A NEW PARADIGM OF SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT - THE ELECTRIC UNIVERSE

   Article 4 :  "No" to Magnetic Reconnection and "Yes" to Electrified
   Plasma

   - by Rev Nicholas Sykes


   A concept that has gained increasing acceptance in current Physics is
   the idea of "magnetic reconnection", which was referred to at the end
   of my last article. This idea is typically pulled out for service to
   explain observations of energetic outbursts that are otherwise not
   explained in a universe or a solar system or a geosphere that is
   presumed to be electrically neutral, or whose underlying electrical
   nature is either not acknowledged or assumed not to be important to
   the phenomenon being described. The aurora borealis and aurora
   australis (Northern and Southern Lights) have accordingly been treated
   as "magnetic reconnection" phenomena fairly routinely, and the same
   idea is applied to kinetic and thermal energy outbursts and particle
   accelerations that occur variously in the sun, in the galaxy and
   elsewhere in the cosmos.


   Magnetic reconnection is conceptualised, as its name suggests, as a
   phenomenon of magnetism, and among other things it is a way of
   concealing or ignoring the electrical origin of all magnetism and all
   magnetic phenomena. It hypothesises that a magnetic field, such as
   exists around the Earth may, under certain conditions, release energy
   explosively by a spontaneous reconfiguration of the lines of force
   with which it is visualised. This is effected - so the idea goes - by
   some of the lines of force "breaking" and then "joining up" with
   different lines of force, thus producing a magnetic field pattern that
   stores less energy. The energy difference between the two patterns is
   manifested by conversion to the energy outburst requiring to be
   explained.


   It is extraordinary, to say the least, that such an idea has gained so
   much support in the halls of academia. Electrical engineers and plasma
   cosmologists have been known to say that magnetic reconnection is one
   of the stupidest theoretical ideas that researchers ever derived from
   the mistaken belief that there are no significant electric currents in
   space. Yes, the mathematics can be made to fit - though with
   increasing difficulty as observations proceed - with the energy needs
   involved, but it should be remembered that processes of physics are
   not explained by such equations. However, in the case of "magnetic
   reconnection" there is a much deeper difficulty than that. I refer to
   the inconvenient truth that the lines of force of a magnetic field do
   not physically exist at all! They are only a mental aid for us to
   conceptualise the shape and intensity of a magnetic field.
   Schoolchildren will agree that when iron filings are sprinkled on a
   table top upon which a bar magnet has been positioned, many of the
   filings join up into curved lines, but lines of force can just as
   easily be thought of as between those lines as in any of the lines of
   filings themselves. Lines of magnetic force are not physical entities,
   any more than are the contours of a geographer's map, or the isobars
   of a weatherman's chart. One might just as well talk about a "contour
   reconnection" as being the explanation of a volcanic eruption, as to
   consider "magnetic reconnection" to be an explanation of energy
   outbursts of various sorts.


   "Magnetic reconnection", like a number of other currently popular
   hypotheses, is one more resort of those desperately attempting to
   shore up a physical model of the universe that largely ignores the
   role of electricity. Some of us consider the whole magnetic
   reconnection concept to belong more to a Harry Potter novel than to
   reality.


   Previous articles in this series have referred to Sir John Herschel's
   nineteenth century insight that there are "Cosmical electric currents
   traversing space and finding in the upper regions of the Sun's
   atmosphere matter in a fit state of tenuity to be auroralized by
   them". The Electric Universe paradigm holds Herschel to have been
   correct, as was Kristian Birkeland (1867 - 1913) when he posited that
   "the whole of space is filled with electrons and flying electric ions
   of all kinds", and that "the greater part of the material masses in
   the universe is found, not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in
   `empty' space." In other words, Birkeland proposed that space
   consisted everywhere of plasma. Modern estimates indeed consider that
   more than 99.9% of the mass of the universe resides in the plasma. Let
   us therefore spend a little time on the topic of plasma.


   The Ancients discerned four "elements" of earth, water, air and fire.
   It is likely that they were describing the same reality as we now do
   when we speak of the four "states" of solid, liquid, gas and plasma.
   The idea of "plasma" was suggested by the various forms of electrical
   discharge that take place through what we have been accustomed to call
   ionised gases. The forms of this electrical discharge and certain of
   their properties brought to mind the properties of blood plasma in
   living beings, and so the name "plasma" has stuck for the state of
   matter in which the discharges can occur.


   Dr. Donald Scott points out that the last state of matter to be
   identified in modern times, the plasma, is really to be understood to
   be the first, rather than the fourth state of matter. For one thing,
   nearly all of the matter of the universe is in this form, as Birkeland
   proposed. The galaxies, stars and planets are, comparatively speaking,
   specks of dirt and dust in a sea of plasma.


   When an electrical potential difference is initiated across a length
   of gas at low pressure in a laboratory (or in a fluorescent light at
   home), certain changes take place that transform much of the gas into
   a state of plasma, because the atoms of the gas are being broken into
   their sub-atomic constituents. Unfortunately, cosmologists in general
   seem not to be able to apply even the most elementary knowledge about
   the behaviour of electrified plasma to the observations of their own
   field. Clear evidence of plasma in space, for example, is misleadingly
   interpreted or visualised as streams of gravitationally-driven gases,
   the "solar wind" being perhaps the most well-known example.
   Fundamental to an understanding of the workings of the Electric
   Universe is a basic knowledge gained from the electric discharge
   laboratory of how a body of plasma reacts to electrical stress.


   With thanks for feedback suggestions from

   Wal Thornhill
   
   and
   
   Marinus A VanderSluijs