Well you did suggest the picture was fake.

How could worldwide scientific collaboration be fake without a worldwide conspiracy?

ghrue84,

Take a look at the pictures below of the moment when the image was compiled.

I ask you, do you not see pure wonder? Do you not see genuine awe at our universe? Looks at the eyes of the young researcher, truly look at them.

I like to think we are the good guys carrying the torch of wonder and admiration of nature. We carry an ancient light of hope and connection that can help heal our jaded artificial society, a society arrogant and neurotic enough to go so far as to declare nature illegal.

I for one, am behind this effort and applaud in wonder at the result.

“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom the emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand wrapped in awe, is as good as dead —his eyes are closed." Albert Einstein (a psychedelic brother in my book).

Personally I don't buy the explanation that what we are supposedly observing is a black hole. Something is happening at the centre of galaxies for sure but the black hole explanation is a misperception rather than a reality IMO - black hole theory is just plain ludicrous.

I'd like to know more about how the algorithm and imaging actually works. Obviously we can see the supposed 'accretion disk', but there's filtering going on given that's all we can see (inside and outside is just black) - it's got to be x-ray or another frequency band? My understanding is that there's so much going on in front of this region of space that, it's not like a clear line of sight, so there's some sort of filtering and piecing together of information to make this composite possible too.

Interesting bit of work no less. I just don't accept the conclusions proposed.

I don't know enough about the whole thing to realy argue with you here. But what part of the theory is it that you don't believe?

Gravitational lensing has been verified for almost a century maybe even. So that gravity can bend light, or even pull light in, is not so far fetched.

The whole thing Black holes are untested and un-testable mathematical creations, very fantastical metaphysical creations. It's one of many astrophysical objects that just defy reason but appear plausible on paper - I choose to not accept the notion of their reality.

But the idea that a gravitational field can be so strong that even light cannot escape it, is not something that can easily be dismissed. The effect gravity has on electromagnetic radiation is well known and proven long ago.

There are other aspects about black holes or black hole phenomena, like the hawking radiation thing, that require so much in depth knowledge that i don not posses, that i feel too inadequate to argue either for or against them.

Maybe other nexians could fill in some of the blanks there.

There's two parts in your response there:

1) Inescapable gravitational field on light. It can be dismissed as it's not proven as a reality yet. Black holes are theory, which we can't replicate or test, but only look out to space and assume that what we think are black holes are in fact black holes and not something else. It's a reasonable projection based on our current paradigm, but a projection none the less - it can be dismissed if you're not beholden to the theory.

2) Gravity on EM. It was a prediction of Einsteins work but I do not subscribe to the notion. As far as I'm aware the proof for this rests on the gravitational lensing evidence that supports relativity theory. Again this is not something we can replicate or test here on Earth, it relies solely on astronomical observation, and it is my belief that it is a misperception;

I think Newton had it right. Light, which has no mass, should not be affected by gravity. The reasonable explanation to my mind is classical and involves refraction of light and not distortion by space-time curvature. What we think is gravitational lensing is just light being refracted through local conditions.



I can't argue against it except to say if the base tenets on which black hole theory rests i.e general relativity are incorrect, then Hawking radiation is not much more than a clever mathematical postulation with no relation to reality.

Refraction is chromatic (think rainbows) while gravitational lensing is much more achromatic, this is a basic check scientists do to on a potential gravitational lensing signal (among others we can go over if you are interested).

Newton's gravity theory has room for gravitational lensing if one equates the energy of the photon to a gravitational mass. However, it predicts a different amount of lensing vs. general relativity. When one measures the amount of observed lensing, the result matches what Einsteins theory predicts and not what Newtons does.

Finally, we have the gravitational waves measured by LIGO. These are a non starter in Newton's theory, yet we've detected them multiple times, with general relativity black hole and neutron star mergers matching the observed data.

Hope this info helps.

Quick discussion on an alternative explanation for what is supposed to be at the centre of galaxies.

Black hole or Plasmoid?

This electric universe theory does not look good at all to me. In my opponion it is nonsense. I do not reccomended it to anyone. To each their own though, if you like it enjoy it.

Should make the distinction between plasma cosmology and electric universe theory; the latter is formed off the physics of the former. In all honesty the EU theory is no more outrageous in some aspects than black hole theory, big bang theory, and the other pillars of standard cosmology.. it really isn't.

Not a very good article you linked. Low level hack job, and it references Phil Plait (douche) as if he's some pillar of astronomy! That's the equivalent of referencing wikipedia or snopes in a term paper.

Seems like the theory is baseless enough for the profesionals in the field to not give it a second glance or make any statements about it.

There are plenty of professionals who do not subscribe to the various astrophysical theories we've discussed before (Big Bang, Black Holes, Expansion) and others who embrace various aspects of plasma cosmology.

Do not forget the fact that professionals who go against the consensus or stick their necks out are liable to suffer in their careers, and that bias also runs through the bureaucracy of the scientific establishment e.g Halton Arp and how he was treated regarding telescope time.

Also if you've built your entire career around a certain tenet or even run departments built on those tenets then you're not likely to want to shift or give up your position by undermining your own theoretical foundation by embracing alternatives.

We're not talking flat earth here. There are plenty of professionals, as far back as Birkeland;




It's really not as baseless as you presume. In fact it is the other way around - a gravity centric cosmology is baseless.

-Gravity least understood of the 4 fundamental forces
-EM force is many orders of magnitude stronger than gravity; the assumption gravity primarily drives the evolution of the astrophysical environment is just laughable
-Plasma is basically all we see in the universe; can also be scaled for experimentation; we can replicate forms and processes here on earth.. just like Birkeland did over a century ago.
-Gravity can't explain movement of galaxies without resorting to un-observable and un-testable 'dark matter' and 'dark energy'
-Gravity cosmology is not actually based around direct observation but mathematical speculation upon speculation, and not easily testable on earth

It's consensus belief founded on mathematical speculation more than actual hard physics and observation.

The theory we have now is not complete, sure.

But the incompleteness of the mainstream theory alone does not give this electric universe (or any other alternative) validity.

Glancing at the EU theory, there is no mathematical formalism for the it that I can see. I only see some concepts and an old paper with pictures of a plasma that quickly decayed and had the appearance of spiral arms when doing so.

I have worked with plasma. It is unstable and dissipates quickly. It needs large magnetic fields and voltages to form confined in a small space. I can't imagine a large stable plasmoid as an astrophysicical object.

Write the equations of UE down or let me know where to find them if I missed them.

And also physics is pretty open minded. We are not talking about a prohibitions government spreading disinformation and criminalizing psychedelics here. For example, a guy just published a paper with negative mass to try to unify dark energy and dark matter. Turned out it could explain the compactness of galaxies, but failed other tests. It was good fringe work with equations, modeling, predictions, and some successes. It just didn't pan out. The guys career is perfectly fine. Below is a video with discussing this respectable fringe example.

"


- we all have our own truth, facts are facts. These questions have no place here and are irrelevant. These are philosophical questions, and honestly not very deep ones.

The tragic decision by people to deny science and see conspiracy in everything is a result of educational indoctrination, the malleablity of historical narrative and social conditioning in our social matrix-among other things-that reached critical mass and finally collapsed under the weight of expanded communication abilities and connectivity of the digitalage. Now that folks know about Columbus, they don't trust the Apollo missions.

It is more then unfortunate, thatwe can't have a discussion about the majesty and amazing possibilities that this picture should ignite in our minds. As a psychedelicist, I'm disappointed in some of y'all and your misguided "open minds" .

Remember that old bum(m)er sticker: Don't have such an open mind that your brain falls out...

And holy cow, a solar system size ring of atomic fire powering a galaxy is pretty cool...

That guys theory isn't really so fringe though, it still adopts and works with the dark matter and dark energy concepts. If he had worked up something that discounted them or proposed something alternative then I'd say it was more fringe.. I think currently he's still within the bounds of acceptability.

In regards to the plasmoid. That is where plasma cosmology stops and electric universe theory (EUT) begins, where an observation then flips over into untested hypothesis - plasma cosmology isn't going so far as to conceptualise where the electrical input is coming from and how it is sustained. As far as I'm aware there are ideas but nothing tangible.. it becomes much like the Big Bang Theory in that we're talking origins and ontological processes. Plasma cosmology is more the how and EUT the why, one is very testable and the other speculation.

In fairness to plasma cosmology it wasn't even until fairly recently that NASA finally acknowledged what Birkeland had been suggesting for nearly a century - magnetic ropes (Birkeland currents) between Sun and Earth. Astrophysicists are generally not trained in the concepts and processes of electrical engineering or plasma physics, they don't work from that theoretical foundation or see things through that particular lens, and in particular seem adverse to the notion of electrical currents and activity in space despite mounting evidence for it (beginning over a century ago).


Back on the idea of Black Holes.. (relativistic) jets. Here is great example of observational data that just tests the credulity of those who believe the black hole concept. These are streams of particles (plasma) travelling near to the speed of light away from black holes in opposite directions from the poles -

..something that supposedly exerts the strongest gravitational pull in the universe, from which light can not escape, and yet here we have some of the most energetic things ever observed flying away from the black hole at near the speed of light and with the stability to retain its form over immense distance - that stability of the plasma requires the only force powerful enough to produce that effect, the EM force, and that requires electricity.

They are found at neutron stars too;



The presence of these plasma phenomena at the poles of these objects suggests by probability they are EM related and nothing to do with gravity or notions of 'twisting magnetic fields' which seems to be the preferred hypothesis (incidentally the same metaphysical speculation is proposed for sunspots..). This 'twisting of magnetic fields' is speculation by astrophysicists that refuse to acknowledge electricity in space despite magnetic fields requiring electric currents

In regards to mathematical formula and plasma cosmology, Hannes Alven said;

What did I ever do to you? I hope you at least got a boost of confidence from the minimizing and mockery you directed toward me and others. They're opinions. Not facts. Hope you get many good things, maybe then you'll stop bullying others to balance out your self esteem.

Part 2 of Black Hole discussion from a plasma cosmology perspective

Very skeptical of this picture honestly.