THOTH
A Catastrophics Newsletter

VOL VII, No 8
Nov 30, 2003

EDITOR:  Amy Acheson
PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong
LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart

CONTENTS

OCKHAM'S BEARD . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Mel Acheson
CATALOG OF DISCORDANT REDSHIFTS, by Halton Arp: a review
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Amy Acheson
THE SUN ? Our Variable Star . . . . . . . . Wal Thornhill
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>-----<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

OCKHAM'S BEARD
By Mel Acheson 

Imagine a volcano. Imagine a pyroclastic flow erupting from the volcano,
surging into the valley, and swirling up the opposite mountainside. Focus
your attention on the concept "pyroclastic flow." It's composed of a network
of ideas about hot gasses and steam, pulverized and molten rock, magma
pressure and gravity, fracturing and fluidization. If you're a
vulcanologist, you may recall lab experiments with fracturing basalt under
great pressure. If you're a layman, you may visualize an illustration of
magma seeping into crevasses.

Virtually no one will think of plasma and electricity. Expert and layman
alike will find nonsensical the proposal that a pyroclastic flow could
be an
electrical discharge within the earth that dissociates rock into ions and
dust, creating a plasma that's heated, suspended within a double layer, and
jetted across the valley by electrical forces. (Thanks to Harold Tresman for
getting ME to think of it.) After all, a pyroclastic flow is already
explained by mechanical theories. Adding on electricity only complicates
things, and the principle of Ockham's Razor dictates that unnecessary
assumptions be cut off. All else being equal, the simpler explanation is
preferable.

But all else is not equal. Theories are not simply "after-thoughts,"
explanations appended to given facts. In the first place, a pyroclastic flow
is not an incorrigible object of perception. The act of seeing a pyroclastic
flow is not a simple matter of lenses and images, not a camera of the eye
recording an image on the film of the mind. Stimuli on every 100 rods and
cones in the retina are "zipped" into a stimulus on one optic nerve
fiber.(1) So this first stage of perception already involves a process of
classification. In the visual cortex, the classified stimuli are conflated
with other stimuli and linked into networks of nervous activity. At this
preconscious level the physiology of our nervous system has already
determined in large part how we will understand what we see. The image
of a pyroclastic flow that appears in the mind's eye is a gestalt whose
relationship with the original stimuli is analogical and metaphorical.(2)
Perception is both conceptual and creative. Facts are not so much
"given" as "formed." We understand unities before we understand their parts.

In the second place, a plasma assumption is not added on to the existing
mechanical explanation. The plasma explanation DISPLACES the mechanical one,
dispensing with mechanical assumptions and incorporating electrical ones.
It's a unity of conception and perception that organizes our experience of
what we call a pyroclastic flow in a different way from the mechanical
unity. The unities of understanding are more fundamental than the parts into
which they can be analyzed.

With different facts, different assumptions, and different ways of
understanding them, the blade of simplicity may cut the other way: Plasma
may explain more with fewer assumptions than the familiar concretion of
mechanical theories. But because most of the assumptions are unconscious,
there's no way to count them and thus no measurable way to compare the two
explanations: They are, in Thomas Kuhn's oft-repeated word,
"incommensurable."

Ockham's preference for simplicity consequently reduces to a bias for
familiarity. The explanations we're familiar with work for the facts as
we've come to know them in part because we've come to know the facts that
work for the explanations we're familiar with. (Putting the situation in
this circular form makes it sound whimsical, but the history of science
demonstrates that developing workable circles of concepts and facts is
actually difficult and rare.)

What we really want to know is not which explanation is simplest but which
is actually the case. Many painful and embarrassing experiences have taught
us that our wanting can fool us with false answers. But this wanting to know
the actual case fools us with a false question. We try to be dispassionate
in asking our questions and to be attentive to nature's answers. But it will
always be OUR questions that we ask, and OUR questions will always arise
from and carry within themselves our cultural, historical, and biological
determinants of what we can experience and imagine(3).

As culture evolves, as history proceeds, as biology adapts, we discover new
facts and imagine new ways to understand old facts. Mechanical theories that
explained well the mechanically understood facts of an age familiar with
mechanical things will become awkward and finally unimaginable as awareness
of electricity throughout the cosmos renders plasma behavior familiar.

There can be no final answers because there can be no final questions apart
from our experience. There have been and will be times when it's appropriate
for Ockham to shave theories to their most efficient expression. There have
been and will be other times when it's necessary for Ockham to grow a beard
of speculations that revolutionizes what we used to know.

We are living in a time that calls for theoretical hirsuteness. Our familiar
theories have enabled us to experience things that undermine those theories
and expose their contradictions and limitations. With the discovery that the
universe is composed almost entirely of plasma, and with the realization
that conventional science knows almost nothing about the behavior of plasma,
everything we thought we knew must be reexamined. We need to encourage
speculations and to devise tests that will separate the promising from the
disappointing. The institutions of funding and peer review need to
acquire a little courage and loosen their terrified clinging to familiar theories. They need to regain confidence in empirical investigation. We are entering an age of exploration and discovery: The theoretical sciences should acquire an appropriate sense of adventure.

Mel Acheson
thoth at whidbey.com 

FOOTNOTES:
(1) The human eye contains about 100 million light sensing cells. These are
connected to the brain with only about 1 million nerve cells. This
relationship is typical of neural ensembles connected to other ensembles.

(2) See Lakoff and Johnson, Philosophy in the Flesh, or, more accessible but
somewhat dated, Metaphors We Live By. The first two chapters of Jaynes, The
Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, are also
enlightening. Hayek, The Sensory Order, reviews earlier research in
perception, which has been all but forgotten but closely parallels recent
discoveries

(3) See Toulmin, _Foresight and Understanding_
********************************************************

_Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations_
By Halton Arp, 2003

Reviewed by Amy Acheson

This book is exactly what amateur astronomers have been waiting for. It's
not the introductory book that Arp's _Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies_
was, nor the heated polemic of his _Seeing Red_. It's a serious astronomy
book that says to those willing to accept the challenge, "Let's get to work
and sort out the shape of the universe, one associated group of galaxies,
quasars and galaxy clusters at a time."  Plasma cosmologist Don Scott says,
"It is MAGNIFICENT!"  And "The evidence he presents is so well stated -- all
in one place -- with images and data -- it's just overwhelming."

The opening words of the book are these: "Empirical evidence which is
repeatable forms the indispensable basis of science. The following
_Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations_ applies this principle to
the problem of extragalactic redshifts.  The _Catalogue_ entries establishes
unequivocally that high redshift objects are often at the same distance as,
and physically associated with, galaxies of much lower redshift."

Arp follows with a 39-page review of how discordant redshifts were
discovered and why they are important, using examples, pictures and diagrams
taken from previous books and papers.  He discusses the alignment of high
redshift objects along the spin axis of low redshift active galaxies, and
how in some cases the precession of a galaxy's spin axis can be traced by
the distribution of associated objects. He summarizes the evidence of
preferred redshift peaks.

In the section titled "Cepheid distances and the Hubble Constant", Arp
discusses why the results of the Hubble Key Project don't do what the Key
Project claims (produce the "right" number for the Hubble constant, the rate
at which the universe is expanding.) He points out that for the nearest
galaxies the Hubble relationship between size and redshift seems to apply.
But as we leave the local neighborhood and approach the nearest clusters,
the relationship falls apart completely and in a systematic way.

Yet mainstream press releases still claim to have confirmed the Hubble
Constant at 72 plus or minus 8 km/sec/Mpc. How could they do that? Arp
explains how. He doesn't accuse astronomers of being dishonest (I might),
but instead he describes how the discrepancies "... have been overridden by
stepping on the "dark energy" gas pedal or applying the "dark matter" brakes
...". Arp concludes that "the value of the Hubble constant has therefore
become irrelevant in conventional cosmology."  Or in my words -- Astronomers
aren't measuring anything -- they are adjusting fudge factors to match
observations to their interpretation.

BTW, there is a useful glossary at the end of the book, if you want to know
that the abbreviation Mpc from the last paragraph stands for megaparsec,
which is a million parsecs. (Parsecs are also defined: a unit of distance,
equal to 3.26 light years. Light years are defined in both miles and
kilometers.) If you look up "dark matter" you will find one of the simplest
(and most damning) definitions I've ever heard: "Matter invisible to
astronomical instruments."

The core of Arp's book consists of a catalogue of 41 examples of galaxy
groupings with redshift discordance, listed on two-page spreads and
organized according to the right ascension of the central object. He begins
with NGC 7817 at 00h (hours) 03m (minutes) 59s (seconds) right ascension and
ends at HCG 97 at 23h 47m 26s.

Each entry to this catalogue follows a simple form.  At the left top of the
page, the central object of the discordant group is listed, along with
co-ordinates, type, magnitude, redshift, etc., all on a grey-shaded header.
Beneath the header, Arp describes the group and its discordant associations.
Every association has a diagram (sky map) for locating the group.  Black and
white photos are included for some objects. Sometimes the photos are
superimposed onto the sky maps. [There is also a small section of color
plates at the end of the book illustrating some of the most spectacular
associations.]  

At the end of most discussions, Arp inserts a section titled "Needed", where
he lists what kinds of astronomical observations and studies are needed to
confirm or disconfirm the association, and what we should be looking for
next in this extragalactic neighborhood. To my point of view, this is the
most exciting part of the book.

Some of the "needed" items are available only to professional astronomers.
Other items provide an opportunity for amateur astronomers who would
like to
do real work in the field. Some of the work can be done through on-line
surveys and catalogs, without much more than an internet connection.
Much of
Arp's own work, especially since he was denied telescope time in the
mid-1980's, was done this way. The preface to the catalogue section includes
subheadings entitled "suggested use" and "what to look for" where he
outlines how an interested amateur might tackle the research. A lot more
observation is needed to sort out what the universe looks like.

Without being explicit about it, the "needed" items point an accusing finger
at mainstream astronomy.  Most of the items could have been done by "funded"
astronomers decades ago.  If they had, today we would know a lot more about
the shape of our extragalactic neighborhood and whether we live in a finite
universe a few billion years old or in one whose limits are not determined
(yet.)  But the refusal of professional astronomers to even consider the
possibility of Arp's universe is an open invitation for amateurs to step up
and take on the burden.

Arp adds, "I hesitate to call this work a _Catalogue_ because it is not
complete. Indeed, whenever I look at the sky -- for example to discover
where a certain active galaxy cluster, quasar or proposed gravitational lens
came from -- I am likely to find its source, plus other families of
extragalactic objects, with a large, low-redshift galaxy and
associations of
higher redshift companions.  There are many more examples of this basic
pattern to be discovered, so this is merely a sample."

The number of objects (galaxies, quasars, galaxy clusters, etc.) in each
catalogue entry varies. Some are as small as three (example, NGC 632,
flanked by NGC 631 and the quasar PHL 1072). Others are huge groupings
(example: the Perseus-Pisces filament centered on NGC 68 that covers almost
a full quadrant of the sky.)

Some of the catalogue entries show more than one discordant group, because
more than one discordant group appears in the same observed field (example:
NGC 622 and UM 341 starting on pg 58.)  In this case, the parent galaxies
are surrounded by about 20 high redshift quasars, all jumbled together. In
the description, Arp explains how he can determine which quasar belongs to
which parent galaxy by converting the redshifts of the quasars into the
frame of reference of the parent galaxies. Like magic, when connected to the
frame of redshift of the its parent galaxy, each of the quasars' redshifts
converts from "random" to within a few hundredths of the quantized
"preferred redshifts".  This trick adds evidence supporting both the
discordant redshift connection and the phenomenon of quantized redshifts.

The book is a spiral-bound publication with a paperback cover that folds
over to conceal the spiral binding. The pages are neatly arranged and the
print is large and easy to read.  A warning: be sure to double-check page
numbers.  In my copy, sheet 60/61 was inserted between pages 57 and 58,
which caused all sorts of confusion when I was trying to locate the "jet in
fig 3" that was mentioned on page 60. When I mentioned this to the
publisher, he responded that he hasn't seen this problem in other copies of
the book. 

For a cover picture, Arp has chosen the same discordant galaxy/quasar pair
that graced the covers of previous books, NGC 4319/Markarian 205.  He
used a computer-enhanced Palomar photo on _Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies_
and a satellite X-ray image on _Seeing Red_.  The _Catalogue of Discordant
Redshift Associations_ features the much-discussed Hubble Space Telescope
photo from Fall 2002: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap021007.html .

There are two appendices to the catalogue.  They aren't really
after-thoughts or references.  They are important parts of the book.
Appendix A is a 20-page discussion of the extended region around M101.  Arp
devotes extra attention to this region for two reasons.  First, he's
presenting an example of how a discordant redshift investigation should
proceed, and second, because M101 is a bright nearby spiral galaxy, which
means that the objects associated with it (regardless of their redshifts)
are also among the brightest of their respective classes.  How far away is
M101? Its accepted distance is 6.7 Mpc, or less than halfway between us and
the center of the Virgo Cluster at 15-16 Mpc.  But Arp adds that there are
some arguments supporting the possibility that M101 belongs to the M81
group, which is around 3.6 Mpc.  This is one illustration of how the
loss of the Hubble Law's redshift/distance relationship means that every galaxy in the sky needs to have its distance reassessed.

Appendix B is called Filaments, Clusters of Galaxies and the Nature of
Ejections From Galaxies. This appendix offers a deeper coverage of several
important extragalactic objects than is presented in the two-page catalogue
entries. Some of these are up-dates -- new discoveries about old favorite
galaxy groupings from Arp's earlier works. One of these old favorites is NGC

1232.  This beautiful spiral galaxy was featured as the back cover of
_Quasars, Redshifts and Controversies_.  See picture on-line here:
http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap010522.html

The galaxy NGC 1232 was a critical turn in Arp's own early research. It was
one of the first indications that discordant redshift occurs in galaxies as
well as in quasars. The little yellow disk above the outer arm of the galaxy
(directly up from the nucleus) in the picture above is a companion galaxy
NGC 1232B with a much higher redshift than the main galaxy. Arp's appendix
includes five new close-ups of the tiny companion galaxy along with a
discussion of why this, too, is a disconfirmation of the redshift/distance
relationship and the expanding universe/big bang.

The cost of the _Catalogue of Discordant Redshift Associations_ is higher
than Arp's previous popular books, but this book is a must-have for amateur
astronomers. Again from Don Scott: "The _Catalogue of Discordant Redshift
Associations_ is the modern day equivalent of Galileo's "The Starry
Messenger". [Halton Arp] is indeed today's Galileo."

This book is available for $45 from the Apeiron Bookstore:
http://redshift.vif.com/book_catalog.htm

Also available on amazon.com

Amy Acheson
thoth at whidbey.com
********************************************************

THE SUN ? Our Variable Star
By Wal Thornhill

"Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the growth in our understanding of
the universe is that we understand anything at all."
-- Martin Harwit, from a talk given at the American Physical Society's
meeting in Philadelphia in April 2003. Harwit is an emeritus professor of
astronomy at Cornell University and a former director of the Smithsonian
National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

But do astronomers really know what they say they know? The expressions of
surprise at each new discovery hints that they don't. And their theories
sound far-fetched. To make their models work they use invisible matter,
invisible strange objects, dark energy, and magical magnetic fields that
exist without any electrical activity. This suggests a fundamental
misunderstanding of the universe. Even the closest star, our Sun, defies
their understanding.

As if to highlight this fact, [the first week of November, 2003] has seen
nine major solar flares ? a historically unprecedented outburst from the
Sun. Moreover, this is a period of declining solar activity, when the sun
should be experiencing fewer, less-energetic outbursts. With each flare
billions of tons of solar matter, known as coronal mass ejections (CME1s),
were hurled into space at millions of kilometres per hour in defiance of the
Sun's powerful gravity. The energy released in these unusual outbursts is
phenomenal.  

EXCERPT FROM SPACE.COM:
"Solar super-flare amazes scientists

A flare released by the sun on Tuesday could be the most powerful ever
witnessed, a monster X-ray eruption twice as strong as anything detected
since satellites were capable of spotting them starting in the mid-1970s.
'This is an R-5 extreme event,' said Bill Murtagh, a forecaster at the
center. 'They don't get much bigger than this.'" ? Robert Roy Britt,
Space.Com  

THORNHILL COMMENTS:
No one has any basis for saying what the largest matter expulsions from the
Sun may be. It is obvious from looking at powerful mass expulsion activity
in active stars and galaxies that gravitational models are inadequate to
explain what is going on. Gravity is an attractive force only. Recourse to
magnetic field behavior magically divorced from electric currents serves
merely to reinforce the mystical quality of modern physics without telling
us anything about the true cause.

A news item by Jenny Hogan on NewScientist.com of 2 November says:
"'The Sun is more active now than it has been for a millennium. The
realisation, which comes from a reconstruction of sunspots stretching back
1150 years, comes just as the Sun has thrown a tantrum. Over the last week,
giant plumes of material have burst out from our star's surface and streamed
into space, causing geomagnetic storms on Earth.' The history of solar
activity was estimated from sunspot counts stretching back to the
seventeenth century. Beyond that, the sunspot numbers were deduced from
levels of radioactive beryllium-10 trapped in ice cores taken from Greenland
and Antarctica. When Mike Lockwood, from the UK's Rutherford Appleton
Laboratory, saw the results he said, 'It makes the conclusion very
stark. We are living with a very unusual Sun at the moment.' "

See a chart of the Sun's variable sunspot behavior in the complete article
on Wal Thornhill's holoscience news item at:
http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

The idea that the Sun is behaving unusually is based on an assumption about
what is normal for stars like the Sun. We are told that such stars are
self-consuming thermonuclear engines that have sufficient fuel
(hydrogen) to maintain a steady output for millions or billions of years. However, while the Sun's visible light output varies by only tenths of a percent, its energy in UV and X-rays varies by a factor of 20!

A series of X-ray images of the Sun captured 4 months apart between 1991 and
1995 by the Yohkoh spacecraft illustrate this variability.  It can be found
in the holoscience news item:

http://www.holoscience.com/news.php?article=by2r22xg

There has never been a satisfactory explanation for this variable behavior
of the Sun. The sunspot cycle remains a complex enigma that has no
established connection with the thermonuclear model of the Sun. However, it
has long been known that sunspots are sites of powerful magnetic fields. So
theorists have spent decades unsuccessfully trying to model a hidden dynamo
inside the Sun that can reproduce the complex tangle of magnetic fields seen
above the Sun. This kind of thinking is reflected in the NewScientist.com
report: "The dark patches on the surface of the Sun that we call sunspots
are a symptom of fierce magnetic activity inside." Notice there is no
mention of the powerful electric currents required to generate the magnetic
fields. It is pure speculation, stated as fact, that the magnetic field
of a sunspot is generated by activity inside the star.

The key to understanding our star, and the first stepping-stone to
understanding the electric universe, is that stars are an electrical
phenomenon!  

The thermonuclear model of stars is a product of its time ? the early
1900's. That it remains essentially unchanged into the new millennium is a
measure of the rigidity of the peer structure and narrow focus within
academia. We have since discovered that space is full of charged particles
(plasma) and magnetic fields. The Sun is a ball of plasma and its behavior
more complex than was dreamt a century ago. Eddington, who gave us the
standard solar model, did so using gravity and ideal gas laws. He did not
know that space is threaded with magnetic fields and flows of charged
particles (electric currents), with the Sun as a focus. A beneficiary of
Eddington1s model, George Gamow, was moved to write effusively,

"According to a Greek legend, Prometheus flew all the way to the Sun in
order to bring back to mortals some of the heavenly fire. But even
Prometheus would not risk diving into the Sun's photosphere to see what was
under it. However, this feat was carried out by the British astronomer Sir
Arthur Eddington, who was able to find out everything about the interior of
the Sun and other stars without leaving his comfortable study at Cambridge
University. 'It should not be too difficult,' Sir Arthur used to say, 'to
understand such a simple thing as a star.' And he had very good reasons for
that statement. Indeed, while geophysicists are still unable to agree on the
exact value of the temperature in the center of the Earth, which is only
about four thousand miles below our feet, astronomers can tell the
temperature of the central regions of the Sun and of many other stars within
a few percentage points and be quite sure about the figures they quote." [A
Star Called the Sun, George Gamow, p.93.]

THORNHILL COMMENTS:
I included Gamow's comments as an example of the hubris of mathematical
physicists and as a warning. It can be argued that astrophysics is in worse
shape than geophysics. There is absolutely no way that anyone can be sure
about the temperature of the center of the Sun. Yet confident statements
like this are reported daily in the media as fact. It has resulted in the
science fiction cosmology of today. More caution would be welcome. The
visible activity on the surface of the Sun remains a puzzle. Sunspots
are an enigma. When we look through the centers of dark sunspots it is
thousands of degrees cooler beneath the bright photosphere.

If we do not understand the Sun, we know nothing about the universe.

On pp. 124-5, of _Science at the Cross-Roads_, Herbert Dingle comments about
the mathematical foundation of cosmology:
"What I believe to be the basic misconception of modern mathematical
physicists - evident, as I say, not only in this problem but conspicuously
so throughout the welter of wild speculations concerning cosmology and other
departments of physical science -- is the idea that everything that is
mathematically true must have a physical counterpart; and not only so, but
must have the particular physical counterpart that happens to accord with
the theory that the mathematician wishes to advocate."

THORNHILL ADDS:
Of course, Eddington the mathematician would see a star as a simple thing.
Mathematicians require simple models to allow a mathematical solution. But
as spacecraft have expanded our view of the Sun it is clear that that bright
ball of plasma is not "a simple thing." Even so, Eddington seemed to intuit
that stars exhibited electrical effects:

"If there is no other way out we may have to suppose that bright line
spectra in the stars are produced by electric discharges similar to those
producing bright line spectra in a vacuum tube... We conclude provisionally
that bright lines in the spectrum of a static star indicate that either (a)
the star is greatly disturbed by 'thunderstorms,' or (b) it is a nebulous
star." [The Internal Constitution of the Stars, pp. 344-5].

THORNHILL AGAIN:
The problem for Eddington was that the origin of electricity in
thunderstorms was, and still is, not understood. Therefore, as a
mathematician, he did not pursue the problem. The simple answer is that both
the earthly and the solar phenomena are due to the electrical nature of the
universe. An earthly thunderstorm is mere sparks beside the global
electrical storm that constitutes a star.

Eddington did momentarily consider an external source for a star's energy:
"In seeking a source of energy other than [gravitational] contraction the
first question is whether the energy to be radiated in future is now hidden
in the star or whether it is being picked up continuously from outside.
Suggestions have been made that the impact of meteoric matter provides the
heat, or that there is some subtle radiation traversing space that the star
picks up." "Subtle radiation" sounds like the kind of explanation that might
be favored by modern theorists but it was dismissed immediately by
Eddington. 

Today we know there are streams of charged particles moving in space. But
Eddington had already decided what must be inside the Sun: "Strong
objections may be urged against these hypotheses individually; but it is
unnecessary to consider them in detail because they have arisen through a
misunderstanding of the nature of the problem. No source of energy is of any
avail unless it liberates energy in the deep interior of the star. It is not
enough to provide for the external radiation of the star. We must provide
for the maintenance of the high internal temperature, without which the star
would collapse." There we have it. The thermonuclear engine inside stars is
required to save Eddington1s mechanical stellar model! Yet for decades the
solar neutrino counts have been telling us that that model is incorrect.

If we can find a reason why the Sun is the size we see, given its mass,
without requiring internal heat, then an external source of energy is
possible. A few pages earlier, Eddington seems to deal with electric charge
in the interior of a star when he invokes the Maxwell-Boltzmann distribution
law for a gas at uniform temperature in a gravitational field. It simply
says that the lighter molecules will tend to rise to the top. He writes, "In
ionized material the electrons are far lighter than the ions and tend to
rise to the top... But this separation is stopped almost before it has
begun, because the minutest inequality creates a large electrostatic field
which stops any further diffusion." The calculated result is "a deficiency
of 1 electron in every million tons of matter. ... The electric force, which
varies in proportion to gravity in the interior, is absurdly weak, but it
stops any diffusion of the electron outwards."

Eddington's argument is too simplistic. It seems aimed to keep the model
simple rather than realistic. Thermal ionization of hydrogen only becomes
significant at a temperature of about 100,000K. Therefore, atoms and
molecules will predominate through most of a star's volume, where the
gravity is strongest. That applies to the entire star in the electric model.
The nucleus of each atom, which is thousands of times heavier than the
electrons, will be gravitationally offset from the center of the atom. The
result is that each atom becomes a small electric dipole. It is significant
that if you want to discover the physics of atomic and molecular dipole
forces you need to turn to chemistry texts. Such is the problem with
specialization. The atomic and molecular dipoles align to form a radial
electric field that causes electrons to diffuse outwards in enormously
greater numbers than Eddington1s simple gravitational sorting allows. It
leaves positively charged ions behind which repel one another. That
electrical repulsion balances the compressive force of gravity without the
need for a central heat source in the star.

Important Consequences of the Electric Star Model for the Sun.
1. A star is formed electromagnetically, not gravitationally, and is powered
thereafter electrically (by Eddington's "subtle radiation").

2. Near the Sun, galactic transmission lines are in the form of 35
kiloparsecs wide rotating Birkeland filaments. Their motion relative to the
Sun will produce a slowly varying magnetic field and current density ? in
other words a solar activity cycle. To that extent, all stars are variable.
And just like real estate, location is vital.

3. An electric star has an internal radial electric field. But because
plasma is an outstanding conductor it cannot sustain a high electric field.
So plasma self-organizes to form a protective sheath or "double layer"
across which most of the electric field is concentrated and in which
most of the electrical energy is stored. It is the release of that internal stored energy that causes nova outbursts, polar jets, and the birth of stellar
companions.  

4. In a ball of plasma like the Sun the radial electric field will tend to
be concentrated in shells or double layers above and beneath the
photosphere. A double layer exists above the solar photosphere, in the
chromosphere.  

5. The photosphere and chromosphere together act like a pnp transistor,
modulating the current flow in the solar wind.* It has an effective negative
feedback influence to steady the energy radiated by the photosphere so that
astrophysicists can talk of a "solar constant," while the Sun's other
external electrical activity (UV light and x-rays) is much more variable.
Because the photosphere is an electrical plasma discharge phenomenon it also
expands or contracts to adjust to its electrical environment. That explains
why the Sun "rings" like an electric bell.

6. Double layers may break down with an explosive release of electrical
energy. A nova outburst is a result of the breakdown of an internal stellar
DL. Hannes Alfvén suggested that billions of volts could exist across a
typical solar flare double layer.

7. A star is a resonant electrical load in a galactic circuit and naturally
shows periodic behavior. Superimposed is the non-linear behavior of plasma
discharges. Two stars close together can induce cataclysmic variability or
pulsar behavior through such plasma discharges.

8. The correct model to apply to a star is that of a homopolar electric
motor. It explains the puzzle of why the equator of the Sun rotates the
fastest when it should be slowed by mass loss to the solar wind. (The same
model applies to spiral galaxies and explains why outer stars orbit more
rapidly than expected. The spiral arms of the galaxy and the spiral
structure of the solar "wind" then have an obvious connection).

9. The current that powers the Sun can be viewed as flowing in along the
[TEXTLINKwww.holoscience.com/news/kinks.htm]wavy polar magnetic field
lines,] then from the poles toward the equator. That current flow manifests
as huge sub-photospheric flows of gas. In the mid-latitudes, the circuit is
completed as the current flows outward in a current sheet called incorrectly
the solar "wind." 

10. The transfer of charge to the solar wind takes place through the
photosphere. It occurs in the form of a tightly packed global tornadic
electrical discharge. The importance of the tornadic form for us is that it
is slower than lightning, being under the tight control of powerful
electromagnetic forces, and less bright than lightning. The intense, equally
spaced solenoidal magnetic fields of the photospheric tornadoes gives rise
to the surprisingly evenly spaced magnetic field lines of the Sun.

11. Encircling the Sun's equator is a ring current forming a doughnut-shaped
plasmoid. It is visible in UV light and is a source of stored
electromagnetic energy. Occasionally the plasmoid discharges directly to
lower levels of the Sun, punching a hole, that we call a sunspot, through
the photosphere. A sunspot group can be compared to regional lightning on
Earth. Scientists were surprised when they discovered "awesome plasma
hurricanes" just beneath a sunspot. Electric discharges in a plasma
naturally drive such rotation. Sunspots of the same magnetic polarity are
drawn toward each other, which is inexplicable if they are simply magnetic
phenomena. However, two parallel electric current filaments following the
magnetic field lines are naturally drawn together.

12. Sometimes the slow discharge that forms a sunspot may trigger a stellar
lightning flash, resulting in a more sudden and powerful release of stored
electrical energy. An x-ray flash is the signature of such lightning. That
arc may result in a CME. The corona often dims as power is withdrawn from
the solar plasmoid.

13. The conventional thermonuclear story of stellar evolution is incorrect
so we do not know the age of the Sun, or its character in the past or
future. The inexplicable and drastic global climate changes on Earth in the
past may have found an answer at last in the variable nature of stars.

The Bottom Line  
Our Sun, like all stars, is a variable star. We must learn to live with the
uncertainty of a star that is a product of its environment. We can expect
our Sun to change when it enters regions of interstellar space where there
is more or less dust, which alters the plasma characteristics. In the
meantime, we can only look for reassurance by closely examining the behavior
of nearby stars. A few massive CME's are the least of our concerns.

* I am indebted to Professor Don Scott for this insight. He points out that
the complete shutdown of the solar wind for two days in May 1999 is
understandable with his transistor model. It is inexplicable on the
thermonuclear model since there was no change in the Sun's visible energy
output that accompanied the phenomenon.

(c) Wal Thornhill 2003
author of The Electric Universe:
A Holistic Science for the New Millennium
See www.electric-universe.org

Update 25 November 2003:

Louis Lanzerotti, of the New Jersey Institute of Technology/Bell Labs,
released the following startling report on November 14, 2003. It is a result
of observations from the Ulysses spacecraft, which is orbiting over the
poles of the Sun. 

Data from Ulysses show that the solar wind originates in holes in the sun's
corona, and the speed of the solar wind varies inversely with coronal
temperature. "This was completely unexpected," said Lanzerotti. "Theorists
had predicted the opposite. Now all models of the sun and the solar wind
will have to explain this observation."

I missed an opportunity. This finding could have been predicted from the
electrical model of the Sun.  The standard model of the solar wind has it
"boiling off" the Sun so that you would expect a direct correlation between
coronal temperature and solar wind speed. That is precisely the opposite of
what the Ulysses spacecraft saw.

In the electric model of the Sun, where the solar electric field is strong
in the coronal holes, protons of the solar wind are being strongly
accelerated away from the Sun. Their random motion becomes less significant
in a process called de-thermalization. Outside the coronal holes, where the
coronal electric field is weaker, the protons move more aimlessly. As a
result they suffer more collisions and move more randomly. The degree of
random movement of particles directly equates to temperature. So the solar
wind is fastest where the corona appears coolest and the solar wind is
slowest where the corona appears hottest ? as Ulysses found.

(c) Wal Thornhill 2003
author of The Electric Universe:
A Holistic Science for the New Millennium
See www.electric-universe.org
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http://www.science-frontiers.com <http://www.science-frontiers.com/>
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