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Today, we continue our discussion of a fundamental challenge
to standard solar physics and astronomy.
On the Sun, we are told that magnetic field lines move or merge
and frequently break and "reconnect".
This is called magnetic reconnection,
a mechanism that many solar physicists claim to be responsible
for enormous energetic solar outbursts.
We are told that magnetic reconnection in Earth's magnetosphere
is one of the causes of Earth's Aurora
and astronomers now envision the process in the magnetospheres of many planets.
Recently, scientists using data from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Spacecraft
have published a paper describing the physics inside a so-called
'magnetic reconnection event.'
In this episode, professor Donald Scott examines these claims
and outlines the fundamental problems with magnetic reconnection
from an electrical engineer's perspective.
There's been a another NASA press release discussing so-called discoveries
about the magnetic reconnection process
that I think deserves our attention, possibly debunking.
And this time it's in regard to NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission
abbreviated MMS
which is the flight of four small space probes
that can measure electrons directions and velocities and densities
in the neighborhood of points where energy is supposedly released
due to the collapse of a magnetic field.
And this is where it is said by the authorities that magnetic reconnection has occurred.
Well, this whole notion of magnetic reconnection
depends on the concept of what a magnetic field line is.
Back in the 1800's, Michael Faraday invented the concept of the magnetic field line.
It wasn't one of his finest hours,
but he thought that it would be nice to have an equivalent in the magnetic area
of what the electric field line was in electrostatics.
Now actually, the electric field line is a true line-of-force, quote unquote.
A path drawn from a positive charge to a negative charge does indeed show
the force that a positive test charge placed into that region will experience.
But magnetic lines don't show anything like that
because there's no such thing as a magnetic test particle
and the word has been coined 'the Magneton'
but the Magneton has never been discovered or seen.
The Magneton is strictly an imaginary concept,
they just don't exist.
So anyway, the question arises what a magnetic line of force shows?
Well, magnetic lines of force are simply convenient draftsman's artifices
to show where magnetic fields exist and how strong they are.
If you place a tiny bar magnet into a magnetic field,
the arrows on the magnetic field lines show the direction that
the orientation of the North and South Poles of this tiny bar magnet will take.
Notice, if you put a little tiny compass, a magnetic compass into a magnetic field,
the direction of the magnetic field is the direction from the South Pole of the magnet
to the North Pole of the magnet.
But anyway, where lines are drawn close together
is where the magnetic field is strongest.
But bear in mind, nothing flows in the direction of the arrows.
Magnetic field lines don't exist in three-dimensional space.
They're only created by draftsmen.
Anyway, in 1961, James Dungey
proposed an idea that had been previously put forth in 1946
to explain the solar flaring that was being observed.
Massive amounts of material, plasma were being flung out into space by the Sun
and of course the question arises well, why?
But anyway he, Dungey hypothesized that
when more or less oppositely pointed magnetic field lines approach each other,
now why they would approach each other is left unanswered but
if they do, they can abruptly short-circuit or quote reconnect at a null point,
much like the one between the Sun and the Earth
where the Sun's magnetic field is close to the outer edge of Earth's magnetic field.
So anyway, such null points are like the point in the topographical map
of a saddle point at the center of a pass between two mountains.
But that's all they really are.
Supposedly, this reconnection configuration, in this connection configuration,
field lines are bent tightly like the elastic strings of a catapult
when the lines suddenly re-straighten out, they fling plasma out in opposite directions.
Now the trouble is, something that's only conceptual can't have elasticity.
It can't stretch, it can't store energy
and it certainly can't throw real things around.
It's only a line drawn by a draftsman.
There are no magnetic field lines in three-dimensional space
and no magnetic energy is stored at the null points
like the, note the center of that saddle between two mountains.
So none can be released from there. If you don't store energy at a point,
how can you release energy from there?
A more credible explanation for the release of matter and energy from the Sun
is that this occurs when coronal loops break explosively,
that is, due to avalanche breakdown in double layers
within the path of the electric current that forms the loop.
And we've all seen pictures of these marvelous magnetic loops,
you're seeing only plasma,
you're not seeing, in those pictures you're not seeing the magnetic field.
You're seeing excited, electrically excited plasma.
When that electric current breaks, the loop disappears, the magnetic field disappears
and the previously stored magnetic energy is released out into space
along with the plasma matter that formed the loop.
And that of course includes electrons that the MMS project is trying to measure.
But it's just that simple.
Anyway, the latest NASA press release and another article that was released along with it,
contained several real errors that
I think we have to talk about.
Let me quote from the NASA press release,
"Any set of magnetic fields can be thought of as a row of lines."
No, that's not true but anyway.
"These field lines are always anchored to some body
― a planet, a star ―
creating a giant magnetic network surrounding it.
It is at the boundaries of two such networks where magnetic reconnection happens."
Well, this is totally incorrect in at least two ways.
Magnetic field lines are not anchored to bodies.
They go right through bodies.
The magnetic field of the Earth comes up around the Earth
but it also goes right back down through the Earth.
The magnetic field in a compass needle
not only extends beyond the compass needle
but it comes, goes through the compass needle.
But it's not anchored to anything.
It's there because of the properties of the compass needle.
The magnetic fields themselves, not the lines,
are created by and interweave with electric currents.
But the lines have no beginning or end, of course,
they form continuous loops so they're not,
there's no end of it that's anchored to a point on the Sun or any other body.
Another quote,
"The field lines are sometimes traveling in the same direction,
and don't have much effect on each other,
like two water currents flowing along side each other".
Well, of course, the field lines don't travel, they're only conceptual paths,
they're low-side, they're paths drawn by a draftsman
that describe the instantaneous direction of the elements in the magnetic vector field
at any given moment.
Nothing flows along a magnetic field line, that's important to realize.
Another quote,
"From previous satellites' measurements,
we know that the magnetic fields act like a slingshot,
sending the protons accelerating out.
The decades-old mystery is what do the electrons do,
and how do the two magnetic fields interconnect."
Mystery? That mystery is self-imposed by astrophysicists
who intentionally, perhaps, remain ignorant of Maxwell's equations.
The two magnetic fields approaching each other form, at each instant,
a new single magnetic field made up at every point within it,
of the vector sum of the two component fields.
That's all that happens when two magnetic fields come together.
They add up.
Because the empty space is a linear medium,
they add up and as a vector sum of the component vectors of the two magnetic fields.
Anyway, there's this other paper, companion paper published in Science,
said, and this is the I think the most one of the most important errors that
one could come up with,
"NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale Mission
has found direct evidence for electron demagnetization and acceleration".
What?
At best, this is misleading, if not totally wrong.
They use the word demagnetization.
What does that mean in regard to an electron?
A sample of iron can become magnetized,
That's certain.
It's, it becomes a bar magnet.
It's, it contains remnant magnetism
and so you say, a piece of iron has become magnetized.
But an electron can't do that.
An electron moving through a magnetic field will experience a force,
the Lorentz force at right angles to it
but that doesn't magnetize it.
When the electron leaves the magnetic field, it's left the magnetic field,
it doesn't demagnetize.
So this paper contains an even newer, never seen before quantity,
'magnetized electrons' that's a new one.
We're being relentlessly confronted it seems, by scientific papers
written by investigators who want to impress funding agencies and the public
with the cleverness of their imaginations
free from the mundane restraints of real scientific knowledge,
that is of electromagnetic theory.
But artistic impressions and visualizations that NASA seems to give more and more time to,
are not valid substitutes for real science!
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