An example of the failure of Plasma Cosmology

[sjastro]

If I recall, the classical definitions of pseudoscience is that it gives the impression of being science without actually that being the case. Pseudoscience is practiced either by fools or deceivers. The main EU people seem to fall somewhere on the deception-delusion axis, where as the the main PC people (the scientists, not the YT hype-men) are more in the senile-delusion axis.

The comments being made at EU central are a perfect example.
"The Debye length is utter nonsense because electric currents can travel further than the Debye length." (words to that effect).
What the ...........?
Evidently the resident deceptor is clueless the Debye length sets limitations on the range of the electromagnetic force, not on the amount of energy supplied that drives the current from point A to point B where A and B are at different potentials and can be at distances well beyond the Debye length.
My favourite however is that orbits can be formed when the electromagnetic force is repulsive.
I hope the one or two individuals over there that do display some basic knowledge as well the odd mainstreamer (although the lifespan of a mainstreamer at EU central is generally short) will appear and call out this nonsense for the sake of those that are being deceived.

The PC stuff was poor science several decades ago, and it only gets worse. There are points to challenging parts of the mainstream cosmology and physics behind it (as they often do at EU central) like expansion redshift, but none of their alternatives (scatterings, intrinsic redshift) work out. Putting the whole thing together into a "coherent" framework doesn't really work anymore, so a unified PC ventures ever closer to pseudoscience.

This is probably where the YT hype men come into the picture to make things even worse.

[It was a cross-link between EU central and CF that brought me here about 5 years ago and only after a period of browsing did come up with a cleaver moniker. (Paulos is already using the avatar that would work for me.) I would never consider registering at EU central as I don't trust them to not falsify my content through editing.]

Maybe you should look at alternatives such as a hand held Star Trek Phaser set to kill.

 

[sjastro]

Standard candles are objects where the luminosity is well defined and can be used to calculate the distance of the object to the observer.
One such standard candle is the type 1a supernova as explained in this video.

Type 1a supernovae produce characteristic light curves which is a brightness versus time plot.

In an expanding universe each successive photon takes longer to reach the observer as the universe has expanded a certain distance during the photon’s travel time.
This results in time dilation or a stretching of the light curve, the degree of which is a function of distance.

This green curve is in the rest frame of the supernova or if the supernova is very close to the observer such as being in our own galaxy where cosmological expansion does not occur due to gravity.

Plasma Cosmology being a static universe model cannot explain the time dilation and would predict the light curve to be the same as the green curve at all distances.

 

[sjastro]

As much as I am reluctant to give this EU nonsense any more oxygen than it deserves the latest tirade against my previous post ironically reminds me of a serious flaw in Alfven’s model that I should have mentioned in my earlier posts.
So I thank the poster for providing me with another reason why Plasma Cosmology is flawed and contradicted by observation.

In metric or space-time expansion the recession velocity is always along the line of sight of the observer and forms a linear relationship with distance according to Hubble’s law.
In Alfven’s model cosmological redshift is explained as a Doppler redshift where galaxies move in space-time.
For galaxies moving in space-time there is no restriction for the recession velocity having to be along the line of sight of the observer.
In this case the measured recession velocity is simply the velocity component along the line of sight.
Alfven’s model is contradicted as these velocity measurements when plotted against distance do not show a linear relationship according to Hubble’s law.
Furthermore in Alfven’s model since galaxies move in space-time rather than being carried by the Hubble flow, special relativity applies and galaxies cannot exceed the speed of light c.
This is also contradicted by observation as general relativity allows the Hubble flow to exceed c and the recessional velocities of galaxies with cosmological redshift z ~ 1.46 or greater do in fact exceed c.
Astronomers are also able to differentiate between the “peculiar velocity” of galaxies due to Doppler shift and their cosmological redshift due to expansion.

While I am at it which is in contradiction to giving EU any further oxygen, is the comment type 1a supernova light curves is explained by the signal broadening caused by plasma.
It’s yet another one of these off the cuff pieces of mindless word salad which is not elaborated on, and indicates the poster doesn’t know the difference between a line spectrum and a light curve.
Plasma, Doppler shift, collisions, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle etc involve a broadening of individual spectral lines where the photons have a discrete spectrum of energies.
The curve for signal broadening is a plot of line intensity against frequency or wavelength.
The light curve is the number of photons over a continuous spectrum of energies plotted against time and represents variation in brightness.
Even though there maybe some vague looking similarity between the two curves they are not the same and mechanisms for broadening are totally different.

One again observation trumps this nonsense; if the stretching of the light curve is due to signal broadening by plasma then only discrete wavelengths are effected not the entire spectrum as observed in the light curve.

 

[Hans Blaster]

As much as I am reluctant to give this EU nonsense any more oxygen than it deserves the latest tirade against my previous post ironically reminds me of a serious flaw in Alfven’s model that I should have mentioned in my earlier posts.
So I thank the poster for providing me with another reason why Plasma Cosmology is flawed and contradicted by observation.

In metric or space-time expansion the recession velocity is always along the line of sight of the observer and forms a linear relationship with distance according to Hubble’s law.
In Alfven’s model cosmological redshift is explained as a Doppler redshift where galaxies move in space-time.
For galaxies moving in space-time there is no restriction for the recession velocity having to be along the line of sight of the observer.
In this case the measured recession velocity is simply the velocity component along the line of sight.
Alfven’s model is contradicted as these velocity measurements when plotted against distance do not show a linear relationship according to Hubble’s law.
Furthermore in Alfven’s model since galaxies move in space-time rather than being carried by the Hubble flow, special relativity applies and galaxies cannot exceed the speed of light c.
This is also contradicted by observation as general relativity allows the Hubble flow to exceed c and the recessional velocities of galaxies with cosmological redshift z ~ 1.46 or greater do in fact exceed c.
Astronomers are also able to differentiate between the “peculiar velocity” of galaxies due to Doppler shift and their cosmological redshift due to expansion.

While I am at it which is in contradiction to giving EU any further oxygen, is the comment type 1a supernova light curves is explained by the signal broadening caused by plasma.
It’s yet another one of these off the cuff pieces of mindless word salad which is not elaborated on, and indicates the poster doesn’t know the difference between a line spectrum and a light curve.
Plasma, Doppler shift, collisions, Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle etc involve a broadening of individual spectral lines where the photons have a discrete spectrum of energies.
The curve for signal broadening is a plot of line intensity against frequency or wavelength.
The light curve is the number of photons over a continuous spectrum of energies plotted against time and represents variation in brightness.
Even though there maybe some vague looking similarity between the two curves they are not the same and mechanisms for broadening are totally different.

One again observation trumps this nonsense; if the stretching of the light curve is due to signal broadening by plasma then only discrete wavelengths are effected not the entire spectrum as observed in the light curve.

I feel compelled to note that a z>1 does not exclude actual recession as a cause of extragalactic redshift due to special relativity. (But it is a dumb model.)

In special relativity the ratio of observed to emitted wavelength is gamma ("g"). In the language of redshift g = 1+z. (The gamma of a stationary object would be 1 making the wavelengths identical.) As the velocity of the receding object approaches c (but of course never makes it) gamma gets larger and larger with a limit at infinity as v -> c.

At small velocities (v << c), v ~ (g-1)*c = c z, but this formula breaks down far before z = 1.46.

A redshift of z=1.46 (g=2.46) can also be obtained by an object receding at v ~ 0.91 c.

The time dilation of the light curve of such an object is g (or 1+z) in special relativity as well as GR metric expansion, so this part also works. (I have some recollection that the change in relative luminosity has a different power of g (or 1+z) than space expansion, but I'm not certain at this hour.)

Now, just because z>1 doesn't kill a moving object in static spacetime cosmology, it still doesn't mean that it isn't garbage. After all, where as space expansion gives a simple relation between distance and redshift in all directions for all observers (assuming an infinite and uniformly expanding universe) the "moving galaxy" model would require that we are at the center of the universe (not that problem again!). This seems highly unlikely. None of this addresses any other aspects of PC (or EU) including the various scattering models.

Summary:

z>1 doesn't invalidate moving galaxy model (or SN Ia light curve dilation), BUT the consequences of such a model (being at the center of the expansion) are ludicrous.

 

[sjastro]

I feel compelled to note that a z>1 does not exclude actual recession as a cause of extragalactic redshift due to special relativity. (But it is a dumb model.)

In special relativity the ratio of observed to emitted wavelength is gamma ("g"). In the language of redshift g = 1+z. (The gamma of a stationary object would be 1 making the wavelengths identical.) As the velocity of the receding object approaches c (but of course never makes it) gamma gets larger and larger with a limit at infinity as v -> c.

At small velocities (v << c), v ~ (g-1)*c = c z, but this formula breaks down far before z = 1.46.

A redshift of z=1.46 (g=2.46) can also be obtained by an object receding at v ~ 0.91 c.

The time dilation of the light curve of such an object is g (or 1+z) in special relativity as well as GR metric expansion, so this part also works. (I have some recollection that the change in relative luminosity has a different power of g (or 1+z) than space expansion, but I'm not certain at this hour.)

The condition z ~ 1.46 leading to recession velocities v exceeding c is based on the following formula.

In this case GR rather than SR is used and since space-time is expanding one needs to use comoving coordinates (as illustrated by the use of z prime in the formula).
The Hubble “constant” is a misnomer as it is only constant in the current cosmological time t₀.
It is both t and z dependant.
H(t) and H(z) are functions involving the density parameters Ωm for matter (both baryonic and dark) and ΩΛ dark energy.

The ΛCDM model uses the parameters Ωm = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7 based on WMAP measurements of the CMB.

As can be seen from the diagram Ωm = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7, the recession velocity exceeds c at around z ≈ 1.5 which is supported by observation.
A far more detailed explanation can be found in this link.

Abstract: We use standard general relativity to illustrate and clarify several common misconceptions about the expansion of the universe. To show the abundance of these misconceptions we cite numerous misleading, or easily misinterpreted, statements in the literature. In the context of the new standard ΛCDM cosmology we point out confusions regarding the particle horizon, the event horizon, the “observable universe” and the Hubble sphere (distance at which recession velocity = c). We show that we can observe galaxies that have, and always have had, recession velocities greater than the speed of light. We explain why this does not violate special relativity and we link these concepts to observational tests. Attempts to restrict recession velocities to less than the speed of light require a special relativistic interpretation of cosmological redshifts. We analyze apparent magnitudes of supernovae and observationally rule out the special relativistic Doppler interpretation of cosmological redshifts at a confidence level of 23σ.]

Now, just because z>1 doesn't kill a moving object in static spacetime cosmology, it still doesn't mean that it isn't garbage. After all, where as space expansion gives a simple relation between distance and redshift in all directions for all observers (assuming an infinite and uniformly expanding universe) the "moving galaxy" model would require that we are at the center of the universe (not that problem again!). This seems highly unlikely. None of this addresses any other aspects of PC (or EU) including the various scattering models.

Summary:

z>1 doesn't invalidate moving galaxy model (or SN Ia light curve dilation), BUT the consequences of such a model (being at the center of the expansion) are ludicrous.

Given the Alfven model requires the universe to collapse to a diameter of 10 times the Hubble distance c/H₀ across a boundary before the matter/antimatter interaction occurs, I can't even visualize how an observer anywhere in this universe can perceive a purely radial motion of galaxies.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The condition z ~ 1.46 leading to recession velocities v exceeding c is based on the following formula.

In this case GR rather than SR is used and since space-time is expanding one needs to use comoving coordinates (as illustrated by the use of z prime in the formula).
The Hubble “constant” is a misnomer as it is only constant in the current cosmological time t₀.
It is both t and z dependant.
H(t) and H(z) are functions involving the density parameters Ωm for matter (both baryonic and dark) and ΩΛ dark energy.

The ΛCDM model uses the parameters Ωm = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7 based on WMAP measurements of the CMB.

As can be seen from the diagram Ωm = 0.3 and ΩΛ = 0.7, the recession velocity exceeds c at around z ≈ 1.5 which is supported by observation.
A far more detailed explanation can be found in this link.




Given the Alfven model requires the universe to collapse to a diameter of 10 times the Hubble distance c/H₀ across a boundary before the matter/antimatter interaction occurs, I can't even visualize how an observer anywhere in this universe can perceive a purely radial motion of galaxies.

I am well aware that in the standard cosmology, recession velocities can exceed c. My point in the previous post was that by using special relativity, we could construct a flow pattern (however ridiculous) for receding galaxies that worked for high redshifts (and for the time dilation of the light curves). The consequences create an Earth-centric cosmology with every galaxy moving away from us at relativistic speeds. I'm not familiar with these other aspects of the Alfven(/Klein) model and m/am boundaries, etc.

Sometimes it is useful to meet the pseudoscience within a realm that it accepts. Most of those at EU central (both the masters and the rubes) will accept SR and certainly the leaders of the PC will. This is in contrast to (especially for the EU) the acceptance of GR where spacetime expansion is natural to the theory. It doesn't save the model, by any means, but at least the bare fact of z > 1 _could_ be met.

There is a recent example over on the official side of EU central of a gleeful "gotcha" to those untrustworthy mainstream astronomers that requires regular astrophysics that they don't accept to "prove" that the mainstream must be wrong. If I can find the original source, I'll write that up..

 

[sjastro]

I am well aware that in the standard cosmology, recession velocities can exceed c. My point in the previous post was that by using special relativity, we could construct a flow pattern (however ridiculous) for receding galaxies that worked for high redshifts (and for the time dilation of the light curves). The consequences create an Earth-centric cosmology with every galaxy moving away from us at relativistic speeds. I'm not familiar with these other aspects of the Alfven(/Klein) model and m/am boundaries, etc.

The problem with debunking Plasma Cosmology is that there are so many versions a “universal debunk” is not possible.
The time dilation of type 1a supernovae light curves was used as evidence to debunk the tired light versions of Plasma Cosmology not the Alfven-Klein model based on Doppler shift.
You are correct it’s impossible to differentiate the (1+z) light curve dilation factor as being caused by space-time expansion in GR or as time dilation in SR.
Where you can differentiate between the two is the predicted apparent magnitude (brightness)-redshift relationship models in GR and SR and how it compares to the type 1a supernovae observation data.

The SR models here are the linear approximation at low z, v(z) = cz where superluminal velocities can occur and the relativistic corrected version SR, v(z) = c[(1+z)²-1]/[(1+z)²+1] where v = c is the asymptotic limit.
As can be seen the SR models are not even in the ball park when compared to observation.

The predicted apparent magnitudes are contradicted by observation since the theoretical distances are problematical in SR.
Given the recessional velocities of galaxies are increasing with distance, the galaxies are in an accelerated frame of reference.
While SR primarily deals with inertial or non accelerating frames, SR can be extended to constant accelerating frames using Rindler coordinates.
The problem is the observed acceleration is not uniform and the use of constant accelerating frames is not used in the calculations resulting in very rough approximations for theoretical distances which impacts on the predicted apparent magnitudes.
A more detailed account of this can be found in section 4.2 of the link.

Sometimes it is useful to meet the pseudoscience within a realm that it accepts. Most of those at EU central (both the masters and the rubes) will accept SR and certainly the leaders of the PC will. This is in contrast to (especially for the EU) the acceptance of GR where spacetime expansion is natural to the theory. It doesn't save the model, by any means, but at least the bare fact of z > 1 _could_ be met.

There is a recent example over on the official side of EU central of a gleeful "gotcha" to those untrustworthy mainstream astronomers that requires regular astrophysics that they don't accept to "prove" that the mainstream must be wrong. If I can find the original source, I'll write that up..

I hope you can find the source and provide a write up.

 

[Hans Blaster]

The problem with debunking Plasma Cosmology is that there are so many versions a “universal debunk” is not possible.
The time dilation of type 1a supernovae light curves was used as evidence to debunk the tired light versions of Plasma Cosmology not the Alfven-Klein model based on Doppler shift.
You are correct it’s impossible to differentiate the (1+z) light curve dilation factor as being caused by space-time expansion in GR or as time dilation in SR.
Where you can differentiate between the two is the predicted apparent magnitude (brightness)-redshift relationship models in GR and SR and how it compares to the type 1a supernovae observation data.

The SR models here are the linear approximation at low z, v(z) = cz where superluminal velocities can occur and the relativistic corrected version SR, v(z) = c[(1+z)²-1]/[(1+z)²+1] where v = c is the asymptotic limit.
As can be seen the SR models are not even in the ball park when compared to observation.

The predicted apparent magnitudes are contradicted by observation since the theoretical distances are problematical in SR.
Given the recessional velocities of galaxies are increasing with distance, the galaxies are in an accelerated frame of reference.
While SR primarily deals with inertial or non accelerating frames, SR can be extended to constant accelerating frames using Rindler coordinates.
The problem is the observed acceleration is not uniform and the use of constant accelerating frames is not used in the calculations resulting in very rough approximations for theoretical distances which impacts on the predicted apparent magnitudes.
A more detailed account of this can be found in section 4.2 of the link.

I thought there was something wrong with the Hubble diagram in SR, but I couldn't remember the details and didn't feel like hunting down the online references. Thanks for grabbing this plot. I'm pretty sure I'd seen it before. This is what happens when you've forgotten more stuff than they know over at EU central.

 

[Hans Blaster]

I hope you can find the source and provide a write up.

So, I did last night, but it was late and I wanted to not be so tired when I wrote it up. Then I closed the browser with some of the windows open. I found the original article (from 2010!), a press release, the Phys.org version of the press release (with bonus crank in the comments!), and the original EU article (from only 1 year after the paper publication).

I want to do a little more reading before I try to explain the discrepancy that is resolved with a third type of measurement in the paper and then used EU materials as "proof" that the framework used for the "losing" method is "vanquished" because "Popper!".

It falls in that broad category of pseudoscience "evidence" that uses science they normally reject to prove some bit of pseudoscience. This example is a special sub-set of these where one science they don't believe is used to "disprove" a science they also don't believe, so they can declare victory of the vanquished.

 

[sjastro]

It falls in that broad category of pseudoscience "evidence" that uses science they normally reject to prove some bit of pseudoscience. This example is a special sub-set of these where one science they don't believe is used to "disprove" a science they also don't believe, so they can declare victory of the vanquished.

There is also the issue when EU central present examples of "science" which contradict each other.
A paper is presented which explains cosmological redshift as a relativistic Doppler Shift, yet in the very next post by the same author cosmological redshift is presented as a tired light theory!!!
It shows either abysmal ignorance or it doesn't matter, in which case this is more anti-science than pseudoscience.

 

[Hans Blaster]

There is also the issue when EU central present examples of "science" which contradict each other.
A paper is presented which explains cosmological redshift as a relativistic Doppler Shift, yet in the very next post by the same author cosmological redshift is presented as a tired light theory!!!
It shows either abysmal ignorance or it doesn't matter, in which case this more anti-science than pseudoscience.

What can you expect? They don't have just one explanation for any single observed phenomenon. EU central is *REALLY* bad about this. This shouldn't be that surprising given that the Grand Poobah at EU HQ has an undergraduate degree in physics and has some bizarre model of gravity as some sort of alternating layers of charge.

 

[Hans Blaster]

It shows either abysmal ignorance or it doesn't matter, in which case this is more anti-science than pseudoscience.

When the pseudoscience fails (usually due to a frontal challenge) they, at EU central or other pits of scientific delusion, will strike out with anti-science backlash like wounded animals. I don't by their pretenses that the love science.

 

[Hans Blaster]

It falls in that broad category of pseudoscience "evidence" that uses science they normally reject to prove some bit of pseudoscience. This example is a special sub-set of these where one science they don't believe is used to "disprove" a science they also don't believe, so they can declare victory of the vanquished.

OK, here we go...

Before showing how they reached the wrong conclusions, some background, then the beauty of the actual discovery.

Cepheid variables:

Cepheid variables (pronounced "sef-fee-id" or "see-fee-id" with the last syllable rhyming with kid or lid) are a class of pulsating variable stars. Though they have garnered a lot of interest as tools for measuring cosmological distances because of their very regular, well measured relation between their brightness and the period of the pulsations, cepheids are interesting objects in their own right.

Evolutionary status:

Cepheids are post-main sequence stars with masses between a few solar masses and about 20 solar masses. Like all stars, they burned hydrogen in their cores on the "main sequence" building up a core of helium. When the hydrogen in the core is exhausted, the outer envelope expands and hydrogen burning occurs at the surface of the He-core deep inside the envelope, while the expands to become bright and red -- a red giant. When the core grows from the hydrogen burning at the core surface, it triggers the burning of helium core to begin causing the envelope to contract and the surface to become hotter. This change takes the envelope of the star through a region in the diagram of surface temperature and brightness (known as the H-R diagram) where the envelope is unstable and pulsates.

Pulsational mechanism:

In Cepheids the pulsations function by an "opacity valve" mechanism, where changes in temperature trigger changes in the opaqueness (or opacity) of the envelope. For Cepheids the critical opacity is from helium. In the outer envelope the helium is primarily singly ionized (one electron removed from each atom). If it is heated it becomes doubly ionized (for helium this is full ionization) and doubly ionized helium is more opaque than singly ionized helium. The higher opacity of the doubly ionized helium blocks more of the radiative flow from below, and it becomes hotter until the helium is fully ionized. Then the heating triggers an expansion of the outer envelope and surrounding atmosphere. The expansion causes cooling that lowers the ionization of the helium, reduces the opacity of the envelope, and allows the cooling of the envelope through the increased radiative flow. The cooling causes the envelope to contract until heating from compression resumes the heating phase of the cycle. This pattern repeats in very regular fashion over and over.

Next the Cepheid mass issue.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Next the Cepheid mass issue.

Some of the most difficult things to measure in astronomy are distances and masses. This is true for galaxies, gas clouds, and stars.

For stars masses can be determined by calculations of stellar evolution, the consequences of internal properties, and the dynamic interactions with other stars.

Evolutionary masses:

By using calculations of the evolution of stars (that is their life history) and tracking the surface properties of the computed stars (temperature and luminosity). By comparing the properties of observed stars to collections of the tracks of many computed stars, masses can be determined. These are limited by the closeness of the tracks from different masses at many phases of evolution and by the simplifications in complex physics required to make the stellar evolution calculations.

The two main complications come from the modeling of convective layers and surface mass loss. Convection in unstable regions of the star are inherently 3-dimensional, but to be computable from start to finish stellar evolution models are spherically symmetric (or 1-dimensional) with convection modeled with approximate convection theories. Calibrating mass loss is difficult and uncertainties in mass loss impact the evolutionary tracks.

Dynamic masses:

For pulsating stars there is a direct method to measure the properties of the star. Since the envelope pulsates in a fashion that is only dependent on the luminosity from below, the radius, and the gravity at the surface. If the gravity and radius are known, then the mass is known. This method is independent of the internal state of the star (only the luminosity emerging from the center is needed) and therefore bypasses the evolutionary history to measure the mass independently.

Discrepancy:

There is a long standing discrepancy between the masses of Cepheid determined by evolutionary calculations and dynamic means. These differences are systematic, and no limited by statistical or measurement issues and represent an intrinsic conflict between the two techniques.

Next, the observation that settles the issue.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Next, the observation that settles the issue.

When you have two measurements that don't match, one option is to find a third independent measurement. So that's what they did, by using Cepheids in binaries to determine the mass dynamically.

Before looking at the results let's consider the consequences for the two types of measurements if the third doesn't match. For the pulsational mass a miss would imply some serious problems with the pulsational model as it doesn't depend on the history of the interior. For the evolutionary models things are quite different. Because the properties of the star at any phase are dependent on the accumulated history of the evolutionary process any accumulated drift in modeled evolution from reality. If the dynamic mass was different than evolutionary mass it would mean that some of parameters and approximations built into stellar evolutionary theory might need some updated calibration.

Binary masses:

By using Newton's laws of motion, particularly through the formulation of Kepler's orbital laws, the properties of binary stars (and any other orbiting objects) can be determined, including there masses. The main complication is the determination of the orbital geometry because the tilt of the orbital plane for the binary system relative to the observer (us) changes the projection of the actual orbital velocities into the observable velocities (with Doppler shift). Without knowing the tilt of the system, there is uncertainty in the measured masses. To tightly constrain the tilt the best scenario is for the stars to eclipse each other from our point of view, and that's exactly what they found.

The result:

The observation in question worked with a eclipsing binary in the Large Magellanic Cloud (a nearby satellite galaxy) discovered by a project designed to detect missing mass in our galaxy by looking for microlensing events. The report was made in a Nature (The dynamical mass of a classical Cepheid variable star in an eclipsing binary system) given the "splashy"ness of the result. The eclipsing nature of the system allows the tilt angle of the nearly edge-on system to be measured to within 0.25 degrees and the mass of the Cepheid to 1% (4.14+/-0.05 solar masses) and falls clearly within the error range of the pulsational measurement (3.98+/-0.29).

The ESO produced a press release about this finding (Pulsating Star Mystery Solved) and a press report appeared at phys.org (https://phys.org/news/2010-11-pulsating-star-mystery.html) all contemporaneously in Nov. 2010. [The latter article includes an appearance from another scientist [Oliver Manuel] who got attached to a bad idea outside his expertise [that the sun contains a neutron star inside it] that drifted firmly into pseudoscience. This "idea" is not, however, supported by EU HQ or the PC community.)

Next up, how EU HQ comes to drastically wrong conclusions in their delayed "analysis" of this result.

 

[Hans Blaster]

Next up, how EU HQ comes to drastically wrong conclusions in their delayed "analysis" of this result.

So why did I write about this Cepheid discovery in the PC thread, well it appeared on the EU site and more recently on their YT channel, and though the EU isn't quite the same as PC, it is the Velikovskyian offspring of PC and discussed many times previously in this thread.

The Cepheid discovery was covered in a "Thunderbolts Picture of the Day" (TPOD) article on the main EU webber. TPOD is a pale imitation of NASA's APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day) or Astronomy Picture of the Day. APOD's been running since June 1995 and today's pic is of comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko from the Rosetta mission. (Another insane obsession at EU central, but let's not go there.) The APOD's dedication to its "of the day" moniker is not only shown it it posting today on a Sunday, but on July 4 (Federal holiday and Saturday). Each picture is presented with a short annotation to give context. The TPOD is not nearly daily and often isn't about a picture at all, but rather a rant about some recent finding of astronomy (or planetary science) they wish to rail on, or some current bit of EU nonsense they are flogging.

The Cepheid result was discussed in a "TPOD" about 1 year after the original scientific result (Eclipsing Cepheid Falsifies Stellar Evolution Theory – The Thunderbolts Project™). This article puts forth a story of one theory (pulsation theory) triumphant over another (stellar evolution theory) and in their narrow Popper/Kuhn view of paradigm shifts and falsifiability.

One key problem with their approach is that the two theories aren't actually equivalent to each other. Pulsation theory is a theory about the pulsations of a star with an unstable surface. It could have been demonstrated to be wrong by these measurements, but it was not. It was confirmed.

Stellar evolution theory is a much more extensive and complex theoretical framework, and the eclipsing binary Cepheid measurements show that the tracks of these stars when they enter the instability strip need to be shifted. This doesn't so much falsify stellar evolution theory as provide a new calibration point for the modelling of intermediate mass stars. Because the compared values from stellar evolution models are dependent on everything that happens before the Cepheid stage. Main candidates for improved treatment in stellar evolution models of these stars include convective mixing in the core and mass loss in the red giant and Cepheid phases.

Before I conclude the main portion of this thread, it only came to my attention when EU HQ created a video version of their 8.5 year-old TPOD article about a 9.5 year-old discovery and posted it to YT a week ago. One demonstration of their lack of knowledge at EU HQ-- the YT video pronounces Cepheid with two syllables as "see-feed", ugh.

OK, one more post where I'll show why this doesn't help the EU at all.

 

[RealityCheck01]

What can you expect? They don't have just one explanation for any single observed phenomenon. EU central is *REALLY* bad about this. This shouldn't be that surprising given that the Grand Poobah at EU HQ has an undergraduate degree in physics and has some bizarre model of gravity as some sort of alternating layers of charge.

The Grand Poobah at EU HQ with an undergraduate degree in physics has much more bizarre "models" than that. Wal Thornhill has written an article this year that makes the EU an obvious fantasy. The Electric Universe Heresy

In this groundbreaking paper Wal Thornhill introduces a new Theory of Everything: The Electric Universe. Set aside everything you think you know about all things great and small because the ideas presented here overturn it all.

It is actually "set aside the real universe" because Thornhill has done that! The "paper" is a math-less and science-less screed of Thornhill's ignorant fantasies including

• All forces (gravity, strong, weak) are electromagnetic. He denies what he has learned about these forces!
  For example the strong force is short range and attractive between between neutral neutrons and positive protons. The residual strong force is what keeps them in the atomic nucleus.
• All fundamental particles are charges orbiting each other. He denies what he has learned about basic electromagnetics.
  These charges radiate and no longer orbit. It is this electromagnetics which told us that atoms cannot be electrons classically orbiting the nucleus.
• A neutron is a proton and electron. He denies what he has learned about the conservation of angular momentum.
  Protons and electrons are spin 1/2. A composite particle must have spin 0 or 1. A neutron has spin 1/2. There has to be another spin 1/2 particle inside any idea of a composite neutron.
  
• Quarks do not exist. He denies what he has learned about nuclear physics.
  Deep scattering experiment show that protons and neutrons have 3 scattering centers. Whatever we call them, nucleons contain 3 particles, not his fantasy of 2 for neutrons.
• A total fantasy that gravity turns repulsive inside bodies such as the Earth.
  He believes that the Earth is hollow! Does he cite the scientific literature on seismology showing seismic waves vanishing into or reflecting off this hollow? No - he cites an actual Hollow Earth crank!
• A fantasy that the electron has structure (also see above). He denies what he has learned about electrons and special relativity.
  It was found in the 1920's that an extended election violated special relativity because its angular momentum meant the surface would have a speed greater than the speed of light. This also applies to Thornhill's fantasy of charges inside an electron.

Thornhill's article has a large number of lies about mainstream science. If Thornhill was ignorant about science they would be errors, but he has a physics degree. The "Big Nothing Cosmology" section may be the worse offender:

• A "Presently, the big bang picture is illogical, incoherent and hope-less" lie. Anyone who has learned cosmology knows the Big Bang is a logical, coherent scientific theory based on an enormous body of evidence (even if somehow it was wrong!).
• A "miraculous creation ex nihilo event" lie when the Big Bang starts with an existing universe.
• A "None of these processes are understood" lie when astronomical "explosions, collisions and accretions" are well understood.
• A "spiral shape of galaxies" lie. The shape of spiral galaxies is not explained by dark matter. Textbook physics tells us that the arms of spirals cannot be permanent physical structures held together by gravity (winding problem found in 1925). That is not fixed with the observation that stars orbit faster than Newtonian mechanics predicts far from the galactic center.
• A lie that GR and QM being incompatible invalidates mainstream cosmology (we do not need quantum gravity to explain cosmology).

 

[Hans Blaster]

The Grand Poobah at EU HQ with an undergraduate degree in physics has much more bizarre "models" than that. Wal Thornhill has written an article this year that makes the EU an obvious fantasy. The Electric Universe Heresy

I can't, I just can't with him anymore. I've been monitoring the EU since before Thornhill's electric gravity came out. I got about halfway through his EU-CON presentation of it and just gave up. The stupid -- it burns. Kudos to you (and others) who can keep track of all of their violations of the known laws of physics.

I wasn't aware that this one was also Thornhill (I'd heard similar things from others):

A neutron is a proton and electron. He denies what he has learned about the conservation of angular momentum.
Protons and electrons are spin 1/2. A composite particle must have spin 0 or 1. A neutron has spin 1/2. There has to be another spin 1/2 particle inside any idea of a composite neutron.

I'm reminded of Pauli's invention of the neutrino where he apologized for it, but felt compelled to include another spin-1/2 particle into beta decay to solve the missing energy problem and conserve angular momentum.

 

[Hans Blaster]

OK, one more post where I'll show why this doesn't help the EU at all.

Philosophy of science:

The ideas of Popper and Kuhn are quite popular with the pseudoscience crowd, it helps them think their just "out of the mainstream" and "challenging the dogma". Paradigm replacement and falsifiability seem like good concepts, but they are not the end-all, be-all of real operational science. I (and other have said this before) think that Popper and Kuhn who worked in the mid-20th century and were overly influenced by the paradigm replacing nature of 20th century physics. New physics repeatedly ripped up old ideas and replaced them. Some old models were completely wiped out (like pre-Bohr models of the atom, then Bohr's model itself) others reduced previous ideas to mere approximations (relativity reduced Newtonian motion and gravity to limiting cases, useful, but not fundamental).

The falsifiability issue is particularly vulnerable to miscomprehension by the those challenging professional science. To my perception, this is often caused by a failure to understand the scope of various theories and what it is sensitive to. A good example might be in biological evolution: One component of (bio) evolution theory is "common decent", the idea the all life on earth (or at least al eukaryotic life) shares a common ancestor. Falsifying common decent would certainly be very damaging to (bio) evolutionary theory, yet genetics have only strengthened the common descent concept. Other, smaller ideas, such as the relationships between species or groups of species or when certain groups emerge (like when were the first mammals, or flowering plants) have been overturned by new data, and thus falsified. (Many of these may not rise to "theory" but they are scientific ideas and claims that are falsified and replaced.)

Stellar evolution:

Is one of those complex theories (or theoretical frameworks if you prefer). The foundational physics behind it are very solid: hydrostatic equilibrium, radiative diffusion, and nuclear fusion, but they are dependent on measurements of nuclear reactions and the opacity of these gasses at stellar conditions. Two other aspects of stellar evolution modeling are necessarily simplified versions of very complex physics: convection and mass loss. These have been calibrated for lower mass stars through globular clusters. Globular clusters are very old (many billions of years) and consist of stars with the same age. Because of their age, globulars don't have any stars left in them that are massive enough to be Cepheids (and some no stars more massive than the Sun). These stars have very little mass loss before the red giant phase. (Cepheids come after non-negligible mass loss has occurred.)

Convection in the Sun occurs in the outer regions where there is no nuclear burning taking place. As such, convection only transports energy where the material is too opaque for radiative diffusion to carry the flux of the stellar core. In some other phases (like the post-main sequence hydrogen shell burning) and the cores of more massive stars, convection occurs in places where burning is active and their are gradients in the composition. Convection in these conditions also alters the composition gradient and can transport the inputs and outputs of the nuclear burning through the region. This makes it more important to understand the details of convection and the sensitivity of stellar evolution to it.

Far from falsifying stellar evolution theory, the confirmation of pulsational mass measurements (at least for Cepheids) provides a new means (or did 10 years ago) to calibrate the parameters of stellar evolution models through the Cepheid stage.

Why this doesn't help the EU cause:

The EU crowd desperately wants the "mainstream" theory of stars to be destroyed and their "gotcha" glee in the TPOD article. They have some sort of alternative to stellar evolution in their view. From the outside it's not clear what that is. They have some sort of model of the Sun involving currents (actually there are several that they promote and their minions discuss. It is unclear which one is favored by the Masters of the EU) and presumably this applies to distant stars as well. There is a notion they (and their followers) use of a pinch in a current creating emission of many a point source (stars, pulsars, supernovae). These ideas are frankly not that well articulated, and are completely lacking in quantification. Like many a proponent of pseudoscience, they act as if knocking down the current paradigm will cause whatever nonsense they promote to float to the top and replace it.

The triumph of pulsation theory, by itself, works against the EU proposals. By confirming the pulsational masses, the measurements of this star show that the opacity valve mechanism is functional in Cepheids. Because it depends on flux of the star's full luminosity through the outer envelope and the associated changes in opacity, radius, and temperature of that region it means that any viable EU stellar model *must* deposit its energy well below the visible layers; that the stellar core is massive and compact; and that the general understanding of the stellar envelope and atmosphere are appropriate. The changing luminosities of Cepheids are therefore *not* any sort of fluctuation in the current passing through the star or some sort of RC electrical oscillator. Cepheids pulsate for exactly the reasons mainstream astrophysics have proposed for decades.

 

[sjastro]

The Grand Poobah at EU HQ with an undergraduate degree in physics has much more bizarre "models" than that. Wal Thornhill has written an article this year that makes the EU an obvious fantasy. The Electric Universe Heresy

It is actually "set aside the real universe" because Thornhill has done that! The "paper" is a math-less and science-less screed of Thornhill's ignorant fantasies including

• All forces (gravity, strong, weak) are electromagnetic. He denies what he has learned about these forces!
  For example the strong force is short range and attractive between between neutral neutrons and positive protons. The residual strong force is what keeps them in the atomic nucleus.
• All fundamental particles are charges orbiting each other. He denies what he has learned about basic electromagnetics.
  These charges radiate and no longer orbit. It is this electromagnetics which told us that atoms cannot be electrons classically orbiting the nucleus.
• A neutron is a proton and electron. He denies what he has learned about the conservation of angular momentum.
  Protons and electrons are spin 1/2. A composite particle must have spin 0 or 1. A neutron has spin 1/2. There has to be another spin 1/2 particle inside any idea of a composite neutron.
  
• Quarks do not exist. He denies what he has learned about nuclear physics.
  Deep scattering experiment show that protons and neutrons have 3 scattering centers. Whatever we call them, nucleons contain 3 particles, not his fantasy of 2 for neutrons.
• A total fantasy that gravity turns repulsive inside bodies such as the Earth.
  He believes that the Earth is hollow! Does he cite the scientific literature on seismology showing seismic waves vanishing into or reflecting off this hollow? No - he cites an actual Hollow Earth crank!
• A fantasy that the electron has structure (also see above). He denies what he has learned about electrons and special relativity.
  It was found in the 1920's that an extended election violated special relativity because its angular momentum meant the surface would have a speed greater than the speed of light. This also applies to Thornhill's fantasy of charges inside an electron.

Thornhill's article has a large number of lies about mainstream science. If Thornhill was ignorant about science they would be errors, but he has a physics degree. The "Big Nothing Cosmology" section may be the worse offender:

• A "Presently, the big bang picture is illogical, incoherent and hope-less" lie. Anyone who has learned cosmology knows the Big Bang is a logical, coherent scientific theory based on an enormous body of evidence (even if somehow it was wrong!).
• A "miraculous creation ex nihilo event" lie when the Big Bang starts with an existing universe.
• A "None of these processes are understood" lie when astronomical "explosions, collisions and accretions" are well understood.
• A "spiral shape of galaxies" lie. The shape of spiral galaxies is not explained by dark matter. Textbook physics tells us that the arms of spirals cannot be permanent physical structures held together by gravity (winding problem found in 1925). That is not fixed with the observation that stars orbit faster than Newtonian mechanics predicts far from the galactic center.
• A lie that GR and QM being incompatible invalidates mainstream cosmology (we do not need quantum gravity to explain cosmology).

An extension to RealityCheck's comments about the EU.

This guy pulls no punches.