mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== THOTH A Catastrophics Newsletter VOL III, No. 6 March 31, 1999 EDITOR: Amy Acheson PUBLISHER: Michael Armstrong LIST MANAGER: Brian Stewart CONTENTS STEREOSCOPIC VIEWPOINT OF CATASTROPHICS. . . . . . by Amy Acheson THE BIG BANG AS A RELIGIOUS WORK . . . . . . . .by Dwardu Cardona SHOEMAKER-LEVI SPECULATIONS . . . . . . . . . . .By Wal Thornhill SUMMARY OF RALPH JUERGEN'S ELECTRIC SUN MODEL. . by Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- STEREOSCOPIC VIEWPOINT OF CATASTROPHICS By Amy Acheson Titus FitzImeter Said, "The planimeter Agoragraphs a vicinity." Herein he was right, But he scarcely shed light On the Circular Points at Infinity. ~_The Space Child's Mother Goose_ While the Discipline of Catastrophics may not illuminate infinity any more than Titus FitzImmeter's planimeter, its tremendous scope gives it an advantage over traditional science and religion as a tool for understanding the recent history of the solar system. And this is why: Science, in its quest to explain every detail of a stable system, closes an eye to mythology. It assumes that the ancients didn't understand creation, evolution, astronomy, geology, etc., in the same way that modern science does. Therefore, everything they said, every observation they preserved was wrong. A myth is a myth, a story made up to explain a world too complex for a primitive mind to comprehend. Religion, in its quest to preserve the authority of a turbulent past, closes the other eye. It assumes that the more ancient the source, the closer to reality, with divine revelation the ultimate source of human understanding. Science, at best, becomes pitiful guesses by unworthy humans and, at worst, evil corruption. The Discipline of Catastrophics concentrates on a limited time and space [thousands of years, one tiny solar system], but because it observes these events with both the analytic eye of science and the mythical eye of religion, it has a stronger sense of depth. Catastrophists experience a stereoscopic perception by comparing the stability of today's solar system with the unstable alien sky which so troubled our ancestors. Let's look at, for example, the concept of creation. Both science and mythology picture it as an explosion - one of matter, the other of light. Mythology has it affecting the universe in specific ways, but the known universe was smaller then. For science, the universe is older and larger, so the explosion from which it began must to be larger and more ancient, as well. Through the stereoscopic viewpoint of Catastrophics, we can place creation/BIG BANG into perspective. We can conclude that the explosion occurred within human memory, but before recorded history. We can deduce from mythological correspondences what it was that exploded and from astronomical details where the explosion took place. The scope of creation was "universal" to our ancestors, but tiny compared to our present understanding of the concept "universal". Observed in this perspective, the BIG BANG is reduced to a local, recent event, but the universe regains its status as infinite and eternal, or at least a lot bigger and older than we currently imagine. Amy Acheson Thoth at Whidbey.com ---------------------------------------------- THE BIG BANG AS A RELIGIOUS WORK By Dwardu Cardona Wal Thornhill wrote: . . . when confronted with the conclusions drawn from the standard solar model, which is central to modern cosmology, I agree with Gregg Easterbrook who wrote in The New Republic of last October 12; "... for sheer extravagant implausibility, nothing in theology or metaphysics can hold a candle to the [Big] Bang. Surely, if this description of the cosmic genesis came from the Bible or the Koran rather than the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it would surely be treated as a preposterous myth." CARDONA OFFERS: But the theory DID come from a religious work. Here's a short selection from [not yet published] Chapter 1 of GOD STAR by Dwardu Cardona: Begin quote: In fact, even that so-called pillar of astrophysics, the Big Bang Theory, had been much earlier posited in a RELIGIOUS work. In the Book of Genesis, Elohim, usually translated into English as "God," begins the creation with the words: "Let there be light." And, it is there written, "there was light." There have been many who have seen a similarity between this description of beginnings and the Big Bang Theory. The following, one of several such, comes from a popular work devoted to the mysteries of the Bible: "Prevailing scientific theory proposes that the universe was created in a flash of light. This 'big bang,' or cosmic explosion, is believed to have occurred some 16 billion years ago. Some see parallels between this modern, scientific theory and the biblical account which opens with God's command, 'Let there be light'." Granted, on its own, this similarity is not enough for one to claim that the theory in question had already been posited in a religious work. The Book of Genesis is not, however, the religious work I have in mind. So bear with me for a while. George Gamow is the acclaimed father of the Big Bang Theory. But before Gamow there was Georges Lemaitre who, in 1927, was the first to propose that a hot, dense, primeval "atom" had exploded, flinging its contents outward to create the universe. With the advent of the theory in question, Pope Pius XII himself had it stated that "scientists are beginning to find the finger of god in the creation of the universe." Lemaitre, who was a Catholic priest besides being a physicist, was later decorated by the Vatican for his scientific achievements. To be quite fair, in developing his theory of the expanding universe, Lemaitre had relied on the principles of general relativity. But, since he was also well versed in the discipline of theology, could he not also have come across that great medieval commentary on Biblical Scripture known as the Ramban? In 1990, in a book titled GENESIS AND THE BIG BANG, the Israeli nuclear physicist Gerald Schroeder argued in detail that there is no contradiction to be found between the account of creation as described in Genesis and the current scientific dictum. Moreover, as Schroeder noted, "the Ramban ... had the remarkably modern insight that at the moment after creation, all the matter in the universe must have been concentrated in a tiny speck." Tell me that this insight is not identical to that reached by Lemaitre? End of quote. Dwardu. ---------------------------------------------- SHOEMAKER-LEVI SPECULATIONS By Wal Thornhill Jim Bowles wrote: Shumacher-Levy, of course, blew up. CARDONA BUTTS IN: Shoemaker-Levy did not blow up. It broke apart. Dwardu. WAL THORNHILL ADDS: The comet may never have been a single object. Tom Van Flandern has proposed that asteroids and comets may be comprised of several closely orbiting pieces that are separated when the more powerful gravitational influence of a planet or the Sun overwhelms the weak gravitational binding force between them. Tom was partly vindicated by the unexpected and serendipitous discovery that asteroid Ida has a tiny "moon". He proposes that such objects were created by a "recently" exploded planet, possibly in a nova-like outburst. But there is no good conventional explanation for such stellar explosions. In the electrical model of the formation of asteroids and comets, they have a common origin in a stream of gas and matter removed from a planet by a powerful electric discharge. The solids cover a wide range of sizes from dust to planetessimals. The opportunity for gravitational and electrostatic "clumping together" is very high under these circumstances but far less for a simple mechanical explosion. Clumping is a phenomenon evidenced in chondritic meteorites where the meteorite has been formed from gas, dust, aspheric molten droplets and splintered pieces of pre- existing solids. The lack of sphericity of the glassy droplets is a great puzzle to astronomers since the weightlessness and vacuum of space is the ideal environment for liquids acting under surface tension to form perfect spheres. The droplets were frozen as they were being accelerated, either by electrical forces or by the gaseous blast of the cosmic "thunderclap". Strong evidence for the electrical model is found in the chondrules within such meteorites. They all show evidence of complex surface effects which I believe could be easily replicated in a plasma oven. (Refer to my CD for a much fuller explanation). It all points very strongly to a form of "lightning" having been responsible for some of the features found in meteorites. Several astronomers have subscribed to that view but placed the event in a pre-planetary nebula. The problem with that scenario is that the minerals in most meteorites show that they have come from a pre-existing planet. Back to the argument: there is the likelihood that the break up of comets like Shoemaker-Levy 9 is also affected by electrical forces when plasma discharges impinge preferentially on one component of the comet or another. That could create impulsive electrostatic forces between the components and will change the gravitational force between them as well. Many comets have been seen to break up during their bright, electrically active phase. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- SUMMARY OF RALPH JUERGEN'S ELECTRIC SUN MODEL By Wal Thornhill I have attempted to paraphrase Ralph Juergen's argument several times in the past but because it is so important I'll do it again. At the outset let me acknowledge the fine work done by Dr Earl Milton in publishing Ralph's work "Electric Discharge as the Source of Solar Radiant Energy" (KRONOS VIII Nos. 1 and 2), after the author's untimely death in 1979. ................................................. The standard model of a star assumes that the physical isolation of a star in space is total. Therefore all of its radiant energy must be generated internally. This model was developed chiefly by Sir Arthur Eddington in his classic work "The Internal Constitution of Stars", first printed in 1926. He wrote, in Chapter 1, "Survey of the Problem": "The problem of the source of a star's energy will be considered; by a process of exhaustion we are driven to conclude that the only possible source of a star's energy is subatomic; yet it must be confessed that the hypothesis shows little disposition to accommodate itself to the detailed requirements of observation, and a critic might count up a large number of 'fatal ' objections." Almost all of the efforts by theorists since then has been to gloss over the 'fatal' objections (note that the use of quotes in the original seems to imply that the objections are not fatal) . The worst fatality is that the neutrinos that we should expect, if the sun's engine is ticking over as advertised, do not exist in anywhere near the numbers required. Of course, since Eddington's work early this century, space has been found to be surprisingly populated with charged particles which provide high electrical conductivity. But, as Juergens notes, astronomers prefer an invisible source of energy inside the sun to an invisible source of energy that surrounds the solar system and is connected subtly to the Sun. "Electricity or more appropriately, electric discharge, since we are concerned with a phenomenon occurring in a gaseous medium- seems to offer precisely the qualities of "subtle radiation" that we are looking for. Electric discharge is a known and observable phenomenon, yet we might live immersed in a cosmic discharge and know nothing of its existence. Without understanding its ultimate nature any more than we understand the nature of the gravitational field, we know that the electric field is potentially one of the greatest storehouses of energy in the universe. Electric discharge offers phenomena so numerous and so diverse that we have little trouble finding analogs for every observable feature of the Sun." (Juergens, Kronos VIII, No. 1, pp. 5-6). Juergens makes the interesting observation that Alfven, the father of cosmic plasma physics, considered the anode region of a discharge as "rather unimportant" and has led everyone since to believe that is so. "Electrons, by virtue of their lesser mass and higher mobility compared with positive ions, usually initiate discharges and ordinarily carry a disproportionate share of the current. On this basis, apparently, it is assumed that the source of the electrons is more essential, and hence inherently more interesting, than the anode. The shortsightedness of such reasoning may be demonstrated simply by pointing out that cathodeless discharges are not unknown. ... Transmission lines carrying high-voltage direct current electric trolley wires, for example discharge almost continuously to the surrounding air. In the case of a positive (anode) wire electrons ever present in the Earth's atmosphere drift toward the wire, attracted by its positive charge. As they penetrate the increasingly intense electric field close to the wire, the electrons gain energy from the field and are accelerated to energies great enough to initiate electron avalanches as they collide with and ionize air molecules. The avalanching electrons, in turn, intensify the ionization immediately surrounding the wire. Positive ions, formed in the process, drift away from the wire in the electric field. In this way, a more or less steady discharge is maintained, although there is no tangible object other than the surrounding air that can be considered a cathode. Such a discharge is classed as a corona discharge. The region of intense activity close to the wire is referred to as the coronal envelope. And since so few "cathode" electrons are involved, and since they move so quickly through the outer region of the discharge, most of the current in this outer region is carried by the positive ions." (ibid., p. 7). The Electric Sun model provides a cathodeless discharge centred on the Sun (as the anode) with two key observed characteristics of the Sun: the solar corona (what irony in using the same term, although a corona usually means a discharge at atmospheric pressure!) and the solar wind. To understand more about the Electric Sun we need to look at laboratory low-pressure glow discharges. Most people will remember seeing a demonstration at school of a long glass evacuated tube with metal disc electrodes at each end connected to a source of high voltage DC. You may recall the resulting glows emanating from the discs, at various places along the tube, and from the glass walls. For those who had a vacuum pump, you will have seen the glows move and disappear as the pressure was reduced. A neon sign is a conspicuous application of a low-pressure glow discharge. However, don't confuse the light from a neon tube with the mechanism that lights up the Sun. The glow from the neon tube is produced in the "positive column" of the discharge. The positive column is a typical plasma having equal concentrations of positive ions and of electrons, with the electron temperature very high - sufficient to maintain the degree of ionization required to carry the electric current. The glowing positive column is formed only in thin tubes because in an extended plasma a much lower degree of ionization is sufficient to carry the current. Also there is no continual loss of ions to the tube walls to be compensated for. Bear in mind that the Sun operates in a very extended spherical plasma, most of it of much lower density than that used in neon tubes. In that case the positive column will not appear. Why don't we see a stream of energetic charged particles heading toward the Sun if it is truly electrically powered? The bulk of a glow discharge is comprised of a "cool" plasma, that is an equal number of positive ions and electrons moving randomly, or thermally. Superimposed on that random motion is a drift of electrons toward the anode and positive ions toward the cathode. It is the cool plasma that behaves very much like a metal conductor (except that it has two charge carriers instead of just electrons). In a copper wire the entire current is carried by electrons drifting very slowly from one end to the other. The total current carried in the cool plasma by the two opposite drifts constitutes the discharge current. The electric field gradient in that cool plasma is very low. In such an environment we would be hard-pressed to detect that we were inside a glow discharge. The field strength is high only in the cathode and anode "sheaths" where the imbalance in positive and negative charges is marked. Juergens has identified most of the space from the solar corona out to the heliopause as devoted to the negative glow region of a glow discharge. The chromosphere forms the limit of that region on the anode side. The photosphere is identified as the first anode phenomenon. So, what might we expect to find in space near the Earth if we occupy the negative glow region? James Cobine writes in his textbook "Gaseous Conductors" in section 8.5 Cathode Phenomena and Negative Glow: " an appreciable fraction if not nearly all of the electrons entering the negative glow from the Crookes dark space have a range [of energies] corresponding to the entire cathode drop." In other words, if we accept the estimate from Juergens, electrons will be accelerated toward the Sun with a range of energies up to almost the full potential difference between the Sun and the surrounding plasma, 10 billion volts. As Dr Earl Milton pointed out in his editorial of Juergens' KRONOS article, such relativistic electrons cause "effects not seen in more mundane discharges". It tends to cause the discharge current to become self-limiting allowing the observed range of stellar luminosities. But back to the question: it is a simple matter to equate the observed energy output of the Sun with the energy of incoming relativistic electrons (they must be responsible for the solar energy in this model since ions are emitted with low energies from the Sun). It requires 3,000 relativistic electrons per cubic metre at the Earth's orbital distance, streaming toward the Sun. Measurements in the Earth's vicinity give a range of 9 to 11 million electrons per cubic metre (mostly thermal secondaries generated by ionization of solar gases). Juergens writes: "Thus it would appear that, if but one in every 3,000 electrons near the Earth turned out to be a current carrier moving at almost the speed of light toward the Sun, the power delivered would be enough to keep the Sun 'burning' at its present rate. This seems a rather subtle stream but it would suffice to power the Sun." Why haven't we seen these relativistic electrons? Juergens says: "Detection may be made difficult ... by the fact that such fast electrons quickly charge up the detecting instruments to the point where they repel electron currents. Probes of presently feasible proportions may be unable to carry apparatus sufficient to maintain suitable potentials on electron detecting devices ...". I mentioned that the light from the Sun does not come from a positive column effect. It comes from the bright granules that form the photosphere. They are an anode phenomenon occurring when the anode is small in relation to the discharge current. As Cobine writes in section 8.12 Anode Phenomena: "The presence of impurities and the evolution of gas may cause local points of high activity which appear as luminous regions." Stars are well constructed to provide gas to the anode discharge. In fact, the chromosphere of the Sun exhibits the same sheath of negative hydrogen ions observed in Earth-based anodes fed with the gas. So the bright granulations are the result of cool neutral gas from below the photosphere (at the temperature seen in the umbrae of sunspots) being injected into the anode glow region, or chromosphere of the Sun by solar lightning, which magnetically compresses and heats the gas to incandescence, ionizes some of it and accelerates it vertically - giving a superficial appearance of convection. It is actually a means to provide more electrons to carry the current load at the anode. The relatively quiet, orderly behaviour of the photospheric granulations as they grow, fade, split and combine is characteristic of anode "tufting" but has no sensible explanation in terms of convection. Because anode tufting occurs above the true anode surface we do not know the actual size of the Sun. It explains why the photosphere is almost perfectly spherical despite the Sun's rotation (sometimes it is actually prolate!) - its shape is constrained by electrical forces far more powerful than centrifugal rotation effects. It provides an answer to how the diameter of the Sun can change over short intervals of time in response to changes in its electrical environment. Also, if the Sun's differential rotation is driven electrically from outside, it explains how that rotation rate can vary quite markedly and why sunspots seem to plough through the photosphere as if they were evidence of invisible magnetic stirrers, dipping into the Sun. Juergens felt that the solar wind is an electric wind created by collisions of ions accelerated in the chromospheric plasma sheath, with neutral hydrogen. The chromosphere is where we have the lowest "temperature" and most rapid heating found on the Sun. Actually, the concept of temperature in a plasma sheath is meaningless. The filamentary structures in the chromosphere and corona, seen down to the limit of resolution, are diagnostic of predominantly radial electric currents in these regions. I would take issue with the use of the word "wind". The solar wind is structured in a way that suggests it is a spiral of Birkeland currents feeding a plasmoid shaped like a twisted doughnut that encircles the Sun very closely. As shown in laboratory experiments, such a plasmoid can store considerable energy. That energy is released at intervals by discharging to the surface of the Sun. Solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejection events result from particularly violent discharges. The glow discharge model predicts that at the boundary of the Sun's influence (termed the heliopause and considered conventionally to be a purely mechanical shock phenomenon) the ion (proton) current from the Sun will be accelerated through almost the full potential difference between the Sun and the surrounding plasma - estimated by Juergens at around 10 billion volts. Here is a possible answer to the puzzle of the origin of cosmic rays. As Juergens pointed out, most are likely the "spent" ions from other stars. Their range of energies gives a measure of the driving potentials suffered by other stars. It also provides a check on the reasonableness of Juergens' estimate for the Sun. Interestingly, there is a gap in the energy spectrum of cosmic rays. The most highly energetic are probably released from the plasma focus activities at the centre of active galaxies. I have briefly covered some of the most obvious phenomena associated with the Sun and shown how they may be coherently and simply explained by the glow discharge model. However, some people have objected that such a star could not form in the first place. I will attempt to answer that next. Wal Thornhill ---------------------------------------------- PLEASE VISIT THE KRONIA COMMUNICATIONS WEBSITE: http://www.kronia.com Other suggested Web site URL's for more information about Catastrophics: Subscriptions to AEON, a journal of myth and science, may be ordered through the Kronia website or by calling toll free: 1-800-230-9347 http://www.knowledge.co.uk/sis/ [NEW ADDRESS] http://www.flash.net/~cjransom/ http://www.knowledge.co.uk/velikovskian/ http://www.bearfabrique.org http://www.grazian-archive.com/ Immanuel Velikovsky Reconsidered, 10 Pensée Journals may be ordered at the I-net address below: http://www.e-z.net/~mikamar/default.html ----------------------------------------------- The THOTH electronic newsletter is an outgrowth of scientific and scholarly discussions in the emerging field of astral catastrophics. Our focus is on a reconstruction of ancient astral myths and symbols in relation to a new theory of planetary history. Serious readers must allow some time for these radically different ideas to be fleshed out and for the relevant background to be developed. The general tenor of the ideas and information presented in THOTH is supported by the editor and publisher, but there will always be plenty of room for differences of interpretation. We welcome your comments and responses. thoth at Whidbey.com New readers are referred to earlier issues of THOTH posted on the Kronia website listed above. Go to the free newsletter page and double click on the image of Thoth, the Egyptian God of Knowledge, to access the back issues. ---