thunderbolts.info/tpod/2005/arch05/050301pithballs.

htm

home • about • essential guide • picture of the day • thunderblogs • news • multimedia •
predictions • products • get involved • contact

Credit: Wal Thornhill

The electric force is never mentioned in astronomy although it is the most powerful force in
Nature.
It is dismissed because simplistic electrostatic models do not match observations.
Yet plasma cosmologists are able to successfully match electrodynamic models
to observations without conjuring invisible matter and inventing new forces.

home

pic of the day

archive
subject index
abstract archive

Links:

Holoscience

Electric Cosmos
1/3
The Universe

Plasma Cosmology

Society for
Interdisciplinary
Studies

educational
resources

Mar 01, 2005

Of Pith Balls and Plasma

A common mistake when first trying to understand the Electric Universe is to think in terms
of electrostatics. Experiments with pith balls in Freshman Physics Lab come to mind. With
a little imagination—and by plugging larger numbers into the equations—a model of “the
pith ball sun” can be constructed.

This model is not too different from the familiar gravitational model. Most of the underlying
assumptions are preserved: an isolated body at equilibrium; a point force distributed
spherically (decreasing with the square of the distance from the point); conditions of
isotropy, continuity and homogeneity.

The central pith ball, if positively charged, will repel positive ions, generating a “wind” that
accelerates away from the ball, much as is observed with the solar “wind.” And the pith ball
will attract electrons: Because they are so much less massive than ions, they could be
accelerated to relativistic velocities. With sufficient velocity, their collision with the pith ball
could account for its luminosity.

But spacecraft have not found any relativistic electrons. And the solar wind seems to be
composed of nearly equal numbers of positive ions and negative electrons. And the ions
practically stop accelerating by the time they reach the orbit of the Earth. And most of the
solar wind is confined to the Sun’s equatorial plane. And many more items could be listed
where the pith ball model doesn’t correspond with observations.

The Electric Universe model is based on electrodynamics. And not simply on Freshman
Physics electrodynamics from a textbook but on the electrical behavior of plasma as
observed in laboratories and by spacecraft. Understanding actual plasma behavior requires
rejecting familiar presuppositions: Bodies immersed in plasma aren’t isolated; they are
connected by circuits. They often aren’t at equilibrium; most astronomical bodies are
radiating energy because they are in unstable conditions and are moving toward
equilibrium. Currents in plasma contract into linear filaments; and the force between
filaments decreases linearly with distance, which makes it the most powerful long-range
force in the universe. Plasma divides into cells that are separated by capacitor-like double
layers; and this ensures that plasma phenomena are characterized by conditions of non-
isotropy, discontinuity and inhomogeneity.

Assumptions and deductions imported from the “already known” of gravitational theory will
lead to confusion and absurdity. As astronomer Halton Arp said in another context:
2/3
“Sometimes it’s better not to know one wrong thing than to know a hundred things that are
right.” The first step in understanding electricity in space is to set aside theories and to
gain empirical familiarity with real plasma behavior. It is a step advocated by the father of
plasma physics, Hannes Alfvén, in his 1970 Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

EXECUTIVE EDITORS: David Talbott, Wallace Thornhill

MANAGING EDITOR: Amy Acheson
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS: Mel Acheson, Michael Armstrong, Dwardu Cardona,
Ev Cochrane, C.J. Ransom, Don Scott, Rens van der Sluijs, Ian Tresman
WEBMASTER: Michael Armstrong

Copyright 2005: thunderbolts.info

3/3