

It sounds "specific" alright. It sounds specifically intended to obscure the real "term" for what is taking place in the plasma, AKA "electrical discharge".

It is not an electrical discharge, because charge is not flowing due to variations in potential (charge is not flowing at all in that sense) - it is an electromagnetic cascade process. Read your QED textbooks again.

Please learn the difference. If you said "electrical discharge from the pulsar surface" that would be WRONG. Incorrect. Implies all sorts of things that aren't actually happening. Because that's NOT what happens. Again, please read some of Alice Harding's work.

I'll give it go as I get time. I suspect the authors will go to great lengths to avoid the term "electrical discharge". It's apparently your industry's version of an empirical "satan" figure, that has every (from your point of view "evil") intent of destroying your magic religion.

Cool story. You know, we have such an Amish-like fear of "electrical discharges" - so much so in fact that I wear lead gloves whilst typing on these horrific computer things, and prefer candlelight. Aaaaaaaargh! It burns!

 

[Michael]

Oh yes? Would it also be useful to explain to you why I lack belief in Elvis still being alive? Because that would be as relevant - which is to say, not.

No, it wouldn't be useful. It would serve to draw irrelevant comparisons between an 'intelligent' personal deity - with all its encumbering baggage, from creationism soup to theology nuts - to a mathematical model describing what might cause the observations of redshifted spectra.

FYI, I'll most likely have to pick apart your post and chip away at it today if I am to have any hope of addressing it today.

From my perspective at least, there's an interesting dichotomy in your 'attitude' toward to the topic of God, vs. your attitude toward resolving the redshift mystery. You seem to "lack belief" in God, something that humans have reported having a relationship with since the dawn of recorded civilization. On the other hand, the only reason you seem to put any faith at all in "invisible sky things" is due to your 'faith' that your metaphysical creation of choice has the desired effect on photons (or space) that you claim they have. In one case you claim that so called 'dark matter' emits positrons and gamma rays, apparently in spite of SUSY theory failing it's "golden test'. In the second case, you claim that invisible energy accelerates an entire universe, but you can't cite a source, nor can you get it to accelerate a single atom in a controlled experiment on Earth.

Care to explain that contradiction? Your whole argument is based upon a blatant fallacy, specifically an affirming the consequent fallacy. Whereas humans *report* having a relationship with something they call "God" while on Earth, your invisible friends apparently have no effect on anything in any lab.

You know the baggage you cite by claiming deistic properties for a hypothesis, and you choose you words despite knowing there are considerably better ways of phrasing it.

I'm honestly seeing absolutely no difference between an ordinary (bad) "religion", and what you're calling a form of "science" in Lambda-CDM "theory". You're using three hypothetical entities to pull off this "magic", and none of them show up in the lab!

Think of Einstein's "spooky action at a distance". He didn't refer to it as "deistic entanglement"...

Thus goes sensible discourse between enlightened individuals.

If you want to have a sensible discourse between enlightened individuals, I suggest you start by attacking *ideas* and lay off the personal attacks.

I don't personally put a negative connotation on the term 'faith' or on the term "religion". There are good and bad religions, just as there good and bad scientific theories. In your case I honestly see little or no empirical difference between your beliefs and a "bad religion/scientific theory".

I suppose the fact you're an atheist explains why you get all bent of out shape when I compare Lambda-CDM to a "religion", and actually a "bad" one a that. It certainly requires more pure acts of faith in the unseen (in the lab) on the part of the "believer" than your average 'religion".

In my 'religion" in fact, I can't *help* be see "God" everywhere! Nothing in my "religion" requires me to have faith in the unseen (in the lab). Even awareness shows up in the lab in a variety of forms, and I can *see* the whole visible universe. None of it is invisible in my 'religion', and God isn't even invisible in my religion!

We perceive an effect. It is only rational to develop hypotheses for the cause of this effect. Then one tests the hypotheses.

Humans perceive the effect of something they call "God" yet you seem to handwave away all that evidence. How did you actually demonstrate a cause/effect relationship between "dark energy" an photon redshift?

Those that are found wanting (eg tired light) are discarded.

That's a problem in your case. You "discard" things rather haphazardly, completely subjectively, and based entirely upon your *biases* in terms of the particle interactions you'll consider!

Those that are found to have issues but still have some accuracy are explored further.

You subjectively ignored that gigantic structure in space that's four times larger than your theory claims should exist. What "tests" would ever falsify a "claim' that was never 'verified' in any lab test?

There is no hypothesis that perfectly describes the universe yet - we try and improve upon the picture, just as Einstein improved upon Newtonian gravitational dynamics.

Your so called "improvements" have resulted in the insertion of three separate forms of metaphysics into what was once an empirical theory of the universe (GR as Einstein taught it to his students).

I don't call that "progress", I call that absurd!

Even the fact that SUSY theory, the one theory actually could be tested in the lab, actually *failed* it "golden test", doesn't put a dent in your 'faith' in exotic matter!

Bah.

I have to stop here for a moment. I'll pickup where I left off I get time today.

 

[Michael]

We perceive an effect. It is only rational to develop hypotheses for the cause of this effect. Then one tests the hypotheses.

How would you suggest we test the God hypothesis?

When we tested your SUSY theories, all the "popular" ones went up in smoke, and it utterly failed one of it *core* tests.

If the positrons arrived and spelled out the ten commandments in Morse code, then "God did it" might be a valid hypothesis, but they don't, so it isn't. Next?

It didn't spell out dark matter did it either. Next?

You neglect a core test that pretty much falsified SUSY theory, and not a hint of a 'sparticle' has been observed to date. Next?

You're not even sure where dark energy comes from, can't control it, can't name a source, etc. Next?

Your theory failed to predict that 4 billion light year wide structure in space. Next?

Most mathematical models for WIMPs

Most of them went "poof" in the first round of LHC tests too. Most of them predicted an abundance of decay particles that were not found!

predict self annihilation

When, where, why, how, and at *what exact energy states*? So far all I'm seeing is a 'exotic energy of the gaps does exotic self annihilation tricks everywhere we see extra positrons" claim, utterly and entirely devoid of any empirical support of any sort!

You might just as well be claiming dark God did it!

which the result of which would be positron excesses at the energy level related to the mass of the dark matter particle. If we are right, then the positron excess we observe at 10 GeV could be that signal. We don't KNOW if we're right, and neither do you.

If your theory hadn't already failed a key and important test, and most of your "popular" brands of theories hadn't already been *crushed* by the LHC results, your argument might not sound like you're grasping at pure straws!

The fact you folks also *failed to mention the most common* source of positrons at *all* known energy states actually borders on criminal behavior IMO.

In terms of pure Ockham's razor arguments, your theory is toast. Electrical discharges are a *known and demonstrated* source of positrons. James Dungey linked "electrical discharges' to solar flares back in the 1950's, and they too release positrons. We have known, and *natural* sources of positrons to work with. We have *zero* need, and zero evidence that exotic matter exists or self annihilates at exactly the energy states you're claiming.

Essentially your objection boils down to "you don't know if that's being caused by that, so I think it's not being caused by that". This is an unscientific position.

It boils down to "I can explain positrons with electrical discharges in plasma". I don't have any evidence that invisible elves "self annihilate" and generate positron emissions as some magical energy state, or some 'high energy spectrum" we observe in spacetime.

No, it didn't, and no, they didn't. They constrained them to within degrees that look like there may, be problems.

Oh for crying out loud. Even the experts are writing papers worried about a "lost generation' of physicists, and you refuse to listen. I noticed you skipped right over that paper.

This does not invalidate non-supersymmetric dark matter theories in the slightest, and doesn't completely invalidate supersymmetric ones. You jump to an unsupported conclusion.

Oh give me a break! The "models' they "dreamed up" made specifically mathematical predictions that they 'tested', all of which *failed*! Somehow I'm jumping to unsupported conclusions now? You've *concluded* that some sort of exotic matter *must* exist! What support do you have? Don't point at the sky, stick to particle physics!

Again, deistic comparisons only show that you do not understand. Do you think that anything you cannot see is God?

Er no. Actually I think that every emission we observe is a part of God. You're the one with invisible friends, not me.

You cannot see me. Maybe I'm god?

I can talk to you, and if you were in front of me, I could see you too.

You can only see the effect I'm having on this board, posts appearing etc.

Right. I can only see the effect God has on my meditations too, but it's enough to convince me of his existence, just as I'm convinced of your existence, only in your particular case it's "sight unseen".

I could just as easily say you have no cause and effect justification to know that I'm the cause of this post appearing. The objection is laughable, infantile and unworthy of intelligent discourse.

Yet you reject God as the source of my experiences during meditation, not to mention every other human being that has ever lived?

Math please, a citation where somebody shows how the mass of intergalactic plasma fulfills the missing mass problem from galactic rotation curves, for starters.

Oh for goodness sake! You just *found* all the missing baryonic matter that you knew existed, but couldn't find and never accounted for in your calculations. Did you modify your calculations based on this finding yet?

Gotta stop here for now...

 

[Michael]

And in fact, the physics community is actually actively discussing all models that actually produce numbers that fit the observed curve. For a good roundup, please read this:

http://arxiv.org/pdf/1108.4827v2.pdf

On the other hand, pulsars (or more exactly PWNe), although traditionally neglected in the CR budget, appear to have both the right energy and the hard spectral shape for leptons at the termination shock to naturally explain the lepton CR anomalies. Yet, the theoretical understanding of acceleration in these objects is less ad vanced, and some details (as the escape probability in the ISM) appear important to assess quantitatively their contribution to interstellar CR spectra. If they provide the main contribution to the lepton anomalies, it is unlikely

that future charged CR data will answer the many obscure points. More probably, progress will come from improvements into the modeling of their global emission spectrum from radio to gamma band [76, 138] as well as from simulations of the microphysics playing a role in these objects, as e.g. in [81, 84, 85]

.

FYI, your author effectively rules out DM and cites three specific reasons for doing so. He also seems to point the finger right back at Pulsars.

 

[davidbilby]

How would you suggest we test the God hypothesis?

And then how do we test the hypothesis that nothing created said God, because that God (with most religions) is the highest power that can be imagined? Your particular hypothesis is circular, whereas dark matter and energy are simple observation response. We see a doppler-like redshift, the time dilation of type Ia supernovae, and formulate a hypothesis. The God hypothesis is redundant in this, just one particular example. Can you find an example where the God hypothesis is not redundant?

The God hypothesis merely says "all this? Did God do this?". It contains the a priori assumption of the possibility of a deistic construct. It doesn't validate any specific deistic or theistic claims (a point Thomas Aquinas failed to note when he "proved" God's existence - conveniently he assumed it was his God), and ultimately, it's not based on an observation but, supposedly, every observation. If you consider this from the standpoint of a purely statistical mode; the existence of which of these is more unlikely?

1) A universe which simply did not have a creator.

2) A universe created by an intelligent creator which didn't require a creator.

Occam's razor should lead you to invalidate option 2 because it is essentially a redundant hypothesis, since it calls for two improbable events (with direct causality from one to the other), an infinitely and arbitrarily more complex construct than is necessary (one improbable event is good enough, thanks).

There is simply no observation that calls for a God hypothesis, and saying "well all of them do" is not a good enough answer as it needlessly complicates the question. Take the observation of gravity. There is no need to say "we observe gravity because the stress-energy-momentum tensor describes the curvature of space-time and God made it that way". It functions perfectly well without the God bit, and if you remove the God bit the orbital precession of Mercury matches theory precisely.

When we tested your SUSY theories, all the "popular" ones went up in smoke, and it utterly failed one of it *core* tests.

Science, mercifully, is not a popularity contest (you of all people should know that!). (Religion generally is a fairly ingratiating popularity contest).

And repeating your false assertions over and over like a stuck record just doesn't make them true. PS...where is this popularity ranking for SUSY theories of which you speak? Did LSSM make the list?

It didn't spell out dark matter did it either. Next?

Actually, it may have done, that's kind of the point. The rising of the curve around the 8.5 gev mark may well be indicative of a signature of the mass boundaries of the WIMP particle in question. Big open question. It may have also indirectly spelled out 'pulsar', as you saw from that prior paper. P.S. Funny that you accepted that paper as gospel, immediately, simply because you felt it was against my position in some way....

The positrons didn't spell out the ten commandments, nor Genesis 1:1, or any passage from the Koran, so ascribing divine nature to one particular of the competing theories is clearly incorrect, and you seem to agree now.

I'm assuming you're going to stop ascribing ridiculous "divine god of the gaps" kind of comments to dark matter theories, since you just acknowledged that there is no deistic nature to dark matter theories. Thanks. Much appreciated.

You neglect a core test that pretty much falsified SUSY theory, and not a hint of a 'sparticle' has been observed to date. Next?

Sparticles would in many models be closer to the 14 to 15TeV range and the energy levels haven't yet been brought anywhere near that high. So that's kind of not a surprise....

"Pretty much" is the language of laymen with little factual knowledge at his dispensation.

You're not even sure where dark energy comes from, can't control it, can't name a source, etc. Next?

Every time you repeat this objection, I'm going to repeat this objection. "Your solar theory says there is this blancmange layer in the sun, and we haven't found that, and we don't know how to control it, therefore your solar theory is incorrect."

So where's your blancmange layer, Michael? Strawman arguments are so much fun.

Your failure to understand or differentiate when you use the word control gives away that you haven't actually spent an enormous amount of time doing laboratory work. Maybe any? Maybe that's why you're obsessed with them? Weird complex to have. Anyhow....

There are two meanings to anybody who has done large amounts of lab work:

a) If you asking for a 'control' for the experiment, the control in astrophysical experiments may be considered the mathematical model where said phenomenon is assumed not to exist, which is then compared to observation. That is why math has been the cornerstone of physics for the last half millennium or so, and why your lack of math whilst handling physics concepts leaves your ideas lame, half a loaf, short.

b) If you mean control as in, 'remote control' or 'light switch kind of control', or "where is my dark matter laser gun", or "why can't you get dark matter to jump through hoops and sing me a song", then even a layman could see the preposterousness of your argument. You cannot "control" gravity, nor can you see it, you are slave to it and that's the end of the story.

If you want to say "I have observations of gravity", then I'll point out those are observations of the 'effects' of the stress-energy-momentum tensor, that we call gravity, and we believe we are seeing the 'effect' that dark matter has in gravitational lensing and galaxy rotation curves, and nobody has satisfactorily explained those observations without making wacky modifications to the former example, gravity...

Your theory failed to predict that 4 billion light year wide structure in space.

Once again - this is like debating a parrot - you have no proof that it's a structure, therefore your objection is presently meaningless.

The prior time a structure was found in excess of the Yadav and co. scale it was shown to be three structures, not one. Even if it were a single structure, that would be the cosmological principle that would be under threat, and not "my theory". As usual you conflate without the care and attention to detail that any scientist would endeavour to use.

your particular case it's "sight unseen".

And in yours, it's mathematics, evidence and model unseen, quantum conservation of energy-momentum unseen, inelastic scattering method unseen...need I go on?

Yet you reject God as the source of my experiences during meditation, not to mention every other human being that has ever lived?

Which God, and why? There seem to be so many from which to choose.

Which of course leads to the obvious question, given the plurality of religions in the world, and the similarities between so many (distaste for reproduction, distaste for female genitalia and genitalia in general vis a vis virgin birth etc. etc.)...is it more likely that the natural order was suspended and a personal deity who gives a damn about us (and us in particular) and cares whom we sleep with and in what position is omnipresent in the universe that it and it alone created (whilst not requiring a creator itself)....

...or is it more likely that minor delusions are a very common feature to our all too suggestible minds, as we're pretty well aware, and our primitive species has a need to come up with myriad creation myths because we are afraid of the dark, afraid of death, and so deeply afraid of the world (that was supposedly "created" for our benefit)?

Anecdotal evidence from 'meditation' (whatever that means) doesn't make it any better as evidence...it's still anecdotal. If I said I believed in dark matter because I meditated on it, that wouldn't make it more believable. In fact, you'd quickly and gleefully use that to say "dark matter is a religion". Mercifully, I'm into actual empirical science as opposed to what you think is empirical science, which isn't empirical at all, but arbitrary.

If there's one thing we've learned about the human brain, it's that it is easily fooled. If you don't think that's true, go to Vegas, or Walmart, and watch herd mentality and our screwed up psychology in action and how people can manipulate it to their own ends.

Oh for goodness sake! You just *found* all the missing baryonic matter that you knew existed, but couldn't find and never accounted for in your calculations. Did you modify your calculations based on this finding yet?

Yay. You fell for the trick question. Read it again, here's what I asked you (and it's a nice, illustrative example of how you don't actually read what I say, you just assume I say stuff, and reply with talking points regardless of what is actually said:

"Math please, a citation where somebody shows how the mass of intergalactic plasma fulfills the missing mass problem from galactic rotation curves, for starters."

Intergalactic plasma would never solve issues with (non-inter)galactic rotation curves, for obvious reasons, yet you failed to spot such an obvious non-sequitur...oh dear. You also failed to notice that the original paper wasn't talking about intergalactic plasma....

p.s. we've not actually observed even a quarter of the baryonic matter in the universe, so finding a bit of baryonic matter here and there, in whatever form, doesn't actually help you enormously, certainly not in chipping away at the five or six times that quantity that should be there in dark, non-baryonic matter, to make any of the curves work...unless you like modifying Newtonian dynamics....

 

[davidbilby]

FYI, your author effectively rules out DM and cites three specific reasons for doing so. He also seems to point the finger right back at Pulsars.

I guess you think I didn't read the paper. "FYI"? I know what it says, thanks.

P.S. I guess you just skipped the whole bit where you thought it was an electrical discharge in plasma. Thank goodness for that. Hopefully you know what cascading is now...you probably should and all. Can't imagine why that was left out of an EU model of the universe...

Anyhow...he actually doesn't "effectively" rule out either scenario in that paper (which is really just a brief summary of the present positions really)....although he leans in the pulsar direction a notch (albeit presenting quite a number of problems with it in 4.3).

For an alternative viewpoint and other further reading, see:

[1303.0530] AMS-02 positron excess: new bounds on dark matter models and hint for primary electron spectrum hardening

clearly showing the AMS-02 data is consistent with current DM detection boundaries from other experimental data for a dark matter explanation, and:

[1010.5236] Discriminating the source of high-energy positrons with AMS-02

pointing out current issues with the conclusions one must draw about the pulsars to yield the observed results (which would need to be quite different from most other pulsars we've seen, but mind you, all still very much in play and possible)

and future experimental constructs like:

[1303.7294] Indirect Detection of Self-Interacting Asymmetric Dark Matter

 

[Michael]

I guess you think I didn't read the paper. "FYI"? I know what it says, thanks.

P.S. I guess you just skipped the whole bit where you thought it was an electrical discharge in plasma. Thank goodness for that. Hopefully you know what cascading is now...you probably should and all. Can't imagine why that was left out of an EU model of the universe...

In the EU/PC universe, any moving charged particle is a form of "current". Since you folks refuse to acknowledge such trivia, it's a tad hard to have a realistic conversation. By the way, that "cascade" thing you mention is in fact an "electrical discharge in plasma" by Perratt's definition of that term.

Even more importantly, your author *did leave out* the electrical discharge aspect entirely, as though a rotating magnetic field inside a plasma medium *miraculously* induces no currents and no electrical discharges around the star! Wow. Talk about miracles. In your wacky world of upside down physics, the EM field laws must *work differently* in space than they do here on Earth. You folks really do believe in your own sort of 'dark horse miracles'.

Anyhow...he actually doesn't "effectively" rule out either scenario in that paper

He does lean away from your dark sky mythos, and leans heavily in a Pulsar direction. I quoted him appropriately in the previous post.

(which is really just a brief summary of the present positions really)....although he leans in the pulsar direction a notch (albeit presenting quite a number of problems with it in 4.3).

For an alternative viewpoint and other further reading, see:

[1303.0530] AMS-02 positron excess: new bounds on dark matter models and hint for primary electron spectrum hardening

clearly showing the AMS-02 data is consistent with current DM detection boundaries from other experimental data for a dark matter explanation, and:

....and....

In spite of the fact that your most popular brands of SUSY theory went up in smoke in the first round of LHC results, and in spite of the fact that your detector team has cried wolf in the past, and despite the fact that SUSY theory failed it's 'golden test' already, you're going to continue to put absolute, unshakeable, unquenchable "faith" in an exotic form of matter.

Not only does this exotic matter have to exist, it now has to have "new and improved" energy state that miraculously correspond to higher energy positron emissions.

We already have a known source of positrons emissions on Earth, specifically electrical discharges in the Earth's atmosphere. When we point that same satellite at the solar atmosphere, we observe positron emissions from what Dungey described as an 'electrical discharge' in the solar atmosphere. Furthermore, "Pulsars" (we'll just ignore the EM field effects for the time being) are another perfectly 'natural' source of all the higher energy positrons we might ever need. We also have rapidly spinning black holes, that apparently can rotate at a signification fraction of the speed of light that might generate all sorts of higher energy particles.

We have *at least* three *known* sources of high energy particles that all might be responsible for these emissions, not to even mention the possibility that it's an "electrical energy supply" effect.

Now instead of a selecting from any of these *known* options, you elect to point at anything you can find, and waive you magic energy wand, and claim that your magic invisible friend in your pocket emits these kinds of positrons. I'm simply supposed to *ignore* those LHC failures to date, *ignore* the cry wolf claims of the past, and *ignore* the known sources of positrons in favor of your invisible friend religion? Honestly?

Even "God" isn't "invisible" in my "religion". "God" has a physical and tangible effect on everyone at every moment in my "religion".

Your religion requires absolute faith that no Ockham's razor arguments should ever apply, and "invisible friends" are more important than known sources of positron emissions.

If the tables were turned, and I was trying to sell you that nonsense as "dark God physics", you'd laugh in my face, and rightfully so.


Sorry david, but the facts just are not on your side.

The last few weeks, and the next few weeks are going to be relatively busy for me at work. I didn't even finish replying to your last round of posts yet, so it's going to take me awhile to "catch up". Hang in there. I'll read your suggested material, and I'll see what "miracle tidbits" I can pick out of them.

I'm going to remain openly skeptical toward any and all claims about finding new particles without any control mechanism and without any method of validating a cause/effect relationship between "detection", and any particle. We can "test" neutron "hits" to some degree in the lab, and "calculate" their various possible energy states, but essentially you're "leaping" from that point onward. From that point you're claiming that anything that "seems" to deviate from those mathematical models *must be* from some exotic form of matter. If you can't turn it on or off, how can you be sure it's even related to your invisible matter?

 

[Michael]

And then how do we test the hypothesis that nothing created said God, because that God (with most religions) is the highest power that can be imagined?

Er, let's turn that around here for a second. How do we 'test' your inflation, dark energy or dark matter hypotheses? What created them? I've heard *plenty* of astronomers making whacky claims about the whole universe coming from "nothing". In fact they write entire books on that topic!

The fact that some answers lead us to unanswerable questions does not negate nor exclude them from serious scientific consideration. In short, you can't "write off God" only because you don't like the implication of where "God" came from.

I likewise can't just "write off dark energy" only because you can't tell me where it comes from. I can be "skeptical" of your claim of course, but that alone doesn't exclude it from scientific consideration. Now you could of course try to exclude *some* sorts of "religious" viewpoints on "scientific" grounds only because they fail to show up in a tangible way in controlled experimentation here on Earth, but then your "religion" must also be excluded from consideration on those very same grounds.

Your particular hypothesis is circular, whereas dark matter and energy are simple observation response.

No, your arguments are entirely "circular" in nature, whereas my argument is not. You have no tangible experimental evidence that positron emissions are related to exotic forms of matter and SUSY theory actually failed it's golden test at LHC.

I do however have tangible physical evidence that positron emission are related to "electrical discharges".

We see a doppler-like redshift, the time dilation of type Ia supernovae, and formulate a hypothesis.

If you were proposing a *movement of object* (Doppler) solution to the problem, I'd probably let you slide. As it is however, you're claiming that "space" does magic expanding tricks, and objects do not move. That's the very first claim that fails the lab test. You also tried to ride the coattails of Doppler shift, and "sell your claim" based upon "Doppler shift", even though your "solution" isn't "Doppler shift" (movement of objects). That's blatant false advertizing.

The God hypothesis is redundant in this, just one particular example. Can you find an example where the God hypothesis is not redundant?

Excuse me? God isn't redundant in the sense that it explains a whole host of human interactions with something they've called "God" since the dawn of recorded human civilization. Your "dark matter" on the other hand explains absolutely nothing that ordinary "dark plasma", and ordinary "dark discharges" explain rather nicely. Not only is your dark matter unnecessary, it flies in the face of the LHC lab results run to date that showed that SUSY theory *failed* it's golden test.

Your "dark energy" sky entity is also unnecessary and irrelevant. We already know *movement of objects* could be responsible for some of that redshift. We also know that *photon interaction with VP's and plasma* cause photon redshift. Again, I have no logical empirical need for exotic energy to explain redshift. I have known combinations of factors to work with.

The God hypothesis merely says "all this? Did God do this?". It contains the a priori assumption of the possibility of a deistic construct.

Your dark energy claim uses the very same argument. Not only did you create an undefined "space", you claimed that "dark energy" (new deity) has some mythical power over this undefined "space". You made *two* a priori assumptions, not just one!

It doesn't validate any specific deistic or theistic claims (a point Thomas Aquinas failed to note when he "proved" God's existence - conveniently he assumed it was his God),

I'm fine with simply demonstrating the existed of God thanks. I don't profess to own God anymore than I own the universe. In fact claiming "my God" is like claiming it's "my universe". I don't live in a different universe than you do just because we have different viewpoints about cosmology theory. I do live in an electric universe, and so do you.

and ultimately, it's not based on an observation but, supposedly, every observation.

Um, you just tried to use "every observation of redshift" as evidence of at two for one dark sky deity claim. I get an inflation deity and a dark energy deity all off one observation of redshifted photons. Every observation of a redshift in your mind equates to "proof of your sky entity".

If you consider this from the standpoint of a purely statistical mode; the existence of which of these is more unlikely?

1) A universe which simply did not have a creator.

On what basis are we building models?

2) A universe created by an intelligent creator which didn't require a creator.

Occam's razor should lead you to invalidate option 2 because it is essentially a redundant hypothesis, since it calls for two improbable events (with direct causality from one to the other), an infinitely and arbitrarily more complex construct than is necessary (one improbable event is good enough, thanks).[/quote]

If we used that logic, Occam's razor should also allow you to immediately drop your "dark matter did it" claim with respect to positron emissions. You seem to apply that razor rather subjectively.

There is simply no observation that calls for a God hypothesis,

You mean *besides* all the human accounts of humans claiming to interact with something they called 'God' going back to the dawn of recorded human civilization?

and saying "well all of them do" is not a good enough answer as it needlessly complicates the question.

You mean to tell me that your exotic matter claims do not complicate the question? You mean to tell me that "expansion of space" claims do not complicate the question? Inflation doesn't complicate the question in light of that four billion year long structure in space?

Take the observation of gravity. There is no need to say "we observe gravity because the stress-energy-momentum tensor describes the curvature of space-time and God made it that way". It functions perfectly well without the God bit, and if you remove the God bit the orbital precession of Mercury matches theory precisely.

Huh? You lost me. How does God change the GR equation?

From my perspective God created the laws of physic.

God did it, including GR, including using your entire host of invisible friends.

Science, mercifully, is not a popularity contest (you of all people should know that!). (Religion generally is a fairly ingratiating popularity contest).

Actually science is a popularity contest at times. It's certainly a popularity contest in terms of which theories get funding. Likewise region is a bit of a popularity contest with the successful ones becoming full blown "religions", while the smaller ones are labeled as "cults", and don't enjoy as much funding or political clout.

And repeating your false assertions over and over like a stuck record just doesn't make them true. PS...where is this popularity ranking for SUSY theories of which you speak? Did LSSM make the list?

If you weren't *desperately* trying to link "WIMPS" to positron emissions, your whining might not sound so funny. The only reason your able to do that at all is because your exotic matter claims are 'popular' with your peers. If you had to go to court, and show any of your claims are true in the lab, you'd be toast.

Actually, it may have done, that's kind of the point. The rising of the curve around the 8.5 gev mark may well be indicative of a signature of the mass boundaries of the WIMP particle in question.

How is that particular WIMP particle excluded from the "golden test" that all SUSY particles failed? How is that WIMP candidate anything other than an exotic matter of the gaps claim?

You also *utterly failed* to note that that you theory would predict a 'peak' related to the energy state of the WIMP, not a *whole range* of higher energy positrons. Again, you're selectively "finding" the data that you want to see, and ignoring the data that doesn't jive with your views. If you applied that Occum's razor argument uniformly, your mythical matter becomes moot.

Big open question. It may have also indirectly spelled out 'pulsar', as you saw from that prior paper. P.S. Funny that you accepted that paper as gospel, immediately, simply because you felt it was against my position in some way....

I simply noted his points, including the fact that there's no "peak/spike" at some specific energy state, there's a constant rise in higher energy positrons. That's not what your theory predicts, but you don't care. He did. Why should I believe you again?

The positrons didn't spell out the ten commandments, nor Genesis 1:1, or any passage from the Koran,

Likewise it didn't spell out "dark matter did it" either.

so ascribing divine nature to one particular of the competing theories is clearly incorrect, and you seem to agree now.

It's you that seems to not see how the very same argument apply to your dark sky thingamabobs. In each case there is actually data that does not fit with your theory, yet you selectively ignore it, including that failure of SUSY's "golden test", and including that 4 billion light year wide structure, and including the fact there is no obvious spike in the positron data as exotic matter theory would predict, just a *rise* in all higher energy positrons.

I'm assuming you're going to stop ascribing ridiculous "divine god of the gaps" kind of comments to dark matter theories, since you just acknowledged that there is no deistic nature to dark matter theories. Thanks. Much appreciated.

I'm afraid you missed the whole point. From my skeptical perspective, the only thing missing from your 'bad religion' (and I mean bad), is an intelligence to guide your invisible friends. You have a great "genesis" story, complete with supernatural things like inflation and dark energy. You have invisible and supernatural stuff galore. It's the ultimate in "bad religion" IMO. Even most religions suggest that "God" has a tangible effect on humans on Earth today, whereas your dark stuff is a bid dud in the lab.

The only thing "missing" from your dark religion is an intelligent creator, and it probably would "sell" better at least.

Sparticles would in many models be closer to the 14 to 15TeV range and the energy levels haven't yet been brought anywhere near that high. So that's kind of not a surprise....

Sparticle were predicted to have already shown up in the energy ranges we've explored, but you ignored them. You simply don't care that SUSY theory failed its 'golden test' either. About all you care about is running up that energy ladder/spectrum as far as you can hide because otherwise you have to face the facts. Ironically you're peddling an "exotic dark god matter of the gaps' argument in the final analysis.

What's noteworthy IMO is that you're forced to move your sparticles up the energy ladder, and grasp at any remaining SUSY models, because all the "popular" SUSY theories already bit the dust at LHC. You're running around presenting your exotic matter claims as though everyone already knew that Sparticles wouldn't be found yet. In reality SUSY theory is on life support and your "certainty" in any Sparticle model is merely a front. Your "popular' theories all bit the dust, and you've already moved the Sparticle candidates safely out of LHC's maximum energy state. Talk about pathetic emotional attachment to dogma *in spite* of the actual data! SUSY theory failed it's golden test, so move WIMP theory out of testable energy ranges at LHC and pretend it never happened.

Gotta stop here for the time being.

 

[Michael]

Actually, it may have done, that's kind of the point. The rising of the curve around the 8.5 gev mark may well be indicative of a signature of the mass boundaries of the WIMP particle in question. Big open question.

It's not on open question to the author you cited. In fact, you simply and utterly ignored the problems:

3. Is DM a good bet for explaining the CR lepton features?

At first sight, an “excess” in the positron fraction is qualitatively expected in DM annihilation models, hence explaining the excitement generated by these data among particle physicists. Unfortunately, typical predictions from WIMP dark matter annihilation fail to re produce the data in three main aspects:

i) First of all, the peculiar signature for an exotic origin of the signal would rather be a spectral edge (more or less sharp, depending on the final state) after an initial rise; this drop back to the expected background at high energies is not observed, neither in the e+ fraction nor reflected as a dip in the e+ + e− data.

ii) Insisting in attributing the rise to DM, the normalization of its contribution seems to be surprisingly large, compared with typical expectation for a Swave annihilating thermal relic matching the observed dark matter abundance: i.e. in terms of annihilating cross sections,h σ vi ≫ hσvith ,S−wave≈1pb.

iii) Such a large yield of e± pairs should imply large yields of high-energy particles in other channels; in particular one expects anomalies in antiprotons, gamma-rays and possibly neutrinos, while no anomaly has been revealed yet in this respect.

Of course you simply selectively ignore all three points!

The part that really irks me no end is the fact you "sell" your beliefs with such "evangelical vigor". It's like a bad religion on steroids IMO. Even your own authors disagree with your viewpoints. At least select "better" (more supportive) material if you're going to make those kinds of claims. I frankly don't see how you can even make such claims with a straight face, let alone with such "conviction".

 

[Michael]

I guess you think I didn't read the paper. "FYI"? I know what it says, thanks.

P.S. I guess you just skipped the whole bit where you thought it was an electrical discharge in plasma. Thank goodness for that. Hopefully you know what cascading is now...you probably should and all. Can't imagine why that was left out of an EU model of the universe...

Anyhow...he actually doesn't "effectively" rule out either scenario in that paper (which is really just a brief summary of the present positions really)....although he leans in the pulsar direction a notch (albeit presenting quite a number of problems with it in 4.3).

For an alternative viewpoint and other further reading, see:

[1303.0530] AMS-02 positron excess: new bounds on dark matter models and hint for primary electron spectrum hardening

clearly showing the AMS-02 data is consistent with current DM detection boundaries from other experimental data for a dark matter explanation,

Let's take a look at the justifications they used:

II. AMS-02 POSITRON RATIO DATA: BOUNDS

ON DARK MATTER MODELS

Dark matter is a form of matter necessary to account for gravitational effects observed in very large scale structures such as the flat rotation curves of galaxies and the gravitational lensing of light by galaxy clusters that cannot be accounted for by the amount of observed/normal matter [18].

So is that statement/claim actually even true? No, it's not!

[1303.6896] Gravitational lensing evidence against extended dark matter halos

We find that the mass-to-light ratio of the lensing galaxies does not depend on radius, from inner galactic regions out to several half-light radii. Moreover, its value does not exceed the value predicted by stellar population models by more than a factor two, which may be explained by baryonic dark matter alone, without any need for exotic matter.

In fact, we've already located that mass:

Enormous gas cloud surrounds galaxy - Technology & science - Space - Space.com | NBC News
http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/galex/galex20090819.html
http://www.space.com/5348-view-universe-suddenly-bright.html

Now of course you do not want to cop to the fact that they *found* all that matter *around the outside* of the stars in our galaxy, and you refuse to ever even revise any of your estimates based upon that finding.

Claim number 2:

The most widely discussed candidate is the so-called weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), which may annihilate with each other or decay and then produce particle pairs such as photons, electrons and positrons and so on [18].

This argument is not only an appeal to popularity fallacy, it *defies* the data, and requires a pure denial of that very same data:

Supersymmetry Fails Test, Forcing Physics to Seek New Ideas: Scientific American

That is why dark matter may be able to account for the observed positron and electron excesses, as extensively examined in the literature[19–21].

So, apparently the *entire basis* of the "reason" for claiming that "dark matter did it" is due to the fact that astronomers *refuse* to update their dark matter calculations based on recent findings, and they *refuse* to be intimidated by mere facts! In short the whole claim is based upon "SUSY theory is still the best we've got, so who cares about those pesky lab details, and recent findings of baryonic matter anyway?"

Give me a break! They don't even have a valid justification for any of their claims.

 

[Michael]

You're not even sure where dark energy comes from, can't control it, can't name a source, etc. Next?

Every time you repeat this objection, I'm going to repeat this objection. "Your solar theory says there is this blancmange layer in the sun, and we haven't found that, and we don't know how to control it, therefore your solar theory is incorrect."

You missed my point. You seem to "discount" the possibility of "God", based upon some objection about where God comes from. You can't tell me where dark energy comes from. You can't tell me where inflation came from. You can't say "Next" based upon that objection or your own theory goes up in flames!

Your failure to understand or differentiate when you use the word control gives away that you haven't actually spent an enormous amount of time doing laboratory work. Maybe any? Maybe that's why you're obsessed with them? Weird complex to have. Anyhow....

Anyhow.....

This is another great example of your irrelevant emotional need to 'kill the messenger'. Apparently in your religion, if you cannot justify your claims in the lab, kill the guy that mentions it.

There are two meanings to anybody who has done large amounts of lab work:

a) If you asking for a 'control' for the experiment, the control in astrophysical experiments may be considered the mathematical model where said phenomenon is assumed not to exist, which is then compared to observation.

But when you did that and found a four billion light year long *flaw/falsification* in your theory, you blithely ignored it, and started making up any old excuse as to why it doesn't matter! Your solar models failed it's convection speed "tests" by two entire orders of magnitude! Dol you folks care? Your mathematical models are useless in terms of their falsification capacities, and you ignore their implications when it suits you.

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/...wer-than-scientists-had-previously-projected/

Since math is the king of physics, why doesn't that observation and your erroneous math falsify mainstream solar theory?

You "preach" a good sermon about the need for math, but your blithely ignore the implication of that math as it relates to your own claims and your theories. When the math works right, you boast. When it's falls flat on it's face, you ignore it.

That is why math has been the cornerstone of physics for the last half millennium or so, and why your lack of math whilst handling physics concepts leaves your ideas lame, half a loaf, short.

Actually the thing that makes it "hard" in terms of competing with your "magic physics", is that I can't simply "make up" new forms of matter and energy on a whim. I can't "cheat" and pretend to know something when I really don't know. I can't *pretend* that dark energies exist and can magically save my otherwise falsified concept of on BB theory and redshift from instant destruction. It's not as easy to compete mathematically with "make believe" physics with real, actual physics.

b) If you mean control as in, 'remote control' or 'light switch kind of control', or "where is my dark matter laser gun", or "why can't you get dark matter to jump through hoops and sing me a song", then even a layman could see the preposterousness of your argument.

We get "dark matter' to turn on and off in neutrino experiments. What's your problem? Oh ya, you don't even know where to get any of your exotic matter, let alone how to "control" it in any way. Notice the contrast?

You cannot "control" gravity, nor can you see it, you are slave to it and that's the end of the story.

It has a real measurable effect on me. Try as I might, I just cannot jump to the moon. It's not shy around the lab. It shows up every time. Ditto for EM fields. They show up in the lab and accelerate plasma all the time. Apparently only your impotent dark stuff needs a free pass in the lab?

If you want to say "I have observations of gravity", then I'll point out those are observations of the 'effects' of the stress-energy-momentum tensor, that we call gravity, and we believe we are seeing the 'effect' that dark matter has in gravitational lensing and galaxy rotation curves, and nobody has satisfactorily explained those observations without making wacky modifications to the former example, gravity...

Again, comparing gravity to your dark impotent stuff only shows just how *impotent* it actually is. Gravity isn't a no show in the lab.

Once again - this is like debating a parrot - you have no proof that it's a structure, therefore your objection is presently meaningless.

Right. I hand you a paper which you simply ignored, and now I have no "proof". Denial isn't just a river in Egypt. I'm well aware that you'd like to cut it apart into pieces, but when can I expect a paper that does so?

The prior time a structure was found in excess of the Yadav and co. scale it was shown to be three structures, not one. Even if it were a single structure, that would be the cosmological principle that would be under threat, and not "my theory". As usual you conflate without the care and attention to detail that any scientist would endeavour to use.

Don't take it personally. I answer these posts between tech calls at work. It's "sloppy" at times I'll admit, but my point typically comes across pretty clearly. You more than most show a strong public emotional attachment to Lambda-CDM theory. In that sense it is "personal' with you. Not everyone feels compelled to "defend" that particular theory for instance.

And in yours, it's mathematics, evidence and model unseen,

Absolutely false! Birkeland actually tested his models in a lab and *predicted* a whole host of things about the universe, including it's charge with respect to the surface of a sun. My ideas enjoy *lots* of mathematical support, just not support *you personally* want to see. So what?

quantum conservation of energy-momentum unseen,

Any loss of momentum of the photons would simply be passed into the medium. It's not a violation of conservation of energy-momentum, unlike your never ending dark energy acceleration claims. You have a weird fixation on this conservation thing, but only when it suits you. You have no problem at all violating that conservation concept by mucking up a GR formula with magical energies and then claiming the magic makes the GR formula too complicated to claim it violates any energy laws! Give me a break! Get over the conservation aspect of particle moment loss already. I've conceded the fact that energy is *gained* by the medium, as well as lost by the photon. You're the one mucking up the conservation laws with magical, never ending acceleration energies.

inelastic scattering method unseen...need I go on?

That's about the only actual "complaint" you've actually got. You're right, I can't say *exactly* which inelastic scattering methods are *most* and *least* responsible for photon redshift yet, *because* they all can and do have a role in photon redshift in the real world. I can't rule out all the models yet, in fact I can't rule out the movement of objects as being responsible for *some* of that redshift!

Which God, and why? There seem to be so many from which to choose.

How many brands of inflation are there now? How many possible energy states can "dark matter" exist in? How *exactly* does 'dark energy' cause "space" to expand, and what *exactly* is space, and how does it physically 'expand'?

Which of course leads to the obvious question, given the plurality of religions in the world,

Pots and kettles. What about the plurality of string theories and inflation theories?

...or is it more likely that minor delusions are a very common feature to our all too suggestible minds,

You mean the ones that "dreamed up" things like inflation and unseen forms of matter and energy? Those aren't minor delusions?

as we're pretty well aware, and our primitive species has a need to come up with myriad creation myths because we are afraid of the dark, afraid of death, and so deeply afraid of the world (that was supposedly "created" for our benefit)?

You do realize of course how absurd that sounds to a skeptic when you are the one peddling another "creation myth" complete with three different invisible metaphysical entities, some with 'supernatural' powers galore!

Anecdotal evidence from 'meditation' (whatever that means) doesn't make it any better as evidence...it's still anecdotal.

But when you tell at story about how "dark energy" cause "space" to expand, that not anecdotal?

Meditation can bring health benefits and aid function in aging brains, research suggests - Business - The Boston Globe

Do you have any idea how many tangible benefits come from meditation?

If I said I believed in dark matter because I meditated on it, that wouldn't make it more believable. In fact, you'd quickly and gleefully use that to say "dark matter is a religion". Mercifully, I'm into actual empirical science as opposed to what you think is empirical science, which isn't empirical at all, but arbitrary.

Right. Somehow when Guth slaps some math to a new form of magical energy is "empirical science", with or without any scientific precedent.

If there's one thing we've learned about the human brain, it's that it is easily fooled.

But not yours?

Yay. You fell for the trick question. Read it again, here's what I asked you (and it's a nice, illustrative example of how you don't actually read what I say, you just assume I say stuff, and reply with talking points regardless of what is actually said:

"Math please, a citation where somebody shows how the mass of intergalactic plasma fulfills the missing mass problem from galactic rotation curves, for starters."

Oh for goodness sake. I don't have time for "trick questions" and I regularly give everyone the benefit of the doubt over something as obscure as that even if I *had* noticed. Get real.

p.s. we've not actually observed even a quarter of the baryonic matter in the universe, so finding a bit of baryonic matter here and there, in whatever form, doesn't actually help you enormously, certainly not in chipping away at the five or six times that quantity that should be there in dark, non-baryonic matter, to make any of the curves work...unless you like modifying Newtonian dynamics....

[1303.6896] Gravitational lensing evidence against extended dark matter halos

Where do you even "get off" talking about five or six times baryonic anything? You've (as a collective) never even *bothered* to update any of your models in the past five years based on *any* new data! Sure, just ignore the fact that the lensing data blows you claims out of the way, and never bother to recalculate your numbers based on the plasma we found right were "dark matter" is supposed to exist! Your whole game is based on pure denial and a complete distortion of fact (five or six times).

 

[Michael]

Astronomers' "Inconvenient Truth" Reveals Hidden Hydrogen | SpaceRef - Your Space Reference

Astronomers' "Inconvenient Truth" Reveals Hidden Hydrogen

• Source: Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation
• Posted Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Local galaxies harbor about a third more neutral hydrogen gas (HI) than was previously thought, a re-analysis of radio telescope observations from Australia, the USA and the Netherlands has found.

....
Radio astronomers have known since the 1950s that the 21-cm hydrogen line can be subject to self-absorption. But, Braun says, in recent decades researchers have often ignored this "inconvenient truth", basing their estimates of HI mass solely on the strength of the spectral line.

Self-absorption, however, is characterized by flattening of the spectral line peak, and broadening of the overall profile. Measuring the detailed shape of the entire profile allows you to better estimate the total amount of HI present.

So....

There's more "neutral" (presumably cool) hydrogen than "predicted" and accounted for in Lambda-CDM models, there's also more mass in the form of million degree plasma around the galaxy than was accounted for in Lambda-CDM theory.

So far all the "dark matter" (AKA missing mass) that has been found has been found in the form of ordinary plasma and ordinary hydrogen and helium that wasn't accounted for in "primitive" Lambda-CDM models. In other words, their mathematical models about the amount and location of ordinary matter in and around a galaxy were never worth the paper that they were printed on.

The gaps for exotic forms of matter keep getting smaller and smaller with each and every new 'revelation'.