Welcome to Space News from the Electric Universe,
brought to you by The Thunderbolts Project™
at Thunderbolts.info
In a previous Space News, Thunderbolts colleague Bishop Nicholas Sykes
began exploring the historical foundations of the Electric Universe theory of today.
As Sykes has noted, the experimental research of the electrical pioneers
stand in stark contrast to the thought experiments
preferred by the father of modern physics, Albert Einstein.
Today Nick explores the ability of the Electric Universe to add new clarity
to the mainly mathematical theories of physics and cosmology.
We have noted a fundamental problem with the theory of relativity,
that it does not cohere adequately
with another foundation theory of modern physics, namely quantum mechanics.
It may be good at some stage to think about what quantum mechanics is
and how the Electric Universe paradigm
may supply this mainly mathematically oriented theory
with a more adequate physical basis than it currently enjoys.
But enough of that for now.
Einstein's relativity explorations too, are mathematical in character.
Indeed it is said that Einstein himself, unlike sir Isaac Newton,
hated to do experiments and ceased attempting to do any from an early age.
Critics of Einstein point out that his Gedankenexperimente, thought experiments,
cannot substitute for real experiments in the process of building a verifiable theory
but should always lead to them.
For example, the whole concept of a four-dimensional space-time continuum,
which forms a mathematical basis for relativity theory,
is something that a person may conceptualize in thought
yet there is no known person on this planet,
who actually experiences space and time in such a manner.
It appears that without exception, humans see space in three dimensions
with the flow of time being sensed in a manner that is entirely different from,
and independent of, the way three dimensional space is experienced.
Perhaps there might be a form of severe mental disturbance
that could cause someone to actually see reality in the way relativity proposes,
but I'm not aware of any such case.
Relativity theory also predicts that a simultaneity of two events
occurring at the same time is not absolute,
but is relative to the relationship between the frame of reference
of the observed events and that of the observer himself.
In other words, two things which happen at the same time in one frame of reference
may not happen at the same time in another.
Common sense, of course, finds this outrageous.
Relativity theory is upheld by a captivated public
but could this be in the same way as the fabled naked Emperor's clothing
was heralded as magnificent by his fawning admirers?
In any case, I will continue to be one of a growing number
of those small boys who are horrid enough to say what they see.
There is much more to be considered on this, but it must wait.
We will move on to those who, like Michael Faraday,
progressed physics through their experiments.
Christian Birkeland, 1867 to 1917, was one such scientist,
perhaps best known for his Terrella,
which is a laboratory model of the Earth, experiments.
His Terrella, simulating the Earth, was made from naturally magnetized lodestone
and having suspended it in an evacuated box
his subjected it to electric fields and currents.
He organized several expeditions to Norway's high latitude regions
where he established a network of observatories under the auroral regions,
i.e. the regions were the Aurora Borealis or Northern Lights took place,
took electromagnetic fields data.
The results of the Norwegian polar expedition conducted from 1899 to 1900
contained the first determination of the global pattern of electric currents
in the polar region from ground magnetic field measurements.
Birkeland also developed vacuum chambers to study the influence
of magnets on cathode rays i.e. electrons.
Birkeland noticed that an electron beam directed toward a magnetized terrella
was guided towards the magnetic poles and produced rings of light around the poles
and he concluded that the Aurora could be produced in a similar way.
He developed a theory in which energetic electrons
were ejected from sun spots on the solar surface directed to the Earth
and guided to the Earth's polar regions by the geomagnetic field
where they produced the visible Aurora.
In 1916, Birkeland was probably the first person successfully to predict
that the solar wind behaves as do all charged particles in an electric field.
"From a physical point of view it is most probable that solar rays
are neither exclusively negative, nor positive rays, but of both kinds, he said".
In other words, the solar wind, as we call it,
consists of both negative electrons and positive ions.
Birkeland suggested that polar electric currents,
today referred to as auroral electric jets,
were connected to a system of currents
that float along geomagnetic field lines into and away from the polar region.
He provided a diagram of field aligned currents in his book,
The Norwegian Aurora Polaris Expedition 1902 - 1903.
Birkeland's vision of field aligned currents became the source of a controversy
that continued for a quarter of a century.
Hannes Alfven, following Birkeland's lead,
believed the auroras to be powered by charged particles from the Sun
but Sydney Chapman, categorically denying
any role of electric currents across interplanetary space,
developed what was considered to be a mathematically elegant hypothesis
that the auroras were generated entirely in the Earth's magnetosphere
by a buffeting of the solar wind.
The proof of Birkeland's field aligned currents however,
eventually came from observations made above the ionosphere with satellites.
A magnetometer on board of US-navy navigation satellite, launched in 1963,
observed magnetic disturbances on nearly every pass
over the high latitude regions of the Earth.
It was soon realized that they were due to field aligned or Birkeland currents.
In 1930, Birkeland may have been the first to predict that plasma was ubiquitous in space.
He wrote; "It seems to be a natural consequence of our points of view
to assume that the whole of space is filled with electrons
and flying electric ions of all kinds.
We have assumed that each stellar system through its evolution
throws off electric corpuscules into space.
It does not seem unreasonable therefore
to think that the greater part of the material masses in the universe is found,
not in the solar systems or nebulae, but in supposedly 'empty' space".
Amazingly, Birkeland's insights on the electrical composition of space,
just like John Herschel's insights that he had proposed to Michael Faraday,
inspite of Birkeland's posthumuous vindication by the experimental confirmation
of Birkeland's currents remained sidelined by the great bulk of mainstream physics today
which speaks instead of such ideas as magnetic reconnection
with extraordinary confidence and authority.
But about this we shall speak some more another time.
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